Dune

Author: Frank Herbert
eBook Publisher: Gateway
eBook Date: Dec 2010

First Published: 1965
Pages: 592

Cover Art: Bruce Pennington

After including Dune in my list of favourite books of all time back in August, I knew I was going to have to give it a re-read. So, hot on the heels of a visit to the cinema to see the new adaptation by Denis Villeneuve (I was very impressed), I was even more keen to get stuck in. 

My overall concern with a re-read was that my first impression of the book, read as a young man in the late seventies/early eighties, might have been clouded by nostalgia. Sometimes the books you read as a young person, and are mightily impressed with at the time, don't necessarily have the same impact when visited as a more mature reader. The antagonist of Dune, Paul Atreides, is a 15 year old boy - probably the same age as myself when I first encountered it. Would that fact have had a major influence on my regard for the story? I vividly recall holding the paperback by NEL, with the classic Pennington cover, in my hands and devouring it at every opportunity - it was the biggest book I'd ever read at the time. I still remember seeing it in the bookshop, the thick blue spine looked so different next to all the other thinner science fiction novels on the same shelf. It 'felt' good to hold; it looked cool and it didn't have numbered chapters.

Unless you've been living under a stone (or alone in the desert) for the last 50 years, you'll know the general story of Dune. A family by ther name of House Atreides is tasked by ruling Emporer Padishah Shaddam IV with taking over the control of the planet Arrakis. The Royal decree also demands that Duke Leto and his family maintain the production of Arrakis's major export, the spice named Melange. Melange is a powerful drug that allows humans to attain amazing feats with just the power of their minds. One of these feats is the action of folding space across the vast exapnse of the universe, thus allowing interstellar flight between planets and systems - a momentous achievement that has literally brought about the forming of the human Imperium.

Leto is unable to refuse the request of the Emperor, but he and his advisors know that this is a doomed venture. They have been sent to an inhospitable planet entirely covered by a vast desert. The inhabitants of Arrakis are the native Fremen, a reclusive and secretive nation of wandering tribes who are able to survive on incredibly restricitve diets and very little water, whilst also hiding the true size and complexity of thier communities from thier foreign oppressors in the depths of the oceans of sand on thier planet.

My Top Twenty Books of all time - Fiction & Non-fiction - July 2021

I didn't think I'd ever do this sort of entry on Digital Bibliophilia. However, inspired by a recent new entry in to this list, and fuelled by a couple of pints on my first night out drinking with work colleagues in nearly two years, I find myself unable to sleep and worried that anything I read will be forgotten in a haze of alcoholic fuzz the next morning. Therefore here we go - I hope it's mildly interesting or leads to someone picking up ones of the books in this list because I think they are fabulous.

So here we go, and in no particular order...

Collected Stories: Raymond Chandler (Everyman's library, No.257) (2002)

I love Chandler. Reading any of his works of fiction is a pleasure every human being should experience at least once in their life. Although his novels are mostly works of genius, I actually preferred this massive collection of his short-form works. This is one book you can't carry around with you - at over 1,300 pages you'll end up with forearms like Popeye the Sailor. Just sit back in your favourite wing-back chair with a bottle of whisky and savour every moment.

The Quincunx: The Inheritance of John Huffam (1995)

I never would have dreamed a book like this would end up being something I'd ever admit to saying was an all-time favourite of mine. I do like to read Charles Dickens every now and again (there's a Dickens biography staring at me on my bookshelf every day - I'll get around to it at some point). This is very much influenced by Dickensian tales. A labyrinthine colossus of a novel over 1,200 pages in length in paperback form that follows the life of a Victorian young man who has no memory of his father, and whose doting mother holds a precious codicil of a last will and testament in a small trinket that never leaves her side. As his life takes turn after turn, and tragedy after tragedy befalls him - he never loses sight of the fact that something on that document hides the secret to his claim to a family fortune. A mesmerising and compelling masterpiece of a novel that is even meticulously structured (word by word) so that the sentence in the middle of the book reveals the secret to our protagonists background (good luck counting the words!).

Shackleton (1989)

A biography of Ernest Shackleton, the famous polar explorer, by Roland Huntford. There are quite a few books on Shackleton by now, but this was one of the earliest, if not the first, to really cover his life, and his astonishing exploration to the South Pole. If you think the notion of old-fashioned heroes is a myth - you need to read the true story of how this man lead his colleagues out of the jaws of hell and, quite literally, across the frozen landscape of Antarctica whilst dragging a boat behind them so they could sail to a desolate island; and then leave them behind whilst he went off on an almost suicidal mission to go and seek out a rescue party to come back to save them. A stone-cold (no pun intended) winner for best biography I'll ever read in my life. Forget anyone who says Captain Scott was a better hero - this guy makes Scott feel like a wuss. If you only have room for one biography on your bookshelf - get this!

The Middle Kingdom (Chung Kuo #1)

Author: David Wingrove
Publisher: New English Library

Publication Date: 1989

Pages: 480

Cover Art: Jim Burns (Edition shown)

eBook Publishers: Fragile Media

eBook Date: Jul 2017

After having had such an amazing time reading the Asian-influenced first part of The Initiate Brother, I looked around for another book with a simialr theme. I was immediately tempted by my old collection of Chung Kuo novels.

I've toyed with Chung Kuo since it was published in the late eighties. I was remember being completely sold by my first sight of Book 1, The Middle Kingdom, when it came out with a beautiful cover that was predominently red around the borders, with Chinese dragons drapped over the top corners, and the image of an old Han sitting on a throne (see image below). Over the following thirty years, since I first tried to read the opening volume, it has haunted and daunted me to complete it. I'm going to try REALLY HARD this time to see it through to the bitter end (more on the end down below). But the sheer size of Chung Kuo can be a little intimidating.

The original run lasted for eight weighty tomes, and even though they are brilliantly written by author, David Wingrove, by their very nature I found them a bit difficult to get into at first. For me, the barrier holding me back was the inherent premise of the tale being told. You see, Chung Kuo (the new name for Earth) is about and  alternative future history where Chinese culture has become the dominant power on our planet, and because of that premise the number of characters with Chinese names takes a bit of getting used to. If you can get past this, then you will be truly rewarded with an excellent read.

Over a turbulant period (covered in later editions - see below) of Earth's history, the Chinese (or Han as they are referred to in these books) take over the running of our planet, and they impose their own culture and principles. As they rise to power they begin construction of a city that begins to expand across every continent. 

At the start of this first book, it has been 200 years since the upheavel and the City has all but covered every land mass apart from a few choice areas owned by the very rich and land that has been reserved for food production. The city is constructed of 'stacks' made up of 30 decks, with each deck having 10 levels and in total rises nearly 300 levels and 3 miles above the planet surface (now referred to as The Clay). As with any class-based culture, the lower your class, the lower the level you are allowed to live on. There are even sub-levels, below a protective security net that keeps the city free of ground-dwelling animals and diseases, this is where the criminal and undesirable elements are exiled too. Even with this enormous amount of living space, the population of 34 billion people is begining to stretch the resources of the massive administration. Added to this, the Hung Mao (i.e. non-Han) race crave for change; be that more political power, money, or simply the freedom to search the stars for places to expand the human race into; they are becoming more and more reactionary. There are many powerful men in this position, and they have become known as The Dispertionists.

Wagon Train to the Stars (Star Trek New Earth #1)

Author: Diane Carey
First Published: 1999
File size/Pages: 1225KB / 265pp
Ebook Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Ebook Date: July 2012

Continuing my 2021 Challenge, the next book is the first in the Star Trek miniseries New Earth. Written by Diane Carey and published in 1999, this series deals with the exodus of humans bent on settling a new colony far from Federation and Starfleet control, in the star system known as Occult.

The New Earth series was devised to be solely concerned with The Original Series (TOS) crew of the Enterprise, unlike other miniseries that had gone before which flitted across the various time periods of the Trek universe. John Ordover, editor of the licensed novels between 1992 and 2003, devised the concept from his own reaction to the television series, Voyager. He was dissatisfied with the lack of Voyager's crew having any 'turf' to defend other than their own ship. He wondered what kind of stories could come out of a colony being settled far outside the common galaxy or from Earth's influence, yet having a Starfleet crew and ship assigned to protect that settlement and also expand the Federation's reach from that new home base. There is a widely believed story that Gene Rodenberry, creator of Star Trek, when touting the idea of the new series described it as "Wagon Train to the Stars". This was Pocket Books chance to carry out that theme in fiction format.

Diane Carey is an American author born in 1954. She began her career writing romance novels under the pen name of Lydia Gregory. Now best known for her works in the Star Trek universes, she wrote two of the inaugral books in the Trek lines, Broken Bow for Star Trek: Enteprise, and Ghost Ship for Star Trek The Next Generation. By 1999 she had many Trek books already under her wing and went on to author (or co-author) three of the six New Earth installments.

My New Year Challenge

As 2020 comes to end I find myself thinking about the books I've read over the last twelve months and the books I'd like to read next year. There are so many good books I would love to be able to experience. But I always end up telling myself - the best thing to do is simply choose the ones you know you will have a more than better chance of liking. Life's too short to plough diligently through something you hate (although I've broken that personal rule a few times to be completely honest).

Therefore, in 2021, I've set myself a New Year's Challenge. Over the course of the year I will be reading a series of books across four well-known genre 'universes'. But to ensure I have a pretty good chance of getting through them all, I have picked from series that I know I'm going to like - at least from personal experience in the past that is. As you clearly can see from this post's main picture I have selected from Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond and Musashi.

All of the books are currently available in eBook format. I haven't read any of them before but they have been on my radar for a while. I tried to keep the books within the 20th Century, but had to make a few exceptions. I don't want the challenge to disrupt my blogging completely so I am restricting the challenge to a total of 19 books. Seeing as I get through roughly 50 per year, I believe this will still allow me the time to dip in and out of the challenge and still keep Digital Bibliophilia a location for a varied review site of genre fiction.

Hard Target - The Zone #1

Author: James Rouch

Ebook Publisher:  Speaking Volumes
Ebook Date: Jul. 2012

File size/Pages: 513KB / 158pp

First Published: New English Library, 1980

"For two years The Zone has been alive with death, ravaged by war beyond sanity, raped with fire and poison."

So goes the blurb on the back of Hard Target: The Zone #1 by James Rouch. An alternative timeline novel where the fall of the Berlin Wall never happened and a Third World War has developed between NATO and the Soviet Union. 

There isn't a lot of information available about the author. His is (was?) British, lives in the west of England. The Zone series and three other war fiction novels appear to be his only books to date. He became a literary agent and had his own company website at one time, but that no longer exists and I can't find anything else.

Written in 1980 at the height of the late era Cold War when President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - best of chums across the Atlantic - were battling tooth and nail with Leonid Brezhnev, the Russian leader. The 'Ruskies' had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. There was even a videogame issued by Atari called 'Missile Command' in which you could play at thermonuclear war. Nuclear warfare was just the twitch of a finger on a big red button away from reality.

Playing on this atmosphere, Rouch's series of books, running up to ten installments by 1990 I believe, pit the combined NATO forces of a group of American and British soldiers together into numerous missions in the ravaged wasteland now called The Zone. 

Hard Target takes place two years after the outbreak of WWIII. There isn't any supporting history to explain the current fictional political situation, or the evolution of the contaminated land that most of the action takes place in. Rouch relies upon segments of the book that take the form of reports to HQ, or messages to the Team, to give a little back-story. However, he does cheekily recommend that the reader might want to locate some reference sources such as, "Pawns of Politics; A study of the refugee problem inside The Zone."

Foundation

Author: Issac Asimov

Ebook Publisher: Harper Voyager

Ebook Date: May 2018

File size/Pages: 1093KB / 241pp

First Published: 1951

The final book of Sci-Fi Month is Foundation by Grand Master Issac Asimov. Over the years I have owned many different copies of editions of this book, but for some reason never actually picked it up to read. Mostly written during the 1940's, and published as short stories in Astounding Science Fiction, a new section was added for the first collected edition as we now know it, under the title of Foundation in 1951 by Gnome Press.

Two more books followed, each consisting of a couple of novellas, and these now form the worlds famous Foundation Trilogy. After a lengthy break from writing science fiction, Asimov was lured back into the fold in the early 1980's by the clamor of fans demanding new stories in the same world - as well as a hefty advance from new publishers. This resulted in sequel books four and five, and then by the early 1990's two more prequel titles turning the sequence of books into what is now called the Foundation Series.

Issac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia. Although there is no record of his actual birth in 1920, he celebrated his birthday on 2 January. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1923 with his parents, and so never learned how to speak Russian. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928. His parents owned a number of sweet shops during his childhood years, and it was via the racks of newspapers and magazines, that his love of reading and books mostly likely took off.

He was educated in and around New York from the age of five. Whilst completing studies for two degrees, Asimov spent three years of World War II working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station, as a chemist. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1945. His military service ceased in 1946, which meant that he narrowly missed out on being part of the team for the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapons tests at Bikini Atoll.

The Corridors of Time

Author: Poul Anderson

First Published: 1965

File size/Pages: 659KB / 204pp

Ebook Publisher: Gateway

Ebook Date: Sept 2011

The third book of Sci-Fi Month is Poul Anderson's novel The Corridors of Time, published originally in 1965. It is available for the reasonable price of £2.99 on Amazon UK.

I have quite a number of Anderson novels in my Panther Science Fiction collection, so at some point I'll want to read a few more. Unfortunately, starting off with The Corriodirs of Time was a bad choice. Hopefully this experience was just a one off. If someone can let me know if I just happend to have kicked-off with a right turkey, I'd be grateful.

Poul Anderson is a Grand Master of Science Fiction. Born in 1926, the son of a Scandinavian parents, his family soon moved to Texas where he spent most of his childhood. His father died when he was still relatively young, so his mother took the family back to Denmark. They came back to the U.S. shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, settling in Minnesota, where he attended University. His career as writer began there, with stories being published in a magazine we now are so familiar with; Astounding Science Fiction. Following graduation he became a freelance writer. After marrying, Anderson moved to San Francisco and became a major player in the burgeoning Fantasy community. He won the Hugo Award no less than seven times, three Nebula Awards, was enrolled in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2000 and had an asteroid named after him; 7758 Poulanderson.

The Corridors of Time is a novel about Malcolm Lockridge, an American ex-marine who finds himself in jail charged with second degree murder after defending himself from an attack by a group of teenagers. In defending himself, Lockridge caused one of his attackers to hit the sidewalk rather harder than intended. He is visited in jail by the stunningly attractive woman, Storm Darroway, that he immediately falls for, and who offers to support him financially and get acquitted - if he will promise to assist her with a job. Naturally he accepts, and she tells him to meet her in Copenhagen as soon as he is released - as she will not be available to see him again until then.

Rogue Ship

1975 Panther (cover by Peter Jones)

Author: A. E. van Vogt

First Published: (in book form) 1965

Pages: 205pp
Publisher: Doubleday
Not currently available in eBook format

I clearly have a very short memory. I last reviewed a book by A. E. van Vogt in December 2019, with the novel The Man with a Thousand Names. Back then, I wasn't particularly blown away by Vogt's writing style, but overall found the book a reasonably enjoyable experience. At the time I couldn't see myself reading another of his books in case I came across one of his novels that fell into his penchant for regurgitating old serialised stories from a few decades before, and link them up with interconnecting new passages (he liked to call them 'fix-ups').

Next time I decide to set myself a challenge of reading specific genres in a single month, perhaps I should double-check what I've chosen before I list them on this site! I guess it couldn't really have been that bad - otherwise I'd have subconciously rejected reading this author again?

Rogue Ship is one the novels Vogt constructed from previously issued stories into a 'fix-up' and has a complicated history. From the notes in my 1975 Panther paperback edition it started life as three seperate stories that were rewritten for this single novel. Beginning in 1947, with Centaurus II, which was first published in 'Astounding Science Fiction' (which became the magazine 'Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction'), we then move on to Rogue Ship published in 'Super Science Fiction' three years later, and lastly have a story called The Expendables published within the pages of 'IF Worlds of Science Fiction' in 1963. Drawing all three together and re-writing chunks of them to establish a more coherent plot (something that is debatable when reading a Vogt book!) he repackaged the lot into it's single title.

Rougue Ship is set in an undated future and concerns the journey of the Hope of Man, a giant space cruiser sent out to investigate the Centaurus star system in order to find a new place for mankind to settle. Back on Earth leading scientists are convinced that a cosmic event is imminent, which will pass through the Sun and  become a terrifying wave of solar radiation that will eventually cross paths with our own planet and cause such devastation that it will be the catalyst for the end of mankind on his homeworld.

Capella's Golden Eyes

First Published: 1980

File size/Pages: 645KB / 218pp

Ebook Publisher: Gateway

Ebook Date: Sept 2011

The first book of Sci-Fi Month is Christopher Evan's novel published originally by Faber and Faber in the UK back in 1980. It is available for a very reasonable £1.99 on Amazon UK.

Evans is a new author to me, I'd not heard of him, or read any of his other works before starting this. Internet searching reveals that there is very little known about him. He has a sparse Wikipedia entry that tells me he was born in 1950, a native of the south-eastern Welsh town called Tredegar. He was educated at Cardiff University from 1969 to 1972, and then Swansea University until 1974.

It's possible that he crossed paths with noted fantasy and science fiction writer Robert Holdstock whilst at university (Holdstock attended another Welsh institution, Bangor University in the late sixties and early seventies). Regardless of whether that is true, they combined to edit the Science Fiction Writers Magazine, Focus from 1979 to 1981. The magazine contained many essays on writing SF by noted persons, such as Ken Bulmer, Christopher Priest, Richard Cowper, David Wingrove (Note to self: I really must review one of his Chung Kuo books), and Holdstock/Evans. There were also stories, but it mainly served as the British Science Fiction Association's (BSFA) book for potential or established SF writers.

Evans again worked with Holdstock when they edited the anthologies Other Edens I, II and III, all published in a three-year run during the late eighties. He won the BSFA Award for Best Novel of 1993 with Aztec Century, a novel about an alternate history where the Aztec Empire conquers Britain. He has also written under the pen names of Christopher Carpenter, John Lyon, Nathan Elliott and Robert Knight. He later became a Chemistry teacher in London.

Capella's Golden Eyes was Evans first novel. The title is a reference to the twin suns of the planet Gaia, part of the Capella star system. Generations ago, man travelled to Gaia in a space vessel designed to support its occupants upon landfall. The human colonists struggled to survive, using what resources they could utilise from the land as well as the craft. Just as long-term survival was beginning to look unlikely, a mysterious alien race arrived on a nearby island to the main settlement. The aliens, called M'threnni, allowed the 'Gaians' to prosper by providing resources and guidance. They co-existed together for a short time, but then the M'threnni retreated into their helical structure and rarely ventured outside. All they asked of the settlers was that a few chosen humans would freely volunteer to live with the aliens, becoming in effect their Voices to allow communication to continue with as little interaction with the growing population as possible.

Sci-Fi Month

I thought I'd do something a bit different to liven things up. Therefore, in the month of August, I'll be attempting to read six science fiction classics that were all published in paperback by Granada Publishing under their 'Panther' banner during the 1970's and 1980's. I don't know if I will get through every one as my reading seems to have slowed down a bit this summer - but I will try my best.

As you can see above the reading list will include;

• Foundation by Issac Asimov (1951)
• Rogue Ship by A. E. van Vogt (1965)
• The Corridors of Time by Poul Anderson (1965)
• Son of Man by Robert Silverberg (1971)
• Phthor by Piers Anthony (1975)
• Capella's Golden Eyes by Christopher Evans (1980)

Wish me luck!

The Black Hole

Author: Alan Dean Foster

First Published: 1979

Pages: 187pp
Publisher: New English Library
Not currently available in eBook format

Alan Dean Foster was busy between 1978 and 1980. Not only did he pen the adaptation of Disney's film, The Black Hole, but he was also responsible for adapting Star Trek Log Ten, Aliens and George Lucas's undeveloped treatment for a potential sequel to Star Wars, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. He was also probably considering novelisations of Clash of the Titans and Outland as well as working on titles in his Icerigger trilogy and Humanx series.

All of this work might be how Foster likes to occupy himself. Perhaps he thrived upon a busy schedule forcing him to deliver the goods. But similarly this might be the reason that his effort here is rather lacklustre? There is no denying that the source material for The Black Hole doesn't exactly set the world alight with its plot. I have not watched the film since finishing the book, to be frank- it put me off watching it completely. If Foster followed the script religiously (I don't think he did, at least in one particular key death scene his description is significantly different), then the pacing of his source material was seriously flawed from the outset. His only recourse would have been to inject new scenes to add some much needed tension and conflict. I don't think he did, whether due to indifference or lack of time, we'll never know.

The Black Hole was produced by the Walt Disney organisation. It had a long history in their archives - originally being conceived in the early seventies by writers Bob Barbash and Richard Landau as an answer to the current trend of disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. After a few failed attempts to develop the idea, Star Wars hit cinema screens across the world Disney scrambled around for a Sci-fi idea to produce in response to the demand for more space-bound adventures.

The Plague of Silence (Dr Palfrey #20)

1966 Edition

Author: John Creasey

First Published: 1958

File size/Pages: 776KB (Omnibus) / 190pp
Ebook Publisher: House of Stratus
Ebook Date: October 2013

The usual disclaimer: Although many Creasey books are readily available in eBook format, I saved some pennies and picked mine up (the one pictured) at a local used bookshop for just £2.
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I think you can safely call John Creasey a 'prolific' writer.

He penned a staggering amount of novels, over six hundred. He was born to a family of limited means in 1908 in Surrey, England, and died in 1973. An author of ostensibly crime and science fiction thrillers, who had his first book published in 1930 - there was no holding him back from that moment to produce some of the most famous and long-lasting series of books starring some memorable characters who are still lovingly collected by bibliophiles across the world today.

No stranger to the pseudonym, Creasey used twenty-nine of them. Among his most notable pen-names are; J. J. Marric, Gordon Ashe, Michael Halliday, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

Due to polio as a young man he was unable to take part in the War, so he determined to write as many books as he could to support the soldiers and their families during those hard times.

In order to have written and published quite so many books, Creasey had to have been successful right? Well, yes indeed. His most popular books were those that had recurring roles for his creations such as The Toff (an amazing 59 novels over the course of forty years), Chief Inspector Roger West (43 novels), Commander George Gideon (21), Dr Stanislaus Alexander "Sap" Palfrey (34 science fiction novels), The Baron (47 books and an adaptation into a TV Series by ITC) and the Patrick Pawlish series (50).

The Running Man

1983 NEL UK Edition

Author: Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)

First Published: 1982

File size/Pages: 978KB (Omnibus) / 317pp (Individual)
Ebook Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Ebook Date: March 2010 (Omnibus)

I wonder how some publishers had the cheek to put covers like the one highlighted here for Richard Bachman's, The Running Man. Its a total missrepresentation. At no point in the book does anyone approach anything near to dressing up like an extra from the 1975 film Rollerball...and the cover is too early to tie into the 1987 film version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, so what gives?

However, putting that to one side the book is the fourth and last published novel that Stephen King issued using this pen-name before he was 'outed' as Richard Bachman with the release of Thinner.

King has quoted (and has written in various introductions) that he wrote the entire novel in a single week. In some ways this is an amazing achievement - and in others its a shame because you can tell when you read The Running Man. Its much the inferior novel to the other Bachman book I reviewed recently, The Long Walk.

The premise of the novel is, in a similar vein to The Long Walk, quite simple. Ben Richards, husband and father with a sick child, out of work and suffering poverty with the masses in a dystopian future America of 2025 (scary though that its not that far away), decides to try to enter the Games Network, a government-operated television station that is responsible for free-to-air "Free-Vee" violent game shows. The most notorious of which is "The Running Man". In this show the contestants are presented as crazed citizens and enemies of the state; they are to be hunted down and killed by the Games Networks security forces. All of this with the help of the general public - who are actively encouraged to assist in the contestants capture and public execution with the promise of lucrative rewards should they bear fruit.

Aliens: Earth Hive

Author: Steve Perry

First Published: 1992

File size/Pages: 3368kb / 277pp
Ebook Publisher: Titan Books
Ebook Date: January 2016

Back in 1992, the motion picture Alien 3 was released. In an attempt to tie in with this new movie, Titan Books released Aliens: Earth Hive by Steve Perry. Earth Hive was a novelisation of the Dark Horse Comics story Aliens written by Mark Verheiden, which had orignally been published in 1989 and simply titled "Book One" when released in collected graphic novel format.

At the time of it's comic run, the story was fully intended to be a continuation of the story from the end of the second film, Aliens. Chracters and settings from the first two films, rescued child Newt, Colonial Marine Hicks and the planet LV-426 were used. However, Alien 3 changed the fate of Newt and Hicks so in Earth Hive Perry avoided confusion and changed the character names to Billie and Wilks and the planet they encountered the alien creatures on became Rim.

By 1992 Steve Perry had written a number of well respected science fiction novels in his Matador series and had also contributed to continuing the Robert E. Howard Conan series with five novels of the Cimmerian sword and sorcery adventurer. Perry went on to write another couple of books in the Aliens series, which form a trilogy of sorts. He also collaborated with other authors, including his daughter, S.D. Perry on a Aliens vs Predator trilogy.

Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu

Author: L Neil Smith

First Published: 1983

File size/Pages: (ebook trilogy) 5366KB / (paperback) 144pp
Ebook Publisher: Del Rey

Ebook Date: June 2011

Before Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire launched the Star Wars Expanded Universe into the widely popular enterprise is it now, a few books had tried to capitalise on the franchise. To add to the publication of Splinter of the Mind's Eye and the early Han Solo trilogy (Star's End, Revenge and Lost Legacy) we also had three novels starring the gambler, con artist, playboy, character of Lando Calrissian. All were published in 1983 and were written by L. Neil Smith.

Smith is an American writer, born in Denver, Colorado in 1946. He writes science fiction, and specialises in libertarian themed novels. Amongst his most recognised books are Pallas, The Forge of the Elders, and The Probability Broach. He has, over the years, taken an interest in politics, especially to further the cause of the Libertarian Party. At one point he even agreed to stand as an independent candidate for President, but his supporters fell far short of gaining the amount of signatures he demanded before taking the decision seriously.

Star Trek - Log One

Author: Alan Dean Foster

First Published: 1974

Pages: 184pp
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

It wasn't too long ago that I reviewed another book by Alan Dean Foster. Splinter of the Mind's Eye was his story based upon the intent of George Lucas to produce a lower budget sequel to Star Wars if it didn't do well in theatres. Well we know how that panned out, so Foster's Star Wars sequel remains a quirky novel in the expanded universe for fans of the franchise.

Before Lucas approached him, Foster also took on what was to become another science fiction cinematic and televisual franchise. Star Trek: The Original Series had been cancelled fours years previously (in 1969) but was proving immensely popular via syndication. This resulted in the shows creator, Gene Roddenberry, to decide to continue the series in an animated form. To the delight of fans, much of the original cast returned to provide voice-overs for their original characters. Show writers David Gerrold and D. C. Fontana characterised The Animated Series as a fourth season of The Original Series.

Star Trek: The Animated Series, aired as "Star Trek" and as "The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek" from 1973 to 1974 consisting of 22 episodes over two seasons. Set in the 23rd century, with Earth as part of a United Federation of Planets, it followed the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Enterprise as it explored the galaxy.

The Man with a Thousand Names

Author: A. E. Van Vogt (aka Alfred Vogt)

First Published: 1974

Pages: 141pp
Publisher: DAW

Well this was an interesting read. Something a bit, er, different from what I was expecting. If you have never read a Van Vogt science fiction book, be prepared for a Marmite experience!

 A. E. Van Vogt, was born Alfred Vogt, in Manitoba, Canada in 1912. Raised by descendants of Dutch lineage, he became one of the most recognisable names in Sci-Fi literature and influenced such writers as Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison. During the course of his writing career he became one of the most popular figures of the 20th century's Golden Age of science fiction.

However, this was not the genre that Vogt began with. His first foray into the literary world started with true confessions stories for pulp magazines such as Tue Story. He changed track by the end of the thirties and inspired by the Astounding Science Fiction magazine and James W. Campbell, submitted a story entitled Vault of the Beast which was rejected. However, with encouragement and a further submission, his first published sci-fi story for the same magazine was called Black Destroyer* which appeared in the July 1939 issue.

Vogt quit his job and went full time as a writer in 1941. His most famous novels were written in a purple patch between 1941 and 1944. Most of these appeared in serialised form in various magazines before being released in paperback. He moved to California in 1944, and took on his pen-name as his legal name whilst applying for American citizenship.

Eye of the Zodiac (Dumarest of Terra #13)

Author: E. C. Tubb (aka Edwin Charles Tubb)

First Published: 1975

File size/Pages: 561KB / 176pp
Ebook Publisher: Gateway
Ebook Date: September 2011

Disclaimer: I have the DAW paperback version (pictured left) of this novel, so did not actually purchase the eBook).

So after picking up a few Dumarest of Terra books quite cheap at a used bookstore I decided to give one a go. I had heard that you could plunge into any of the books in the series without necessarily reading them in publication order, or in having any knowledge of the overall arc.

E. C. Tubb was born Edwin Charles Tubb in London, England in 1919 and never moved during his lifetime. He began writing in his youth, contributing to many science fiction magazines over the years. The Dumarest Saga is the most well known creation out of the 140 novels he published, however he also had a considerable contribution to the novelisations of the Gerry Anderson's television series Space: 1999, adapting eleven of the scripts into three paperbacks, and most significantly authoring three completely original novels,  Alien Seed (1976), Rogue Planet (1976) and Earthfall (1977) set within the first season continuity. Under other names Tubb was also the author of eleven western novels, a detective novel and a Foreign Legion novel. His other science fiction series of note was the Cap Kennedy series, this did not fare as well in his native land as it did elsewhere, and only six of the seventeen books were published in the U.K. under the title banner of F.A.T.E. using the pen name of Gregory Kern.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye (Star Wars)

eBook cover

Author: Alan Dean Foster

First Published: 1978

File size/Pages: 6475KB / 306pp
Ebook Publisher: Del Rey
Ebook Date: June 2011

With the recent release of the final trailer for The Rise of Skywalker movie, I find myself thinking more and more about Star Wars. What will Episode 9 bring to the table? Will it be a fitting end to the Skywaker saga? Will it divide the fan base as much as The Last Jedi seems to have done, or will it bring them together once again?

Star Wars has always played a large part in my life. I was eleven years old in 1977, so you can imagine the impact it had on me as a yound person. I was the target audience in perfection. My father took both myself and my younger brother (who is still drawn to it as much as I am) to see the orginal Star Wars at our local cinema. My friends had already seen it and were so enraptured I had to watch it so I could join in on all the exciting discussions. I still have this amusing memory of our father announcing, "Well that's that all over then, put your coats on!" when Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia finally escaped the Death Star. "Dad! There's still more to go!" I shouted in response. So he had to sit there for at least another 20mins or more through the whole trench run scenes - he wasn't impressed. If it had starred John Wayne he'd have sat through another bloody two hours!

When I had sat through the film a couple more times (with friends only - parents weren't allowed to come with us during the next sittings as we'd had enough of them and only went to daytime showings), and when I had exhausted all the numerous magazines and comics available to me (anyone remember those strange magazines that unfolded into a poster?) there was a Star Wars void in my life. So imagine the excitement when a few months later Splinter of the Mind's Eye appeared on bookshelves. Wow! A new story about Luke Skywalker, with Darth Vader on the cover, I have to have that! Over the years since then the Star Wars franchise in fiction has grown into something called the 'expanded universe'. Many dozens of books followed Splinter. Then, when George Lucas sold his creation to Disney, they announced that everything was going to change and that the expanded universe was now not 'canon' and should be treated as stories that could be regarded as legendary tales, hence 'Legends' was applied to all the pre-Disney published novels and comics.