In spite of its ominous literary associations, 1984 proved to be a rather quiet year for SF. There were no major scandals like 1983’s infamous Great Timescape Fiasco, no SF lines driven into oblivion by corporate greed and shortsightedness, no major editorial shakeups … but if you looked closely enough, in the right places,...
The Celtic Wolf is a complex and otherworldly creature. Wolves, it would seem, have always had varied personalities as diverse as their human counterparts. Where one shapeshifting wolf could be seen as evil, for example, the next might very well turn towards a traveling priest and begin to preach the gospel....
This groundbreaking anthology inaugurates an exciting new annual tradition: a giant collection of the finest fantasy stories published in 1987. Culled from the pages of magazines and original anthologies, this year’s collection features brilliant, gripping tales by these stellar authors:...
Here's the cream of the crop: short stories, novelettes, novellas by science fiction writers already well known and awarded for their high-quality work in science fiction. These are writers like Poul Anderson, Joe Haldeman, Tanith Lee, George R. R. Martin, Robert Silverberg, James Tiptree, Jr, Vernor Vinge and Gene Wolfe....
In the early nineties (it might have been 1992, but it’s hard to remember when you’re having a good time) I joined a rock-and-roll band composed mostly of writers. The Rock Bottom Remainders were the brainchild of Kathi Kamen Goldmark, a book publicist and musician from San Francisco. The group included Dave Barry on lead...
Gertrude Stein moved from California to Paris in 1903 with the aspiration of becoming a writer. She is best known for her art collection, plays, and novels, which involve radical experiments in language and the use of “stream-of-consciousness.” Once settled in Paris, she built up an art collection while living with her...
Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe......
I am Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ib Al Abbas, Ibn Rasid, Ibn Hammad. And things were not always thus. At one time, I was a poet in the greatest city in the world. Life was easy and I lived without care. Until one fateful day, I met a beautiful woman who belonged to another man....
HE AWOKE--and wanted Mars. The valleys, he thought. What would it be like to trudge among them? Great and greater yet: the dream grew as he became fully conscious, the dream and the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of the other world, which only Government agents and high officials had seen. A clerk like...
Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète sauvage; Czech: Divoká planeta, lit. 'The Wild Planet') is a 1973 French-language experimental independent adult animated science fiction art film, directed by René Laloux and written by Laloux and Roland Topor, the latter of whom also completed the film's production design. The film was...
Even the most cursory look at the history of modern visual and electronic media (printed broadsheets, camera obscura, phantasmagoria, magic lantern, radio) makes it clear that media technologies have always been bound up with the imagination in its archetypal as well as cognitive senses. Media technologies not only mimic and...
Amoebae leave no fossils. They haven’t any bones. (No teeth, no belt buckles, no wedding rings.) It is impossible, therefore, to determine how long amoebae have been on Earth....
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 American film noir written and directed by John Huston in his directorial debut, based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and indebted to the 1931 movie of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his femme fatale client. Gladys...
Howl's Moving Castle (Japanese: ハウルの動く城, Hepburn: Hauru no Ugoku Shiro) is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is loosely based on the 1986 novel of the same name by British author Diana Wynne Jones. The film was produced by Toshio Suzuki, animated by Studio Ghibli and...
Little, Big: or, The Fairies' Parliament is a contemporary fantasy novel by John Crowley, published in 1981. It won the World Fantasy Award in 1982....
Yellow Submarine (also known as The Beatles: Yellow Submarine) is a 1968 animated jukebox musical fantasy comedy adventure film inspired by the music of the Beatles, directed by animation producer George Dunning, and produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate. Initial press reports stated that the Beatles themselves...
