Castle in the Stars: A Frenchman on Mars by Alex Alice
Castle in the Stars: A Frenchman on Mars (2020) is the fourth book in the graphic novel series by Alex Alice that follows a steampunk journey first to the moon and then to Mars. Like the others, it’s a bit of a mixed bag in its art-text balance. I’ll let you read the reviews of the first two here and here rather than recapitulate the plot, focusing here instead on the artwork and the words.
September 10th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Children, Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Castle in the Stars: The Moon King by Alex Alice
Castle in the Stars: The Moon King is the second installment of Alex Alice’s graphic story involving a 19th Century space race between the two hostile nations of Prussia (led by Bismarck) and Bavaria (ruled by “Mad” King Ludwig.
Book one tells of the attempt to prove the existence of “aether,” a substance that along with flight would potentially be a nearly limitless source of energy. The first book ended on a cliffhanger, with the prototype space vehicle unexpectedly taking off with more on board than expected.
August 25th, 2018. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Castle in the Stars: The Space Race of 1869 by Alex Alice
Castle in the Stars: The Space Race of 1869 is a beautifully drawn graphic steampunk tale by author/illustrator Alex Alice, whose artwork alone makes the book worth picking up for a middle-grade reader (or relatively advanced younger reader). Luckily, the narrative/text half (translated from the original French by Anne and Owen Smith) has its own charm and strengths, even if it doesn’t quite match the quality of the illustrations.
The tale opens in 1868 with a young woman (Claire) preparing,
August 31st, 2017. Bill Capossere and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Children, Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Started by businessman William Hinds in 1934, Hammer Studios in England would eventually carve out for itself a reputation among movie buffs as one of the finest purveyors of horror fare in cinema history. The studio’s first film was the obscure comedy entitled The Public Life of Henry the Ninth, in 1935, and it would not be until 1953, with Four Sided Triangle (the lack of a hyphen in the film’s title is annoying), that the studio would begin to produce the sci-fi and horror films for which it would soon become best known.
October 13th, 2022. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Jana: This week I read Kit Rocha’s Deal With the Devil, a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy about mercenary librarians and super-soldiers that has some well-written fight scenes. I’m nearly finished with Jonathan Strahan’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction Vol. 1: The Saga Anthology of Science Fiction 2020, and I started reading Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea, which is lovely and dream-like.
Bill: I’ve been more hit than miss on status reports lately due to school opening.
September 13th, 2020. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | no comments |
The Blancheville Monster directed by Alberto de Martino
The shadow cast by Mario Bava’s seminal 1960 film Black Sunday was indeed a long one on the Italian horror industry. Three years later, in Alberto de Martino’s The Blancheville Monster, we find its cousin, a Gothic-tinged, B&W horror outing with a familiar tone but nowhere near as much artful impact.
In the film, beautiful Emily de Blancheville (Ombrella Colli) returns to her ancestral castle, in Brittany in the year 1884, after finishing her years in college.
October 24th, 2019. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Brad: This week I’ve read crime fiction, comics, and some crime fiction comics. I’ve reread The Criminal: Coward by Ed Brubaker and Batman: Year One by Frank Miller. In crime fiction, I’ve reread See Them Die by Ed McBain. In terms of comics, I’ve been all over the place: I’ve been rereading Love & Rockets comics by Jaime Hernandez and a Kingpin story by Matthew Rosenberg. As usual these days, most of my reading has been rereading. Life is too short to read bad books,
August 5th, 2018. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | no comments |
Here are our favorite books published in 2017. Hover over the cover to see who recommends each book. Click on the cover to read our review.
Please keep in mind that we did not read every SFF book published this year, so we know we’ve missed some good ones! Please add your comments — we’d love to hear your opinions about our list and to know which were YOUR favorite books of 2017. What did we miss? One commenter chooses a book from our stacks.
ADULT SFF
MIDDLE GRADE / YOUNG ADULT SFF
ANTHOLOGIES / COLLECTIONS
NON-FICTION
December 28th, 2017. FanLit | Best of the Year, Thoughtful Thursday | 30 comments |
Just saw you like Jack Vance. Me too. Surely he offends you somewhere though?
Words fail. I can't imagine what else might offend you. Great series, bizarre and ridiculous review. Especially the 'Nazi sympathizer'…
"Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Kage Harper" Freudian slip there. ;)
[…] (Fantasy Literature): In 1957, Hammer Studios in England came out with the first of their full-color horror creations, […]
I'm going to have to find these and read them.