Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 170 i SciFi Now

‘It’s cold outside, there’s no kind of atmosphere, I’m all alone… more or less…’ Luckily for us, those immortal words in the theme song for Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s Eighties classic Red Dwarf isn’t true. It’s actually getting pretty warm outside, the atmosphere is a little dirty but it’s still there and we’re certainly not at alone. We may feel like we’re actually living a sci-fi movie right now with the onslaught of Coronavirus and things might be scary, but it’s at times like these that we must all band together. If the last surviving crew members of the spaceship Red Dwarf can all get along to survive the perils of outer space, then we certainly can. Humanity’s eternal optimism and endurance during times of strife is the subject…

“I can tell you really clearly. It’s directly tied, in a not necessarily obvious way, to ‘low-budget’. When studios pick movies to greenlight, they have to be similar to other movies that have made a lot of money and if I ran a movie studio I’d choose movies in the same way. When you do low budget movies you can kind of do the opposite. We have to read and love a script. It has to be genre but then it also has to try to feel different to anything we’ve seen before. The problem with big budgets is it pushes movies to feel the same as movies that have come before. Low budgets do the exact opposite. “The biggest way we keep the budget low is that we don’t…

“Where we shot one of the scenes someone had actually carved this image on the wall of someone who had been hung,” remembers Charlie Heaton. “I think it was early 1902. I don’t know who this person was but it seemed like somebody had been new [to the facility] and they’d carved ‘rest in peace’ and this mural of someone who was actually hung in that building. It definitely has an atmosphere when you’re walking around, and when you’re doing night shoots. It’s a great setting. [It has a] history and it has authenticity. For set design it’s a wonderful place to get to shoot.” With The New Mutants being set primarily in a medical facility it made sense for the movie to be shot in one. In this case,…

Julia Ormond plays The Walking Dead: World Beyond’s mysterious Elizabeth. We try to get her to spill the beans… WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER ELIZABETH? She is a leader of a very strong community. She’s pretty intimidating I guess, to other people… She’s definitely on the pragmatist side – or apparently. [Laughs] For me, ‘pragmatist’ as a character, I think that becomes very intimidating when that take on the world is played by a woman, because it’s just not traditionally female colours. ELIZABETH’S TEAM OF ZOMBIE KILLERS LOOK LIKE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING... Yeah. We know what we’re doing but I think it’s that separation. We’ve worked out how to obliterate people, but have we worked out how to save them yet? [There’s been a]…

Saint Maud isn’t the only movie to take its cues from the Good Book. Here’s some other shock horrors that showcase the dark side of religion... ROSEMARY’S BABY 1968 Roman Polanski’s paranoia-fuelled Rosemary’s Baby brought the dark side of Catholicism to mainstream audiences with its story of a pregnant woman convinced an evil cult have plans for her unborn baby. In 2014, the film was inducted into the National Film Registry and director Rose Glass has cited it as a strong influence on Saint Maud. THE EXORCIST 1973 William Friedkin set the bar high when he helmed The Exorcist in the early Seventies, a film that’s still considered by many to be the defining – and most terrifying – religious horror movie of all time. Banned on release, its extensive…

Simon Stålenhag began his artistic life by illustrating the local landscape around his Swedish home, and began adding sci-fi creations to the paintings after he became inspired by concept artists like Ralph McQuarrie. His paintings started off unconnected – just a series of images, linked by their shared blend of landscape and sci-fi, given a nostalgic feel by the regular presence of children in Eighties and Nineties fashion. Eventually, Stålenhag created a backstory for the world of his paintings, which he expanded on in his three subsequent art books, and which a roleplaying game took even further. TALES FROM THE LOOP Set in the Eighties, Stålenhag’s first art book combines images and pared-back prose to tell the story of a a particle accelerator landscape of Mälaröarna consequences it has above…

Release Out now Director Dave Wilson Cast Vin Diesel, Eiza Gonzalez, Sam Heughan, Guy Pearce Distributor Sony Pictures Certificate 12A Based on the titular Valiant Comics character, Bloodshot brings beefy killed-in-action marine Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel) back to life with super strength and unique healing powers to undertake tailored assassinations. Trouble is, not unlike RoboCop, he’s haunted by fragmented revenge-induced memories of his more human past, while the techno institute that regenerated him view him as nothing more than the ultimate killing machine. Given these stakes and the potentially intriguing (if overly familiar) premise, it’s sad that there’s not much probing beneath the not-so-shiny surface of Bloodshot to distinguish it from comparable fare like Universal Soldier. It’s not entirely the actors’ fault, however. Diesel portrays the conflicted programmable protagonist with…

Release 4 April Director Jake Kasdan Cast Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black Distributor Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Certificate 12A Format • We’re sure we weren’t the only ones to produce a deep, audible sigh at the news of a reboot/sequel to 1995’s beloved Jumanji but the 2017 film was a , surprise joy and its sequel Jumanji: The Next Level keeps the surprises coming. This is a sequel that manages to both stick to the great things that made the first movie fun (body-switching jokes, epic fight sequences, charismatic cast) and adds a fresh take (bigger world-building and inspired additional casting with Danny Glover, Danny DeVito and Awkwafina). Taking place three years after the first film, the four original teenagers (now college students) are again trapped in…

Release 24 April Director Neasa Hardiman Cast Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott, Connie Nielsen Distributor Signature Entertainment Certificate 18 Format Sea Fever opens with a fully dressed woman – Siobhán (Hermione Corfield) – plunging into the ocean gasping for breath. She has a recurring nightmare about drowning, and another is about to come true as she begins course fieldwork on a fishing vessel. Fear of drowning pervades the film. The ship’s owner Freya (Connie Nielsen) informs Siobhán that “fishermen don’t swim… ’cause it’s better to go fast” – and also tells her that the traces of bioluminous phytoplankton visible in the boat’s wake at night are said to be the glowing tresses of the legendary Niamh Cinn who, lovesick, “gave herself to the sea” where she now dwells forever. This blurring…

Release Out now Director Joe Begos Cast Stephen Lang, Martin Kove, William Sadler Distributor RLJE Films Certificate 18 Format VOD Each night, a group of ageing American ex-army men gather at dingy VFW Post 2494. They drink and share old combat stories. Left behind by a world that does not appreciate them, these men are the title’s ‘Veterans of Foreign Wars’. Joe Begos’ fourth feature shares a strong sense of nostalgia, in his case for a certain era of genre film-making; the late Seventies and early Eighties, wherein characters had their mettle tested by hyperviolent dystopian scenarios. The setting is a near-future whose urban outskirts resemble the nightmare slums and ganglands of yesteryear. It may be set in a fantasy tomorrow, but VFW is always looking back to the past.…

Release 7 April Writer Veronica Roth Publisher Hodder & Stoughton Price £14.99 We love a bit of YA dystopian fiction here at SciFiNow – strong female lead, a seemingly all-powerful bad guy, a big battle, perhaps a love interest… now, imagine if an author of one of the most successful YA dystopian fiction series in recent years wrote a novel about what happens after these kids save the world. Well, imagine no further as Veronica Roth (author of the Divergent series) has done just that. Chosen Ones is set ten years after the big battle with the all-powerful bad guy, the Dark One (it’s okay, the very first chapter hilariously discusses how terrible that name is). Our strong female lead, Sloane Andrews, is now pushing 30 and her and her…

Release 16 April Writer M R Carey Publisher Little, Brown Book Group Price £8.99 Long after climate breakdown has ravaged the world and humanity has retreated into small communities, a teenager named Koli dreams of becoming a wielder of the old technology and defender of his village. When he steals an old Sony music player, he sets off a chain of events that sees him forced out into a world where trees hunt, people allegedly eat people, and cult leaders capitalise on a frightened, isolated population. M R Carey’s The Book Of Koli is the first in a new trilogy all set to be released this year. It’s the next in a long line of fiction dealing with the ongoing climate crisis and what might happen to the world after…

Release 30 April (UK) Writer Adrian J Walker Publisher Solaris Price £8.99 The premise is familiar to fans of SciFiNow: The Earth is broken due to a multitude of factors, and can no longer sustain human life, leaving humanity with one last hope at a brighter future. In Adrian J Walker’s The Human Son, the saving grace is the Erta, an engineered super-being, capable of being faster, stronger and smarter than their human creators. The Erta’s only purpose is to fix the planet and make a better world. 500 years after their creation, the Erta’s task is nearly complete and it is time to hand back control of the Earth to the humans. But now they have created paradise, some Erta aren’t sure that’s the best idea… The novel focuses…

“Big things have small beginnings,” declares Michael Fassbender’s android David inquisitively in Ridley Scott’s quasi-AlienprequelPrometheus, after extracting a tiny organism from a strange cylinder-shaped object discovered on LV-223. The phrase, taken from David Lean’s epic Lawrence Of Arabia, could easily be used to describe the gestation of the Alien franchise, which sprung from an expanded version of the ultra modest 1974 Dan O’Bannon scripted student film Dark Star. Directed by John Carpenter, this micro-budgeted semi-spoof on 2001: A Space Odyssey used a literal beach ball for the alien that interacts with the motley crew of a small spacecraft. Drawing few laughs from initial audiences, O’Bannon wondered whether the premise would play better as horror. He hinged his new story (then dubbed ‘Star Beast’) on a creepy scenario concerning astronauts being…

Though A Quiet Place Part II starring Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy has, at the time SciFiNow was going to print, been indefinitely delayed due to the Coronavirus, when we spoke to Cillian recently about the sequel we couldn’t help but mention the similarities to the world featured in A Quiet Place and one which featured in a previous role of his – that of Jim in 28 Days Later, back in 2002. 28 Days Later was a very early role for the Irish actor, who had mainly starred in TV and short films before that, but it was a performance that would bring him to the fore – a passionate and relatable portrayal of everyman Jim that would enhance the realistic horror depicted in the film. Written by Alex…

“WHAT IS SO interesting to me about the Eighties and us right now is that we are living in a period of time of the greatest success of – probably not the greatest – but the greatest contemporary success of really getting everything you thought you ever wanted. So what does one do when they’re faced with that kind of dilemma?” Patty Jenkins explains to us when we ask her about the time period her new movie, Wonder Woman 1984 (or WW84), is set. “That was something that I was really thinking about while I was making the last movie. You know, [with] truth being a big part of Gal and Wonder Woman I thought it was an interesting thing to explore with this movie, [the idea of] what is…

At FrightFest’s annual Glasgow chapter, we are all in it together. Whether the films are good or bad, everyone is seated in Glasgow Film Theatre’s elegant auditorium, undistracted by alternative programmes or ‘discovery’ strands. Here it is all discovery – an experience of new experiments in genre. Or at least renovations, for this year’s opened with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s recut of SF Synchronic, and closed – contrary to schedule, owing to DCP problems – with Julien Seri’s killer thriller Anderson Falls. In between, the 13-feature (plus four short) programme included Graham Hughes’ terrifyingly tricky local film Death Of A Vlogger, Bernardo & Rafael Antonaccio’s sunlit psychodrama In The Quarry, Neasa Hardiman’s Covid-coincident infection night-mer Sea Fever, Adam Stovall’s ‘haunted man’ dramedy A Ghost Waits, Ryan Spindell’s nostalgia-burying anthology…

Red Dwarf is uniformly good, but these, for us, are the series’ must-sees... SEASON ONE EPISODE ONE THE END Contrary to the episode’s name, this is where it all begins. SEASON TWO EPISODE ONE KRYTEN The first appearance of Kryten who becomes so vital later. SEASON THREE EPISODE TWO MAROONED A Rimmer and Lister deep-dive focusing on their evolving relationship. SEASON FOUR EPISODE FIVE DIMENSION JUMP The arrival of Ace Rimmer makes for the definitive Rimmer episode. SEASON FIVE EPISODE TWO THE INQUISITOR Our crew of malcontents versus a superpowered alien space cop. SEASON SIX EPISODE THREE GUNMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE The crew enter Kryten’s mind to save him. SEASON SEVEN EPISODE TWO STOKE ME A CLIPPER Ace returns, Arnold gets his moment of greatness. SEASON EIGHT EPISODE FOUR CASSANDRA…

“I’m definitely a fan of Halloween. My take on remakes is similar to my take on genre which is that you need a delivery system for these stories to have to get into multiple cinemas. And the audience is trickier and trickier to pull away from their flatscreen TVs by the month. It used to be horror was enough. If you had a good, original horror movie you could. It would work. That’s not enough anymore. They occasionally work. But more often than not they don’t. “So people respond to (I don’t know why, there’s so many choices) a title they’re familiar with and it’s scary, it just makes the path from their driveway to the cinema clearer and shorter. I look at a doing a remake the same as…

Release 6 April Director Saul Bass Cast Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick Distributor 101 Films Certificate 12 Format Famous for designing the iconic opening credits of many a Hitchcock film, Saul Bass directed only one feature during his career: this cerebral sci-fi which begins with a strange celestial alignment, before shifting to the inner space of Earth’s ant communities (shot in extraordinary close-up by Ken Middleham). With increasing alarm, biologist Ernest Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) and game theorist James Lesko (Michael Murphy) observe these rapidly organising and evolving insects from within an experimental station set deep in the Arizona desert. “This is a serious game,” insists Hubbs, whilst declaring war on the ants where Lesko, on the other hand, just wants to communicate with them. Yet the ants both emulate…

Release Out now Director Ovidio G. Assonitis Cast Juliet Mills, Richard Johnson, Gabriele Lavia Distributor Arrow films Certificate 15 Format When Jessica (Juliet Mills) finds out that she’s pregnant she knows something is wrong, but when she says this to her husband, Robert (Gabriele Lavia), he dismisses her. A mistake. You see, Jessica has been impregnated by the devil and her possession is only just beginning. With more than a gentle whiff of Rosemary’s Baby and a hefty dab of The Exorcist (Warner Bros claimed copyright infringement against the latter), Beyond The Door borrows ideas from more successful films but doesn’t succeed in reaching their lofty achievements. This is partially because there is hardly any tension. Its tone ranges too much to create engagement and once the possession starts to…

Release Out now Showrunners Alex Holmes, Charles Martin, Felix Thompson Cast Amir Wilson, Ruby Serkis, Gijs Blom Distributor Netflix Certificate PG Format It’s no surprise after the success of Game Of Thrones that we should expect a slew of binge-worthy fantasy TV series. First Netflix delivered The Witcher and now it brings us The Letter For The King. Being much tamer (no swearing, no nudity, very minimal blood) than the aforementioned two series, The Letter For The King is aimed at a younger crowd and is based on a very successful Dutch novel named De Brief Voor De Koning by Tonke Dragt (though it wasn’t translated into English until 2013). The story follows Tiuri (Amir Wilson, His Dark Materials) who inadvertently gets lumbered with a secret letter that must be…

Release Out now Showrunners Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer Cast Patrick Stewart, Isa Briones, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Harry Treadaway Distributor Amazon Certificate 12 Format Almost two decades on from Star Trek: Nemesis, we are reunited with (former) Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), as he wiles away his final years running his family’s vineyard in France. Now separated from Starfleet, Picard’s quiet life gets turned upside down when receives a visit from an impossibly life-like outlawed synthetic (Isa Briones), and sets out to defend her and her kind. However, the Romulans are just as keen to destroy her. This is the first Star Trek show not to be set on a Starfleet vessel – not only that, but Picard’s encounters with Starfleet throughout the show…

#BookClub - currently sat in @ WstoneSheffield cafe with The Faceless Old Woman Who Lives In Your Home and it’s rather good.” @andyangel44 “Just started High Fire by Eoin Colfer, really enjoying it so far. #BookClub” @NealBunting “Currently reading... The Sirens Of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut...” @SeaCrabBooks “Stargate SG1: Four Dragons by Diana Dru Botsford.” “Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre. I have not read the other two books yet (Honor Bound and Honor Lost) but I look forward to it.” @Copper_Boom @sgcgate…

Release 21 April Writer Christine Lynn Herman Publisher Titan Books Price £8.99 This sequel to last year’s The Devouring Gray picks up where that book left off. Its teen heroes have all come into their powers, but none of them know how to control them. Something is threatening the creepy woods beyond the town, as the trees start attacking locals. And their parents are all lying to them. The strand of tree-based body horror is pretty effective, and the idea of corrupted nature taking revenge feels pretty fitting in the era of climate crisis. But it doesn’t really get enough space to breathe. There’s a decent-sized chunk of allegorical colonial guilt, as the kids finally find out the truth about the town’s founding families, and there’s a lot of stuff…

Release 30 April Writer Mark Lawrence Publisher Harper Collins Price £14.99 Life on the ice is cruel. That’s why the Ictha clan visit the Regulator before their children can be counted as adults. You see, the Regulator can tell if the child will grow to be weak and if so, throws them into the ‘Pit of the missing’ so they won’t become a burden. The Girl And The Stars centres on Yaz who, at 16, is due to visit the Regulator. She isn’t weak but when she finds herself down the Pit she discovers a whole new world. Under the ice, life is different, Yaz feels real warmth for the first time but there are also untold dangers, including a ‘darkness’ that can make people crazy. There are also ‘stars’…

WHY DO YOU THINK YOU WERE YOU CAST AS VASQUEZ? I had been working out at the gym quite a lot at the time and was in the best shape of my life at that point. So, I had a muscular physique and it just all coincided [with the casting interview] which was very fortunate. WAS THERE ANY BACKSTORY TO HER? The original script mentioned that both Vasquez and Drake had been in juvenile prison for murder and were serving life sentences. That’s why they have such a strong bond. They were the only ones who were conscripted and they were not getting out. That had a lot to do with her so-called heroism as appose to [Hudson’s] character – he was getting out in two weeks so you have…

CANDYMAN Candyman keeps it nice and simple with a lot of white space, focusing instead on the villain’s weapon of choice and a tagline that will take you right back to childhood sleepovers crowded in front of a bathroom mirror testing your bottle! It’s simple and effective, and a nice touch that the hook is dripping in honey rather than blood – and there’s a little bee there, just to give you yet more traumatic flashbacks. MONSTER HUNTER This poster boldly tells us that you’re not here for Milla Jovovich – you’re here for her sword. And that’s fair enough. UMBRELLA ACADEMY SEASON TWO It’s the gorgeously psychedelic umbrella motif that we really like here – that and the playful logo, with its little umbrella hat. BLACK WIDOW This poster…

As part of its 2020 Films In Concert, the Royal Albert Hall has announced it will be showing James Cameron’s groundbreaking cult classic The Terminator on a vast HD screen whilst Brad Fiedel’s signature synthesizer-led, percussive score is performed live by The Avex Ensemble in-sync with the 1984 motion picture. Now in its tenth year, the iconic venue has played host to a variety of classic genre movie over the years, beginning with The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, and has sold over 500,000 tickets to date. This year looks to be one of the best yet with showings of Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi, Superman and The Matrix. “These in-concert experiences are invigorating, inspiring and uplifting,” said Lucy Noble, Artistic Director of the Royal…

WE THINK IT’S FAIRLY REASONABLE TO SAY THAT THE HORROR GENRE HAS SEEN A RESURGENCE IN RECENT YEARS. Pulled from the burnt ashes of some of the schlocky horror films from the Nineties (which, we have to be honest, hold a special place in our hearts), the Noughties (especially post-2010) have been a high time in horror. Think about it, we’ve seen horror films grossing huge box office figures, seen some of the biggest actors of our generation clambering to be in them and we’ve even seen a horror film being nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, which has only happened six times. We would also think it’s fairly reasonable to say that Jason Blum, CEO and founder of the incredibly successful Blumhouse Productions, has been an integral cog…

“THE IDEA OF THESE CHARACTERS LEARNING ABOUT THEMSELVES THROUGH THIS GRAND ADVENTURE, I JUST JUMPED AT IT.”MATTHEW NEGRETE From the flagship show to the mooted Rick Grimes spin-off movie, the world of The Walking Dead is bigger than ever, with Scott Gimple overseeing it all. “He has the vision for this expanding universe we’re exploring,” Matthew Negrete explains. But how does that work, logistically, when multiple different creative teams are working on different shows? “[Gimple] is the one that can pitch broadstrokes concepts, but more importantly he has been great at giving every show the same autonomy and letting us take the show where we’re going to take it. For him it’s all about… how the pieces of the puzzle work together.” So Gimple will let the various showrunners know…

Director Rose Glass discusses the avoidable tragedy of Maud’s religious descent Morfydd Clark’s Maud feels ignored by the world – but a new relationship with Jennifer Ehle’s palliative care patent Amanda teases a glimmer of hope. “On the surface they seem different,” explains Glass. “They’re different ages, from different walks of life and deal with their problems in different ways – but they’re both lonely and alienated. Amanda is trying to cope by distracting herself with drinking and sex and I always thought Maud sees in her something she herself has experienced in the past. Faith was the thing that saved her so she thinks maybe it can save Amanda as well.” Sadly, all good intentions remain lost in translation as Maud’s situation goes from bad to worse: “The real…

Release Out now Director Craig Zobel Cast Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank Distributor Universal Certificate 15 When the film’s initial cancellation was announced, many who had yet to see The Hunt took issue with the story that seemed to be about a bunch of left-wing liberals rounding up some right-wingers and hunting them down in a game-style shoot-out. And while that description is not entirely inaccurate, the film itself is quite different than the initial reaction supposed. For one thing, both sides are painted as complete imbeciles: one racist, homophobic and narrow-minded and the other sanctimonious, judgemental and, yeah, you guessed it, narrow-minded. Rather than argue that one side is right and the other is wrong, the film pokes fun and ridicules the extremes on both sides. It’s aggressively centrist and…

Release 20 April Director J J Abrams Cast Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac Distributor Walt Disney Certificate 12 Format • The Skywalker Saga gang get back together for one last adventure, as Rey (Daisy Ridley) and co head off on a frantic quest to stop Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)’s First Order and the resurgent Sith from rallying behind Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). There’s some fun banter between Rey, Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac) as their hunt takes them across the galaxy, via a host of lovingly-realised aliens. Poe gets some tantalising hints at a back story with Keri Russell’s mysterious Zorii, but ultimately he and the potentially Force-sensitive Finn are left with slim and unfinished stories. That’s because The Rise Of Skywalker is really interested…

Release 20 April Showrunner Chris Chibnall Cast Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, and Mandip Gill Distributor BBC Certificate 12 Format • After 2018’s series of Doctor Who decided to go against the standard formula and included many standalone episodes rather than full arcs and few classic Who foes, executive producer Chris Chibnall has decided that this latest series should do the complete opposite... and we think it’s all the better for it. Bringing in classic villains like the Cybermen and a fab cameo from a well-known face (we won’t spoil it), the latest series of Dr Who feels like a comfy blanket that’s had a wash – familiar but fresher. This series has focused on making it personal to the Doctor – bringing in long-term villain The Master (played…

Can you tell us more about your upcoming novel, Chosen Ones? Chosen Ones is about a group of people who saved the world when they were teenagers. They took down the ‘Dark One’, a being of great evil who wreaked havoc across North America. Now, ten years later, they’re the most famous people ever to have existed, famous for something that haunts every one of them - especially the main character, Sloane. But she finds out that just because you take down evil once, doesn’t mean evil disappears, and it doesn’t mean your story is over. Basically, if you ever read or watched a ‘chosen one’ story when you were younger - which, if you like genre fiction, is pretty much unavoidable! - this book is about what comes next.…

Release 22 March Writer Temple Drake Publisher Titan Books Price £8.99 At this point, it’s almost a cliché to say that this is a vampire story that dispenses with most vampire clichés. Still, in this case, it’s true. Set in Shanghai in 2012, it’s a kind of love story between jaded businessman Zhang and beautiful but mysterious Naemi. He’s seeking some excitement outside of his stultifying marriage and unsatisfying career, and Naemi, with her striking black eyes, blonde hair, and tragic life story proves irresistible. Their first encounter is intense, and though both of them know they shouldn’t take the affair any further, they’re hopelessly drawn to one another, embarking on a doomed romance. Evocative prose makes for a dreamy read, as Zhang and Naemi enjoy themselves in a world…

Release 16 April Writer Breanna Teintze Publisher Jo Fletcher Books Price £16.99 After the events of Lord Of Secrets, Corcoran Gray finds himself dealing with the fallout and the effect it has on his relationship with Brix. However, he soon gets swept up in Guild business. There’s a plague killing wizards and amulets similar to his own appear connected. Gray is arrested by the Guild wizard Dace and, together with Brix, they journey to a city that might be the source of the plague but is also connected to Brix’s past and Gray’s future. Lord Of Secrets was a fun start to Gray’s story, one that established the wise-cracking wizard with a reluctant heart of gold, and his habit of tangling with gods has not abated. The plague setup allows…

Can you tell us more about The Human Son? The Human Son is set 500 years in the future. Earth has been brought back from the brink of devastating climate change by a group of genetically-engineered hyper-intelligent beings called the Erta. They have rebalanced the atmosphere, regrown the forests, dredged the seas of plastic and nurtured endangered species back into abundance. Unfortunately, in order to do this, they had to enforce the gentle extinction of their creators. So, humans no longer exist. Having fulfilled their purpose, the Erta face the decision of whether to resurrect humans and risk undoing all their hard work or leave them dead and buried. To help them decide, a quiet and clinical atmospheric scientist named Ima volunteers to raise a single human child as her…

“On release it was ground-breaking being shot on new digital cameras allowing a loose style with sprinting zombies and iconic imagery.” @ParsonsFiction “It was okay but not much more than that.” @andyangel44 “Pretty much paved the way for most of the zombie material we’re getting today. An incredible film and brilliantly directed. Can’t wait for the third sequel.” @nickd_84 “It’s okay but I prefer the sequel and am hoping for a third at some point.” @BobHammond2 “I love 28 Days Later, the opening scenes where Jim wanders round the empty streets of London are brilliantly done. This and Shaun Of The Dead are two of the films I will watch over and over.” @AmandaThelwell “It’s a great movie, but the infected are not zombies. They’re easy to kill and can,…

COLONEL DANIEL MCGREGOR DARE Colonel Dare is the finest pilot in the service, always ready with a smile and a last-minute rescue. Born in Manchester (not that you could tell from his accent), Colonel Dare is Dan to his friends and ‘CURSE YOU, DAAAAREEE!’ to his enemies. A brilliant pilot and engineer, he’s as lucky as he is gifted behind the stick. But the mark of a true leader is knowing when to speak, not fight, and that’s where Dan is our man. His sense of honour and decency is such that, if anyone can find a non-violent solution, it’s Dan Dare. And if that fails, if anyone can escape from a space station as it explodes and falls into the sun? Dan can! Go get ‘em, Dan! ALBERT ‘DIGBY’…