STARTLING TOMES

FANTASTIC PLANETS, FORBIDDEN ZONES, AND LOST CONTINENTS: The 100 Greatest Science Fiction Films.  Douglas Brode. University of Texas Press; 2015. Author Brode looks at 100 of the most influential, popular, and well-made science fiction films. There are chapters on such films as   The Invisible Man,   The Day the Earth Stood Still,   The War of the Worlds, Village of the Damned,   Seconds,   Alien, Star Wars,   Fantastic Voyage, Jurassic Park , and many others. This is more a book of reportage than of film criticism, as Brode's approach is to divide each essay, pop culture-style, into bold-faced sections: Background, Film, Plot, Theme, Trivia and Most Memorable Line. There is little analysis of the film's themselves. In addition to genuine classics, Brode seems to have a weakness for some of the more pretentious titles covered but he does come up with some interesting factoids on many movies. Heavily illustrated. This is an okay introduction to some me...

BROKEN MIRRORS, BROKEN MINDS:   The Dark Dreams of   DARIO ARGENTO.   Maitland McDonagh. University  of Minnesota Press; 2010 -- expanded edition. McDonagh takes an interesting look at the Italian maker of horror films with an academic approach. Dario Argento has garnered many fans of his work, although he's never been taken that seriously by U.S. mainstream critics. Some of that is due to what may be seen as over-the-top violence, a few weak screenplays, an adherence to visual effect over logic, and so on. Despite this, some of his films are quite creepy, exhilarating, and yes, artistic in their way. McDonaugh won me over with her fond [?] look at the Times Square movie houses of yesterday (where she first saw Argento's early films), where often there was more drama going on in the audience than in the picture, writing of one theater that it was "a shoebox of a grindhouse, so dirty, claustrophobic and relentlessly seamy that I remember it more vividly than the movie...

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA . Alan Vanneman. Carroll and Graf; 2002. The untold case of the giant rat of Sumatra was referred to in Doyle's stories and in at least one Holmes movie, but this is the first time the entire story has been revealed-- sort of. This is an entertaining pulp-type novel, but the Holmes and Watson it presents seem to come from an alternate dimension. For one thing, Holmes accepts supernatural and bizarre occurrences much too quickly and easily, and Watson not only beds a married lady and others, but writes gleefully about it in the narrative -- hardly the actions of a gentleman. (Besides, who cares about Watson's sex life?) These are ill-advised attempts to "modernize" or jazz up these famous characters, and they don't work. However, the story itself -- in which Holmes and Watson investigate when a widowed client is murdered, and find themselves embroiled in a far-flung conspiracy as well as with an unknown race and its grot...

DEAD MOUNTAIN: THE UNTOLD TRUE STORY OF THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT.   Donnie Eichar. Chronicle; 2013. I first found out about the true-life Dyatlov Pass incident when I saw a fictional movie called   Devil's Pass , which came up with an utterly far-fetched explanation for the mysterious deaths of nine young Russian hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959. What made their deaths so strange was that they apparently rushed out of the safety of their tent   with no shoes on  and insufficiently dressed as if in a panic. They were found a mile away in various places. While most died of hypothermia, there were also other violent injuries. For decades, Russians have speculated on what made these experienced hikers run out of their tent, with an avalanche being the most likely explanation. But author Eichar, talking to relatives of the deceased, as well as experts in various fields both in the U.S. and Russia -- and retracing the steps of the victims via snowmobile --  debun...

THE SUCCESSOR. Burt Schiller. Aardvark Vintage Classics; 1966.  After his father passes away, Benjamin Seeker learns that the old man was head of a secret organization, a vast crime cartel known as Unicorn. Ben is pretty much told that he either takes over the organization or will be killed by the major Unicorn operatives who are vying for control. These include a beautiful woman named Cynthia, who keeps boa constrictors for pets, an obese fellow named Gorgon who works out of a health spa in Nevada, and Father Dunn, an alleged priest with a bevy of adoring and dutiful nuns. Obviously The Successor , originally published in the sixties, is not to be taken seriously, as the book gets wilder and kinkier as it goes along. Ben is irresistible to virtually all women -- nuns included -- and finds almost every woman he meets desirable. He spends as much time hopping in and out of beds as he does dodging bullets, knives and bombs. While The Successor  can't exactly be called a great bo...

IRON MAN: FEMME FATALES . Robert Greenberger. Del Rey; 2009. In this paperback novel brought out in the wake of the   Iron Man   movie with Robert Downey, Tony Stark -- the inventive genius who is also the super-hero Iron Man -- has his hands full with attacks by both the forces of Hydra ["cut off one limb and a dozen take its place"] and the mafia-like European Maggia. Both groups are being led by sexy woman who coincidentally have scarred faces: Madame Hydra [formerly the Viper] and Madame Masque [formerly Whitney Frost, the daughter of Count Nefaria, who heads the Maggia]. Masque comes to work for Stark in disguise, and Madame Hydra intrigues him and beds him in the guise of a mysterious green-haired woman named Katalin [that should have been his first clue]. This is a moderately entertaining book using concepts and characters created way back in the "silver age" of comics in the sixties. The hoped-for meeting/battle between the two different if similar women nev...

TARZAN OF THE APES . Edgar Rice Burroughs. First published in   All-Story   in 1912, then in book form in 1914. This is Edgar Rice Burroughs' original novel about the famous Tarzan of the Apes. After a mutiny on the ship they are voyaging on, Lord and Lady Greystoke are forced ashore in Africa, where they build a cabin. The couple die, and the infant Greystoke is left alone, whereupon he is taken by the ape Kala, whose own baby has just died. Tarzan educates himself by reading the books left behind in the cabin, and grows up believing that Kala is his natural mother. Using his human intelligence, he is able to survive conflicts with the other gorillas (a fictional breed) but ultimately leaves the group after Kala is killed. Professor Porter, his daughter Jane, her black maid, Esmeralda, Tarzan's cousin William Clayton (the true heir), and others are also forced ashore (conveniently near the cabin) where Tarzan rescues them time and again from danger. Jane and Tarzan virtually ...

THE GREATEST SCI-FI MOVIES NEVER MADE . David Hughes. A Cappella Books/ Chicago Review Press; 2001. This entertaining and well-researched book examines the struggle to get many science fiction films made, (some of which have since materialized since the publication of this first edition). These include efforts to bring to the screen such novels as Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination;" and Arthur C. Clarkes' "Childhood's End." More often the book examines how the scripts of certain films metamorphosed from the screenwriter and/or producer's original conception into something entirely different.   Superman Lives   (as   Superman Returns )   and   I am Legend   were eventually made, but in very different form and with different actors and creative people attached.   Spider-Man   eventually came to the screen but without the participation of James Cameron, who was attached to the project for several years. Then there are dissections of why certa...

DOC SAVAGE: SKULL ISLAND . Will Murray. Altus Press; 2013. In a brand-new Doc Savage adventure,   King Kong   has already attacked New York and fallen from the Empire State building when the novel begins. The 1930's pulp magazine hero tells his comrades about how he met Kong some years before in 1920, when he accompanied his stern father on a search of the Indian Ocean for Doc's grandfather, sailor Stormalong Savage. Grandpappy has been marooned on Skull Mountain Island and been the pet of the big ape-like creature for many years. In addition to staying out of the way of Kong and dodging all manner of hungry dinosaurs, Doc and his family members have to deal with murderous attacks by a band of head-hunting dyaks with poisonous blowguns.   Skull Island   has some exciting and intriguing moments, but it's not as memorable as the classic Doc-Savage-meets-Dinosaurs novel   The Land of Terror . The attempts to sort of humanize a completely unreal character, Doc, are ...

  STRANGE AND STRANGER: THE WORLD OF STEVE DITKO . Blake Bell. 2008; Fantagraphics. Steve Ditko is the comic book artist and writer who is most famous for the co-creation of   Spider-Man , as well as   Dr. Strange , with Stan Lee. Ditko became obsessed with writer Ayn Rand -- especially her novel   The Fountainhead  -- and its principles, and it had a profound effect on his life and work. Like the architect hero of   Fountainhead , Ditko felt he had to remain true to his principles, and was loathe to make money doing what he saw as crap -- anything that didn't smack of Ayn Rand. Unfortunately, most readers did not have the same interest in Rand, and Ditko rejected suggestions to make his stories more readable even as his art suffered, everything becoming subordinate to his "messages." Occasionally Ditko would try more or less mainstream work, such as Marvel's short-lived   Speedball  comic, as well as  Hawk and Dove  and  Shade, the...

A KISS BEFORE DYING . Ira Levin. 1953.  A young man at university has great plans for himself, but his plans seem to go awry when his wealthy girlfriend, Dorothy, gets pregnant. An early marriage, before he has a chance to win over his disapproving father-in-law, will undoubtedly mean that "Dorrie" will be cut off without a penny and that just won't do. Unable to convince Dorothy to get an abortion, he gives her some pills which don't work, and then decides all he can do is do away with dear Dorrie. So he concocts a highly sinister scheme ... A Kiss Before Dying  was Ira Levin's first novel and it was so well-received that it led into a long and successful writing career, with such subsequent books as   Rosemary's Baby, This Perfect Day, The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil   and others. His fiction output was not that extensive -- there were 14 years between   Kiss   and his 2nd novel   Rosemary  -- and he actually wrote more plays than novel...