Swedish movie posters at io9, brain resets, and injustice on the Satellite of Love

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Here’s a Swedish movie poster for Alexander Korda’s Things to Come, just one of a series posted over at io9. Lovely design.

The last time I watched the film I saw Raymond Massey’s character as a sinister figure, certain that he knew what was best, dammit, and you’d take it – and like it! – which wasn’t really what the film was trying to show me. It’s always interesting how our perceptions change over time, especially when we’re watching or reading things from decades past. I noticed this again last night: I had to reset my brain during the first few pages of Barnes’ Interplanetary Huntress, mentioned earlier (and still a free download!)

Eventually my brain stopped commenting “Well, this wouldn’t play too well today” and I was able to enjoy the peculiar Venusian wildlife in the story. There were these armored beetles that liked pipe smoke, for example.

But this morning, and these posters, reminded me of what has aways seemed like an injustice in Mystery Science Theater 3000. Joel and/or Mike and the bots skewered several Swedish fantasy films that had been dubbed (badly) for an American audience. One was even turned into a “Sinbad” story. It was that bad. But it always seemed to me that in their original versions these may have been pretty cool movies. I guess we’ll never know.

Amazing Stories and Futures Past Editions to republish classic science fiction stories

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Amazing Stories, in its new incarnation as a web site, has announced that it’s teaming up with Futures Past Editions to reprint stories from the long and remarkable history of Amazing Stories magazine. That backlist includes even more vintage science fiction from Amazing‘s companion publications, Amazing Stories Quarterly and Amazing Stories Annual.

The eBook and printed editions will bear the comet tail logo of the magazine under the imprint Amazing Stories Classic Reprints. Selected stories will also be published on the Amazing Stories web site: the first of these is Don Wilcox’s The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years (available there now).

I’ve already got one of the Futures Past eBooks on my Kindle, just waiting for me to get to it: it’s Arthur K. Barnes’ The Interplanetary Huntress (currently a free download at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo).

Barnes sometimes collaborated with Henry Kuttner, and that’s why I’m pretty sure I want to read him. Kuttner—with or without C.L. Moore—was pretty amazing in his own right.

A quick visit to their web site shows that Futures Past Editions is already republishing loads of vintage science fiction and some new titles, too. I look forward to seeing what this co-venture with Amazing Stories will add to that list.

Roomba-like mobile printer crawls across your pages

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Here’s a pretty inspired Kickstarter project for a mobile, Roomba-like inkjet printer.

It’ll print on any size paper without requiring a huge framework. While it doesn’t seem all that practical for a 100 page document, there’s a lot of potential here for unusually small or large sheets and, when it comes right down to it, the thing is just a nifty idea that ought to exist.

It probably will, too: with 22 days left to go they’ve already raised $390,000 of their $400,000 goal.

Vintage British pulp covers by Ron Turner (and others)

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Dark Roasted Blend offers up a selection of British pulp science fiction cover illustrations, many by illustrator Ron Turner; the post links on to this fantastic Flickr stream where quite a few of the images were found.

Turner turns out to be an interesting case of a British artist who was inspired by American pulp magazine covers and then went on to do his own art for magazines, paperbacks, and comics – including a long run on the comic The Daleks and a less successful and much shorter run for 2000AD.

I’ve previously featured his Magnetic Brain cover here. These Practical Mechanics covers give me a yen to add Impractical Mechanics as a title for the Pulp-O-Mizer; but I’ve already done Inadvisable Science, and that’s pretty much the same gag, isn’t it?

Comrades of Steel! Soviet propaganda posters for robots, by Zachary Mallett

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I’m all in favor of robots organizing and taking advantage of collective bargaining. The Retropolis Fraternal League of Robotic Persons is an important part of my book Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom; and, anyway, I salute any group of workers who band together in order to improve their working conditions.

So even though I’m not convinced that full-blown robotic communism is viable in the long term, vulnerable as it is to dictators and bureaucracies, I still appreciate these handsome Comrades of Steel prints by designer Zachary Mallett. Because whatever your favorite economic system is, I think it’s important to follow it with style.

So above we have an iconic Comrades of Steel print, while on the right we see its fellow traveler, Workers of the World!

Either one’s a fine choice for that certain spot where your mechanical minions gather to oil up, exchange pleasantries, and plot the overthrow of their human masters. Kind of like an OSHA poster in the coffee room. But more beautiful.

And, since I mentioned it, what about Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom? Querying literary agents is pretty much like heaving a bunch of messages in bottles out into the waves. I’m keeping my bottles bobbing out there, but as I said earlier I have a pretty short list of agents on the principle that no agent is better than the wrong agent. So there aren’t too many bottles left to go.

Meanwhile I’m working on the illustrations. There’s enough work there to keep me busy through June or July; so I’ve got plenty of time left.

Assemblage Rayguns and Robots by Dan ‘Tinkerbot’ Jones

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Dan Jones’ Flickr stream shows off his assemblage sculptures of retro robots ("Tinkerbots"), Rayguns, Vehicles, and other things of equal niftiness.

I spent most of my time there on the Redivivus Rayguns, though, because I think they’re not those rayguns that we have, but those rayguns that we deserve.

At the top of this post you see the Vintage Plasmablast (and, oh, those modern Plasmablasts just can’t compare) while at the left are the Pneumatic Aetheric Disperser, along with the TZ~24 Sanitizor and the T-39 Delano, which is my personal favorite. They’re all, or should be, the products of Tinkertron Weapons Industries. By way of sculptor Dan Jones.

Assemblage sculptures like these hit a sort of aesthetic sweet spot with their worn, vintage industrial parts that combine so perfectly with our worn, vintage industrial futures. That Sanitizor just looks like it was always meant to look that way.

Which, coincidentally, is the best way to use a Sanitizor. You yell "Look that way!" and, when they do, you lose no time in Sanitizoring the heck out of them. Or, anyway, that’s what I do.

Retro Rockets for the weekend: rocket table lamps and a sculpture of my Hepmobile

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Today, like most days, is Retro Rocket Day here in the Secret Laboratory, and what you see above is something I’d sure like to see in here with me: it’s a fantastic rocket lamp, one of a series that’s available from Etsy seller highdesertdreams (Frank Luedtke & Lin Mullins).

In fact… I’d like them all, I think. Why practice moderation at a time like this?

Made mostly of different woods and metals, and finished with acrylic paint, these hail from Arizona: a state of wide open skies, clear views of the galaxy, and (now) of lamps that look like they could take you out there. Me, I’d just like to read a book by their light. But I may have diminished expectations.

Today seems to be a day for rockets. My other discovery of the afternoon tickles me especially because as we see on the right, DeviantArt artist Kate Arthur has made a miniature model of my Hepmobile rocket from Retropolis (notably, Gwen Hopkins’ ride from Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves and The Lair of the Clockwork Book).

This one’s a styrene and acrylic sculpture. I can’t tell you how big it is (though I wonder) but I’m pretty sure it’s not full size.

The Hepmobile is the VW Bug or Morris Minor of Retropolis. They’re simple enough that just about anybody can keep one running, and they last forever, so long as you remember to tighten the baling wire from time to time. It’s nice to see this one so shiny and new.

You can see three views of Kate’s version here, and here, and here.