Future Revisitations

Great series - the opening episode (70s version) is in a league of its own - a really effective production.

Long gone I’m afraid - it was granted one repeat broadcast in the UK but then the tapes were wiped for reuse (standard practice at the time unfortunately). Featured the wonderful Peter Cushing as Elijah Baley too…

Yes sadly, only a few clips survive - the master tapes of BBC TV productions of this era were routinely wiped after broadcast rights expired.

Surviving screengrabs from the title and end credit caption sequences of the 1964 BBC production of ‘The Caves of Steel’ and the 1965 adaptation of ‘The Fox and the Forest’, made for the BBC anthology series ‘Out of the Unknown’.

Remembering scriptwriter Terry Nation, born OTD 1930.
Some of his lesser known contributions to TV SF included adaptations of Philip K. Dick stories for the 1962 series ‘Out of this World’, Asimov’s ‘The Caves of Steel’ in 1964, & Bradbury’s ‘The Fox and the Forest’ in 1965.
Sadly all are now lost!

Ah, hadn’t heard of that one. I’ll certainly look it up, thank you 👍

A welcome acquisition today.
Some familiar and some less than familiar titles within these 560 pages.
That’s the heartening thing about this genre - so much variety, so much history…

That sound inevitably puts me in mind of Robert Aickman’s masterpiece ‘Ringing the Changes’ 🙂

Ooh…
Have this on order - arriving (I’m reliably informed) by this Friday. Looking forward to interspersing novel reads with the occasional dip into this volume 👍

One of my favourites too of the short stories I’ve read to date - looking forward to seeing how the same concept was utilised in Three Stigmata’.

Yes, definitely up on YouTube (seems complete too looking at the timing) 👍

Many thanks - will check this out when I’ve finished the book this week 👍🙂

I’ll definitely seek this one out, thank you for the heads-up. 👍
I was also rewatching the 2005 BBC4 documentary ‘John Wyndham: The Invisible Man of Science Fiction’ recently - a nice introductory production overall.

Would be keen to see the earlier Vincent Price version too (I only have the vaguest memories of watching The Omega Man when it was screened on TV). And yes, the Will Smith version wasn’t for me either!

I’ve really enjoyed this collection - great variety too. Some are beautifully written but demanding of the reader (‘He Who Shapes’), whilst ‘Damnation Alley’ & ‘Last Defender of Camelot’ are more action-orientated. Top for me was the poignant ‘Keys to December’ & the quirky ‘For a Breath I Tarry’.

Cover of the SF Masterworks edition of Richard Matheson’s ‘I am Legend’ - showing a series of dimly lit skeletal figures - the foremost figure is reaching out with clawed hands.

Now embarking on one of Richard Matheson’s finest.
A captivating character study woven with brilliantly staged set pieces that are a real adrenaline rush.
And a book that’s hard to put aside once started… 🙂

A favourite author of mine for many years. And it’s been a delight to rediscover the sheer variety of his work through the ‘collection’ series (currently savouring this volume).

B/w illustration from the original publication of James Blish’s SF story ‘Work of Art’ (first published as ‘Art-Work’), depicting the ‘reconstructed’ version of the composer Richard Strauss, conducting an opera in a theatre set in the far future. As he holds a conductor’s baton aloft, the musicians are ranged below him in the orchestra pit.

Just read James Blish’s ‘Work of Art’ from 1956. Entirely deserving of its ‘classic’ status, this is a beautifully crafted short story centred around the transposing of a ‘recreated’ identity, with all its latent hopes & anxieties, into another ‘host’ body. Touching but devastating final scene.

Very interesting - I gather Wyndham led a relatively private life (relative to his fame of course) and that a large body of his letters etc. weren’t retained after he died in 1969. I’m sure Seed’s book will make for fascinating reading though.

A week of great short stories continues with David Masson’s ‘Mouth of Hell’, originally published in New Worlds in 1966.
An astonishingly effective piece, depicting an eerie descent into a huge hole discovered in the earth’s surface.
The way the tale shifts gears in the closing moments is a delight.

Just read Zelazny’s ‘Loki 7281’ (first seen in the 1984 ‘R-A-M’ anthology).
A tale of a home computer taking over the domestic affairs of a SF writer, including rewriting his novels…
Given current AI concerns, the writer’s cry of “I won’t be ghostwritten by a damn machine!” seemed quite poignant!

‘Fondly Fahrenheit’ certainly lived up to its reputation and there are numerous other stories here which I gather are ranked amongst his finest (‘The Pi Man’ etc). Certainly very pleased to have acquired this volume 👍

On to Bester’s ‘Time is the Traitor’, first published in the Magazine of F&SF in Sept 1953.
Another pacy tale of a man with a troubled psyche - uncomfortable at times, but there’s no doubting Bester’s consummate skill as a storyteller - “stories which never stand still” as one critic aptly put it.

Image divided into: 1. The cover of the ‘The Complete Short stories of J.G. Ballard’ 2. Close up photo of Ballard in the early 60s. 3. Cover of New Worlds magazine in November 1961, in which the story ‘Billennium’ was first published.

This month’s J.G. Ballard story was ‘Billennium’, first published in New Worlds in 1961.
Shot through with a wonderful irony, the tale is set within a city whose population growth entails just 4 square metres of living space to each resident. And the population growth shows no signs of decreasing…

Screenshots of the kaleidoscopic ‘Star Gate’ sequence from the 1968 film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ alongside a close up shot of astronaut Dave Bowman (overlayed with the split-screen light effects used in this sequence).

Celebrating director Stanley Kubrick, born OTD 1928.
Hard to pick just one thing from his extraordinary legacy, but I’ve opted for the iconic final act from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.
57 years on and it’s still absolutely mesmerising.

What a wonderful treasure trove - David Pelham was an extraordinary talent.

Read this fairly recently in one of his collected stories volumes - Aldiss at his playful and irreverent best 👍

B/W image of a robotic figure holding a man aloft in its arms - illustration by Virgil Finlay published in a 1953 edition of ‘Amazing Stories’

In celebration of the superlative SF & fantasy illustrator Virgil Finlay, born OTD 1914. Here’s just one example (adorning Robert Sheckley’s 1953 story ‘Beside Still Waters’) of the beautiful black & white pen-and-ink drawings that graced the Pulp magazines & their successors over several decades…

This might be of interest - a 2013 edition of the World Book Club podcast featuring Brian Aldiss answering questions on ‘Greybeard’ (likewise a novel that’s currently gracing my ‘to be read’ pile 🙂)

Nice collection of hardbacks there! Looking forward to reading what occurred when Asimov returned to the series in the 80s 👍

Good to know - thank you 👍