April 2020

SFX

SFX is Earth’s greatest sci-fi and fantasy magazine

SFX2 min read
Rants & Raves
Revisiting Star Trek: The Original Series in its updated, remastered Blu-ray glory. Phwoar! If you enjoyed Star Trek: Picard – and if not, why not? – pick up the prequel novel, The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack, to learn more about the backstory an
SFX1 min read
Captain’s Log
I suppose Mother warned you about women like me? Things do seem pretty smegging great in the world of sci-fi right now – we’re getting (almost) everything we want in some format or another, and some of the most-loved film and TV franchises are enjoyi
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First Contact
Glen Harrison, email Although the revelations contained within Doctor Who’s “The Timeless Children” are mostly a retcon, it could be argued that Chibnall has bravely bitten the bullet and tied up some glaring loose ends that previous Who producers an
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Sfx
Future PLC, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA Editor Darren Scott (DS) darren.scott@futurenet.com Deputy Editor Ian Berriman (IB) ian.berriman@futurenet.com Art Editor Jonathan Coates jonathan.coates@futurenet.com Production Editor Ed Ricketts ed.
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The Life Aquatic
SCI-FACT! Neasa Hardiman has also directed Marvel TV shows, including episodes of Jessica Jones and Inhumans. “WE IMAGINE OURSELVES AS separate to our fellow creatures at our peril,” says writer and director Neasa Hardiman. “We’re just one among many
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Red Alert
SCI-FACT! The Fantastic Four were originally based in the fictional Central City, not New York. After the success of Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949, it was inevitable that The Folio Society would follow up its lavish collectors’ book with the great
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Afterlife
160 aka Luna in Sailor Moon Jill Frappier is not a household name despite acting in countless projects including The Twilight Zone (1985-1989) and Friday The 13th: The Series (1987-1990). “This year alone I’ve been in seven TV shows and two Indie mov
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Harvey Guillén
SCI-FACT! Guillermo’s whole character look was initially based on the real-life style of horror director Guillermo del Toro. As the only human in the show, it makes sense that people would attach themselves emotionally to Guillermo – because imagine
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Undying Love
SCI-FACT! The first film to adapt Carmilla (albeit loosely) was 1932’s Vampyr, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. “I WASN’T AIMING AT HORROR OR A vampire story in the traditional sense,” says Emily Harris, writer and director of Carmilla, an intriguing
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Kane-ing It
SCI-FACT! Dougray appeared in Hemlock Grove, Netflix’s second original series after House Of Cards, from 2013-14. WHEN THE CW CAST RUBY ROSE AS A lesbian Batwoman in 2018, there was an unusual backlash: critics claimed the gender-fluid star wasn’t “g
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Star Wars
SCI-FACT! Featuring characters drawn from all four home nations, new British super-team The Union spins out of Empyre in May. ORIGINALLY ENVISAGED AS A CROSSOVER between the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, this year’s summer event series Empyre find
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Aerial Assault
Sony Television to bring 1930s pulp adventurer Doc Savage to the screen. Taika Waititi to create two Charlie And The Chocolate Factory animated specials for Netflix. Syfy cancelling The Magicians after five seasons. Firefly’s Gina Torres starring in
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Myth Maker
SCI-FACT! Marvel Comics has its own Wendigo, who fought the Hulk in his first appearance. “THIS PARTICULAR FILM IS a very humanistic look at the horrors of humanity, and what we as citizens of the world are experiencing today,” says Scott Cooper, dir
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Mentor Case
SCI-FACT! Louise Simonson created Power Pack after Marvel boss Jim Shooter decreed that all Marvel editors should also write. SPINNING OUT OF THE RECENT Outlawed one-shot which banned superheroics for all under-21s, Ryan North and Nico Leon’s new Pow
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Jordan Ifueko
Tell us about your protagonist. What’s her story? Tarisai is a young girl in the world of Aritsar, an empire ruled by an emperor and crown prince, who are rumoured to be divine. Her mother sends her on a mission: join the crown prince’s council, earn
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Penny Dreadful
Saint Maud is an absolute revelation! The debut feature from Rose Glass, which lands in cinemas in May, is a stressful, beautiful horror featuring a powerhouse performance from Morfydd Clark, as a carer who believes she communicates directly with God
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Retro-active
100% FAKE! SCI-FACT! Like Andrew-Mark Thompson’s work below? See more at andydrewz64.blogspot.com. Based on the short-lived ’70s sci-fi series The Fantastic Journey. The race is on to escape the mysterious green cloud of the Bermuda Triangle and avoi
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News Warp
Steven Spielberg no longer directing Indiana Jones 5. He’ll executive produce, with Logan’s James Mangold eyed for the hot seat. Throw him the idol, he’ll throw you the whip! Scott Derrickson directing Bermuda, inspired by the Bermuda Triangle legend
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Space Precinct
SCI-FACT! The Tiptons also wrote the last Deep Space Nine comic series Fool’s Gold, published by IDW in 2010. DEEP SPACE NINE’S FIRST foray into comics in a decade, new IDW mini-series Too Long A Sacrifice grew out of its writers David and Scott Tipt
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Subscribe To Sfx
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In The Next Sfx
BLACK WIDOW Marvel Phase 4 kicks off and kicks ass THE WALKING DEAD: WORLD BEYOND Teen angst vs the undead – what’s worse? SCOOB! The Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe begins… Zoinks! TIMESLIP The time barrier is open once again SAINT MAUD The new hor
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The God Delusion
WHEN SFX ARRIVES AT PINEWOOD Studios in December 2019 – in case you’re wondering, yes, it is cold outside – we’re not entirely sure what we’re about to find. We’re definitely headed for deep space – more than three million years from Earth, in fact –
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Can't Stop The Felines
The Cat culture is the earliest example of Red Dwarf mythology, established all the way back in series I. An entire race was born as a result of Dave Lister being put into stasis as punishment for his refusal to give up his pet cat, Frankenstein. Ove
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The Wonder Years
Kid sidekicks aren’t exactly designed to celebrate their 80th birthdays, but Batman’s partner-in-peril has survived a lifetime of deathtraps to reach that milestone. Sure, he may have been killed along the way, but that’s a mere blip in the career of
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Back In The Red
Having cameoed in Red Dwarf XII, the Norman Lovett incarnation of Red Dwarf’s scatterbrained computer Holly is definitely being booted up for “The Promised Land”. An episode explaining what he’s been doing in cyberspace since he was last a regular in
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Mutant Rehab
THE NEW MUTANTS, the long-awaited film adaptation of the Marvel Comics series, features five super-powered teenagers who are so dangerous that even Professor X is scared of them. Instead of training at Professor Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted You
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Back To School
How did you come to launch The New Mutants in 1982? Fundamentally, it was the reality that the X-Men were built around Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and the problem was the All-New X-Men were now all grown up, so they needed an are
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Murder By Numbers
It’s 1988 and Robin’s face fills the cover of Batman 428. His nostrils are bloodied, his cape tattered. The traditional whites of his eye-mask now look chillingly sightless, like twin voids. “The Batman was too late”, we’re told. “And now Robin lies
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Sidekick Powers
Sixteen-year-old Croft was Hollywood’s inaugural Boy Wonder, co-starring in Batman, a cliffhanging Saturday matinee serial in 15 chapters. Certainly the curliest take on Robin, he fought zombie-making Japanese agent Dr Daka in a not exactly nuanced s
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The Bear Facts
The one villain that Josh Boone was determined to include in The New Mutants was his favourite from the comic book series: a malevolent, mystical entity known as the Demon Bear. He first encountered the creature through an iconic storyline titled “Th
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Radio Revival
In 2016 and 2017 the character returned in two sets of audio adventures by B7 Media. Originally released on CD via Big Finish, they later aired on BBC Radio 4 Extra. In February an Indiegogo campaign was launched to record a third volume of adventure
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DARING to DREAM
WATCHING HELPLESSLY AS Nazi V2 rockets flew into the sky as an act of Hitler’s ultimate revenge, destined to rain death and destruction on helpless civilians, Frank Hampson looked at their vanishing vapour trails and dreamed of a better world. What i
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Avenging The Avengers
THERE’S AN AVENGERS FILM STARRING Uma Thurman, Keeley Hawes, Fiona Shaw and Ralph Fiennes, with Sean Connery and Eddie Izzard as the villains. It has a score by Michael Kamen, and it’s only 115 minutes long. So why haven’t you seen this film? Because
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Luke Evans
Luke Evans went from London’s West End to Hollywood’s silver screen, making his cinematic debut in 2010’s Clash Of The Titans. Now he’s touring his debut album, At Last – a collection of cover versions of songs originally sung by women that have neve
SFX1 min readTechnology & Engineering
Autosecs Appeal
Ilea’s students were rarely without their handheld “autosec” devices – a clear forerunner of the mobile phone, offering holographic video calls. “Bill Smethurst wanted to make Jupiter Moon technically as real as possible,” explains Clive Fleury. “So
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Jupiter Moon
BEFORE STREAMING OR THE internet, a satellite fired into orbit looked set to create a new dawn of space-age television. British Satellite Broadcasting planned to more than double Britain’s mere four TV channels with its subscription service of movies
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Anthony Horowitz
HOW, AS A WRITER, DO YOU RETURN TO A character over multiple books without writing yourself into a corner? This was a problem that confronted Anthony Horowitz a few years back with one of his most famous creations: teenage secret agent Alex Rider. Wi
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Rising Stars
Two of the most engaging characters were sparring on-off lovers: Germanic bad boy engineer Alex Hartmann, and slinky novice navigator Mercedes Page. Both actors enjoyed fame after the show ended. Anna Chancellor (Mercedes) went on to star in Four Wed
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Onward
RELEASED OUT NOW! U | 107 minutes Director Dan Scanlon Cast Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez, Lena Waithe When you think about it, it’s odd that so many of Pixar’s movies seem to feature the death of a lov
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Dan Scanlon
You lost your own father when you were young. Was making a story like this at all cathartic? For sure. Early on, I learned a lot of things about myself and my relationships, and felt like, “You know what? [Even] If this movie never gets made, I’ve go
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The Invisible Man
RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 124 minutes Director Leigh Whannell Cast Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Oliver Jackson-Cohen It’s a good thing the Gaslight movies have already lent their name to the abusive behaviour on display in The Invisible Man,
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Vivarium
RELEASED 27 MARCH (also download) 15 | 97 minutes Director Lorcan Finnegan Cast Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonathan Aris, Senan Jennings Black Mirror would be proud to boast an episode as freakily headf**ky as this tale from Garret Shanley and Lo
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Carmilla
RELEASED 3 APRIL 15 | 94 minutes Director Emily Harris Cast Hannah Rae, Devrim Lingnau, Jessica Raine, Tobias Menzies Can the undead cast shadows? The lore is contradictory, but stories certainly can. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla cast a s
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Brahms: The Boy II
RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 86 minutes Director William Brent Bell Cast Katie Holmes, Owain Yeoman, Ralph Ineson, Christopher Convery The ending of 2016’s The Boy, centred on an elderly couple who treat a porcelain doll like their dead son, was a rug-pull
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The Iron Mask
RELEASED 10 APRIL (also download) 12 | 120 minutes Director Oleg Stepchenko Cast Jason Flemyng, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Xingtong Yao Opening with a montage explaining that tea comes from a dragon’s eyelashes, this expensive Russian/Chines
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The Letter For The King
UK/US Netflix, streaming now Creator Will Davies Cast Amir Wilson, Ruby Serkis, Thaddea Graham, Jack Barton EPISODES 1.01-1.06 A coming of age saga set in an epic fantasy world, The Letter For The King is so loosely based on an acclaimed Dutch novel
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Doctor Sleep
EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 18 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/download Director Mike Flanagan Cast Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Zahn McClarnon You’ve got to admire Mike Flanagan’s chutzpah – it’s a brave director that tries to ta
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Eden
RELEASED 7 APRIL 384 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Tim Lebbon Publisher Titan Books Tim Lebbon’s latest thriller moves away from the themes of societal collapse (plus monsters) that marked The Silence and Coldbrook. Instead, Eden is about a more per
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Also Out
There’s a load more interesting-sounding books we couldn’t quite fit in. We really liked MT Hill’s last one, Zero Bomb, comparing it to Jeff Noon’s work. New one THE BREACH (out now, Titan) follows a reporter who, investigating the death of a climber
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The Wizard Of Oz
A THUNDERSTORM LASHES A DARK street in ’60s Sydney. A man’s hand reaches out, lingering, letting the rain fall on him… Slowly his finger caresses the droplets, just savouring the feel of the water. Then he walks up to a house, lies down, and carefull
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Fantasy Island
RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 109 minutes Director Jeff Wadlow Cast Lucy Hale, Maggie Q, Michael Peña, Ryan Hansen Fantasy Island is the most puzzling of recent reboots. The kitsch late-’70s/early-’80s TV series (Ricardo Montalban, white suit, Hervé Villech
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Four Kids And It
RELEASED 10 APRIL (also on Sky Cinema) PG | 110 minutes Director Andy De Emmony Cast Matthew Goode, Michael Caine, Paula Patton, Russell Brand Based on a Jacqueline Wilson update of E Nesbit’s beloved children’s book, Four Kids And It is a well-inten
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Sea Fever
RELEASED 24 APRIL (also DVD/download) TBC | 89 minutes Director Neasa Hardiman Cast Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott, Connie Nielsen, Olwen Fouéré “Things happen at sea,” declares a character in Neasa Hardiman’s debut feature. It’s an understatement,
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Koko-di Koko-da
RELEASED 27 MARCH 18 | 85 minutes Director Johannes Nyholm Cast Leif Edlund, Ylva Gallon, Katarina Jakobson, Peter Belli Taking its name from traditional French children’s song “Le Coq Est Mort”, with its cheery refrain of “The rooster’s dead/He’ll n
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NOUGHTS + CROSSES Series One
UK BBC One, Thursdays/all episodes streaming on iPlayer now Directors Koby Adom, Julian Holmes Cast Jack Rowan, Masali Baduza, Paterson Joseph, Helen Baxendale, Ian Hart EPISODES 1.01-1.06 Malorie Blackman’s alternate-history YA novel Noughts & Cross
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Drinking Game
• The episode introduces another country, planet or time period. • The Doctor talks to herself – take another swig if she then acknowledges that she’s doing so. • The Master shrinks another victim with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. • The Cyberiu
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Devs
UK BBC Two, TBC US Hulu, Thursdays Showrunner Alex Garland Cast Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Zach Grenier FIRST LOOK EPISODES 1.01-1.02 It’s early days, but Alex Garland’s first TV venture is shaping up as one of the debuts of the year: a gr
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Also + Out
OUT NOW! Vin Diesel stars as the Valiant Comics character, an enhanced supersoldier out for revenge on the man who killed both him and his wife. We imagine there were no advance screenings for this because they wanted it to be a lovely surprise. Cont
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DOCTOR WHO Series 12
SPOILER WARNING! UK BBC One, finished US BBC America, finished Showrunner Chris Chibnall Cast Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, Sacha Dhawan Rewriting the Doctor’s backstory is nothing new. The McCoy era teased that he was one
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The Outsider
UK Sky Atlantic, finished US HBO, finished Showrunner Richard Price Cast Cynthia Erivo, Ben Mendelsohn, Mare Winningham, Marc Menchaca EPISODES 1.01-1.10 Here’s a rarity: a screen adaptation that’s better than its source material. Admittedly Stephen
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Last Christmas
EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Paul Feig Cast Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh It hurts to criticise this film, given that it was co-written by the force of nature that is Emma Thompson. B
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Mike Flanagan
Recreating the Overlook Hotel must have presented quite a challenge.… It was an incredible puzzle. Warner Bros. did have Kubrick’s plans, and one of the first surreal experiences I had on this project was getting to go through them. He made changes t
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Magic
EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 1978 | 15 | Blu-ray Director Richard Attenborough Cast Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith, Ed Lauter Adapted by screenplay king William Goldman from his own novel, Magic plays on the inherent slot-jawed creepiness
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Doctor Who: The Faceless Ones
EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 1967 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD Director Gerry Mill, AnneMarie Walsh Cast Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Donald Pickering, Pauline Collins Its title alone is one of the most evocative in the Doctor Who canon. What’s extra tantalisi
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Vfw
EXTRAS RELEASED 6 APRIL 2020 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD/download This ultraviolent John Carpenter mash-up riffs on Assault On Precinct 13 and Escape From New York, as old soldiers (VFW means “Veterans of Foreign Wars”) fight off drug-crazed punks besieging t
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Stardog And Turbocat
EXTRAS RELEASED 30 MARCH 2019 | U | Blu-ray/DVD In 1969, eager mutt StarDog is launched into space – but doesn’t return for 50 years. On landing he meets TurboCat, a Batman-style vigilante, and teams up with a group of heroic animals to take on the l
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The Mad Magician
EXTRAS RELEASED 30 MARCH 1954 | 12 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Made in a later era, this Vincent Price vehicle could have been a video nasty. Price’s deviser of stage-magic devices murders his business partner, then keeps killing to cover it up, via Gran
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Alejandro Jodorowsky
EXTRAS RELEASED 30 MARCH 1968-2019 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Alejandro Jodorowsky Cast Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, Diana Mariscal, Horacio Salinas BLU-RAY DEBUT The Chilean master of surreal spectacle gets the 4K treatment on this lavish
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Ravers
EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2018 | 18 | Download A contaminated energy drink causes carnage at an underground rave in this low-budget British horror. It doesn’t quite have enough plot to keep up the momentum once the characters have clocked what’s going
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Beyond The Door
EXTRAS RELEASED 30 MARCH 1974 | 15 | Blu-ray Directors Ovidio G Assonitis, Roberto D’Ettorre Piazzoli Cast Juliet Mills, Richard Johnson, Gabriele Lavia BLU-RAY DEBUT It says something when a woman levitating and projectile-vomiting green gunk isn’t
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Superman: Red Son
EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Sam Liu Cast Jason Isaacs, Amy Acker, Diedrich Bader, Paul Williams Superman represents the best of the American dream – a fantasy designed to spread hope and punch up for the little
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Frozen 2
EXTRAS RELEASED 30 MARCH (download out now) 2019 | U | Blu-ray (4K, standard)/DVD/download Directors Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee Cast Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff No one could have predicted the box office, merchandising and all-
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Round Up
Following swiftly on the heels of the theatrical release comes Hardware director Richard Stanley’s long-awaited return, COLOR OUT OF SPACE (6 April, Blu-ray/DVD/download). Updating an HP Lovecraft tale to the present day, it gives Nic Cage the chance
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The City We Became
RELEASED 26 MARCH 448 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author NK Jemisin Publisher Orbit Books A decade ago, it seemed possible that urban fantasy might usurp high fantasy in having pride of place on the SFF table in bookstores. This hasn’t come to p
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Monstrous Heart
RELEASED 2 APRIL 384 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Claire McKenna Publisher Harper Voyager Not into romance in your fantasy novels? Fear not. Despite the title, this is very much a tale of Gothic passion, more akin to Rebecca or Jane Eyre i
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Providence
RELEASED 31 MARCH 320 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Max Barry Publisher Hodder & Stoughton Max Barry’s previous novel Lexicon was an extremely smart take on magic; Providence is an extremely smart take on an entirely different genre, the “w
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War Of The Maps
RELEASED OUT NOW! 432 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Paul McAuley Publisher Gollancz For all the sense of wonder that his fiction evokes, there’s often an underlying sense of melancholy in the fiction of Paul McAuley. This makes him unusual among har
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Chosen Ones
RELEASED 7 APRIL 420 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Veronica Roth Publisher Hodder & Stoughton Defeating the Dark Lord is just the beginning in the first novel for adults from Veronica Roth, author of YA series Divergent. The book opens in a
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The Last Human
RELEASED OUT NOW! 424 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Zack Jordan Publisher Hodder & Stoughton Not to be confused with the Red Dwarf novel of the same name, The Last Human is a space opera set in the far-distant future, featuring the universe
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The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires
RELEASED 7 APRIL 408 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author Grady Hendrix Publisher Quirk Books Grady Hendrix writes women beautifully, never more so than in his terrific coming-of-age horror My Best Friend’s Exorcism, so it’s an absolute joy to re
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Reissues
Time for our pick of the paperbacks this issue. In BSFA-winner Nina Allan’s latest, THE DOLLMAKER ( , 2 April, Riverrun), one thread follows a maker of antique-style dolls as he journeys to meet the woman he loves, but has never met; another features
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The Loop
RELEASED 2 APRIL 364 pages | Paperback Author Ben Oliver Publisher Chicken House In a dystopian future, a wrongly convicted teenager is incarcerated in a bleak prison, with a bomb inserted in his heart that’ll explode if he tries to escape. It’s a sy
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Liquid Crystal Nightingale
RELEASED OUT NOW! 352 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Eeleen Lee Publisher Rebellion It’s always interesting to imagine a future at a time when it’s no longer fresh and new, and in Liquid Crystal Nightingale Eeleen Lee takes us to the human colony of
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Thor
RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Writer Donny Cates Artist Nic Klein ISSUES 1-3 Subtlety isn’t what anyone looks for in Thor comics, and Marvel’s latest revamp of the God of Thunder fully understands this. Thor’s adventures need to be mythical, wor
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Joker: Killer Smile
RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics/Black Label Writer Jeff Lemire Artist Andrea Sorrentino ISSUES 1-3 A specialist psychonalysing an incarcerated villain is a well-worn trope, but Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino breathe new life into tired clich
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The Golden Key
RELEASED OUT NOW! 320 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Marian Womack Publisher Titan Books A cunning lady detective; a mysterious young man in search of his history; a powerful magician up to no good; a dowager in search of three missing girls; someone
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Re-Coil
After an untimely death while salvaging a derelict vessel, Carter Langston is downloaded into a brand new body on a space station several weeks’ journey away. I hated waking up in the body shop. Consciousness and acclimation were slow processes, and
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THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TRIGAN EMPIRE Volume One
RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Rebellion Writer Mike Butterworth Artist Don Lawrence COLLECTION An incongruous presence in the pages of educational children’s mag Look And Learn, The Rise And Fall Of The Trigan Empire became one of the most beloved sci-
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Altered Carbon The Art And Making Of The Series
RELEASED OUT NOW! 176 pages | Hardback Author Abbie Bernstein Publisher Titan Books A plague upon character profiles! When you buy a Making Of book, what you want is not an endless procession of cast earnestly declaring what a fascinating challenge e
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Nioh 2
RELEASED OUT NOW! Available on PlayStation 4 Publisher Sony Interactive VIDEOGAME An unfinished script by Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo) served as the initial spark for the first Nioh, and while this prequel is much more its own thing, the i
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Dr Strange: Surgeon Supreme
RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Comics Writer Mark Waid Artist Kev Walker ISSUES 1-3 The Surgeon Supreme subtitle promises something that – three issues in – this relaunch of Dr Strange’s metaphysical adventures isn’t quite delivering. Losing the
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Doctor Who Series 12
RELEASED 3 APRIL 153 minutes | CD/download Publisher Silva Screen SOUNDTRACK Much like the season itself, Segun Akinola’s score for the latest run of Doctor Who feels bigger and bolder than before, but is still prone to moments of blandness. Akinola’
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Supercar
RELEASED OUT NOW! CD/vinyl Publisher Silva Screen SOUNDTRACK Big fan of Supercar, are you? Thought not. Still, you don’t have to be a card-carrying member of Fanderson to get a kick out of this collection of themes, cues and incidental music by the g
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American Jesus: The New Messiah
RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Image Comics Writer Mark Millar Artist Peter Gross ISSUES 1-3 The first volume of Millar and Gross’s American Jesus (originally titled Chosen) came out way back in 2004. The three-issue series followed the teenage years of
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Record Store Day
A Demon Records reissue of the two LPs brought out in 1979 and 1980, on green, blue and purple vinyl. These are re-recordings, slightly different from the radio versions; for example, a different actor plays Trillian. Subtitled The Truth And The Ligh
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Donna Noble: Kidnapped!
RELEASED OUT NOW! 302 minutes | CD/download Publisher Big Finish AUDIO DRAMA Catherine Tate’s Who companion Donna Noble was a breath of fresh air after the lovestruck Rose and Martha; bold, bolshy and argumentative, with a strong moral streak. This b
SFX2 min readFashion
Clothing
QUESTION 1 According to the Fourth Doctor, which “witty little knitter” was responsible for his extremely long scarf? QUESTION 2 What’s so unusual about the Nike Air Mags that Marty wears in Back To The Future Part II? QUESTION 3 What does Scotty wea
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Our Lady Of Darkness
Are you familiar with the dark arts of mega polisomancy, and the use of neopythagorean metageometry? Probably not, unless you’re an ageing member of the Hermetic Order of the Onyx Dusk… or have read Fritz Leiber’s last novel, winner of the World Fant
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Fact Attack!
Leiber’s father (also Fritz) was a successful actor, most notably playing Franz Lizst in Universal’s Phantom Of The Opera (1943). The book was expanded from The Pale Brown Thing, first published in the Jan/Feb 1977 editions of Fantasy And Science Fic

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