This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.
Chapter 19: John Carter makes a new friend in prison but must face a day of fighting to the death in the arena.
This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.
Here’s the concluding podcast chapter of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.
Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.
When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.
Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.
This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.
Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.
Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.
When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.
Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.
This animated short is by Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham. Drill baby drill! On Mars! This is what happens when you run around punching holes in things.
Hey! I thought I had the darned movie already! But now there’s yet another ‘restored’ version of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction masterpiece, Metropolis. Boy is that a gorgeous trailer though! Wow! And the music is far better than what’s on my DVD. This is the movie that just keeps making itself over and over and over.
I want to make a feature film and I’ll release the 2-hour version, but there will be 17 hours of ‘lost footage’ hidden in various places around the globe so that the movie can recompile itself over the decades into an ‘official version’ which bears absolutely no resemblance to the original movie. Or better yet, I’m going to start shooting fake Metropolis footage and then discover it in the broom closet of an old bus depot in the middle of Kansas. So the movie will suddenly expand to 4 and a half hours.
This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.
Chapter 18: John Carter, is a prisoner of a new Martian horde and he witnesses savagery like none he has seen before.
This is an LP of a 1957 recording of Aldus Huxley narrating his science fiction masterpiece, Brave New World. The music is by Bernard Herrmann. Of course, it’s not really the book. It’s a 1 hour radio dramatization. The book is a frightening look at a future of genetic breeding and an anesthetized population of perfectly content people without desires. They are kept uninformed and comfortable so that they will remain peaceful and easy to control by a ruling order. They are made to cherish their servitude and oppression.
Huxley believed that George Orwell’s vision of the future in 1984 was too extreme and that oppression of large populations would be watered down into something resembling pleasure and entertainment. They were both partly right.
So read Huxley’s book and think about the world around you and how little is really expected of you.
Pink Tentacle has Japanese sci-fi and Ultraman art by Takayoshi Mizuki. These were done in the sixties and early seventies. They remind me of the art you’d see on toy boxes.
This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.
Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.
Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.
When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.
Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.
The TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles is hosting the North American premiere of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction classic, Metropolis, with 25 minutes of newly discovered footage.
Metropolis is the story of a mechanized future city with rulers who live atop high towers and masses of slave workers that operate the giant machines below. A rebellion is incited when a robot version of a young woman who works to help the poor is set out to inflame the oppressed workers. The setting of the film is just astounding and has not been matched for beauty by any film since. This is one of the great classics of world cinema and finding 25 minutes of lost footage is incredible. Several years ago, I went to the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to see a newly restored version that had still photos inserted where footage was missing. I suspect that many of those missing scenes are now included!
The film was discovered in a museum storage room in Argentina. So not only did Argentina hide escaped Nazis, but it has also been hiding a German science fiction treasure… unwittingly of course. And if you look at Metropolis carefully, you can see the Nazis coming. The film is permeated with it. If you don’t believe me, consider that the screenwriter, Thea von Harbou did in fact become a Nazi. Another Fritz Lang classic, Spies, is so riddled with antisemitism that it is almost impossible to watch. So there it is. Great classic yes, but also profoundly threatening.
The Los Angeles Times Blog has an interview with James Cameron, the director of Avatar.
“We’re working on finishing an additional six minutes of the film — which includes a lot of Weta work — for a theatrical re-release in August. We were sold out of our Imax performances right up to the moment until they were contractually obligated to switch to “Alice in Wonderland,” so we know we left money on the table there. And the 3-D really helped “Avatar” right up until the moment that it hurt it. And it hurt it at the moment “Alice” and then “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Clash of the Titans” came in and sucked up all the 3-D screens. We went from declining 8% a week to declining 50%. Clearly, it wasn’t market forces directly; it was the availability of theaters. So we’re going to wait until there’s a time to come back in, inject the new footage into the mix and see if we can interest people in the “Avatar” experience in theaters.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am so sick of hearing people talk about this silly 3-D trend. It’s just a clever scam to raise ticket prices. I don’t care what Cameron says. Fortunately, however, the new DVD appears to be in regular 2-D.
Fard is a 2009 French animated short by Luis Briceno and David Alapont. The story is quite visual, but my limited French tells me that the main character is part of a colorless corporate world and he’s just done a good presentation at work. However, he gets a package that contains something which allows him for a brief time to see what really lies underneath the surface of things.
Well I’m just very pleased about this. The Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles has given my film, Yellow Plastic Raygun, the award for Best Experimental Film. I was having quite a nice week attending various parties and screenings at the festival. Its use of multiple locations in the heart of downtown Los Angeles gives one a real sense of taking part in the life of the city and being involved with something that’s helping to foster the exploding art and film scene in downtown. Most of the short films were screened in the new Civic Center Theater at the intersection of First and Main Streets, in the shadow of the famous City Hall tower that has appeared in so many crime shows and film noir classics. I attended the screening of my own film this past Saturday evening and was amazed at seeing it large since I had put so much work into it on small monitors. What’s great about the Downtown Film Festival is that it shows a wide range of filmmaking styles, crew sizes and budgets. They show films made with lots of production resources right alongside films made by individual artists working with inexpensive HD cameras and even cell phone cameras. I am very proud to have won this and I look forward to more great festivals in downtown Los Angeles from the people who put this together. Continue reading …
Science fiction author William Gibson (Neuromancer, Spook Country) is answering questions about writing, publishing and general work habits on his blog.
This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.
Chapter 17: John Carter, Dejah Thoris, and Sola make their escape across the Martian landscape for the city of Helium.
