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Tad and the Shadow
06/12/2004. Fantasy author Tad Williams on the immersive nature of epic fantasy, the fact that what most of us who keep coming back to fantasy fiction love about it is that “sinking-in” feeling, that thrill of sliding into a new and convincing world that exists side-by-side with our own ... 
The Incredibles: Mark's Take
06/12/2004. Pixar does it again with a comedy/action film about a family of superheroes. Just when they thought they were out of the superhero business they get pulled back in. Of course, as a film from Pixar it is computer-animated, but that is just the gimmick. The writing is the real attraction.
The Limb Salesman
06/12/2004. This is an ironic love story set in a future world that has been badly damaged in some strange way making uncontaminated water rare. Society is now built around the efforts to find safe water. The story drags more than a little.
Space Oddysey
06/12/2004. Imagine crashing through the acid storms of Venus, taking a space walk in the magnificent rings of Saturn, or collecting samples on the disintegrating surface of an unstable comet.
Trudi Canavan Interview
06/12/2004. Fantasy author Trudi Canavan on the Black Magician trilogy, a world where some humans have evolved the ability to use magic - an energy that is natural and has no link to gods, demons, the land or any notion of good or evil. The catch is that to release and develop their ability all magicians must be taught by another ...
"The Impatient Writer's Guide to Worldbuilding" by Victoria Strauss
06/12/2004. Another fab installment in the Writers Bloc series from artesix's guest writers ...
Liz Williams Interview
06/12/2004. Another guest interview from the team over at artesix ...
Why I Write Military Science Fiction
06/12/2004. Three things pushed me toward writing military SF. The first reason is history. In the long history of humanity so far, war is almost as constant as death and taxes.
Who is Dr. Strangelove?
06/12/2004. Stanley Kubrick's film, Dr.Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb, begins with a rolling fog of rumors. A foreign country is plotting weapons of mass destruction, a Doomsday machine, against the United States. Then it segues to beautiful, romantic music and two B-52s having sex...er, refueling midair. Is this a good dream or a bad dream?
Dead Birds: Mark's Take
06/12/2004. About the only thing that is original and unfamiliar about this house of horrors horror film is that it is set during the Civil War.
Phil the Alien: Mark's Take
06/12/2004. Amateurish and low-budget skit on film has its moments, but mostly in its first half. The film outstays its welcome.
Rahtree: Flower of the Night: Mark's Take
06/12/2004. This ghost story goes in eight different directions at once, from tragic social message to slapstick comedy. Some scenes are chilling, but the film is unfocused.
Terry Brooks gets Tanequil
02/11/2004. Fantasy author Terry interviewed about his new novel, Tanequil, the second book in the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, on growing as an author, and his plans to return to his earlier Word & Void series.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Frank's Take)
02/11/2004. Director Alexander Witt takes over this elaborate gory gaming gimmick by ushering out the second installment Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The labored formula remains the same regarding a curvy and calisthenics cretin-kicking cutie leading the charge in eliminating some serious zombie butt.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Frank's Take)
02/11/2004. In the stylistically ambitious sci-fi fantasy Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Conran concocts a colorful creation dripping with cheerful arty set designs armed with a refreshing old-fashion storytelling sentiment that drives this opulent noir to its creative core.
Shaun of the Dead (Frank's Take)
02/11/2004. The devilishly dandy flesh-eating farce Shaun of the Dead certainly fits the bill as a monstrously subversive parody that delivers the ghoulish goods. With its British-oriented sense of stinging wry wit coupled with some truly genuine gloomy gumption, Shaun of the Dead is a delightfully sick-minded yet spry frightfest that captures the twisted imagination.
Hero (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004. China tries to make its own Crouching Tiger with a story of an enigmatic stranger who has killed a triad of assassins for the benefit of China's first Emperor. The stranger tells the emperor multiple versions of how he killed the emperor's enemies. Visually Hero is stunning. The telling is operatic in style but becomes muddled.
Les Revenants (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004. A creative and intelligent recycling of the horror concept of the dead returning, but this time it is used for non-horror purposes. Les Revenants runs into pacing problems toward the middle.
Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004. Mark checks out this popular Japanese anime flick and discovers the animation is never flat, but demonstrates varying degrees of dimensionality, frequently within the same frame.
Primer (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004. This SF film gets the research environment and the baffling scientific techno-jargon just about right. The story is hard to follow, but that might not be so unrealistic either. Definitely this is a demanding and puzzling film that does a lot with its minuscule budget.
Shark Tale (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004. Dreamscape's latest animated film is set in a sort of undersea urban environment and should entertain the whole family. The story is familiar but the jokes come in a rapid fire.
Shaun of the Dead (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004. This film is like a crossbreeding of George Romero and Mike Leigh. Oblivious lower-middle-class Londoners slowly become aware that the dead are returning at trying to eat the living. This satire laughs at the tropes of the zombie movie, but even more at the foibles of English life today. The first half is very funny and the second half is at least witty.
Sea, Sky by Rosemary Kirstein
02/11/2004. The author of The Language Of Power ruminates about world creation and comes to the conclusion that there are basically two ways to do it. You can begin from the top down, or from the ground up.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004. The Art Deco future as it was seen from the late 1930s is the background for this super-paced sci-fi adventure. The plot is just a chain of action sequences, one leading to the next, and the characters are one-dimensional. Even the artwork is a little too dark, but the images are genuinely exciting and they are what make the film worth seeing.
Third World
02/11/2004. One of our famous one page stories by GF Willmetts.
Black Cat Investments Ltd. - Your Money Is Safe With Us
02/11/2004. One of our famous one page stories by Rod MacDonald.
San Diego Comic-Con '04
02/11/2004. So, it looks like half the people who voted in a Crowsnest poll a couple of months back have never been to a convention. Which is a little sad when you come to think of it - there's really nowhere else on earth you get to indulge your genre weakness like a Con. If only because everyone else there is doing exactly the same thing.
One Page Stories Submissions (or What To Do, What To Write And How to Submit).
02/11/2004. This is an experiment on the website for all of you writers and neo-writers out there. One of the criticisms that I raise when working my way through our slush pile is that writers need to learn how to tell a story with a limited word count to make everything count and tell a good story.
I Remember Superman
02/11/2004. Christopher Reeve, 1952-2004 - a lament by: GF Willmetts.
Going down to Glasgow ...
01/10/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for October 2004.
Andrew Fox Interview
01/10/2004. A conversation with Andrew Fox author of Bride of the Fat White Vampire.
Juliet E. McKenna Interview
01/10/2004. October sees the launch of the first volume in a new series - The Aldabreshin Compass - from fantasy author Juliet E. McKenna. So we scooted down to Oxford to pose her a few questions amidst the spires and students.
Translating Fantasy and Science Fiction : The Peak of Creativity
01/10/2004. We all know that many of the most loved science fiction and fantasy authors' work is admired worldwide, but little do we know about the people who made it possible for them to become so well-known. Apart from the people involved in publishing there are quite a lot of other professionals without whom it wouldn't have been possible. These are the translators.
Horror Writer Barbara J. Ferrenz Interviewed
01/10/2004. What's worse than death? On the one hand, it's the title of a novel by school psychologist and writer Barbara J. Ferrenz of Dunkirk, MD. On the other hand, maybe it's better never to know.
Alien vs. Predator: Frank's Take
01/10/2004. Director Paul W.S. Anderson serves up a meager monster mash spectacle that borders on the silly-minded and slimy by sizing up the terrorizing tag-team of creature feature cads Alien and the Predator in the obviously titled scarefest Alien vs. Predator.
Catwoman: Frank's Take
01/10/2004. In watching the curvy Oscar-winning Halle Berry don the skin tight suit in the sassy anti-superhero saga Catwoman, one must admit that this special eye candy is something that cannot be denied. And director Pitof does in fact lend this picture its glossy and mysterious allure in a unique manner that's inescapable to ignore. Beyond these couple of minor observations, this cosmetic kitty with the conflicting personality doesn't quite cut it as the escapist comic caper it could have been.
Exorcist: The Beginning
01/10/2004. The scattershot incompleteness to Renny Harlin's ill-advised follow-up to William Friedkin's classic creep show is evident in the flimsy frightfulness of the overwrought and putrid prequel Exorcist: The Beginning. For those that had to endure inferior sequels to Friedkin's twisted and treasured pea soup-regurgitating nightmarish narrative (read: Exorcist: The Heretic), they may yearn more for this sluggish supernatural tale to end as opposed to embracing its so-called Beginning.
The Village
01/10/2004. One expected a terrific output from immensely talented writer-director M. Night Shyamalan concerning his latest supernatural saga The Village. Unfortunately for the normally resilient filmmaker, The Village is a meandering and morbid chiller that is a labored muddy vision of Shyamalan's usual insightful and involving hedonism.
Westercon 2004
17/09/2004. Mark reports on the movies at Westercon. The trailers seemed to be better accepted by the audience than they have been at recent Worldcons, while the presentation was a little more polished - and the films seemed of a higher quality.
Offworld Report: Science Fiction and Fantasy: September 2004
17/09/2004. Interviews with Keith Brooke, Geoff Ryman, Gerry Anderson and the co-producer of the new Sapphire and Steel series, short fiction by John Grant and Walter Jon Williams, and Locus Magazine's excellent primer on genre audiobooks.
Steve Cockayne Interview
01/09/2004. Steve talks about his novel Wanderers and Islanders, being influenced by C.S. Lewis and Herman Hesse, and working as a TV cameraman, a puppeteer, and dabbling in hypnotherapy
Tanith Lee Interview
01/09/2004. Author Tanith speaks with SFF literary agent John Jarrold about how people are the starting point for her fiction, tackling pirates with Piratica, and being influenced by Rider Haggard, Viereck and Eldridge.
Eurocon 2004
01/09/2004. Radi Radev reports from this year's European Science Fiction Convention. While the convention was first created in 1972 in Triest, Italy, this was the first year it's been hosted in Bulgaria.
Code 46 Movie Review
01/09/2004. Mark discovers that Code 46 is a very odd piece of science fiction. It is a film with some very nice material that tries some interesting ideas, but it fails to capture the viewer. Its flaws outweigh its virtues.
The Bourne Supremacy
01/09/2004. Robert Ludlum's mysterious United States government assassin again returns to the big screen from what some assumed and hoped was death. Again we have a complex plot with twists and doublecrosses. Again the infallible and deadly assassin is pitted against the agency that made him what he is.
Offworld Report: Weird Science: September 2004
01/09/2004. The latest tiny flying robot, why Martian astronauts may need replacement body tissue, harvesting helium-3 from the Moon, the threat to humanity from giant tsunamis and super volcanoes, and the possibility of life on Venus.
Star Wars Weary
01/09/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for September 2004.
Elizabeth Hand Interview
01/08/2004. Sasha talks to SFF writer Elizabeth Hand about the art of developing characters, drawing on real events and people, and why it now takes Elizabeth at least two years to write a book.
The Dead Lines of Greg Bear
01/08/2004. Author Greg Bear on his new novel, turning to horror after success as a science fiction writer, and Greg's in-production SF work about law enforcement on an international scale.
Marianne de Pierres Interview
01/08/2004. The author of Nylon Angel on the dark futures of cyberpunk, cutting her teeth on A.C. Clarke, media manipulation, and how studying Film and TV as an undergraduate has influenced her science fiction writing.
Why, Robot?
01/08/2004. Scots author Ken Macleod on why the idea of a tool, a machine, that replicates our most distinctive features - a machine with a face, a voice, a mind, a hand - is disturbing and uncanny.
Stones
01/08/2004. Short story from Radi Todorov Radev, a 26-year old science fiction author from Bulgaria. As well as his fiction, Radi usually writes the Bulgarian SF news reports for Locus.
Fantasy Filmfest 2004
01/08/2004. Sasha tells how starting out in Munich, and cutting a creepy swathe through Stuttgart, Cologne and Frankfurt, to a final week-long blowout in Berlin, the Fantasy Filmfest dishes everything from haute horreur to gore-n-splatter.
I, Robot - Mark's Take
01/08/2004. In 2035 there is a murder at U.S. Robotics and a robophobic policeman, played by Will Smith, believes robots are responsible. Mixing animation and live action nearly seamlessly, I, Robot turns Isaac Asimov's robot world into the backdrop for a prosaic summer action film. It is not a film Asimov would have enjoyed much.
Spider-Man 2 - Frank's Take
01/08/2004. In director Sam Raimi’s explosively action-packed superhero saga Spider-Man 2, he picks up the pleasurable pace of the web-slinging wizard. Tobey Maguire is back in full form as the angst-ridden crime-fighting cobwebbed crawler. Lost in a perpetual haze of conflict and courageousness, Maguire’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man is a harried hero with a tainted blue-collar badge that he proudly dons.
The Chronicles of Riddick - Frank's Take
01/08/2004. Four years after Pitch Black, filmmaker David Twohy decides to follow up his celebrated pet project with the disjointed and bloated sequel The Chronicles of Riddick. Utterly ponderous and as clunky as a crater rock, Riddick fails to capture the spontaneous spirit of its predecessor.
The Stepford Wives - Frank's Take
01/08/2004. The writing is on the wall when a casual comedy that boasts a high-powered cast doesn’t have a single clue as to what it wants to accomplish. And that’s certainly not a vote of confidence for a dark SF movie looking to make mincemeat commentary about the awakening of feminism and the imprisoned role of domicile divas looking to grow beyond their restricted boundaries.
Around the World in 80 Days - Frank's Take
01/08/2004. Poor Jules Verne must be spinning in his grave. Out of all the remakes that had been done regarding Verne’s whimsical classical story, director Frank 'The Wedding Singer' Coraci delivers a botched and banal affair of lackluster lunacy in his updated version of Around the World in 80 Days.
SFF Fans and Genetically Modified Foods
01/08/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for August 2004.
Tricia Sullivan Interview
01/07/2004. On why her SF novel Maul was a twisted response to Sheri S. Tepper's 'The Gate to Women's Country', her regard for authors Justina Robson and John Courtenay Grimwood, and imagining an extremely disturbing future.
Looking Upward
01/07/2004. Scots SF author Ken MacLeod muses on all our imagined societies of common ownership, and wonders if poor old human nature just keeps on getting in the way of utopia.
The Day After Tomorrow: Mark's Take
01/07/2004. In this new movie Mark finds global warming launches a quick-freeze ice age, killing billions of people. Roland Emmerich brings us a special-effects-laden look at the human race reeling under the havoc caused by the worst natural disaster in 10,000 years, a super-cold cyclonic storm that covers the face of the planet. The story is compelling and plausible enough for non-experts.
The Day After Tomorrow: Frank's Take
01/07/2004. Frank reckons 'The Day After Tomorrow' will most likely be viewed as a long-winded and loopy meteorology mishap for weather forecast freaks. Justifiably so, Emmerich’s furious yet flimsy convention of cartoonish catastrophe gives a whole new meaning to the classic movie title Gone with the Wind. It’s too bad that this global gloom session couldn’t sweep away any sooner than its two-hour running time.
Some Fans Do, Some Fans Don't
01/07/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for July 2004.
Neal Asher Interview
01/06/2004. Psychologically disturbed android killing machines. A Beast that harvests people to research its genetic dabbling across time by sending them back to the primordial ages. A mysterious Japanese man still living millennia after Hiroshima. A physicist that uses nanotechnology to merge with a spacecraft. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Neal Asher.
Big Ben
01/06/2004. Ben Jeapes interviewed by Stephen Hunt. The author speaks about penning cracking reads like 'His Majesty's Starship' , the differences between writing SF for the young adult market and the 'grown-up' sector, and the sadness of shutting the doors at his own publishing house, Big Engine.
Just a Tad More
01/06/2004. If Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow & Thorn series is "the fantasy equivalent of War and Peace" (Locus magazine), then Tad must be Fantasy's Leo Tolstoy. The prolific Mr Williams is cornered for some vodka and a chat.
Bruce on Bruce
01/06/2004. The father of cyberpunk - or at the very least the Uncle - Bruce Sterling, chats about his new technothriller, The Zenith Angle, with real-life security expert Bruce Schneier.
Forty Whacks
01/06/2004. Scots SF author Ken Macleod visits sunny Spain for the second installment of 'Stitch and Split: Selves and Territories in Science Fiction', in Seville, sponsored by the Universidad Internacional de Andalucia. Take a walk with Ken down the Latin road to SFF.
Eight Days in Zagreb
01/06/2004. Our jetsetting Scots SF author Ken Macleod flies out to Croatia as a guest at the Sferakon convention. He finds the old world of Yugoslav science fiction intriguing, from the pulp cover translations of Western SF novels to state-sponsored SFF societies.
The Weird Tale of 'Pulgasari'
01/06/2004. Mark takes a look at the fantasy film Pulgasari; featuring a beast which was a North Korean giant monster who ate iron and grew to hundreds of feet high. It's director was kidnapped from South Korea, taken to North Korea, imprisoned for four years with no explanation, and then forced to make the only Marxist monster movie.
Godsend
01/06/2004. In Godsend, Frank finds a run-of-the-mill child-cloning thriller turned into a flaccid frightfest that is all clumsy thumbs, and no controllable finger to decisively point this devilish dud of a movie in the right creative direction.
Shrek 2: Frank's Take
01/06/2004. In Shrek 2, we are gleefully reunited with the amiable pot-bellied giant and his colorful crew of supporters that include his new wife Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and his old sidekick Donkey (Eddie Murphy).
Shrek 2: Mark's Take
01/06/2004. There is distinctly less magic and fun in Shrek 2 as the title ogre has problems becoming accepted by his in-laws. All the same cast is back with the same voices, but the tone of the film is darker and we don't learn a lot more about the characters that we liked in the first film.
A Different Sort of Reality
01/05/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for May 2004.
Dreaming Of The Compass Rose
01/05/2004. Fantasy author Vera Nazarian is quizzed by our Donna on making the Nebula Award Preliminary Ballot and how she was forced to flee the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Out of the Labyrinth
01/05/2004. Howard Hendrix, author of The Labyrinth Key, on writing historically real characters, the political component of his fiction, and Howard's guide to quantum physics.
Hellboy: Frank's Take
01/05/2004. Franks discovers that in director Guillermo Del Toro's fantasy actioner Hellboy, there's nothing generic or artificial about the movie's flame-throwing crusader determined to stamp out evil at any cost.
Kill Bill Volume Two
01/05/2004. The follow up installment of Tarantino's ridiculously sensationalistic sword slashing cinema is welcomed by Frank with eager open arms.
Dawn of the Dead
01/05/2004. Frank sits down to watch Zack Snyder's surprisingly winning remake of the flesh-eating fable Dawn of the Dead.
Hellboy: Mark's Take
01/05/2004. Mike Mignola's comic book character Hellboy comes to the screen in high visual style but none too coherently. Our Mark considers that Guillermo del Toro does a better job directing than adapting this story from graphic novel to screen.
Cody Banks 2: Destination London
01/05/2004. The misguided adventures of the awkward junior secret agent continue in the mind numbing and anemic sequel Cody Banks 2: Destination London. Quite frankly, Frank reckons that Cody & company need to consider quitting the spy business altogether.
Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
01/05/2004. America's favorite cowardly canine and his crime-fighting cohorts are back for round two in the meager follow-up film, Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. They would have got away with it too, if it wasn't for you damn meddling cinema goers!
RSS and Science Fiction: The Definitive Guide
01/05/2004. There's a whole new universe opening up online for the SFF genre using the Internet's new RSS technology. But what the heck is RSS, how do you get it, and why should you care?
Adolf Hitler: Man or Myth?
01/05/2004. Scots SFF author Ken MacLeod thinks it's time for the British to blush, as a new survey reveals that large swathes of the UK's population think Conan was real and The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells's fictional account of a Martian invasion, actually happened.
Challenging Destiny #17
01/05/2004. pub: Crystalline Sphere Publishing. 132 page digest magazine. Price: $ 6.00 (CAN). ISSN: 1206-6656.
Cover'd in Glory
01/04/2004. Terry Gibbons has laboured long and hard to produce one of the most definitive sites in the genre - the subject in question being magazine cover art (from the early pulps to the modern favourites).
Life on Mars
01/04/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for April 2004.
White Devils by Paul McAuley
01/04/2004. pub: Simon and Schuster. 521 page hardback. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-7432-3885-0.
An Altered Author
01/04/2004. Richard Morgan, author of Altered Carbon, on giving up the day job, his movie deal with Warner Brothers, and making a big splash in the hard boiled science fiction genre.
Cyberpunks in White Nylon
01/04/2004. Now for something completely different. The, err, heroine of Marianne de Pierres' debut cyberpunk novel Nylon Angel, interviewed about her bust up face and life in a down and dirty future.
Holt Right There
01/04/2004. Fantasy author Tom Holt on whether it's really possible to write a SFF novel about office life, his first job as a porter in an auction-house, and the funniest thing he's ever heard.
Robot Stories
01/04/2004. Mark finds a film of five Twilight Zone-ish stories involving robots in some way. They are simple stories - most with a strong insightful element. All but one really says more about humanity than about droids.
The Tears of an Angel: A Stake In The Heart For Angel Fans
01/04/2004. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off, Angel, has reached the end of it's bloodsucking run. But we know at least one fan who is seeing red over the decision to cancel the series. Taste her red rage here ...
The hitch-hiker's guide to French Science-Fiction
01/04/2004. French SF has a glorious past - remember Jules Verne? - and, hopefully, a bright future. But Jean-Claude finds the present situation a little more difficult to decode. Especially when you try to evaluate it on the same scale as Anglo-American SF.
Time And The Terminator
01/04/2004. Uncle Geoff ponders the paradox implicit in the statement: 'The future is not set. 'There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.' Time travel? Altering the past? What the heck is that all about.
The Re-Imagined
01/03/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for March 2004.
Jensen Intercepted
01/03/2004. Author Jane Jensen on her near-future thriller, Dante's Equation. With clever science, baffling Torah code, devious secret agents and just a little bit of romance, what more could you want from a book?
Embracing the Zahn Side
01/03/2004. Author Timothy Zahn interviewed on creating alien characters and races, his returning to the Star Wars universe, and his new young-adult Dragonback series ... that's fantasy you know, if the title wasn't a bit of a giveaway.
The Troubles of Time Travel
01/03/2004. Anne Groell, senior editor at the Bantam Spectra publishing imprint, ruminates on the time in every science fiction editor's life when one has to edit the dread 'Time Travel' novel. Yikes, move over, Terminator ...
Finding Philcon
01/03/2004. Evelyn drops by Philcon 2003, and finds the answers to some thorny questions at the convention. Like why hasn't Lovecraft spawned a good movie yet, and just why do conventional SFF publishers miss so much of the good stuff?
Re-thinking Re-imagining (or B.S. Galactica)
01/03/2004. Joseph Nanni on why re-imagining classic SFF television series is enough to shrivel the soul of any true fan. Hmmm. Battlestar Galactica anyone?
A Problem with Fear
01/03/2004. Mark sits down for this latest SF movie and discovers a quirky science fiction film with some odd approaches, including a man-made 'fear storm'.
Code 46
01/03/2004. In this movie Mark finds a very odd piece of science fiction; it is a film with some very nice material that tries some interesting ideas, but ultimately Code 46 fails to capture the viewer.
Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Novel
01/03/2004. Mark imagines a place so isolated from the world that it was beyond the reach even of the forces of evolution ... where on one plateau deep in the Amazon rain forest there is a land that has withstood the ravages of time. Bring on those dinosaurs and prehistoric proto-humans.
Open Letter to an Open Enemy
01/03/2004. Scots SFF author Ken MacLeod has written science fiction novels which make frequent passing reference to the Soviet Union, Lenin, Trotsky, and communism. But he does not regard Lenin as a mass murderer, any more than he regards Cromwell, Napoleon, Lincoln, Roosevelt or Churchill as mass murderers. Read why here ...
Winning the X-Prize
01/02/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for February 2004.
The Man Who Sold the Moon
01/02/2004. Scots SF author Ken Macleod reckons that watching George W. Bush's recent speech at NASA felt like science fiction coming true. But reservations ... well, he's got a few.
Human Stories of Mars
01/02/2004. The successful landing of the NASA rover Spirit in Gusev Crater on Mars has caught the world's imagination, but England's favourite hard SF author, Stephen Baxter, thinks that our attention will soon move on.
Sixty-Two And A Half Miles High
01/02/2004. Scottish SF writer Rod MacDonald on the X Prize Foundation and the strange British dreams of a privately funded space race.
Starfleet In Motion
01/02/2004. There's rather a lot of crew on a Federation starship. So apart from jogging around a lot during a red alert, what the heck do they all do? Uncle Geoff muses on the unlucky blue shirts who draw the Enterprise's toilet duty.
Paycheck
01/02/2004. Sadly, our Frank discovers this film is one Paycheck not worth necessarily cashing or depositing as Woo waters down his boisterously banal and generic thriller all too convincingly.
Peter Pan (Frank's Take)
01/02/2004. Visually vibrant and mystical in its charming presentation, Franks happily discovers Hogan's live action take on Peter Pan is an exquisite and sparkling celluloid fable that just pops into life.
The Return of the King (Frank's Take)
01/02/2004. Inherently grand, vibrant, inviting and whimsically overwhelming, Jackson packs an urgent sense of vitality into this third installment that will certainly amaze those who were attentive to the previous colorful two TLoTR epics.
Peter Pan (Mark's Take)
01/02/2004. In this new movie, Mark discovers a feast for the eyes that he can recommend with more conviction for parents than he can for the children who might see it.
Sea of Souls
01/02/2004. Interviews with actors Bill Paterson and Archie Panjabi, stars of the BBC's shortly-to-be-released new X Files-style television series, 'Sea of Souls'.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow ...
01/01/2004. I don't know about you folks, but I love pulp fiction on the small and not so small screen – not the Tarantino movie (ok, I like that too, although it's not technically SFF), but the whole wide genre.
Science Fiction Solo?
01/01/2004. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for January 2004.
Brian Aldiss: the Master of Glacial Helliconia
01/01/2004. Brian Aldiss, one of Britain's greatest authors, interviewed. He holds forth to our Hunty on why he was glad Michael Moorcock appeared in the sixties, why his Helliconia trilogy is just about a change in the weather, and the terrible unwisdom of terraforming Mars.
Hunt vs Hunt
01/01/2004. SFF author Walter Hunt interviewed by SFF author Stephen Hunt. Crikes, that's a whole lot of Hunt-ing going on for Christmas. The author of the crackingly good military SF epic The Dark Wing tells us how the idea of an implacable alien enemy that won't make peace with us, with a religion that teaches that humanity shouldn't exist, comes disturbingly close to home given the events of the past year.
The Two Towers Inferno
01/01/2004. The latest big screen installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy could be your last movie of 2002, or your first of 2003; but you're going to see it. Right?
Solaris (Mark's Take)
01/01/2004. An alien planet gives George Clooney a perfect facsimile of the wife he lost on earth in SOLARIS. The philosophical film has some engaging ideas, but viewers expecting romantic sci-fi will probably be disappointed and perhaps even bored. This is dense, introspective, and intelligent science fiction as distinguished from entertainment.
Star Trek: Nemesis (Mark's Take)
01/01/2004. As the "Star Trek" series seems slowly to lose steam, Mark finds the movie contains one late - uncharacteristic - burst of life and energy, a science-fictional examination of the nature-nurture question. Picard and Data each meet physically identical copies of their former selves and each must deal with the similarities and differences. The question faced is, what makes a person who he is?
Novacon 33
01/01/2004. Pauline brings you a personal appraisal of the UK's favourite annual science fiction convention and why, after 33 years without missing one, it is now almost a matter of pride for her to attend.
Lapins
01/01/2004. It was one of the most select restaurants of Time. Beyond Knot Pitt, marked on any chronotopic map of the Tourism Special Offices ... Michael Haulica serves up some time twistery in the form of his latest short SF story.
Enjoying Jackson's Take On Tolkien
01/01/2004. Now that Jackson's take on the Lord of the Rings trilogy has been put to bed, Joseph asks just what has been achieved ... and will history smile on this particular cinematic adaptation?
Gothika (Frank's Take)
01/01/2004. Who says that an overwrought and absurd horror/suspense thriller blessed with a stellar cast cannot be appealing in its occasional lapses? Frank gets scary with his latest movie review.
Timeline (Frank's Take)
01/01/2004. Frank finds that Timeline is a flashy SF actioner that boasts some mighty fine credentials that many other time-traveling movie vehicles might wish they could hang their hats on.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (Mark's Take)
01/01/2004. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings completes its cycle with The Return of the King, a spectacular film of complex battles and breathtaking scenery. Mark ponders whether the final part of the trilogy delivers all that it promises.
The Shipment (Star Trek Enterprise)
01/01/2004. The Shipment was designed to be a turning point for Enterprise; more specifically, the episode is meant to change the way the viewer responds to the Xindi, by making the race more sympathetic. Unfortunately, our Evan tended to find the writers' tactics here just a little on the obvious side.
Building a Better Battlestar
01/04/2003. Yep it's time for Galacticon 2003, announcing the fans' 25th anniversary salute to the stars, producers, writers and crew of the original Battlestar Galactica TV series.
The Big Bam Boom
01/10/2002. John Aegard takes a bemused look at the Orion Project, where NASA and its chums were planning to hurl a spaceship into orbit and beyond by riding the blast generated by a series of atomic explosions.
Andromeda Arse
01/11/2000. The Galactic Senate: polls & voting for November 2000.
Was Deke Deckard a Replicant?
01/11/1999. An appraisal of the flaws in the 'Blade Runner' film
by Uncle Geoff.
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