Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers PDF Author: Don Siegel
Publisher: Rutgers Films in Print
ISBN: 9780813514611
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a low-budget science fiction film that has become a classic. The suspense of the film lies in discovering, along with Miles, the central character (played by Kevin McCarthy), who is "real" and who is not, and whether Miles and Becky (played by Dana Wynter) will escape the pod takeover. As the center of the film moves outward from a small-town group of neighbors to the larger political scene and institutional network (of police, the FBI, hospital workers), the ultimate question is whether "they" have taken over altogether. Although Invasion can be interpreted in interesting ways along psychological and feminist lines, its importance as a text has centered primarily on political and sociological readings. In his introduction to this volume, Al LaValley explores the politics of the original author of the magazine serial story on which the film is based, Don Siegel; and of its screenwriter, Daniel Mainwaring. And he looks at the ways the studio (Allied Artists) tried to neutralize certain readings by tacking on an explanatory frame story. The commentary section includes readings by Stephen King, Peter Biskind, Nora Sayre, and Peter Bogdanovich. A section of postproduction documents reproduced here (many for the first time) includes many written by Wanger and Siegel. The volume also contains two previously unpublished framing scripts written for Orson Welles. For students and individual enthusiasts, the contextual materials are particularly interesting in showing how crucial the postproduction history of a film can be. A filmography and bibliography are also included in the volume. Al LaValley is the director of film studies at Dartmouth. He is the author of many articles on film and editor of Mildred Pierce in the Wisconsin screenplay series.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers PDF Author: Don Siegel
Publisher: Rutgers Films in Print
ISBN: 9780813514611
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Get Book Here

Book Description
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a low-budget science fiction film that has become a classic. The suspense of the film lies in discovering, along with Miles, the central character (played by Kevin McCarthy), who is "real" and who is not, and whether Miles and Becky (played by Dana Wynter) will escape the pod takeover. As the center of the film moves outward from a small-town group of neighbors to the larger political scene and institutional network (of police, the FBI, hospital workers), the ultimate question is whether "they" have taken over altogether. Although Invasion can be interpreted in interesting ways along psychological and feminist lines, its importance as a text has centered primarily on political and sociological readings. In his introduction to this volume, Al LaValley explores the politics of the original author of the magazine serial story on which the film is based, Don Siegel; and of its screenwriter, Daniel Mainwaring. And he looks at the ways the studio (Allied Artists) tried to neutralize certain readings by tacking on an explanatory frame story. The commentary section includes readings by Stephen King, Peter Biskind, Nora Sayre, and Peter Bogdanovich. A section of postproduction documents reproduced here (many for the first time) includes many written by Wanger and Siegel. The volume also contains two previously unpublished framing scripts written for Orson Welles. For students and individual enthusiasts, the contextual materials are particularly interesting in showing how crucial the postproduction history of a film can be. A filmography and bibliography are also included in the volume. Al LaValley is the director of film studies at Dartmouth. He is the author of many articles on film and editor of Mildred Pierce in the Wisconsin screenplay series.

From Darkest Skies

From Darkest Skies PDF Author: Sam Peters
Publisher: Gollancz
ISBN: 1473214777
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
After a five year sabbatical following the tragic death of his wife and fellow agent Alysha, Keon Rause returns to the distant colony world of Magenta to resume service with the Magentan Intelligence Service. With him he brings an artificial recreation of his wife's personality, a simulacrum built from every digital trace she left behind. She has been constructed with one purpose - to discover the truth behind her own death - but Keon's relationship with her has grown into something more, something frighteningly dependent, something that verges on love. Cashing in old favours, Keon uses his return to the Service to take on a series of cases that allow him and the artificial Alysha to piece together his wife's last days. His investigations lead him inexorably along the same paths Alysha followed five years earlier, to a sinister and deadly group with an unhealthy fascination for the unknowable alien Masters; but as the wider world of Magenta is threatened with an imminent crisis, Keon finds himself in a dilemma: do his duty and stand with his team to expose a villainous crime, or sacrifice them all for the truth about his wife?

Red Planet Blues

Red Planet Blues PDF Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101622210
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Incorporating the Hugo & Nebula award–nominated novella “Identity Theft” The name’s Lomax—Alex Lomax. I’m the one and only private eye working the mean streets of New Klondike, the Martian frontier town that sprang up forty years ago after Simon Weingarten and Denny O’Reilly discovered fossils on the Red Planet. Back on Earth, where anything can be synthesized, the remains of alien life are the most valuable of all collectibles, so shiploads of desperate treasure hunters stampeded here in the Great Martian Fossil Rush. I’m trying to make an honest buck in a dishonest world, tracking down killers and kidnappers among the failed prospectors, the corrupt cops, and a growing population of transfers—lucky stiffs who, after striking paleontological gold, upload their minds into immortal android bodies. But when I uncover clues to solving the decades-old murders of Weingarten and O’Reilly, along with a journal that may lead to their legendary mother lode of Martian fossils, God only knows what I’ll dig up...

Downbelow Station

Downbelow Station PDF Author: C. J. Cherryh
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
ISBN: 1101662271
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
The Hugo Award-winning classic sci-fi novel about interstellar war. The Beyond started with the Stations orbiting the stars nearest Earth. The Great Circle the interstellar freighters traveled was long, but not unmanageable, and the early Stations were emotionally and politically dependent on Mother Earth. The Earth Company which ran this immense operation reaped incalculable profits and influenced the affairs of nations. Then came Pell, the first station centered around a newly discovered living planet. The discovery of Pell's World forever altered the power balance of the Beyond. Earth was no longer the anchor which kept this vast empire from coming adrift, the one living mote in a sterile universe. But Pell was just the first living planet. Then came Cyteen, and later others, and a new and frighteningly different society grew in the farther reaches of space. The importance of Earth faded and the Company reaped ever smaller profits as the economic focus of space turned outward. But the powerful Earth Fleet was sitll a presence in the Beyond, and Pell Station was to become the last stronghold in a titanic struggle between the vast, dynamic forces of the rebel Union and those who defended Earth's last, desperate grasp for the stars.

The Space Opera Renaissance

The Space Opera Renaissance PDF Author: David G. Hartwell
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780765306180
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 958

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Book Description
The best-ever anthology of one of science fiction's most vigorous subgenres

The Last Policeman

The Last Policeman PDF Author: Ben H. Winters
Publisher: Quirk Books
ISBN: 1594745773
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
"[The] weird, beautiful, unapologetically apocalyptic Last Policeman trilogy is one of my favorite mystery series."—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns Winner of the 2013 Edgar® Award Winner for Best Paperback Original! What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact. The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares. The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered? Ebook contains an excerpt from the anticipated second book in the trilogy, Countdown City.

Typeset in the Future

Typeset in the Future PDF Author: Dave Addey
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 168335334X
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
A designer’s deep dive into seven science fiction films, filled with “gloriously esoteric nerdery [and] observations as witty as they are keen” (Wired). In Typeset in the Future, blogger and designer Dave Addey invites sci-fi movie fans on a journey through seven genre-defining classics, discovering how they create compelling visions of the future through typography and design. The book delves deep into 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien, Blade Runner, Total Recall, WALL·E, and Moon, studying the design tricks and inspirations that make each film transcend mere celluloid and become a believable reality. These studies are illustrated by film stills, concept art, type specimens, and ephemera, plus original interviews with Mike Okuda (Star Trek), Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall), and Ralph Eggleston and Craig Foster (Pixar). Typeset in the Future is an obsessively geeky study of how classic sci-fi movies draw us in to their imagined worlds.

The Ark

The Ark PDF Author: Patrick S. Tomlinson
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 0857664859
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
Introducing a thrilling deep-space science fiction mystery series in the tradition of James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse When a geneticist goes missing aboard a generation ship, it’s up to sports star Bryan Benson to solve the mystery before landfall. Humankind has escaped a dying Earth and set out to find a new home among the stars aboard an immense generation spaceship, affectionately named the Ark. Bryan Benson is the Ark’s greatest living sports hero, enjoying retirement working as a detective in Avalon, his home module. The hours are good, the work is easy, and the perks can’t be beat. But when a crew member goes missing, Benson is thrust into the center of an ever-expanding web of deception, secrets, and violence that overturns everything he knows about living on the Ark and threatens everyone aboard. As the last remnants of humanity hurtle towards their salvation, Benson finds himself in a desperate race to unravel the conspiracy before a madman turns mankind’s home into its tomb.

Who Goes There? (Filmed as The Thing)

Who Goes There? (Filmed as The Thing) PDF Author: John W. Campbell Jr.
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 147942613X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description
"Who Goes There?" is the novella that formed the basis of John Carpenter's film "The Thing." John W. Campbell's classic tells of an antarctic research base that discovers and thaws the ancient, frozen body of a crash-landed alien -- with terrifying results!

Star Soldiers

Star Soldiers PDF Author: Andre Norton
Publisher: Baen
ISBN: 9780743435543
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Star Soldiers