New sci fi fantasy books

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Climate experts are worried: the urgency of climate change isn’t getting through to the general public. Increasingly dire warnings and the growing ferocity of extreme weather events seem to elicit little more than a shrug of the shoulders. Perhaps this isn’t surprising: the scale of the climate crisis can seem too huge, and far beyond our control. In many ways, simply switching off is a rational response. In the face of news fatigue and its byproduct of indifference, visual artists are turning to alternative methods to spread climate awareness where news stories have failed. “I try to show that while this stuff is complicated and super important, it’s much easier to understand if you get the context,” says German comic book artist Céline Keller. “Explaining a topic is much easier if we tell stories. And the stories are there, if you look.” As it turns out, graphic novels and comics are becoming an important tool … [Read more...] about Why Comic Books Could Be A Powerful Weapon In The Climate Fight

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin This post was republished on 6/25. Well, it finally happened, and it took another juggernaut to knock Stranger Things season 4 off the #1 spot on Netflix’s top 10 list after nearly a month planted there. That would be season 3 of The Umbrella Academy, Netflix’s hyper-successful non-Marvel or DC superhero series about an odd band of brothers and sister dealing with time travel paradoxes upon their return. Stranger Things season 4 almost lasted in the #1 spot until July 1, which is when part 2 of the season airs with the final two episodes, which will no doubt propel it to #1 yet again for a period of time. Right now, the show is slowly inching toward Squid Game’s viewership record, but it will need those final two episodes to perform even better than the previous seven if it hopes to catch it. Regardless, Stranger Things season 4 has set all manner of English-language records for the service, and even if … [Read more...] about ‘Stranger Things’ Dethroned In Netflix’s Top 10 List By A New Show

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Ethan Hawke landed his first film role at age 14, starring in Joe Dante’s sci-fi fantasy Explorers alongside fellow newcomer River Phoenix. A film enthusiast even before working with Dante, the Austin, Texas native learned much from the filmmaker in an era (late ‘70s) when the art of moviemaking was still a mystery to most everyone outside of the industry. “VHS was still new so you either had to see a movie at a theater or wait until it was shown on TV, and there was no BTS (behind the scenes),” recalls the actor, who honed his craft and became a successful working actor, earning four Oscar nominations, a Tony nomination and numerous other accolades. Still a self-described geeky lover of movies, Hawke is happiest when surrounded by others who share his passion for telling stories, whether on film or on the stage. That still youthful exuberance he has maintained throughout his 51 years explains why so many filmmakers … [Read more...] about Ethan Hawke Keeps It Simple And Scary in ‘70s-Set Thriller ‘The Black Phone’

'Jurassic World: Dominion' - the third film in the 'Jurassic World' trilogy - released in theatres on June 10, 2022. Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World: Dominion ( JWD ) is a chaotic extinction saga. There are too many dinosaurs roaming free in the world of which the only memorable kind is the Giganotosaurus, which, we are told is the biggest and most predatory carnivore to have ever lived on Earth. The raptors chase humans on a runway, on snow-covered expanses, lush primitive jungles and inside a futuristic lab. Old-timers from Steven Spielberg’s original appear with a mission to save the dinosaurs from the avaricious head scientist of a sprawling lab situated within the Dolomites in Italy. There are locusts, and there is also a cell-restructured human. Old-timers from Steven Spielberg’s original appear with a mission to save the dinosaurs. The visual effects are predictably astounding; in 3D, the effect is initially thrilling, with the rapacious mouths of the … [Read more...] about Jurassic World: Dominion movie review: The Giganotosaurus is back on 3D

An undated handout picture released by the Fish People record label on March 21, 2014, shows British musician Kate Bush posing at an undisclosed location. Kate Bush, in a rare interview broadcast on June 22, 2022, has disarmingly described her return to the top of the music charts as “quite shocking” after Netflix drama “Stranger Things” wowed a new generation of fans. Image: Fish People/Trevor Leighton via AFP Kate Bush, in a rare interview, has described her return to the top of the music charts as “quite shocking” after Netflix drama “Stranger Things” wowed a new generation of fans. The much-loved British singer-songwriter also dwelt on her lockdown experience of binge-watching and gardening, and revealed that she prefers an old-style phone when out and about. Bush’s classic song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” has surged to No. 1 in Britain and elsewhere after featuring prominently, and movingly, in the fourth series of the sci-fi Netflix series set in the 1980s. … [Read more...] about Kate Bush on ‘Stranger Things’ and chart reprise: ‘The world’s gone mad’

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Even if Top Gun: Maverick ends up just below Elvis atop the domestic box office in its fifth weekend, it won’t be for a lack of trying. Paramount and Skydance’s $170 million action drama earned another $8.25 million on its fifth Friday, dropping 26% from last Friday for a new $499.472 million domestic cume. Tom Cruise’s legacy sequel is passing $500 million domestic by the end of this sentence. It’s looking like a $30.1 million fifth-weekend gross for the Joseph Kosinski-directed flick, which would be A) a drop of just 33% and B) the second or third-biggest fifth-weekend gross alongside Titanic ($30.1 million) and Avatar ($42 million). That brings its domestic cume to $521 million by Sunday night. Presuming a continued 53/47 domestic/overseas split and a thus-far solid opening weekend in South Korea, Top Gun: Maverick should end tomorrow night just over/under the $1 billion mark in global grosses. Among domestic … [Read more...] about Friday Box Office: ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Tops $500 Million, ‘Lightyear’ Plunges 74%

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Despite the fact that Netflix itself has yet to confirm or announce a Stranger Things spin-off, it absolutely exists, and the Duffer Brothers are operating under the clear mandate that they essentially have a blank check to do whatever they want after the success of the original series. That apparently includes talking about it and confirming it, despite the fact that Netflix itself hasn’t done this. In a recent interview with Variety , they talk about how they’re not going to shoot it until Stranger Things season 5 is over, even if in theory, they could do both in parallel. They tease that it’s going to be different than what anyone expects, which may include some past guesses like that one weird episode with Elle’s “siblings” that were never revisited: "The reason we haven't done anything is just because you don't want to be doing it for the wrong reasons, and it was just like, 'Is this something I would want to … [Read more...] about A ‘Stranger Things’ Star Guessed What The Upcoming Spin-Off Will Be

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Day 7. Monday is the last day of Bitcoin living and it’s off to an exhausting start. My first night in the Bitcoin-paid hostel was not especially restful due to noise filtering in from Mission Street and my body’s usual skepticism about an unfamiliar bed. I have plans to meet with security researcher Dan Kaminsky in the Mission in the afternoon so it would be silly to head to the office. I’d love to go to a cafe to work but none in the area take Bitcoin. I don’t think I can take Bitcoin seriously as a currency until tech-forward San Francisco has at least one BTC-friendly coffee shop. 20 Mission has Wi-Fi. I place a Skype call to Pyry Lehdonvirta who is in Helsinki. He is the 29-year-old CEO of SC5, a Finnish HTML5 software developer that started paying 20 of its full-time employees partially in Bitcoin last October when Bitcoin was valued at $40 USD. “The increase in [BTC’s] value has been bad for us,” says Lehdonvirta. … [Read more...] about Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Bitcoin Is The Internet Applied To Money (And I Survived It)

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Nick Ut's 'Accidental Napalm', taken 50 years ago on June 8, became the defining image of America's war in Vietnam. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly via Wikimedia Commons) “Photographs cannot create a moral position, but they can reinforce one” — Susan Sontag Only in America the anniversaries of terrible and indescribable destruction are celebrated with a zest that perhaps equals, in the huge space and big pile of bytes wasted in the media, the fury and madness of the sordid original act. Some years from now, America, in whatever shape it survives the divisions and discord that is pulverising its society, will, in photo galleries and on websites, raise a toast to what the country’s follies and foolishness wrought in Afghanistan. Instead of building a liberal society—Americans think of democracy as a takeaway pizza shop where, once the joint is set up, you can come and carve out slices according to your appetite and take them home and … [Read more...] about 50 years on, ‘Accidental Napalm’ still fills us with horror