Rayguns Over Texas is currently for sale at Amazon!
Now you can order a copy and spread the word.
If you’ve already read it, please post a review anywhere you can. It’d be much appreciated.
Cover by Rocky Kelley
Under the banner of FORGOTTEN BOOKS #243: RAYGUNS OVER TEXAS Edited by Richard Klaw, George Kelley wrote:
Scott Cupp generously sent me a copy of Rayguns Over Texas, a collection of Science Fiction short stories written by Texas writers. I love the cover by Rocky Kelley (no relation)! Bruce Sterling provides a wonderful Introduction. Scott Cupp’s essay on his SF reading is masterful. Neal Barrett, Jr., Joe R. Lansdale, and Michael Moorcock wrote my favorite stories in this collection, but there are plenty of other enjoyable stories here. Pick up a copy soon before they’re all gone!
Nice review but isn’t Rayguns a little new to be considered a “forgotten title?” Only been out for two months!
For more on Rayguns Over Texas, visit the FACT site.
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
by Tom Lloyd
Cover by Larry Rostant
Promo copy:
A short story collection fleshing out the world of the critically-acclaimed Twilight Reign series, a tremendous work of mature epic fantasy.
The history of the Land may remember the slaughter at Moorview or the horror of Scree’s fall, but there were other casualties of the secret war against Azaer–more tales surrounding those bloody years that went unrecorded. In the shadow of memorials to the glorious dead, these ghosts lie quiet and forgotten by all but a few.
A companion collection to the Twilight Reign quintet, these eleven stories shine a rather different light on the Land. Look past the armies and politics of the Seven Tribes and you will find smaller moments that shaped the course of history in their own way. But even forgotten secrets can kill. Even shadows can have claws.
Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.
I had forgotten ever seeing Grown Ups, never mind reviewing it, until I ran across the review on my computer. Thankfully, I managed to miss this summer’s ill-advised sequel.
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
by George R.R. Martin
Cover by Larry Rostant
Promo copy:
In the aftermath of a colossal battle, Daenerys Targaryen rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way east—with new allies who may not be the ragtag band they seem. And in the frozen north, Jon Snow confronts creatures from beyond the Wall of ice and stone, and powerful foes from within the Night’s Watch. In a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics lead a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, to the greatest dance of all.
Don’t miss the thrilling sneak peek of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Six, The Winds of Winter.
Before coming up with the extraordinary final cover image for Rayguns Over Texas, artist Rocky Kelley tinkered with different designs.
Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.
Over five years ago, I reviewed the first iteration of the Roku, which at the time only offered Netflix. Now in version 3.0, today’s device offers over 1,000 channels.
Amazingly, my original Roku, though beginning to get cranky and show its age, is still going strong!
One of my largely unknown idiosyncrasies is a fascination with the fire-and-brimstone aspects of Christianity. I have a modest collection of pamphlets and other publications and I’m always on the lookout for new additions.
This past weekend while thrifting with Brandy, my good friend Jessie found a new piece for my collection.
While not overly full of damnation, it was still plenty frightening enough.
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
by Michael Moorcock
Promo copy:
Piece of Paper Press is delighted to present the first publication – in a limited, numbered edition of 150 copies – of ‘A Twist in the Lines’, a new Jerry Cornelius story by Michael Moorcock that is in part also a tribute to Moorcock’s late friend and former New Worlds collaborator Eduardo Paolozzi. When commuters board the tube at Tottenham Court Road but alight at Chatelet – Les Halles or Pelham Bay Park it is obvious that something in the multiverse is going very wrong. In Paris, Jerry’s old friend Professor Hira points out that ‘Art is science. Science is art’, and furthermore reveals that since 1984 ‘the whole of radiant time, version upon version of constructed reality, has depended for its survival on a certain artistic pattern, an essential mechanism for order.’ There is nothing else for it, Jerry must get to the Time Centre on Eel Pie Island pronto, and – armed only with a tube map and Paolozzi’s original designs – find a way back to Soho in 1982, for the central artistic pattern upon which the multiverse depends is of course Paolozzi’s iconic mosaic at Tottenham Court Road London Underground station.
In an unexpected, real-world twist, since the story was written some substantial portions of Eduardo Paolozzi’s stunning artwork for Tottenham Court Road have been destroyed or removed as part of the Cross Rail building programme.
“I’m sort of cautious about using ‘alternate history’ as a description of the Cornelius stories since they were not conceived as that. Jerry is meant to inhabit the world we know. I describe him as an urban adventurer, using the description Edmond Hamilton created for ‘noir’ thrillers — urban adventure stories. The stories are parables but nothing else, I think.
“I’ve recently come up with the fun notion of ‘Radiant Time’ as an image to suggest a universe of limitless possibilities — the human brain, in fact — situationalist strategies for the 21st century — a means of understanding the modern psyche and society. It’s balanced by the notion of Linear Time and its proponents. Pretty evident where my sympathies lie, of course! Space is a dimension of Time!”
–Michael Moorcock interviewed by Jerome Winter in the L.A. Review of Books, 20 January 2013
The edition is limited to 150 copies, which are usually distributed free by post.
Course most of the free copies don’t include a signature and inscription from both Mike and Linda.
As promised here’s a wrap up of the movies I screened at Fantastic Fest 2013.
Alongside the coverage here, I also wrote reviews about several of the movies for The Horn. The Japanese feature Greatful Dead, which enjoyed it’s world premiere at the Festival, fell in that category.
Greatful Dead (Gureitofuru deddo), the newest film from Japanese director Eiji Uchida (Last Days of the World), paints a darkly comic portrait of a disturbed young woman. The unsettling, but flawed, picture follows a descent into madness.
Nami (Kumi Takiuchi) grew up in a fractured household. Her mother (who cares more for poor foreign children than her own) abandons Nami and her older sister; her father spirals into depression and starts dating a beautiful younger woman; Nami’s older sister runs off with her boyfriend so she can have a “normal” life; and then her father commits suicide. All before she turns eighteen.
When she turns twenty, Nami inherits a sizable fortune, which enables her to engage fully in her secret life as voyeur. She prefers watching elderly men, who live alone with minimal contact with others. Nami calls these people “solitarians.”
Read the rest of my review at The Horn.