Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 165 i SciFi Now

FOLLOWING 2015’S FEAR The Walking Dead, the third series instalment in theTWD franchise is getting ready to pack up and leave once again for a look at a brand-new community. Unusually, the new series still doesn’t have a title, but it’s set to follow the first generation to come of age in the zombie apocalypse. However, we expect the cast of teenagers to have to contend with much more than regular growing pains. According to the series’ synopsis, some will become heroes, some will become villains, but in the end all of them will be changed forever. For a better idea of what’s to come we speak with the show’s creators, including The Walking Dead producer Scott M Gimple and series showrunner Matthew Negrete. After growing up since the start…

Just who – or what? – is the ‘Skywalker’ that’s rising in this film? Here are all the possible options: LEIA She may have taken the surname of her adoptive father, but Leia is a Skywalker by blood. The title could refer to her, and to the way the Resistance rises under her leadership. KYLO REN As Leia’s son, Kylo Ren is the other Skywalker still knocking around. The title could refer to his rise to evil power – or possibly hint at a redemption arc. LUKE He’s dead, but, to paraphrase Obi Wan, striking Luke down will only make him – and the ideals he stood for – even more powerful. REY She’s Luke’s apprentice, and also views Leia as a mentor. Rey is, in many ways, the character…

MORTAL KOMBAT Put aside those nostalgic memories of the fun but kind of terrible 1995 movie and Christopher Lambert. James Wan is producing the new take on the classic arcade fighting game and we’ve been promised an R-rating and faithful fatalities. Supergirl’s Mehcad Brooks is Jax, Hiroyuki Sanada is Scorpion and the brilliant Tadanobu Asano is Raiden. TOMB RAIDER 2 We were hoping that Alicia Vikander would get to play Lara Croft again after 2018’s very solid and surprisingly fun reboot, so we’re delighted that none other than Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump are on board to direct and write her next adventure. With the reset fully accomplished, hopefully there’ll be a bit more actual tomb raiding this time. HALO After years of failed attempts to turn it into a…

1897 HG Wells’ The War Of The Worlds begins its serialisation in Pearson’s Magazine. 1898 Wells’ full book is published in its complete form. 1938 Orson Welles’ radio adaptation causes some Americans to believe that an alien invasion has actually happened. 1950 The BBC’s first radio adaptation of the book. 1953 The first big-screen adaptation of the book, directed by Byron Haskin. 1978 Jeff Wayne releases his musical version of The War Of The Worlds, a rock opera. 1979 An arcade game by Cinematronics becomes the first videogame adaptation of The War Of The Worlds. 1988 The first TV adaptation of the book, although really it was a sequel to the 1953 film. It lasted two seasons. 2002 The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 2 features Wells’ Martians as the…

The Three Body Problem is the opening of the trilogy that bears the same name, also known as Remembrance Of Earth’s Past. It’s definitely a natural place to start, though the novels get better and better, and certainly the scale becomes mind-shattering. A mysterious game reveals the possibility that an alien civilisation is monitoring human activity, perhaps with the aid of a subversive group. The Wandering Earth is a collection of Cixin Liu’s shorter works and gives a far more varied view of the breadth of his vision and talent. There’s hilarious satire, child-like fables, intriguing thought experiments, alien visitations and apocalyptic scenarios. The last is best illustrated by the eponymous novella about a mission to turn the earth into an interstellar space ship to evade the explosion of the…

Release 22 Nov (cinemas), 29 Nov (Netflix) Director Jérémy Clapin Cast Hakim Faris, Victoire Du Bois, Patrick d’Assumçao Distributor Netflix Certificate 15 Format Adapted from a novel by co-screenwriter Guillaume Laurant (Amélie), I Lost My Body is the feature debut of Jérémy Clapin, a man known for directing animated shorts with odd premises. One example is Skhizein (2008), in which a person who has been struck by a meteorite has to adjust to living 91 centimetres from himself. I Lost My Body is also concerned with displacement. From the title, one might expect a story similar to David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, with a phantasm dealing with (after)life after death. But while I Lost My Body has a similar melancholy tone, it focuses on a still alive human and his…

Release Out now Director Tony Giglio Cast Amy Manson, Dominic Mafham, Luke Allen-Gale, James Weber Brown Distributor Universal Certificate 15 Format Given that it was presumably made to hold onto the rights to the videogame franchise, it’s fair to say that we approached Doom: Annihilation with some caution and, while it is certainly not the best DTV sequel we have ever seen, it’s far from the worst. Writer-director Tony Giglio keeps things quite simple (a security team is dispatched to a base on Mars only to find that the facility’s teleportation system has let monsters through) and after a surprisingly decent start we are unfortunately then back to the familiar business of bickering badasses shooting a lot of horrible creatures along an endless series of corridors. In fact, a little…

Release 11 November Director William McGregor Cast Maxine Peake, Eleanor Worthington Cox, Richard Harrington Distributor Bulldog Films Certificate 15 Format Set in 19th Century Snowdonia, Gwen successfully invokes many of the feelings it’s clearly going for: claustrophobia, bleakness, sorrow… Boredom probably wasn’t on the list, but it does a good job of inspiring that, too. Like a lot of great films, Gwen makes you work for the payout with a slow, suspenseful build-up. But the payout here is almost nonexistent. It definitely has a nasty ending (no spoilers there – it’s obvious from the start), but there’s not enough depth of character or story before it to make you really care about the outcome. Great performances from the cast and the intriguing production design keep the film from drowning, but…

Release Out now Showrunner Gray Haddock Cast Michael B Jordan, Dakota Fanning, Golshifteh Farahani, Maisie Williams, Koichi Yamadera Distributor Warner Bros Home Entertainment Certificate 15 Format At first glance, Rooster Teeth’s Gen:Lock seems worryingly easy to size up. You’ve got your mis-matched team, your evil invaders (The Union) intent on absorbing everyone and everything and you’ve got a bunch of giant badass mech suits that our heroes will have to psychically link with using the titular tech if they want to turn the tide of the war. However, although the first episode is a little pedestrian (with the exception of the well-animated combat sequences), things really do pick up once the gang gets together and the plot kicks in. While creator Gray Haddock’s love of anime is very much in…

Release Out now Writer Tasha Suri Publisher Orbit Price £8.99 Picking up roughly ten years after the events ofEmpire Of Sand, Tasha Suri’sRealm Of Ashis a dazzling sequel that has the same epic scope and intimate feel, and feels much more confident in its storytelling. This follow-up is the story of Arwa (Mehr’s younger sister who we met as a child in Empire Of Sand), who arrives at a sanctuary for widows following the death of her military commander husband. She alone escaped the terrible massacre of Darez Fort and her new companions have a lot of questions about how exactly she managed to do that… Arwa isn’t telling, because she has the same Amrithi blood as her sister and knows that her gifts could see her executed as a…

Release 9 November Writers Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu Publisher Simon & Schuster Price £7.99 Magnus Bane has always been Cassandra Clare’s greatest creation. In all of her Shadow World stories, the centuries-old, bisexual, cat-eyed warlock stands out as the most interesting character – and sometimes, the only interesting part of the books, full stop. So perhaps it was inevitable that he’d eventually get his own spin-off trilogy. The Red Scrolls Of Magic is the first of three planned Magnus-centric books, but unfortunately, it makes for a seriously underwhelming start. Set concurrently with the events of City Of Fallen Angels, the fourth of the original Mortal Instruments series, this book sees Magnus head off on a tour of Europe with his new Shadowhunter boyfriend Alec Lightwood (if none of this…

Release Out now Writer Justin Lee Anderson Publisher King Lot Publishing Price £12.99 When The Lost War begins, the battle should be over. There’s a tenuous peace, but the kingdom of Eidyn is still on fire with demons and zombie-esque Reivers roaming around, and the threat of dark magic and the influence of the imprisoned draoidh, Mynygogg, is lurking just out of sight. So when Aranok, the draoidh who helped secure the peace and serves as King’s Envoy, is told by his master to take a carefully chosen team to escort an exiled foreign queen across country, it’s easier said than done. Especially when they discover that things are a lot worse outside the city walls… This epic fantasy, the first in a new series by Justin Lee Anderson, settles…

JUST IN TIME for your Christmas gift list, The Folio Society has announced four beautiful new editions of four very different genre classics. There’s Jin Yong’s glorious wuxia epic A Hero Born, the first instalment in his record-breaking series. Following its editions of The Left Hand Of Darkness and A Wizard Of Earthsea, Folio has tackled another of Ursula K Le Guin’s greatest novels with The Dispossessed. There’s Diana Wynne Jones’ beloved fantasy Howl’s Moving Castle (adapted into a film by Studio Ghibli), and a beautifully bold new edition of The Phantom Of The Opera by Gaston Laroux. Each of these novels are distinctly different but each plunges the reader into a gloriously vivid, bewitching world, and each comes with beautiful artwork. A Hero Born, which follows a young hero’s…

PROM NIGHT (PAUL LYNCH, 1980) A good leading performance from Jamie Lee Curtis gives this surprisingly talky Eighties slasher staple a little more life than many of its closest cousins from the era. The mandatory slasher scenes range from overwrought (a lengthy chase around a deserted high school seems to go on forever) to brilliantly bloody (a conclusive beheading). Unlike Halloween, this goes to great lengths to kill its murderer at the end – making a sequel a strange proposition… HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II (BRUCE PITTMAN, 1987) Carrie-inspired supernatural shocks abound in this excellent in-name-only successor. Hello Mary Lou is the best of the Prom Night franchise and one of the finest and most underrated late Eighties horror movies (really – you need to see this film). This…

Q. Which Star Wars character or story do you want to have its own movie/show? JONATHAN HATFULL EDITOR A. Bor Gullet It doesn’t have to only be about Bor Gullet but I have questions about his allegiances, agenda, how Bor ended up with Saw... ABIGAIL CHANDLER DEPUTY EDITOR A. Chirrut Îmwe More Force-worshipping warrior monks please! POPPY-JAY PALMER NEWS EDITOR A. Poe Dameron Just Poe, BB-8 and a TIE fighter exploring the galaxy and charming the locals for maybe six seasons. MARCUS FAINT ART EDITOR A. The Jedi Academy Think Grange Hill, with lightsabers… Now try and tell me that doesn’t sound like a recipe for success! RACHAEL HARPER SUB EDITOR A. DJ A heist movie with crafty DJ and wily Maz Kanata taking on…

There’s no ignoring the weight of cinematic history towering over Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker. While further Star Wars films and TV shows are in the works, this film will draw a close to the Skywalker Saga that we’ve been following since 1977’s A New Hope. Rather than ignoring the weight, the film is drawing attention to it, with a trailer that guides us through iconic moments from the franchise’s history, before ending with the Rey vs Kylo Ren battle that’s been brewing for the last two instalments. And why not embrace the saga’s history? It would be impossible to do anything else, given how invested the film’s fanbase is in the Skywalker family and their assorted allies and enemies across the galaxy. Will the Resistance triumph…

The Witcher doesn’t really have casual fans. Whether you’re a devotee of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books or obsessed with the videogames, if this is a world that you know, then you’ve spent months, rather than hours, at a time in it. This is a world of monsters, both human and not, filled with darkness and light, blood and wit, and drama that compels you to stick around. It’s a world that reaches out and grabs you by the throat, demanding your attention. For Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, bringing The Witcher to Netflix has been a passion project years in the making and the end is finally in sight. “It feels amazing,” grins showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich when we catch up with her in a rare quiet moment before a panel on the…

Peter Harness had a big problem when it came to adapting The War Of The Worlds: its famous ending. If you don’t know the ending look away now. “I think, considering germs were quite a new idea when [Wells] wrote it, the idea that the Martians get killed off by our germs is brilliant. [But] it’s not very dramatic.” He says that there’s “nothing cosy about” the original book, so he didn’t want to go for a cosy ending where the aliens catch a cold and decide to leave Earth alone, and the British Empire continues to thrive. “I was keen that it would have a more lasting effect, and a much more lasting effect on history. So I think that’s my big invention,” he says, while also stating his…

The Sea Is Ours: Tales Of Steampunk Southeast Asia – edited by Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng This is a wonderful anthology of tales set across the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. Explosions and revolutionaries abound as does clockwork technology, spider battles, magical realism and volcano-powered flying ships. As with all collections, some of these stories are funny, some thrilling, and a few are heartbreaking. Everfair – Nisi Shawl On the surface this is the stor y of the peoples of Congo escaping the grasp of Leopold II of Belgium and forging the new nation of Everfair. But it’s so much more! Peopled by a vastly diverse cast of characters this deceptively small book spans decades and delves into issues of colonialism, racism, religion, sexism and gender identities. The…

SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER (2003) The Spy Kids save the world from Sylvester Stallone using nothing but their gaming skills and the third dimension. GAMER (2009) Michael C Hall controls other humans with computer programming as Gerald Butler tries to stop him in this monstrosity of a film. WRECK-IT RALPH (2012) Disney’s animation plays on all the classic videogame tropes and characters while making them its own. PIXELS (2015) This Eighties turd of a film may have been inspired by a number of videogames but none of them had Adam Sandler in them. READY PLAYER ONE (2018) A Chosen One adopts an avatar for a quest in this videogame film based on a book based on an entire decade. BLACK MIRROR, ‘BANDERSNATCH’ (2018) It’s not technically a film but…

Release Out now Directors Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon Cast Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard Distributor Universal Certificate PG The Addams family’s first feature-length animated adventure sees newlyweds Gomez (Isaac) and Morticia (Theron) move to an isolated gothic house in order to raise a family away from pitchfork-wielding villagers. However, their privacy is threatened years later when a town is built on their doorstep, and they’re forced to integrate with the neighbours, all while preparing for a visit from their extended family. The characters are all true to form, and the film plays them broad (sometimes a little too broad, in the case of Uncle Fester), but the character design work is wonderful, and very faithful to the original comic strips. As with all versions of The…

Release 18 November Directors Carl Boese, Paul Wegener Cast Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Lyda Salmonova, Ernst Deutsch Distributor Eureka Entertainment Certificate PG Format One of the earliest iconic works of horror cinema, Der Golem ispresented here in the closest thing to a definitive version, using elements of different available prints restored in dazzling 4K (the Blu-ray also includes the shortened US cut). The quality of the footage is the most immediately breathtaking element of Eureka’s new release of this; Paul Wegener’s third attempt at filming the Golem story, but there’s so much to enjoy here. Genre fans more familiar with The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, for example, will appreciate it as an early work of German expressionism, with glorious sets and make-up design. It’s also a story of great resonance,…

Release Out now Director John Landis Cast David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine Distributor Arrow Video Certificate 18 Format Beware the moon. John Landis’ An American Werewolf In London is nearly 40 years old and remains not only the greatest werewolf film ever, but arguably the best blend of horror and comedy. The transition between the two still dazzles as much as Rick Baker’s prosthetics work (also the high watermark of the genre), and the film will still make you laugh, shiver and break your heart as poor David discovers that the thing that attacked him and his late friend Jack on the Yorkshire moors was a werewolf and that he will turn into a monster on the full moon unless he takes drastic action. If you’ve never…

The Deathless Girls “A YA take on the brides of Dracula - very much into the idea of going into that world but from a different angle! #BookClub” @SarahDobbs The Graveyard Book “Desperate to reread Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book for Halloween! #BookClub” @PasmineJalmer The Institute “The Institute by Stephen King. #BookClub” @mark280smith Alien: Prototype “Next up for me is Alien: Prototype by @timwaggoner which should keep me busy until Resistance Reborn by @RoanhorseBex arrives. #BookClub” @Rozza1210 My Dead And Blackened Heart “by Andrew Freudenberg, an excellent collection of quiet and extreme horror. #BookClub” @GNHorror…

“Almost halfway into Moon by James Herbert. Different to some of his others-less gore though not a subtle ghost tale either. #BookClub” @ParsonsFiction “Paper Girls Vol 1. Another great series by Brian K Vaughn. #BookClub” @Jbarnes532 “From Byfleet To The Bush, the autobiography of Jacqueline Pearce, Servalan from Blake’s 7 and many other things (including Hammer Horror). It’s not the kind of thing I normally pick up but it’s a very good read. #BookClub” @JonnBlanchard “Just finished Ormeshadow by Priya Sharma from @torbooks Big fan of novellas and this is a wonderful example of the form. #BookClub” @Rozza1210 “Artemis by Andy Weir. And I’m enjoying it. Feels like it could be real, which I enjoy in SciFi. #BookClub” @ChrisHatch “Just done all of @PhilipPullman‘s #HisDarkMaterials trilogy and about an hour…

Release Out now Writer Peter F Hamilton Publisher Macmillan Price £20 Salvation Lost picks up where its predecessor finished. In the 23rd Century, the Olyix have begun their invasion of humanity, hoping to harvest humans for their religious quest to the end of the universe. In the future, what remains of humanity is still fighting against the Olyix, dealing with the ramifications of those trying to save humanity back in the 23rd Century. In the 23rd Century, Peter F Hamilton grants us a look at an alien invasion in real time, using various perspectives to show the different reactions of those experiencing it. There are people watching it unfold on TV, dispassionately betting on how long city shields would last. Or people who rekindle relationships in the face of the…

ORCA: THE KILLER WHALE (1977) The audacity of Dino De Laurentiis trying to replicate Jaws with a killer whale! However, Bo Derek’s leg-severing scene is still tough to watch and Ennio Morricone’s score is something to marvel. PIRANHA (1978) Once lined up to helm the ultimately discarded parody ‘Jaws 3 People O’, Joe Dante directed what Spielberg claimed was his favourite Jaws rip-off, where the predators’ teeth are as sharp as John Sayles’ satirical script. RAZORBACK (1984) The Aussies had fun with the formula too, with a ginormous animatronic wild boar threatening the Outback and Bill Kerr in the grizzled hunter role. The inspirational MTV visuals are a scream too. DEEP BLUE SEA (1999) What’s not to love about this fun thriller that isolates scientists on an underwater facility with…

As Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen approaches its halfway point, it’s beginning to reveal some of its cards. We now know that Jeremy Irons’ ‘Lord of the Manor’ is actually Adrian Veidt, the former Ozymandias and the chief villain of the original comic, and that his servants, Miss Crookshanks and Mr Phillips, played by Sleepy Hollow actor Tom Mison, are a legion of clones. Mison tells us that he approached the role “as if they’re toddlers trying to please the master, and trying to learn as quickly as they can, before they get squashed or burnt or stabbed”. It’s fair to say that poor Phillips meets a number of violent ends at the hands of Veidt, and that, according to Mison: “Jeremy seems to enjoy it more and more!” A fan of…

1 DREAMS DO COME TRUE After spending his life collecting comics, actor David Dastmalchian is getting the chance to pen his own. “I’ve loved comics my entire life but I never imagined I would be lucky enough to get to write my own,” he tells us. “When the opportunity came my wife chuckled because I’ve had so many dream jobs. She said she’d never seen me like this. I couldn’t sleep at night for joy! I was up writing, cutting and pasting old comic books and finding all of my inspiration imagery.” 2 INSPIRATION Count Crowley, published by Dark Horse Comics, follows TV journalist Jerri Bartman as she returns to her small hometown to host the nightly Creature Feature. But she gets a lot more than she bargained for upon…

When poor health forced Peter Mayhew to step down from the role of Chewbacca – a role he’d played since 1977 – Joonas Suotamo took over the role of the Wookie. The Finnish actor jokes that his childhood, spent in a country where half the households have saunas, prepared him for the physical challenges of the role. “It was a good preschool for playing Chewbacca because when you’re wearing the costume it can be sweaty.” Despite Chewie being a giant rug that only speaks in roars and shrugs, Suotamo did his research to make sure his performance fitted seamlessly with Mayhew’s. “I was watching The Empire Strikes Back and everything that Chewbacca does when he’s not the centre of attention was important to me. I wanted to learn the essence…

When you’re adapting anything, you’re going to get some pushback from the fan base. Whether it’s based on a book, game or old film, every property has the die-hards who know exactly what it should be and no adaptation will ever match that vision exactly. One of the great things about watching The Witcher come together has been seeing just how open Schmidt Hissrich has been about the process and how willing she is to engage with the fans. “I love interacting with fans; probably a bit too much for everyone’s taste around here!” she laughs. “There’s nothing more that I love than getting on Twitter and talking directly to the fan base. To me, I really wanted to access their enthusiasm and their excitement for this. I think a…

“It’s the most action-packed season yet... This is The Man In The High Castle firing on all cylinders and we’re going out with a bang”Jason O’Mara We’ve had to wait for it, but the grand finale to epic alternate history The Man In The High Castle is nearly upon us. After three seasons of manoeuvring through nightmarish possible pasts, mind-bending SF and complex characterisation, the adaptation of Philip K Dick’s classic ended its penultimate run with a bang. Nazi leader John Smith (Rufus Sewell) has other worlds at his fingertips as resistance leader Juliana (Alexa Davalos) races to stop him (although which world she’s currently in is a question we need answering ASAP). “I think the writers knew pretty early on that this would be the last season so they…

With a filmmaking mind filled with twists and turns, M Night Shyamalan has repeatedly proven his work to be staple viewing among genre lovers everywhere. From The Sixth Sense and The Village to more recent mind-benders like The Visit, Split and Glass, Shyamalan knows how to keep an audience at the edge of their seats. Apple TV+ clearly trusts in the power of Shyamalan, too: the new streamer is set to launch Servant, his first TV project since Wayward Pines, this November in its first crop of content. Created by British writer Tony Basgallop, who also serves as an executive producer alongside Shyamalan, Servant follows Dorothy and Sean (played by Lauren Ambrose and Toby Kebbell respectively), a Philadelphia couple mourning the death of their infant child. Pretty depressing already. But…

Release 26 November Director Hiroyuki Imaishi Cast Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Taichi Saotome, Masato Sakai, Rikiya Koyama, Ayane Sakura Distributor Anime Limited Certificate TBC The opening of Promare establishes that the sudden combustion of various people across the globe caused severe damage to the world. This was the first appearance of the Burnish, a race of hitherto unknown mutant beings with the ability to wield flames. Thirty years later, a firefighting mecha service, Burning Rescue, has been created to put a stop to similar catastrophes. The arrival of a new group of aggressive mutants known as ‘Mad Burnish’ sets up a conflict between its leader, Lio Fotia, and over-eager firefighter Galo Thymos, but all is not quite as it seems and the fate of the planet is at stake. Launched in 2011,…

Release Out now Director Ciarán Foy Cast Charlie Shotwell, Kelly Reilly, Max Martini, Lili Taylor Distributor Netflix Certificate 15 Format Originally set for a theatrical release by Paramount, Eli, the latest chiller fromCitadel and Sinister 2 director Ciarán Foy was instead given a seasonal release from Netflix and, in retrospect, it’s easy to see how the movie would have be quite tricky to market. It is a contained and fairly low-key story for the most part, about a young boy (played by Charlie Shotwell) who will die if he is exposed to any non-sanitary environment, who then travels along with his parents to Lili Taylor’s mansion-style hospital for a potential miracle cure. But all is not quite as it seems… There are, of course, some pretty big twists coming in…

Release Out now Director Roland Emmerich Cast Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Ally Walker, Ed O’Ross Distributor Studiocanal Certificate 18 Format For those of us who treasure memories of renting this sci-fi actioner from Blockbuster years ago, caution is advised when approaching a revisit. There’s still some enjoyment to be had from watching JCVD and Lundgren face off as reanimated Vietnam vets turned into unkillable super soldiers, but what’s really surprising about Roland Emmerich’s movie all these years later is just how slow it is. It’s essentially a chase movie but with most of the budget saved for the opening and ending, resulting in an awful lot of Van Damme playing benign confusion as Ally Walker’s reporter marvels at his healing powers and high kicks. On the plus side, Lundgren…

Release Out now Directors Sam Liu, Justin Copeland Cast Rosario Dawson, Jeffrey Donovan, Marie Avgeropoulos, Adrienne C Moore, Kimberly Brooks Distributor Warner Bros Home Entertainment Certificate 12 Format Rosario Dawson returns to Themyscira to voice Diana Prince in DC’s latest animated adventure, Wonder Woman: Bloodlines. Packed with action, humour and enchanting characters, the film follows Diana, Steve Trevor and Etta Candy as they take on new threats and team up with new allies – and old favourites, including Cheetah, Dr Poison, Medusa, Silver Swan and more. Bloodlies isn’t quite as triumphant as some of the studio’s other animated efforts, but it keeps things interesting with well-rounded characters and a smart script. It also has a lot to offer in terms of variety. Sometimes it’s a fun romp and other times…

Tasha Suri’s fantasy debut novel Empire Of Sand was one of the best genre novels of last year; a tale of repressed magic and corrupted power with a compelling heroine in the gifted Amrithi-blooded Mehr. Now, Suri has returned to that world with Realm Of Ash. “The series is based in a world loosely inspired by the Mughal Empire, which once ruled a significant swathe of South Asia,” explains the author. “Unlike the real Mughal Empire, the Ambhan Empire of the series is full of shadow spirits, sleeping gods, and magic performed through dance. In book one it’s an empire at its peak. In Realm Of Ash, it’s an empire cursed and crumbling. “Like a lot of fantasy settings it’s a big old world, but both of the books focus…

Release Out now Writer Jodi Taylor Publisher Headline Price £18.99 Think too hard about the idea of the Time Police – a specialist force that is dedicated to stopping people illegally travelling in time and disrupting the course of history – and you will give yourself a headache. So it’s probably for the best that the tone of this novel is pretty lightweight. A spin-off of author Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles Of St Mary’s series, Doing Time follows three new and thoroughly unsuitable recruits to the force. There’s rich playboy Luke Parrish; awkward and shy Jane Lockland; and quirky genius Matthew Farrell (whose temporally tangled backstory will be familiar to St Mary’s fans, but doesn’t really play into anything here). The three of them comprise Team Weird: shunned by the rest…

Release Out now Writer Christopher Hinz Publisher Angry Robot Price £9.99 We all know that space voyages that involve the discovery of an impossible organism on a distant planet never go well, and author Christopher Hinz is clever enough to know that we know that. Of course, that’s not good news for the crew of the Starship Alchemon. The small team, made up of blue collar workers, scientists, a psionic (psychic) and a ‘lytic’ (who spends his time plugged into the ship for maximum efficiency), also have the misfortune of working for a sinister corporation. So when things start going wrong after bringing the aforementioned and awakening organism on board, there are many possible explanations as to why and for what purpose. As minds get warped and the ship’s multiple…

Release November 20 Writer Aliya Whiteley Publisher Titan Books Price £7.99 Before she is attacked, Marianne receives an invitation to spend a week at the famous Skein Island resort for women. There, she’ll be expected to make a declaration, a story that is for her to write and no one else to read. Or so she thinks. Aliya Whiteley’s quiet prose is perfect for the slowly unfolding narrative. There’s a simplicity that gives it a domestic feel initially, before the scope expands to Skein Island. The domesticity is tied to the title and the idea of spinning a ‘yarn’. A skein is a length of yarn, ready to weave. And what are novels, but a collection of threads? Whiteley takes Marianne’s story and weaves it into a large tapestry (puns…

A brilliant collaboration between uncredited Jaws co-scribe Howard Sackler, writer-director John Milius and actor Robert Shaw, Quint’s deeply haunting retelling of the shark-devouring true life aftermath of the USS Indianapolis (following a lighthearted and drunken sing-along and a macho scar comparison) is unsurprisingly Steven Spielberg’s favourite scene in the whole movie. Sackler’s idea (which didn’t actually feature in Benchley’s original book) was to add some depth and history to Quint’s shark-hating sensibility. So Milius turned Sackler’s initial paragraph proposal of the idea into a mammoth nine-page treatment, which Shaw then, in turn, modified for his incredible scene-stealing 15-minute monologue in the film. The famous scene was then seamlessly spliced together from an initial drunken first take and a more soberly performed second one.…

“Anne Rice wrote vampires as credible creatures and real living beings,” says director Neil Jordan, recalling his time spent with the troubled undead whilst creating 1994’s big-screen adaptation of Rice’s acclaimed 1976 novel, Interview With The Vampire. “She removed all of that Hammer Horror, tongue-in-cheek stuff – it was marvelous. I just wanted to make the best version of her book that I possibly could.” 25 years on, it’s clear that Jordan’s transformation of Rice’s text from the page to screen marked a key moment in the visual history of cinema vampires. Gone was any trace of neck-biting campiness - and in its place was a down-to-earth credibility that only a director like Jordan (who had previously helmed grounded indies like Mona Lisa and The Crying Game) could bring. The…

THE VAMPIRE LESTAT (1985) The follow up to Interview With The Vampire and the second instalment of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series puts Lestat centre stage as he tells his long and on-going life story; from his humble beginnings as French nobility in the 1800s, to his time spent as the frontman of a San Francisco rock band in the 1980s. THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED (1988) Picking up directly after The Vampire Lestat, Rice reunites us with her immortal villain-turnedrockstar to deepen her take on ancient vampiric lore. In 2002, the role was passed to actor Stuart Townsend in director Michael Rymer’s eponymous big-screen adaptation. PRINCE LESTAT (2014) Considered by Rice as an official follow up to The Queen Of The Damned, Prince Lestat sees the neck-biting antihero drawn out…

Despite the glossy finished product, Interview With The Vampire was not without its fair share of production problems. Four weeks before shooting was due to start, cast member River Phoenix, who had been lined-up to play Louis’ interviewer Malloy, passed away suddenly following a tragic drug overdose outside LA nightclub The Viper Room. “It was a real shock because we were just about to start,” says Jordan in reflection. “Poor River. It was a tragedy for his whole family. He would have been amazing.” The role of Malloy ultimately went to Christian Slater. However with film featuring two of the Nineties hottest stars, the trouble didn’t stop there, as paparazzi flashbulbs threatened to invade the set. “We were helped by the fact that we were shooting at night, which drove…

Slightly lost to horror film history is the fact that the slasher boom proper was largely instigated by the box office success of two films and, surprisingly, Halloween (1978) is not a part of this conversation. In actual fact, the John Carpenter classic – as a low budget independent shocker with comparably thin distribution – took its time to roll out nationally in the United States (a campaign that was gradually bolstered by excellent critical notice). This is the reason why it was the best part of two years before fans began to see any comparable austerity horror aimed at a teenage audience and featuring a knife-wielding psychopath. As such, it would be a pair of plasma-packed pot-boilers that set the much-loved slice and dice craze into first gear as…