While attending a movie recently, I was astonished to see a trailer for an upcoming steampunk movie, Mortal Engines. I had heard of the 2001 book by Philip Reeve but hadn’t read it. The premise was very imaginative albeit somewhat silly: in a post-apocalyptic world, cities went mobile to survive. They became huge steam-powered edifices […]
In the early 1980’s, renowned sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle compiled the first in a series of story collections with a military theme. For several years they came out regularly until the end of the Cold War seemed to make the series obsolete. Though I hadn’t been interested at the time, my interests have broadened since […]
Flowers of Evil (Aku no Hana) is a 2013 animated series from the studio Zexcs based on a manga by Shuzo Oshimi with a screenplay by Aki Itami. Though Arlys and I are big anime fans, this is not the kind of show we usually watch. It features middle school students with no powers or […]
n today’s media-saturated world, clever and original films seldom get the attention they deserve. We found this animated movie in a web search, having missed it when it was released in 2015. This French language film stars the award-winning actress Marion Cotillard as April Franklin. The English dubbed version features some big names as well, […]
Being a steampunk fanatic, anything with “clockwork” in the title automatically piques my interest. The book’s cover illustration of a colorful harlequin-like character added to my fascination. Clockwork Ninja turned out not to be steampunk, but rather an imaginative urban fantasy set mostly in my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Full disclosure: I know the author, […]
In my never-ending quest to experience more classic steampunk, I acquired an audio-book copy of Shelly Adina’s Lady of Devices: A Steampunk Adventure. Recently I’ve been complaining about how some of the novels that are classified as steampunk don’t fit the genre. Lady of Devices is not one of those – it’s as steampunk as […]
Pardon the pun, as this review has nothing to do with the Caped Crusader. It’s about the award-winning 2012 film Holy Motors by French writer/director Leos Carax. We had heard it was weird and interesting and that one actor played most of the parts. It sounded intriguing, but after watching it, Arlys and I were […]
