The Monster Makers

The spotlight last month fell on the special effects wizards who make SF monsters come to life. The crowning glory was the award of the Best Picture Oscar for Argo. This spy drama focuses on […]

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From the In Box

New releases from Brick Marlin Crysis Hunter Edition Still Available Brick Marlin sent along word that he has a bunch of new releases coming out this year and wanted us all to know about the […]

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Calling All Space Cadets!

Ever wanted to travel to outer space? Now’s your chance… for real. Lynx Apollo antiperspirant have launched a competition to win a trip flying 103km up into space. How do you do it? First, potential […]

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Epic Fantasy Analysis Feb 17, 2013

This is the third in the series and is from data as of 2/17/2013. I’m revising the format that I provide this data, now I’m using table which should make things a bit more clear. […]

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The Art of the Shaver Mystery

The Shaver Mystery is part of the history of Amazing Stories Magazine, but it is certainly not considered one of the magazine’s shining moments. Barry Malzberg touched on it briefly in his first blog post […]

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Resident Evil

There are some people who think that a movie based on a video game should automatically be considered mindless trash. Good science fiction movies, they say, should be based on loftier sources, such as the […]

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When Hollywood Attacks!

There was no movie in 2012 that I looked forward to seeing more than Prometheus.  It was being produced by Ridley Scott, the same man who produced Alien and Blade Runner.  Unfortunately it wasn’t really […]

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In the Hall of the Mountain King

I was asked by Sol Cohen in April 1968 to succeed Harry Harrison as Editor of Amazing Stories. One hundred dollars a month, a limitless supply of letterhead stationary and full reimbursement of postage. “We’ll […]

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Judging A Book By Its Cover (Art)

The old axiom about not judging a book by its cover notwithstanding, I am going to judge the merits of various book covers that wrapped editions of heroic fiction. This is not a scholarly article, […]

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Crossroads: Tripping the Noir Fantastic

Last week, we talked about some of the tensions between science fiction and noir. Fantasy, which relies on metaphor even more than science fiction, has an even more challenging time of it. Its traditional themes […]

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Amazing News Wednesday, January 30th

WSFA Small Press Award Committee is accepting nominations for its 2013 Award for stories published in 2012.  The submission period will close on April 5. The Washington Science Fiction Association [www.wsfa.org] has established a literary […]

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Piracy

This week I unwittingly got drawn into a heated debate on the merits and disadvantages of having your e-book disseminated by the ‘torrent community’ aka – pirates. On the merit side of the fence was […]

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Welcome!

At this great and wonderful moment it would be very easy for me to descend into cliche, quote oft-quoted lines from well-known television shows or gush all over myself about how fortunate I am, have […]

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