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Category Archives: SciFi

In Memory of Ray Bradbury

June 06, 2012 Dr. Monstrosity 2 Comments

I am very sad to hear Ray Bradbury has died at 91. Ray has had great impact and significance for me since grade school. I have continued to read and reread his work throughout my life. I’ve seen movies, TV shows, and plays based on his work. I’ve read comics based on his stories. I’ve been to his book signings and seen him give talks. Any brush with Ray or his work made me appreciate life just a little more and love Ray just a little more. His influence spreads throughout the art and entertainment world, and countless people must feel the same way I do.

So many of his stories are undeniably classics. He could take the reader anywhere his mind wanted you to go with imagery and feelings that never left your head. His science fiction was genre-defining. His fantasy was heartfelt and unique. Some favorites that come to mind are the Martian Chronicles, October Country, Quicker Than the Eye, R is for Rocket, Long After Midnight, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked this Way Comes. It’s sad to think that Ray is gone, but we should all be happy and thankful that he was here to give us a lifetime of wonderful and memorable tales, visions and metaphors.

Michael Shea’s The Autopsy

May 30, 2012 Dr. Monstrosity 1 Comment

Discovering new authors is fun isn’t it? Well I just discovered an author that’s not new at all, but he’s new to me. Michael Shea has been publishing science-fantasy and sci-fi horror since 1974. He is a disciple of the masters of weird; often cited influences are Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and Lord Dunsany. Not a bad bunch to be linked to.

Michael Shea

My introduction to Mr. Shea was through the anthology The Dark Descent, which contained his story The Autopsy. The Autopsy was first published in 1980 in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Best Novella.

The Autopsy is about, what else? an autopsy, but a weird autopsy. After a strange explosion at a mine, Dr. Winters, a veteran coroner afflicted with stomach cancer, is tasked with determining the cause of the death of the miners for insurance reasons. The mine was presumably blown up by a murder suspect and Dr. Winters’ old friend Sheriff Craven is interested in the outcome. The sheriff runs through the circumstances leading up to the mine explosion and I was quickly hooked by the strange happenings.

Shea methodically takes the reader through the autopsies of the miners and into the mind of Dr. Winters. The mystery deepens as the corpses are cut open. Shea is meticulous in his depiction of the medical procedures and description of human anatomy. My dictionary was consulted several times. The gruesome nature of the autopsies is ultimately dwarfed by the bizarre and horrific third act of the novelette. The end of the story will hit you like a scalpel to the jugular. Interestingly, Shea originally submitted the story without the last 12 pages and was prompted by Edward Ferman, editor at the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, to make it longer. That was some suggestion!

Michael Shea is an author I plan to investigate further. He is not very prolific but he has several works that look promising namely his short story collection Polyphemus (which contains The Autopsy), his novel In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985), and his Nifft the Lean series (said to be influenced by the work of Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber’s Gray Mouser.)

Polyphemus by Michael Shea

Proyas to Helm Heinlein Adaptation in Australia

April 11, 2012 The Black Bird 1 Comment

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag

Acclaimed Aussie director Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow, I Robot) is set to helm a film adaptation of the classic Robert A. Heinlein novella The Unfortunate Profession of Jonathan Hoag (1942). Jonathan Hoag originally appeared in exacting editor John W. Campbell’s landmark modern fantasy pulp, Unknown, the companion to Astounding Science Fiction. In similar fashion to Dark City, the protagonist suffers from a type of amnesia which causes him not to recall why he has what seems to be blood on his hands. While Heinlein was a golden age science fiction fiction writer, one can easily see a parallel to the 1930s noir/crime fiction of Cornell Woolrich.