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95 Articles

Captain’s Log

I promise you, there are photos of me inside the TARDIS. One day they’ll probably end up on a Blu-ray, but alas not in print yet. Instead here I am outside it, being photobombed by a fan. It feels like a blur having been at the world premiere for season one of Doctor Who – it’s been such a long time coming! By now you’ll have travelled to an alien baby farm and back in time to the ’60s – but there’s still so much more to come, and we’re jumping a little further forward (and yet a little further backward) to episode six and the Regency period, to a set visit from over a year ago. Confused? Yes, we are a bit too. Talk about sitting on a secret.…

DARREN SCOTT EDITOR RAVES 🡢 Jinkx Monsoon is fantastic in “The Devil’s Chord” – this new world feels dangerous again. 🡢 She’s also fantastic in Little Shop Of Horrors, playing off-Broadway until 26 May – see it while you can! 🡢 Sting is sinister (no, not the musician). Made my skin crawl – loved it! 🡢 A satisfactory conclusion to the Michonne/Rick storyline in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, but no second season please. Let it be. RANTS 🡢 I love American Horror Story, but the Delicate season really pushes the boundaries of even my adoration. IAN BERRIMAN DEPUTY EDITOR RAVES 🡢 Pleased as punch with Character Options’s latest set of Doctor Who figures, themed around 1979’s “Destiny Of The Daleks”. Can we have a three Nimons set…

Beauty And The Beast

TWENTY YEARS FROM now, in Bertrand Bonello’s vision of the future The Beast, artificial intelligence has taken control after a mysterious event changed the course of history. To remove any chance of another calamity, the robots have created a machine that helps humans live out their ancestors’ past lives. They thus become emotionally numb – and therefore stable – in the present day. The message is clear: if we’re not careful, technology will eat away at what makes us human. “It’s not that much science fiction,” the French filmmaker remarks. “It’s something we are going through now. I mean, technology, it’s a tool, and humans must be the master of a tool, not the contrary. And now it’s getting a little scary.” Bonello – known for his idiosyncratic dramas Nocturama,…

Beauty And The Beast

TWO YEARS AGO, THE SERIES finale of DreamWorks’ animated show Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous ended with an unexpected two-year time jump that gave audiences a look at the more grown up “Nublar Six” and their fates. Plus, the nifty coda reveal of a Brachiosaurus outside Darius’s window meant the series timeline caught up to the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. While the open-ended climax may have felt like a set up for future stories, executive producer Scott Kreamer tells Red Alert that in his mind it was unquestionably an ending to their five seasons of storytelling. He was ready to move on to new projects, until Universal and DreamWorks reached out for his thoughts on potential continuations. “I was unconvinced, because I liked the story we told,” Kreamer says…

Eight- Legged Freak

RED ALERT HAS WOKEN UP EARLY to catch Kiah Roache-Turner on Zoom. No coffee has been drunk, but that doesn’t matter – the very first story the Australia-based filmmaker tells is terrifying enough to put even the most hardened horror fan on high alert. “This has happened to me a couple of times,” he says with a grin. “I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll pull my curtains apart, and there’ll just be a huntsman spider on the glass right in front of my face. I scream like a little girl. They are the size of your hand, but they aren’t as bad as funnel-webs, which are these massive, hairy things that can kill you.” Gulp. No wonder Roache-Turner developed arachnophobia. Yet, rather than shy away from his fears,…

Eight- Legged Freak

Two To Teleport

HOT ON THE HEELS OF THEIR critically acclaimed Blake’s 7 Production Diary Series A book, Cult Edge are back with a long-overdue publication. In fact, it’s been 41 years since the last edition of Blake’s 7 Magazine, so perhaps that’s another contender for “longest-running sci-fi magazine”…? This special edition – it’s a whopping 120 pages – continues the title’s penchant for Series D, with interviews, behind-the-scenes information and rare photographs. There’s a comic strip of opening episode “Rescue” and also a look at the proposed animated series from 2010, including unseen concept art. Blake’s 7 Magazine issue 24 will also benefit charity Terrence Higgins Trust. The centrepiece of the issue is an in-depth profile of actor Geoffrey Burridge, who played Dorian in “Rescue”. Burridge sadly died in 1987, aged just…

Two To Teleport

PROMISING “SOMETHING NEW, also borrowed and especially blue”, Kieron Gillen is bringing his stint on the Merry Mutants to a close with X-Men: The Wedding Special. Centring on the marriage of Mystique and Destiny, the special coda issue takes the lead in this year’s Marvel Voices: Pride, which also features contributions from Tini Howard, Wyatt Kennedy, Tate Brombal and Yoon Ha Lee. “Given how bleak most of my run was, perhaps it’s the after-credits-have-fun-withthe-cast sequence,” Gillen tells Red Alert. “It’s also the interstitial between the Krakoan age and the next as it grows from everything I have done with Raven and Irene, but it also sets up where they’re going next. Marriage is about endlessness, but so is the Marvel Universe.” Many Marvel characters have tied the knot over the…

Bringing Up Baby Kaiju

ALMOST 60 YEARS AGO, Japanese special effects legend/filmmaker Eiji Tsuburaya unleashed his live-action sci-fi series Ultra Q (1966) upon the world; think The X-Files meets The Twilight Zone with extra monsters. It featured a red and silver-suited alien superhero called Ultraman who battled kaiju and monsters to protect the masses. Kids adored the character and Ultraman became an instant sensation. For six decades, kaiju-loving kids (and plenty of their parents) continue to follow his evolution. There have been countless iterations of Ultraman in both live action and animated form, in manga, comic books and videogames. In 2019, Netflix debuted a new Ultraman anime series to huge success, which opened the door for the latest iteration in the animated feature film Ultraman: Rising. Director Shannon Tindle (Kubo And The Two Strings)…

Bringing Up Baby Kaiju

THERE AREN’T MANY TV SHOWS that can boast a following so great that its fans even have a name. Clone Club has been the label for devotees of cult Canadian drama Orphan Black since it made its small screen debut in 2013. The series – about a human clone by the name of Sarah Manning – hoovered up a host of awards during its original five-season, 50-episode run, including a Primetime Emmy and a Peabody. Now, seven years after that final episode, comes Orphan Black: Echoes, a sequel that, while it’s a distinct series in its own right, also promises to feel comfortingly familiar to old-time Clone Clubbers. “We wanted to give the fans of the original show something to sink their teeth into,” Echoes showrunner Anna Fishko – a…

Brave New Worlds

WITH WRITER STEVE ORLANDO describing it as “the franchise pointing us towards a better, more equitable future,” Star Trek has always embraced diversity in all its various iterations, going back to Gene Roddenberry’s original ’60s television series. Now, in time for Pride Month, IDW is publishing a new one-shot that commemorates many of its numerous LGBTQ+ characters, ranging from John Cho’s Sulu to Lower Decks’ Beckett and Jen. “I couldn’t be luckier!” says Orlando, who is teaming up with artist Lauren Knight. “Working with Sulu and his family in the Kelvin timeline offered a unique opportunity, because not too much had been done with them with Star Trek Beyond being the most recent theatrical release. “We were able to create a story that honours Sulu and his family while also…

Brave New Worlds

Atlas Smith And J-Lo

BRAD PEYTON IS NO STRANGER to pushing the boundaries of reality. Consider his three films with Dwayne Johnson: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, San Andreas and Rampage – each one a bombastic slice of pulpy cinema. Now Peyton returns with Atlas, the story of a data analyst (Jennifer Lopez) stranded on a dangerous planet after pursuing Harlan (Simu Liu), a villainous artificial intelligence terrorist. “My taste is always to do as much as I can,” the filmmaker tells Red Alert. “I want to push everything as much as possible.” We’re discussing how he designed the colourful planet that Lopez’s eponymous character Atlas Shepherd cannot escape, and how he wanted to avoid creating another Tatooine. “When I first came to Netflix and pitched this idea, they were like, ‘Well, what’s the…

Atlas Smith And J-Lo

Children Of The Evolution

WITH ITS REVISIONIST APPROACH, MARK Millar and Bryan Hitch’s inaugural Ultimates proved highly influential when it debuted in 2002, establishing a template that was subsequently emulated by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now writer Deniz Camp and artist Juan Fregeri are taking a similarly radical approach as they revive the alternate Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, promising an evolution of not only the Avengers themselves but all superhero team books. “It’s like the ultimate Ultimates,” says Camp. “It’s about the way the superhero team functions, the stakes of it, as there’s something very dangerous about being a superhero in a world like this. The Ultimates will have to operate as a superhero resistance network rather than a traditional superhero team. There’s no press conferences and government go-betweens, no top secret clearances and meetings…

Children Of The Evolution

AFTER PREVIOUSLY focusing on different aspects of its supernatural worlds in various one-shots and anthologies, Archie Comics is now unleashing its first summer crossover. Billed as the first Archie Premium Event, Judgment Day begins with Archie’s hometown Riverdale literally descending into Hell. “My prior work with Archie, Archie Vs The World, got rave reviews, but one persistent complaint we got was, ‘Why isn’t there more?’,” says writer Aubrey Sitterson. “That led [senior director of editorial] Jamie Rotante back to me, and she wanted to push the Archie characters to their absolute breaking point with a concept so outrageous: Archie as a demon hunter!” Although spookier stories such as Judgment Day are released under the Archie Horror imprint, Sitterson insists that Archie and his friends are essentially unchanged since the Riverdale…

Alien Resurrection

“EVERYONE INVOLVED is a fan of the film,” says director Simon Barnard of Radio Four’s adaptation of The Man Who Fell To Earth. “Even though we’re making something a bit different!” First published in 1963, Walter Tevis’s novel was brought to the screen by Nicolas Roeg a decade later, gifting David Bowie his ultimate film role as exiled extraterrestrial Thomas Jerome Newton. “I read the book around a year ago and was struck by just how different it was to the film,” says Barnard, whose Bafflegab Productions are behind such acclaimed audio dramas and documentaries as Uncanny, The Battersea Poltergeist and Children Of The Stones. “The film is very abstract and surreal and the last third of it is really strange, and nothing like the book. Newton’s mission to Earth…

Alien Resurrection

SPACE AND TIME NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF DOCTOR WHO

◆ The BBC have released a first look at Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson alongside new companion Varada Sethu from a readthrough for season two of Doctor Who. Sethu, who previously appeared in Andor, said: “I feel like the luckiest person in the world. It is such an honour to be a part of the Whoniverse, and I’m so grateful to the whole Doctor Who family – because that is what they are – for welcoming me with open arms and making me feel so at home. I couldn’t ask for a better team than Ncuti and Millie to be on this adventure with – this is so much fun!” ◆ Showrunner, executive producer and writer Russell T Davies said: “I first worked with Varada on a BBC production of…

SPACE AND TIME NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF DOCTOR WHO

THE FINAL FRONTIER

TRINA ROBBINS 1938-2024 Immortalised in Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Ladies Of The Canyon”, writer and artist Trina Robbins bridged the countercultural worlds of rock and comics. Born Trina Perlson in Brooklyn, New York, she was an active participant in SF fandom before becoming a key female voice in the underground press. Robbins coproduced It Ain’t Me Babe Comix, the first comic book created entirely by women, and co-founded the Wimmen’s Comix collective. Mainstream work included stints writing for Marvel and Eclipse and drawing DC miniseries The Legend Of Wonder Woman in 1986. She returned to the Amazon princess for one-shot Wonder Woman: The Once And Future Story in 1998. A scholar of comics history, Robbins championed female creators and characters in such books as Women And The Comics (1985) and…

THE FINAL FRONTIER

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WE’VE BEEN INVITED TO A BALL! Fancy being our guest? It’s 17 May 2023 and SFX is in South Wales – Margam Country Park, to be precise, around two miles from Port Talbot. If we turn around we can see the location used for Rattigan Academy in series four’s “The Sontaran Stratagem” and “The Poison Sky”, but today we’re at the Orangery, where they’ve only gone and custom built a Regency ballroom inside. What’s particularly exciting is it’s the first time press have been on set for the brand new global relaunch of Doctor Who. SFX is early, arriving in a park filled with trucks and lots of people in period costume outside drinking coffee. It’s a beautiful, sunny day and already there’s plenty of fans being wafted. The scale…

She’s gorgeous. She embodies the best of everything you want in a companion. She’s feisty. She’s got this big emotional backstory which has called on her [for] some big old acting scenes – she’s just amazing for such a young actor. She’s amazing because she can do funny, she’s spunky and full of adventure and then she can break your heart as well. So we’re really chuffed, and the chemistry between them is great. The best Doctor/companion relationships are when they look like they’re having fun together as well as facing down these terrible enemies and the end of the world every week. When they’re doing that, they’ve also got to look like they’re having fun, and they just do. They make you smile and there’s something so youthful about…

How are you finding being part of a British institution? ◆ Oh my gosh, it’s totally surreal and incredible. I had heard of Doctor Who, I knew what it was before Russell asked me to do it, but I hadn’t seen an episode. So he sent me six: the first one from 1963 and then several throughout the years to get educated on the institution of Doctor Who. So now that I’ve been fully educated, it means even more. We’re going to need to know which episodes he sent you… ◆ I can’t tell you. He sent me that first one. But I don’t want to blow up his spot. So what did you think of “An Unearthly Child”? ◆ I loved it. Knowing what Ncuti is bringing to this…

ORANGE YOU CLEVER

When the first image of Ncuti in his orange sweater was released, there was a mad rush to buy them… ◆ I was warned, but it was a shock. I’ll tell you why it was a shock, because we thought we’d have to buy another one and there weren’t any left in the shop. Because we need the repeats. We bought two and then we suddenly thought, “Oh, we could do with a stunt double” and they were gone. So was the check coat. Most of the stuff is all made bespoke. But that one was bought, although we altered the trousers to be slightly different. That’s the lesson that you learn: if you do that, it all gets bought. It’s a real eye-opener. I had no idea that not…

ORANGE YOU CLEVER

BEWARE THE DUCHESS !

How has your Doctor Who experience been so far? ◆ Oh, it’s been such a laugh. I’ve wanted to do Doctor Who for ages. Not particularly because I was a massive fan as a kid. I was too scared of the Daleks, the usual kind of thing. But because so many friends have been in it and have said how much fun they’ve had. Because it feels like it’s carte blanche to do whatever you want and it’s so imaginative. It’s really fun to be part of Doctor Who also because I was working with David Tennant on The Quatermass Experiment when he found out he was going to be Doctor Who, then I was working with Matt Smith when he was going to be Doctor Who, and I’m like,…

BEWARE THE DUCHESS !

Is doing a period episode the biggest challenge of the series? ◆ This block is the biggest challenge, because we’ve got two episodes, both of them set in different periods. So they have to be historically accurate. But this is the biggest challenge, because we’ve got a lot of supporting cast with us who all have to look authentically turn of the century 1800s. So that has to be well planned and very well facilitated. The fact that we’re having to put wigs on the two principal cast as well and that obviously has to look impeccable. It’s very challenging, but fun. How much research would go into an episode like this? ◆ A lot! I guess the same as any of our creative departments, because we want it to…

The symbols were changed every day. You don’t have any continuity issues then, because if the symbol is always changing, it just looks like they’re morphing scene by scene on his hands. So that every time you see them, the symbols have changed. At first we were a bit worried that we were spelling something rude in Gallifreyan – that was a genuine concern. I remember Russell saying to me, “You don’t realise how dedicated the Whovian fanbase is, they will try and read them. You’ve got to be very careful with these symbols.” So we just adapted them. We took the basic design shapes and we adapted them so they are meaningless. If they do spell something, it’s purely accidental. Every day we just put a different set of…

BRING IT TO THE BALL

How was working on this episode for you? ◆ It was an undertaking. I mean, it’s been very varied across the board. But this is one of the biggest because we haven’t had these crowd numbers. And we made a lot as well. Especially for the principals, you can’t just get that from a hire company to fit the body and get the right fabric. So we made a lot. So that was a challenge to the workshop, definitely. I have a workshop back at Wolf Studios, we made it all there. Most of the extra stuff we hire, but we alter and we trim, there’s a lot of retrimming that goes on. Has this been the most challenging episode of the season? ◆ I’m quite comfortable with doing period…

BRING IT TO THE BALL

HEN SFX CATCHES UP with Jinkx Monsoon in New York, she’s in an entirely different sci-fi state of mind – less battling a lord of time and more tackling a carnivorous alien plant… “Audrey is a character that I’ve always, always wanted to play, but just assumed no one would ask me because I’m not a cis woman,” she explains of her starring role in Little Shop Of Horrors at Manhattan’s Westside Theatre. “I thought if I ever played Audrey, it would be in an all-queer production. But when the Westside Theatre reached out, it was just an immediate yes. Everything about it has just been profoundly wonderful. It’s been a very, very affirming experience. I never dreamed that I’d be transitioning at the same time that I’m playing the…

THE END IS NIGH FOR THE series that writer and showrunner Russell T Davies promises will have “the biggest finale ever” in “The Legend Of Ruby Sunday” and “Empire Of Death” – where they return to UNIT HQ. Are the three who rule ready? And what do they think is the message of season one? How do you feel about the finale? NG: [Expels a deep breath] I mean, if I’m completely honest with you, it’s a blur. It’s an absolute blur. I don’t know what I can tell you. Every day you had to give every single part of yourself to it. You had to rip your soul out. MG: It was an emotional ride every day in seven and eight. There’s not much humour in seven and eight,…

JEDI SLAYER ONE

FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW. It’s a phrase that’s loomed large over Star Wars ever since Obi-Wan Kenobi tried to pretend he hadn’t fibbed about the fate of Luke Skywalker’s dad. Since then, Anakin’s whined that, from his POV, the Jedi are evil, while fandom remains torn over The Last Jedi: is it a bona fide classic or a disastrous disturbance in the Force? Now the latest Disney+ show is asking us to look at its story from multiple perspectives. The result? The next time a film studies student reminds you that George Lucas’s original Star Wars was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, you can instantly shoot back that The Acolyte shares elements of the Japanese director’s multiple-POV classic Rashomon. Set a century or so before…

JEDI SLAYER ONE

EXPANDING UNIVERSE

Star Wars may inhabit an entire galaxy with thousands of years of – albeit made-up – history, but up to now, every live-action movie and TV show has been compressed into the relatively brief seven-decade period between The Phantom Menace and The Rise Of Skywalker. That all changes when The Acolyte heads back to the High Republic era – and now Lucasfilm seems eager to expand the timeline even further back and forwards. “Coming off The Rise Of Skywalker, we really had to take stock of what we were working with,” says The Acolyte producer Rayne Roberts. “It was communicated as being the end of the ‘Skywalker Saga’, and we had to ask where we’d go next. We said, ‘Well, we have this amazing, long timeline in which we can…

EXPANDING UNIVERSE

TASTE THE RAINBOW

RED The ultimate Sith Lord accessory, as modelled by Darth Vader. ORANGE Ahsoka’s Shin Hati is bad but not that bad. YELLOW What better way for Rey to bring balance to the force than by going yellow? GREEN After misplacing his dad’s old lightsaber on Bespin, Luke went green. BLUE The hero’s choice, used by Obi-Wan, Anakin, Luke and even non-Jedi Finn. INDIGO You can turn Cal Kestis’s ’saber indigo in videogame Jedi: Fallen Order. VIOLET George Lucas allowed Samuel L Jackson to break ranks by going purple. WHITE Ahsoka Tano opts for ’sabers that go with anything. BLACK The ceremonial Mandalorian darksaber forgoes colour altogether.…

TASTE THE RAINBOW

The High Republic era takes place between 500 and 100 years (or thereabouts) before the events of the original Star Wars trilogy. It’s a time of peace and a good time to be a Jedi, long before Palpatine has his wicked way with the universe. It’s a multimedia project built around interweaving books, web series, comics and audio dramas. The storytelling is split into three phases: Light Of The Jedi, Quest Of The Jedi and Trials Of The Jedi. The storytelling kicked off in earnest with Charles Soule’s 2021 novel Light Of The Jedi. The book sees the Order leaping into action after the destruction of a starship in hyperspace puts billions of lives at risk. It also introduces the Nihil, the series’ main antagonists. Led by “Eye of the…

PEDAL TO THE METAL

THERE ARE FEW WRITER/directors who can boast a filmmaking career as eclectic and successful as George Miller’s. The multiple BAFTA and Academy Award winner possesses a singular CV that covers 50 years of film projects made up entirely of wild, incongruous swings. From beloved family classics like Babe (1995) and Happy Feet (2006) to the heavy drama of Lorenzo’s Oil (1992), Miller has built a career around writing characters that compelled him, crafting great films around them, and letting the naysayers be damned. The cinematic series that tops and tails the span of his career is centred on his ultimate rebel character creation: Mad Max. At 79, Miller has been making Mad Max films for more than half his life. While he took a hefty 30-year break from the franchise…

PEDAL TO THE METAL

Miller’s Mad Max films are essentially their own Aussie cinematic universe. How did they impact you? The films were a big part of my childhood. I have very vivid, nostalgic memories around watching those films and then the discussions with my dad, or my older brother, about the motorbikes and the cars in that world. Many years later, to be a part of it was a dream come true. What was it like embracing an unabashedly villainous role? It was somewhat liberating and refreshing to kind of shed the heroic Thor space and transform into something different, and not have to be restricted by the expectations of the hero, I guess. The first time I read the script, I felt a huge amount of creative impulses and ideas bubbling up,…

INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS

RENNY HARLIN IS AIMING FOR your primal fears. Your poor, frazzled nerves and overloaded pulse will be collateral damage. “It’s so relatable,” says the director of The Strangers: Chapter 1, a new take on 2008’s knifey home invasion tale The Strangers. “As kids we all look under our beds or in the closet or out the window – is there some scary thing there? “Of course, as we grow up we realise that there’s no boogeyman and there are no ghosts and no monsters, no supernatural beings. But you should have been scared. Because there are other people who might be nuts, and just want the worst for you. “The premise is so simple and so scary, and that makes it enjoyable, because you can see something so scary in…

INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS

THE FACSLESS ONES

This may be a whole new take on the Strangers but one thing remains reassuringly – no, terrifyingly – constant. The trio’s masks are strictly faithful to the original movie and have lost none of their dead-eyed power to haunt your dreams. Did Harlin consider that nightmarish iconography just too sacred to change? “There was definitely a conversation between me and the producers at the very beginning, and we immediately came to a conclusion,” he tells SFX. “I said ‘This is not the Bat-suit, this isn’t something that should evolve over years or decades and become somehow different. The movie is called The Strangers and we should be absolutely faithful to the original masks, to the best of our ability, because that’s what our iconic killers are, and there’s no…

THE FACSLESS ONES

FORGET ALL THOSE UFO WHISTLEBLOWERS and their tantalising stories of alien visitations. It turns out humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrials actually took place three decades ago – on-screen at least. Landing in 1993, Coneheads finally gave Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin’s classic Saturday Night Live comedy sketch the big-screen treatment more than 25 years after the characters first appeared on American TV. The movie followed Beldar (Aykroyd) and Prymaat (Curtin), a Conehead couple from the distant planet Remulak who accidentally get stranded on Earth. With a while to wait before a rescue vessel can reach them (seven zerls in Remulak years), the pair are forced to infiltrate human culture and assimilate into sleepy suburban America. Despite their obvious visible differences (if anyone asks, they’re from France), the pair soon grow…

From a follow-up to The Blues Brothers and numerous Ghostbusters sequel scripts, Aykroyd is no layabout when it comes to developing new adventures for his fanfavourite characters. With that in mind, it may not come as a surprise to learn that the idea of a Coneheads sequel has crossed his mind over the years. “I could see Beldar going into politics and getting elected into office; dealing with the whole concept of immigration and how people work hard to make it in a strange land,” he tells SFX, highlighting one potential idea. “Maybe the story revolves around the Coneheads coming back to re-invade Earth and I have to stop the invasion. I would definitely do another one if we could come up with a story, and I know Jane [Curtin]…

CLOSE CONE-TACT

With Coneheads acting as a spin-off film from a popular Saturday Night Live sketch, the show’s creator and the movie’s producer, Lorne Michaels, was keen to fill it with as many of his ’90s SNL stars as he could. You’ll see a wealth of funny faces make memorable cameo appearances, some bigger than others. The late Chris Farley, a John Belushi fanatic, appears as Connie’s mechanic boyfriend Ronnie, and didn’t miss the opportunity to quiz Aykroyd about his former comedy partner. “I told him everything I could about John, along with all the warnings too, which ultimately went unheeded,” he says, referring to how both Belushi and Farley died of drug overdoses aged 33. “He loved to hear stories about The Blues Brothers. He was a sweet, loving wonderful guy,…

CLOSE CONE-TACT

BEFORE SHE BEGAN WORK ON HER NEW novel, Manda Scott thought she had “stopped writing”. She was busy with other projects and, more importantly, had a sense of urgency about the state of the world that didn’t square with the convoluted business of getting a book to market. “It seemed that the publishing cycle took too long,” she says. “Humanity is in a bus heading towards the edge of a cliff – and we might be over the cliff, I thought, before a book was actually out. Or at least the window within which we can turn away from the cliff might have gone. So I was doing other stuff.” By this, she means she had become a podcaster: the host of Accidental Gods, which is concerned with creating a…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 18 | 109 minutes ▶ Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett ▶ Cast Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Alisha Weir Radio Silence duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett delivered a great, witty horror movie set in a creepy mansion with Ready Or Not before moving to Scream-land. Their latest, fang-happy tale Abigail, could serve as a perfect double bill with that breakout thriller. Set once again in a large, spooky (and in this case, locked down) house, it follows a group of criminals of varying ability and seriousness, who are gathered by a mysterious overseer (Giancarlo Esposito) for what they think should be a relatively easy payday. Their mission? Kidnap a wealthy man’s daughter. There’s just one issue: the victim is most certainly not what they…

▶ RELEASED 31 MAY 12A | 91 minutes ▶ Director Kiah Roache-Turner ▶ Cast Jermaine Fowler, Ryan Corr, Penelope Mitchell, Alyla Browne Intergalactic arachnids are having a moment. Already this year, a friendly space spider has taught Adam Sandler life lessons (Spaceman); now its unrelated cousin is webbing up New Yorkers and devouring them for dinner. In Sting’s brilliant opening five minutes, we witness the creature manipulating an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s into bringing it fresh meat by waking her up; she calls the exterminator, the spider eats the exterminator, she forgets what happened, the spider wakes her up again, repeat. It’s an amusing cold open that mixes horror and humour but one that perhaps promises too much, as the film never quite hits those heights again. Following this, writer/director…

▶ RELEASED 31 MAY 15 | 145 minutes ▶ Director Bertrand Bonello ▶ Cast Léa Seydoux, George MacKay, Guslagie Malanda, Dasha Nekrasova Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast is a snarling, sprawling enigma; unnerving in its foreboding atmosphere, compelling in its rich performances and elegant direction. It’s loosely inspired by Henry James’s 1903 novella The Beast In The Jungle, which is about a man who finds himself paralysed by the feeling that something terrible is going to happen to him. Here, that anxiety haunts Gabrielle (the superb Léa Seydoux), who’s from a nearfuture in which purging your emotions is a prerequisite to participating at the higher levels of society. Having decided to undergo the procedure, she’s connected to a machine that plunges her into her past lives to “purify” her DNA. In…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 131 minutes ▶ Director Alice Rohrwacher ▶ Cast Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato The Italian director Alice Rohrwacher has a penchant for magical realism. It was there in her 2018 film Happy As Lazzaro, in which mundanity and folklore intertwined, and it is here in the wonderfully Fellini-esque La Chimera, in which an English archaeologist called Arthur (Josh O’Connor) possesses the ability to sense ancient tombs. It is not a gift he uses for study, however. Instead, he leads a band of squabbling Italian grave-robbers, who make their money by selling rare Etruscan artefacts – left as tributes for the dead – on the black market. Set in the ‘80s, the film has a dreamy, meandering quality, befitting the grieving Arthur’s…

▶ RELEASED 23 MAY 15 | 97 minutes ▶ Director Zarrar Kahn ▶ Cast Ramesha Nawal, Omar Javaid, Bakhtawar Mazhar, Adnan Shah The era of so-called elevated horror has led to an abundance of metaphors, with many of its lesser entries inserting heavy-handed messaging where the real monster is the patriarchy, the immigration policies, white supremacy etc. While it is easy to now roll your eyes when a horror film like In Flames wears its critique of gender dynamics so clearly on its sleeve, this Pakistani movie – the first to premiere at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in over 40 years – has enough style and mastery of the genre to pull it off. It follows Fariha (Bakhtawar Mazhar), a widow with two children living in Karachi, struggling to make ends…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 96 minutes ▶ Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite ▶ Cast Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, Pilou Asbæk, Masha Mashkova Space-faring scientists dealing with a politically thorny crisis on Earth is not a new concept – see 1984’s 2010: The Year We Make Contact for just one example. Yet like that sequel, ISS arrives at a time when the warlike tendencies feel all too real. Unfortunately for the new film, nothing much else does. Ariana DeBose stars as Dr Kira Foster, a new arrival boarding the titular space station, which initially appears to be a model of cooperation and humanity reaching for something better. Foster is there to conduct experiments on rats, and unfortunate zerogravity-influenced carnage among her subjects is just one unsubtle nod at what is to…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 91 minutes ▶ Directors Ricard Cussó, Tania Vincent ▶ Cast Sam Neill, Anna Torv, Tim Minchin, Jillian Nguyen You’d expect the message of this Australian animation (based on a 2012 videogame) to be “it’s okay to be different”, given that heroine Arkie (Jillian Nguyen) sports an eyepatch, weird stitches and tentacles. And yes, at one point she does come to terms with her strange looks… but it’s easy to miss that bit when there’s so much else going on in its absolute disaster of a screenplay. We land in a world that’s being terrorised by an evil human scientist, Dr Maybee (Sam Neill), who’s draining the sun of its light. He desperately needs the magical healing powers belonging to a giant octopus, Blister (Rob…

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UK/US Apple TV+, streaming now, Wednesdays ▶ Creator Blake Crouch ▶ Cast Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga, Jimmi Simpson EPISODES 1.01-1.09 Ever felt like you are your own worst enemy? Be grateful you’re not physics professor Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), for whom that is literally the case. Based on a 2016 novel by Wayward Pines creator Blake Crouch – who also acts as the lead writer here – it’s a popular thriller take on quantum mechanics. Don’t worry: once you’ve grasped the basic concept, you won’t be required to stretch your brain too much. Abducted by a masked figure, Dessen wakes up to find himself in a facility that’s home to a large cube which, once entered, can place a human in superposition – existing simultaneously in more than…

ORPHAN BLACK: ECHOES Season One

UK ITVX, streaming from 16 May ▶ Creator Anna Fishko ▶ Cast Krysten Ritter, Keeley Hawes, Amanda Fix, Rya Kihlstedt EPISODES 1.01-1.10 Hands up, Orphan Black fans who heard about this and thought, “It’ll suck without Tatiana Maslany!” You were almost right. Orphan Black was a decent sci-fi series elevated to legend status by Maslany’s extraordinary multiple performances. Orphan Black: Echoes is just a decent sci-fi series. That’s not to diminish the still-formidable talents of the cast here, however – most notably Keeley Hawes. With the show set 40-odd years in the future, she plays Kira, the grown-up daughter of clone Sarah, who’s perfected 3D-printing organs to heal people. She’s also figured out how to print full humans – as Lucy (Krysten Ritter) discovers after waking up with no memory in…

ORPHAN BLACK: ECHOES Season One

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES Season One

UK/US Netflix, streaming now ▶ Showrunners Steve Yockey, Beth Schwartz ▶ Cast Jayden Revri, George Rexstrew, Kassius Nelson, Yuyu Kitamura EPISODES 1.01-1.08 When is a spin-off not really a spin-off? When it’s Dead Boy Detectives, a sparky, funny, odd show that started life as an offshoot from Doom Patrol before being reworked to fit into Netflix’s Sandman universe. It makes sense – the titular tecs were created as bit-part characters for a single issue of Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece – but the links between the shows are few and far between. Tonally, Dead Boy Detectives sits somewhere between Riverdale and Buffy, with a dash of The Hardy Boys. Charles (Jayden Revri) and Edwin (George Rexstrew) are two ghosts who solve supernatural mysteries while trying to avoid being moved along to the…

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES Season One

FALLOUT Season One

▶ UK/US Prime Video, streaming now ▶ Showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Graham Wagner ▶ Cast Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins, Moisés Arias EPISODES 1.01-1.08 The much-anticipated Fallout adopts the setting – though not any precise plot – of the videogame series which began in 1997. In 2077, an alternate version of Earth has developed where personal robots and rudimentary computers are commonplace, but where the culture is still firmly stuck in the ’50s – and the Cold War has never gone away. Inevitably the H-bomb is dropped, devastating the USA. Those who are rich enough retreat to underground Vaults, forever trapped in a kitsch retro-future, while in the irradiated Wasteland above, society bloodily re-evolves, Mad Max-style. Set 200 years later, season one tells the intertwined story of three main protagonists.…

FALLOUT Season One

STAR WARS: TALES OF THE EMPIRE

▶ UK/US Disney+, streaming now ▶ Creator Dave Filoni ▶ Cast Diana Lee Inosanto, Meredith Salenger, Lars Mikkelsen, Jason Isaacs EPISODES 1.01-1.06 Tales Of The Jedi’s six shorts plugged a few gaps in the backstories of Count Dooku and Ahsoka Tano. This follow-up series repeats the trick for a pair of slightly less familiar Force-wielders, and is arguably more satisfying. The first is Morgan Elsbeth, the Nightsister who helped Grand Admiral Thrawn escape his exile in Ahsoka. All set before her previous screen appearances, this is a story of good intentions turned bad amid the rise of the Empire’s. The better half of the anthology focuses on Barriss Offee, the Padawan who framed Ahsoka in The Clone Wars, and whose fate has been the subject of fevered fan speculation ever since.…

STAR WARS: TALES OF THE EMPIRE

UK Prime Video, streaming now ▶ Creator Daniel Roemer ▶ Cast Russ Russo, Gia Bay, Daniel de Weldon, Haley Noel Bedocs EPISODES 1.01-1.08 First things first: nobody ever deliberately sets out to make a bad TV show. Everyone involved has tried so hard to breathe life into their art, from the writer to the actors to the hair stylist. And so, as we embark upon giving Chaser a good old kicking, know that we’re sad about it… although not that sad, given that we still had to sit through the bloody thing. Our “hero”, Eddi, played by an unforgivably mumbly Russ Russo, is a film editor trying to revive his career while pining for the woman of his dreams, Anabel (Gia Bay). He’s so gormless that once, while talking to…

THEM: THE SCARE

UK/US Prime Video, streaming now ▶ Creator Little Marvin ▶ Cast Deborah Ayorinde, Pam Grier, Luke James, Joshua J Williams EPISODES 1.01-1.08 TV’s most difficult-to-google anthology show returns after a three-year absence with a continued focus on African-American characters and plotting that weds the supernatural to the unpleasant reality of racism. Though a late-stage surprise connects the two seasons, you can enjoy The Scare as a standalone. The migration of black families into white neighbourhoods in the ’50s was the background of the first series; here it’s the 1991 beating of Rodney King by members of the LAPD, whose later acquittal led to widespread rioting. Deborah Ayorinde (previously the mum of the Emory family) is again our lead, this time facing bigotry within the force as Dawn Reeve, a detective…

THEM: THE SCARE

PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES

▶ RELEASED 27 MAY 1965 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Mario Bava ▶ Cast Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Ángel Aranda, Evi Marandi BLU-RAY DEBUT Though it would be foolish to overstate the influence of this Italian sci-fi – it did not inspire a wave of outer-space adventures filmed at Cinecittà Studios – in one respect, it had very significant reverberations, being a key precursor of Alien. Though he was an SF fan (who directed Italy’s first sci-fi movie), Mario Bava is better known for his gothic horrors. While Planet Of The Vampires takes off into space, any fan could instantly identify it as his work, just from the lighting, which often packs red, blue, green and purple into the same frame. Planet Of The Zombies would be a more apt…

PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES

WILLIAM SHATNER: YOU CAN CALL ME BILL

▶ RELEASED 27 MAY 2024 | 12 | Blu-ray/download ▶ Director Alexandre O Philippe Given that documentarian Alexandre O Philippe’s recent subjects include William Friedkin and David Lynch, it may seem surprising that he’s produced a feature-length portrait of William Shatner. However much sci-fi fans adore him, the man who rapped “Rocket Man” is generally not considered a serious figure. You Can Call Me Bill does its best to shift the dial on that by getting “behind the masks” of an actor who, at 93, is inescapably close to the exit – something whose proximity seems to have made him willing to show a little vulnerability. Shatner’s quasi-mystical view of the interconnectedness of all things, expounded here at some length, may raise a Spockian eyebrow – this is James T…

WILLIAM SHATNER: YOU CAN CALL ME BILL

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2024 | 12A | SVOD ▶ Director Weston Razooli ▶ Cast Skyler Peters, Phoebe Ferro, Charlie Stover, Lio Tipton ICON Imagine Wes Anderson tackling one of Ray Bradbury’s most sweet-natured stories and you might just grasp the spirit of this oddball indie. It’s shot on Kodak 16mm film, a statement of intent that earns its own standalone credit in the titles. Not only does this bestow a hipster-friendly aesthetic but those faded colours and grainy haze feel like a canny choice for a film intent on capturing the private universe of children, like a postcard from a half-memory. The slim, whimsical story finds three kids on a mission, searching the Wyoming countryside for a speckled egg needed for the perfect blueberry pie recipe. Along the way…

REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2024 | 12 | SVOD ▶ Director Zack Snyder ▶ Cast Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Elise Duffy NETFLIX The best that can be said of Zack Snyder’s pompous space opera sequel is that it’s trying not to be just more of the same. Unfortunately, it is the same in all the ways that made the first film such a joyless slog – including Snyder’s much-derided use of slow motion (and, indeed, slow motion shots that get even slower motion), which he must surely be employing out of sheer bloodymindedness by now. As everyone knows by now, Rebel Moon is basically another retelling of The Seven Samurai. Part One was the planet-hopping mission to find a bunch of rebels to fight the bad guys. Part…

REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER

A man takes revenge on the doctors who separated him from his deformed conjoined twin in Frank Henenlotter’s cult 1982 horror BASKET CASE (out now). Extras-wise, this Arrow Video release (an Arrow store exclusive) is a big upgrade on Second Sight’s trilogy box set, adding a second commentary, six interview pieces, three shorts and more; it also comes with a poster and booklet. We said: “Has lost little of its raw power… A grotty low-fi gem full of bold ideas.” Ahead of the reboot’s release, why not revisit the original 1994 version of THE CROW (out now), in which a rock musician is resurrected to avenge his fiancee’s death. The one brand new bonus here is a three-part design featurette. It comes with a poster and three postcards. We said:…

BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1981 | 18 | 4K/Blu-ray ▶ Director William Asher ▶ Cast Jimmy McNichol, Susan Tyrrell, Bo Svenson, Marcia Lewis BLU-RAY DEBUT If you sat John Waters down and made him watch all 72 titles on the DPP list, this would surely be his fave. Featuring surely cinema’s only deployment of Chekhov’s pickles, it’s by some distance the campest of the films to earn “video nasty” status. An early gore gag secured that: when a couple’s car runs into a lumber truck, a log knocks the driver’s block off. Otherwise, it’s bewildering to think that this is a film that was subject to seizure by the police – pitched at a hysterical level, it can’t be taken seriously. After coming home to find the aunt who raised…

BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER

▶ RELEASED 20 MAY 2024 | N/A | Download It’s 2039, and a catastrophic loss of trees and plant life has left Earth all but stripped of oxygen. A mother and daughter hold out in a fortified Brooklyn bunker, facing an even more urgent fight for survival when strangers (one played by Milla Jovovich) arrive at their door… Spike Lee protégé Stefon Bristol conjures an empty, rust-hued world that feels like genre cinema processing global lockdown. The film favours Panic Room-style thrills over more intriguing angles, but it’s anchored by its humanity.…

▶ RELEASED 27 MAY 2023 | 18 | Blu-ray When a film’s remade, it’s usually because it was a big success – and another director takes the reins. Neither’s true of this do-over of 2014’s Last Shift. The basics are the same: a rookie cop alone in a decommissioned police station; supernatural weirdness related to a cult. Take two clearly had more money for gruesome effects, giving its jump-scares more punch. But our original verdict still applies: “One freaky thing after another, with diminishing returns.” See you in 2034 for take three? + Extras Trailers.…

THE COFFEE TABLE

▶ RELEASED 20 MAY 2024 | N/A | Download Not a title that promises chills, is it? But explaining its grim significance would ruin this Spanish drama, centred on a bickering middle-aged couple witha newborn baby. Structurally innovative, it’s essentially one long, horribly tense wait for the revelation of a dark secret which the audience are in on from the start. This adds an extra (often bleakly comic) dimension to every conversation. Once the cat’s out of the bag, however, you can’t help feeling that writer/director Caye Casas has pulled his punches.…

THE COFFEE TABLE

HUNT HER KILL HER

▶ RELEASED 27 MAY 2024 | 15 | Blu-ray A female janitor working her first night shift in a factory is terrorised by masked men in this boilerplate horror. Given that she’s a foot shorter than them and clearly runs more slowly, credibility is stretched to breaking point – snapping once she patches up a knife wound with glue and Sellotape. After a rather dull hide-and-seek start, things pick up for the final 15 minutes. But the big twist is guessable the moment you twig that the intruders are disguising their voices. + Extras Deleted scenes; out-takes; trailer.…

HUNT HER KILL HER

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1977 | 12 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Ken Wiederhorn ▶ Cast Peter Cushing, Brooke Adams, Fred Buch, Jack Davidson BLU-RAY DEBUT It’s a backhanded compliment given how limited the field is, but Shock Waves is one of the better Nazi zombie films – perhaps because it’s not what you’d really expect. The opening narration negates the possibility of any real mystery, explaining that during WW2 the SS experimented with creating invincible soldiers. After a tourist party’s boat is damaged by a sinister ghost ship, they fall foul of a unit designed to man U-boats. It’s a pretty silly, under-developed premise. These undead killers are peculiarly keen on lying about submerged in rockpools. Why does ripping off their goggles kill them? And why is there a huge abandoned…

THE BODY STEALERS

▶ RELEASED 20 MAY 1969 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD ▶ Director Gerry Levy ▶ Cast Patrick Allen, George Sanders, Maurice Evans, Hilary Dwyer BLU-RAY DEBUT You don’t get heroes like Bob Megan any more… and it’s probably for the best. So libidinous he makes James Bond look like he’s on bromide, this “ace troubleshooter” seems more interested in hitting on any woman he sees than investigating the case. Played by Patrick Allen, original voice of The X Factor, he’s never found without a cigarette in hand, and undoubtedly stinks of Brut. The case itself is like something from an episode of Department S: NATO parachutists are vanishing in thin air, only their harnesses coming back down to Earth. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the cause is surely extraterrestrial.…

THE BODY STEALERS

YOU LIKE IT DARKER

▶ RELEASED 21 MAY 496 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Stephen King ▶ Publisher Hodder & Stoughton The title of this short story collection is a little misleading, unless you get the reference. And since the reference is to a relatively obscure Leonard Cohen song of the same name, chances are many people won’t. In which case you’d be forgiven for thinking that You Like It Darker is a promise of Stephen King delving further into grisly horror than ever before. Well, no. Okay, there are a couple of deliciously gruesome moments, but this collection is far from a mere scarefest, and that Cohen reference is the clue. The song’s lyrics – framed as a dialogue with God – deal with the songwriter’s acceptance of his own mortality upon turning…

YOU LIKE IT DARKER

THE MINISTRY OF TIME

▶ RELEASED 14 MAY 368 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Kaliane Bradley ▶ Publisher Sceptre There’s a buzz about this one. Well before publication, media outlets began singing its praises, and back in February, a BBC adaptation was announced. The latter brought accusations of plagiarism from Spanish television series Ministerio del Tiempo. In reality, the two have little in common besides the idea of the titular government department. A London civil servant transfers to a top-secret new role, supporting refugees who’ve travelled to the UK not through space, but time. Using an experimental technology, the Ministry has rescued five individuals from various points in the past, in order to study how they adapt – both physically and psychologically – to displacement. Our unnamed narrator’s new housemate is one Commander Graham…

THE MINISTRY OF TIME

▶ RELEASED 16 MAY 448 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Aman J Bedi ▶ Publisher Gollancz Magic, science fiction and Indian culture mingle freely in Aman J Bedi’s ambitious debut novel. His titular heroine Kavithri is a Taemu, once a feared race of berserkers, now despised, poor and brutalised under the rule of the Raayans. Seeking an escape from poverty, Kavithri dreams of passing the examinations to train as a mage – provided she doesn’t die in the attempt. An abundance of ideas competes for space in Bedi’s fast-paced adventure, and he paints his world in strong, bold colours, from evoking the dirt and humidity of the slums to the cruelty of the caste system. What’s less clear is the level of technology in this society, where gas lamps and…

THE FAMILY EXPERIMENT

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 464 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author John Marrs ▶ Publisher Macmillan John Marrs returns to the world of The One and The Marriage Act for his latest slice of near-future speculative fiction. This time the source of the tech-induced angst is the eponymous metaverse-based reality show, in which contestants compete for a cash prize by raising realistic virtual kids. This is a particularly chilling premise. For any parent, the idea that millions of viewers could watch – and comment upon – your child-rearing prowess in real time is the stuff of nightmares. The cost of failure in this contest is painfully high, seeing as everyone but the winners will be powerless to stop the digital child they’ve raised and loved – from infant to adulthood in…

THE FAMILY EXPERIMENT

THE DARK SIDE OF THE SKY

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 368 pages | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Francesco Dimitri ▶ Publisher Titan Books The tricky thing about cults is that their members rarely think they’re in one until it’s far too late – if indeed they ever realise it. The Dark Side Of The Sun centres on the Bastion, a reclusive group in rural Italy that runs the Open Feast, an annual, super-exclusive party. Grieving Charlie comes fleeing the ruins of her old life, while Zoey is there for her own, more cynical reasons. It’s not long, however, before the pair discover that there’s more than just sex and drugs to the Open Feast. There’s magic here, and a desperate plan to save the world from looming disaster. Francesco Dimitri’s third English language novel is an intelligent…

THE DARK SIDE OF THE SKY

STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI – A VISUAL ARCHIVE

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 304 pages | Hardback ▶ Authors Kelly Knox, ST Bende, Clayton Sandell ▶ Publisher Titan Books JW Rinzler’s exhaustive The Making Of Return Of The Jedi felt like the definitive statement, but here’s an altogether breezier behind-the-scenes account. Considerably lighter on detail it may be, but it’s still a well-researched trove of facts and images, covering everything from development to production, posters to merchandise, and even the small-screen Ewok spin-offs long consigned to the Outer Rim of Lucasfilm lore. Some items are presented as stickers, pamphlets or pull-outs: the most imaginative of these is a packet of continuity Polaroids of Rebel troopers; the most shameless a handwritten letter from a 13-year-old Warwick Davis, hoping to blag some action figures off Lucas. The tone is upbeat – Jedi…

STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI – A VISUAL ARCHIVE

▶ RELEASED 6 JUNE 384 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Adrian Tchaikovsky ▶ Publisher Tor Ever wondered what Skynet, the Oracle and other intelligent machines talk about when there are no people listening in? It’s a question at the heart of this entertaining novel, which explores civilisation-ending AI with a very satirical eye. The protagonist of Service Model is Charles, a robot valet whose employment is brought to an abrupt end when he inadvertently murders his wealthy human master. Although Charles can find no record of the dastardly deed in his operating system – and reasons that things can’t be all that bad, seeing as the fatal malfunction has only occurred once – he becomes an artificial person of interest to the automated police force. He’s also befriended by an…

STAR WARS: THE LIVING FORCE

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 432 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author John Jackson Miller ▶ Publisher Del Rey In an echo of the much-derided tax disputes that kickstarted The Phantom Menace, the catalyst for this Star Wars novel – set a year before the prequel trilogy – is Republic budget cuts. Aware that the galactic populace is getting increasingly disillusioned, all 12 members of the Jedi Council embark on a PR mission to a faded world on the edge of Hutt space. But with the criminal gangs in the region proving to be a second-rate (at best) threat, it’s like dispatching the Avengers to open a library. Alas, the likes of Depa Billaba, Eeth Koth and Oppo Rancisis aren’t household names like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, and despite author…

STAR WARS: THE LIVING FORCE

▶ RELEASED 23 MAY 402 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Austin Grossman ▶ Publisher Michael Joseph Having previously dabbled in the art of the superhero novel in 2008’s Soon I Shall Become Invincible, writer Austin Grossman has returned to the world of caped crusaders with his latest book. Fight Me is the tale of Alex Beekman, an ex-member of a teenage superhero team from the ’90s who’s now 40 years old and living a dull life as a college professor. However, when the man who originally gifted him his powers turns up dead, Alex tries to find out why, a search that reunites him with his similarly dysfunctional ex-teammates. Mixed with lengthy flashbacks exploring the team’s formation, Fight Me operates in a similar vein to Grossman’s previous superhero novel, blending…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Hardback ▶ Author Emma Sterner-Radley ▶ Publisher Solaris The snowy streets of 18th century Sweden provide the backdrop for Emma Sterner-Radley’s tale of squabbling assassins. The author puts her own spin on the assassin’s role in fantasy fiction, imagining them as agents of the state who discreetly eliminate threats to public security. Valour and Petrichor, lifelong rivals in the Order of Axsten, are charged with finding and killing Brandquist, leader of the criminal underworld in the city of Vinterstock. One small obstacle: no one knows who Brandquist is or what they look like. The protagonists are an archetypal odd couple: Valour is rowdy, foul-mouthed and libidinous, distracted from her mission by the charms of wealthy socialite Ingrid Rytterdahl, while Petrichor is polite, proper…

THE HOUSE THAT HORROR BUILT

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 336 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Christina Henry ▶ Publisher Titan Books You know that old saw about not meeting your heroes? Harry Adams, the hapless heroine of Christina Henry’s newest chiller, probably should’ve heeded the warning. But she’s desperate for a job to keep a roof over her head, so when a gig comes up cleaning for her favourite horror director, the reclusive Javier Castillo, she takes it. He’s a little strict, and a little too enamoured of his own genius, but the job isn’t too bad… until one of Castillo’s scarier-looking movie props starts taking an interest in Harry. Could it be haunted? Or even possessed? Throwing a horror-obsessed protagonist into a horror story is nothing new, of course, but it is initially fun…

THE HOUSE THAT HORROR BUILT

Our paperback picks this month begin with Ann Leckie’s TRANSLATION STATE ( , out now, Orbit). Set in the author’s Imperial Radch universe, this standalone story sees the lives of three characters intersecting: a translator from the alien Presger species; a diplomat tasked with hunting down a fugitive who’s been missing for over 200 years; and an adopted mechanic desperate to learn about his genetic roots. We said: “There’s a lot going on here, but a linking theme is the idea of identity… A wise, ambitious and darkly funny novel.” The latest of Karen Lord’s Cygnus Beta books, THE BLUE, BEAUTIFUL WORLD ( , 16May, Gollancz) brings together a genius inventor, a beloved celebrity, a young activist and a pop megastar for a first-contact adventure that’s unusually eerie, confusing and…

THE THEATRE OF GLASS AND SHADOWS

▶ RELEASED 23 MAY 386 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Anne Corlett ▶ Publisher Black & White Publishing Immersive theatre is not everyone’s cup of tea. When done well, though – as by UK company Punchdrunk – it’s both utterly mesmerising and deeply disorientating. Anne Corlett’s second novel is set in an alternate-history London, where the Theatre District is literally a law unto itself. A self-governing borough for over 200 years, the District is essentially one big 24/7 theatrical production. To this weird and wonderful place comes orphaned Juliet, in search of the truth about the mother she never knew. The rhythms of the District are clearly inspired by Punchdrunk, with visitors handed masks as they exit the Tube, and performers given to singling out random audience members for sneak…

THE THEATRE OF GLASS AND SHADOWS

HOW TO BECOME THE DARK LORD AND DIE TRYING

▶ RELEASED 23 MAY 448 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Django Wexler ▶ Publisher Orbit Books Your enjoyment of this book will depend on your tolerance for its wacky footnotes. There are millions of the flippin’ things – explaining lore, geography and titbits (pun intended) from the main character’s sexual encounters. The good news is that you can swat them away like wasps if they annoy you and it makes no difference to the plot. Our hero, Davi, is caught in a time loop in a bloodthirsty fantasy world. After being ported over somehow from our own, she’s spent centuries trying to survive by teaming up with the land’s good guys, but to no avail. So, fed up, she decides to rule the kingdom instead by assembling a horde of…

HOW TO BECOME THE DARK LORD AND DIE TRYING

THE DOCTOR WHO PRODUCTION DIARY: THE HARTNELL YEARS

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 668 pages | Paperback ▶ Author David Brunt ▶ Publisher Telos Publishing Here’s the hefty first entry in an ambitious, multi-volume series that aims to chart the entire behind-the-scenes history of classic Doctor Who, day by day if not quite Dalek by Dalek. Assembled from an exhaustive trawl of original paperwork held by the BBC Written Archives Centre, it’s a soberly written, detail-focused insight into the pioneering years of the programme. David Brunt – a former historian of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society – takes everything from internal memos to contract files to taxi receipts and orders it all into diary form, recounting the show’s evolution from the conceptual spark of “a senile old man in a time machine” to the arrival of Patrick Troughton (though…

THE DOCTOR WHO PRODUCTION DIARY: THE HARTNELL YEARS

There’s plenty more titles that we couldn’t fit in. Bookworms will know Cixin Liu as the author of Hugo-winner The Three-Body Problem. One for fans, rather than a jumping-on point, A VIEW FROM THE STARS (out now, Head Of Zeus) is mostly made up of essays about SF, interspersed with interviews and a little short fiction. Edited by Jared Shurin (formerly of geek culture blog Pornokitsch), THE BIG BOOK OF CYBERPUNK VOLUME ONE/VOLUME TWO (out now, Vintage) together run to over 1,000 pages, featuring a total of 108 stories. You can find a full list at bit.ly/bigcyber. Colonisation, betrayal and forgiveness are, apparently, among the themes of Amal Singh’s THE GARDEN OF DELIGHTS (out now, Flame Tree Press). Set in a city where petals are currency and flowers are magic,…

Do you find it helpful to listen to music while writing? ◗ For the first draft, I’ll work in complete silence. It’s easy if I’m at home, but if I’m working elsewhere, I’ll wear noise-reducing headphones but no music comes out of them. For later drafts, I’ll listen to compilations of moodier tracks by Massive Attack, Röyksopp, Sigur Rós, Cigarettes After Sex and The War On Drugs. The more depressing, the better I rewrite. How do you deal with the urge to procrastinate? ◗ With great difficulty! Everything distracts me, from a sudden urge to empty the dishwasher, or to search eBay for a single I once owned in the ‘80s, or painting the garage walls. Which is why I set myself a daily deadline of 2,000 words to write.…

ULTIMATE BLACK PANTHER

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher Marvel Comics ▶ Writer Bryan Hill ▶ Artist Stefano Caselli ISSUES 1-3 If you want a clear example of how big a deal Black Panther has become since the 2017 blockbuster movie, just look at his treatment in both iterations of Marvel’s Ultimate universe. T’Challa did feature in the original Ultimate comics, but only made a handful of appearances and was never given any significant spotlight. By contrast, in Marvel’s rebooted Ultimate-verse, he’s a flagship character in one of the main new ongoing titles. Ultimate Black Panther is also the closest that the new Ultimate universe has got to the original’s goal: giving new readers a relatively accessible jumping-on point. The complex details of this reboot universe are mostly kept in the background in these…

ULTIMATE BLACK PANTHER

ROBOT ARCHIE AND THE TIME MACHINE

▶ RELEASED 23 MAY ▶ Publisher Rebellion ▶ Writer Ted Cowan ▶ Artists Ted Kearon, Mike Western COLLECTION A walking mechanical marvel with superstrength and a dazzling electronic brain, Robot Archie never felt lacking in the gimmick department. In 1968, boys’ weekly Lion gave him a fresh twist all the same, in the form of his very own time machine – disguised, for reasons that resist the tyranny of logic, as a giant chess piece. This writ-dodging TARDIS rip-off is essentially a random plot generator, a means to fling Archie and his human chums Ted and Ken across the centuries. Most of the resulting adventures are straight historical romps, pitting the “Amazing Metal Man” against knights, dinosaurs and highwaymen. “Archie kiddeth you not!” he declares, blending into Ye Olde England.…

ROBOT ARCHIE AND THE TIME MACHINE

BEWARE THE PLANET OF THE APES

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher Marvel Comics ▶ Writers Marc Guggenheim, Doug Moench ▶ Artists Alvaro Lopez, Alfredo Alcala, George Tuska ISSUES 1-4 While the new movie is set during the apes’ early days as dominant species on Earth, this four-parter takes place on the cusp of the 1968 film. Integrating material from 1975’s Adventures On The Planet Of The Apes, Marc Guggenheim cleverly weaves extracts from the first movie adaptation into the story: sometimes as extended dream sequences; other times incorporating a single panel into the main narrative. The original illustrations provide an earthy contrast with the cleaner linework of Alvaro Lopez’s modern-day art. Bringing together classic characters, Guggenheim impressively brings to life deaf mute Nova, who finds her voice for the first time thanks to Ivana, psychic leader…

BEWARE THE PLANET OF THE APES

THE ONE HAND/THE SIX FINGERS

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher Image Comics ▶ Writers Ram V/Dan Watters ▶ Artists Laurence Campbell/Sumit Kumar ISSUES 1-3 Crossovers don’t have to be limited to superhero comics – they can turn up anywhere, including this pair of interlocking sci-fi thrillers from Image Comics. Crafted by two separate creative teams, but very much telling one combined story, The One Hand and The Six Fingers give us a dark futuristic thriller reminiscent of classic serial killer movie Seven. Both stories are set in the futuristic metropolis of Neo Novena. The One Hand focuses on police officer Ari, as a bizarre murder revives a decades-old serial killer case he thought was solved. As Ari investigates, his sense of reality starts fracturing. The Six Fingers makes things even stranger, following a character who…

THE ONE HAND/THE SIX FINGERS

BENEATH THE TREES WHERE NOBODY SEES

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher IDW Publishing ▶ Writer/artist: Patrick Horvath ISSUES 1-5 In a few months, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees has gone from being just another indie comic created by a relative newcomer – writer and artist Patrick Horvath – to IDW’s biggest-selling title outside of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. It’s easy to see why, and we suspect this book will have a long life past its initial six-issue run. Samantha is an anthropomorphic bear living in Woodbrook, a quaint town full of other talking animals. She’s also a serial killer, although she doesn’t practise her trade here, preferring to visit the big city to indulge in her crimes. Unfortunately for Sam, however, there’s another murderer in town – a situation that forces her into the…

BENEATH THE TREES WHERE NOBODY SEES

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Reviewed on PlayStation 5 ▶ Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment VIDEOGAME On hearing the pitch “uber-capable warrior women from space descend to a post-apocalyptic Earth to kick arse and take names”, you’d be forgiven for expecting a bit of a romp – something a little sexy, maybe a touch campy. Unfortunately, this action RPG absolutely stacks it in its sci-fi heels. For a start, that premise is played deadly straight. You’ll see the story’s twists coming light years off, and the script seems totally uninterested in having even a little bit of fun with that. There are few bright ideas here, the levels you pelt through with a gazelle-like gait offering little beyond rehashing genre heavy-hitters Nier: Automata and Bayonetta in terms of both environment and…

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Running time 58 minutes ▶ Format Radio (now on BBC Sounds) ▶ Publisher Radio Four AUDIO DRAMA “I am not a man,” declares alien exile Thomas Jerome Newton in the opening moments of Radio Four’s adaptation of Walter Tevis’s novel. “But I am like a man.” It feels like a mission statement. Nicolas Roeg brought Newton to the screen in the suitably extraterrestrial form of David Bowie, a choice that played to the power of his star’s uncanny iconography while keeping the audience one step removed from Tevis’s strange interstellar visitor. Radio gives us an altogether more knowable and sympathetic protagonist, one who makes conspiratorial asides to the listener. A softly spoken Harry Treadaway unlocks the puzzle of Newton for us. It’s an earnest performance, vulnerable,…

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH

LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ 56 minutes | Download/vinyl/CD ▶ Publisher Pocket Universe Productions AUDIO DRAMA The Lon Chaney vehicle London After Midnight (1927) is one of the most famous lost films – the last known surviving print destroyed in a fire in 1965. Chaney’s gruesome make-up for the pop-eyed, pointy-toothed and possibly vampiric Man in the Beaver Hat was one of his most iconic. This version is based on the original screenplay – which differs in some details from the final continuity script. Adapting a silent film for audio is an odd idea really, especially one where Chaney’s artistry was the main draw. It certainly wasn’t the plotting, accurately described as “incoherent” and “nonsensical” by contemporary critics. The thread becomes even harder to follow here – in the absence of…

LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT

▶ RELEASED 24 APRIL ▶ Reviewed on PS5 ▶ Also on Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PC ▶ Publisher Bandai Namco VIDEOGAME Blazing through a scorching desert in bikes, tanks, cars and bipedal mechs with machine guns is a truckload of fun in Sand Land, the action-RPG adaptation of Dragonball creator Akira Toriyama’s 2000 manga series, but it can only ride the high for so long. “Every match-up can be brute-forced using the tank’s superior firepower” The demon prince Beelzebub is recruited by Sheriff Rao to bring water back to the wasteland, and so we venture out into the derelict world as the former on an uncharacteristically noble quest, in which fiend and human learn to respect one another. It’s charming stuff, but after a dozen or so hours the characters…

HEROES: THE BRITISH INVASION OF AMERICAN COMICS

▶ RUNNING UNTIL 20 OCTOBER ▶ Venue The Cartoon Museum, Fitzrovia, London EXHIBITION Ranging from WW Denslow’s curious 1901 proto-superhero Billy Bounce to Rachael Stott’s 2022 work on Fantastic Four, The Cartoon Museum’s latest exhibition encompasses over a century of comic art from both sides of the Atlantic. Aiming to demonstrate how British and American creators have influenced one another over time, it has plenty of interest, although it struggles to coalesce as a whole. While it features some obvious material, such as pages from Watchmen and V For Vendetta, there are also plenty of lesser-known gems, such as John “Jock” McCall illustrating Tom Dare’s adventures for 1949’s Slick Fun, or John Stokes’s fine art from Valiant’s 1972 UK Star Trek strip. Most impressive: Brian Bolland’s pencil breakdowns for his…

HEROES: THE BRITISH INVASION OF AMERICAN COMICS

QUESTION 1 According to Strange New Worlds, in which African country was Nyota Uhura born? QUESTION 2 The 1992 horror film Dust Devil is set predominantly in Namibia. Name the director. QUESTION 3 Who wrote the 2016 novel Rosewater, in which an agent with psychic powers investigates a mysterious alien dome in Nigeria? QUESTION 4 Picture Question Supply the title that’s been removed from this film poster. QUESTION 5 In which country did location shooting take place for the scenes in Star Wars featuring the Lars family moisture farm? QUESTION 6 What’s the connection between these TV series? Charlie Jade, Outcasts, Raised By Wolves and The Watch. QUESTION 7 Birnin Zana is the capital city of which country? QUESTION 8 Picture Question In which film would you find this African boy?…

Shock Theatre Cards

In 1976 the dank air of a Transylvanian tomb wafted into British newsagents. There, among the chocolate, sherbet and chews, lurked the gore-drenched delights of Shock Theatre bubblegum cards. Not that any kid ever cared about the stale wedge of chewable rubber and artificial flavouring tucked into every packet. Each black, waxy wrapper bore the likeness of Christopher Lee as the king of the vampires, blood dripping from his chops as he declared “Sure doesn’t taste like tomato juice!” It was a line that would never have troubled Lee’s imperious lips – the script would have been flung in the director’s face – but it set the tone for what waited inside. The cards were illustrated with publicity stills from such Hammer movies as The Satanic Rites Of Dracula, Dracula…

Shock Theatre Cards

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