In February 1974, whilst recovering from dental surgery, something profound and inexplicable happened to author Philip K Dick that changed his life forever. Was it an illness, a psychotic reaction, or something truly mystical?
This is the exegesis of Philip K Dick...
Philip K Dick was both prolific and influential. In his youth he came to the conclusion that, in a certain sense, the world is not entirely real and there is no way to confirm whether it is truly there.
By the end of the 1960s Philip K Dick had published over 40 novels and stories, as well as winning the 1963 Hugo Award for The Man In The High Castle. But he still struggled financially...
Today in pulp one of my favourite SF authors: Harry Harrison!
Harry Harrison was born Stamford, Connecticut, in 1925. He served in the US Army Air Corps during WWII, but became disheartened with military life. In his spare time he learned Esperanto.
Harrison started his sci-fi career as an illustrator, working with Wally Wood on Weird Fantasy and Weird Science up until 1950. He also wrote for syndicated comic strips, including Flash Gordon and Rick Random.
Money is just a token, like a Panini football sticker. In itself it has no intrinsic worth. However it is desirable because, well, football!
Initially the value of all stickers is the same, because there's an abundant supply...
However as you fill up your Panini album the value of your existing stickers drops and he value of your missing ones rises. This is due to scarcity: the laws of supply and demand starts to determine worth and value, rather than number of completed passed or shots on target.
A band of fearless rebels, a glowing sword, a mysterious 'force' and a masked baddie. Sounds familiar? Well the year is 1980, and the new decade has summoned a new movie hero. Sort of.
This is the story of Hawk the Slayer...
In the early 1980s there were a slew of B-movies cashing in on the Star Wars phenomenon, but it took cinema much longer to latch on to sword and sorcery. Hawk the Slayer was the low-budget British Film that spanned the gap.
In 1979 writer Terry Marcel and musician Harry Robertson (of Hammer horror and Lord Rockingham's XI fame) were working on adapting a Ray Cooney play when they got chatting about Fritz Lieber and fantasy novels.
How good is your handwriting? Well let me help you improve it... #FridayThoughts
Handwriting is a sign: the author cares enough to put pen to paper. If you want to really influence someone it's still the best method. But over the years we've let the habit slip.
One of the most impressive guides to beautiful handwriting is the Kunstrichtige Schreibart. Published in 1655 it sets out clearly how to impress with the written word.
Time for another pulp countdown, and today it's my top 5 dystopian pop videos!
Put on your bin bags and your mirror shades now please... #FridayFeeling
At no 5: Working For The Yankee Dollar, by The Skids (1979). The Dunfermline New Wavers made it to no 20 in the charts with this somewhat bizarre video of a world gone mad:
At no 4: Atomic, by Blondie (1980). This homage to great grooming during a nuclear winter made it to no 1 in the UK for two weeks. Funky and retro-futuristic:
It was the biggest manhunt in Britain: police, the press, aeroplanes, psychics all tried to solve the disappearance. In the end nobody really knew what happened. It was a mystery without a solution.
This is the story of Agatha Christie's 11 lost days...
By 1926 Agatha Christie's reputation as a writer was setting to grow. Her sixth novel - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - had been well-received and she and her husband Archie had recently concluded a world tour. But all was not well with the marriage.
In April 1926 Agatha Christie’s mother died. Christie was very close to her: she had been home-schooled and believed her mother was clairvoyant. The shock of her sudden death hit the author hard.
John Sinclair is a Scotland Yard chief inspector who has been battling all manner of undead and demonic creatures since 1973. He's a busy chap...
Chief Inspector Sinclair is a direct descendent of Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney. He is also the Son of the Light due to his exceptional demon fighting skills.
Today in pulp, a tale of an unintentionally radical publisher. It only produced 42 books between 1968-9, but it caught the hedonistic, solipsistic, free love mood of the West Coast freakout scene.
This is the story of Essex House...
Essex House was an offshoot of Parliament Press, a California publishing company set up by pulp artist Milton Luros, after the market for pulp magazines began to decline. It specialised in stag magazines sold through liquor stores to skirt around US obscenity publishing laws.
By the 1960s Parliament Press was already selling pornographic novels through its Brandon House imprint, though these were mostly reprints or translations of existing work. Luros was interested in publishing new erotic authors, and set up Essex House to do just that.
Time for another pulp countdown, and today I'm looking at my top 10 film versions of British sitcoms!
There were more than you may think...
At no 10: Never Mind The Quality Feel The Width (1973). Rarely shown on TV nowadays, this comedy of a pair of Catholic and Jewish tailors in the East End went to the Vatican for its big screen outing. A bit like Nuns On The Run, except with turn-ups...
At no 9: Are You Being Served? (1977). The staff of Grace Bros go on holiday to Costa Plonka, a revolutionary bandit falls in love with Mrs Slocombe but ends up with Mr Humphries. Union Jack bloomers eventually save the day. It's all very silly!
It is the greatest frog-worshiping zombie biker occult horror film ever made. Possibly the only one. It's certainly like no over movie you've ever seen.
Today in pulp, I look back at the 1971 classic Psychomania...
By the early 1970s British horror films were trying to get 'with it' to attract a younger audience. So it wasn't surprising that in 1971 screenwriter Arnaud d'Usseau tried to create a biker horror movie.
d'Usseau had previously written Horror Express, an Anglo-Spanish sci-fi/horror movie loosely based on John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas did their best with the material.
"All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension..." So begins one of the most enigmatic and chilling horror series ever broadcast by ITV.
"...Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.”
Britain's ITV network had a strong reputation for children's paranormal drama in the 1970s: Timeslip, Ace Of Wands and The Tomorrow People all featured people with extraordinary powers tackling mysterious foes.
Against this background writer Peter J. Hammond pitched the idea of a new children's show - initially called The Time Menders - to Thames Television. They declined, but rival ATV were impressed by the strength of the scripts and took it on.
Prepare for love and laughter, tears of sadness and happiness etc...
First up: The Young Doctors! Kudos if you can name them all...
The Young Doctors debuted on 8 November 1976 on the Nine Network, and was the first big hit for Reg Grundy. It ran until 1983 racking up an amazing 1396 episodes.
Chess: sophisticated, intelligent, strategic. Or is it? Mathematical brute force can win any game, but how much would you need? And would it ruin the game, or improve it?
#Chess is a zero-sum game: if a move is advantageous to one player it is disadvantageous to the other. It's also a perfect information game: all positions for each player are equally visible. So it wasn't long before people tried to get a computer to master it.
In #mathematics terms chess is combinatorial: each move generates a large set of branching possibilities for further moves, bounded by poor moves on the “bottom” and good moves on the “top". This approach provides the foundation for computer chess programmes.
