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Exclusive Interview: “The Martian” Author Andy Weir

 

For many writers, penning a story about an astronaut stranded on Mars would ultimately lead to some such sci-fi elements as little green men or an ancient civilization destroyed by some unknown danger.

But in his first novel, The Martian (paperback, Kindle), Andy Weir is taking a different approach; a more realistic one that eschews sci-fi tropes, and makes this more of a thriller and a disaster movie in book form.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: Pandemic Author Scott Sigler

 

With his new medical sci-fi horror novel Pandemic (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), writer Scott Sigler brings his Infected trilogy to a close. In honor of this, I spoke to him about his original influences, how this series could be adapted to other media, and which of his other books you should read when you’re done with Pandemic.

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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Shovel Ready Writer Adam Sternbergh

Much like chocolate and peanut butter or Anthrax and Public Enemy, the idea of mixing of cyberpunk atmospheres and pulp crime aesthetics probably seemed weird before someone tried to do it (that someone being Philip K. Dick with his novella “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?”). But we’re glad someone did since it’s led us to Shovel Ready, a new novel by Adam Sternbergh (Crown Publishing). In it, a hit man in the not-so-distant future is hired to whack an evangelist’s daughter, and, suffice it to say, it does not go well for our “hero.”

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Exclusive Interview: Ex-Purgatory Writer Peter Clines

When you think about it, I mean really think about it, the best thing to be in a zombie apocalypse isn’t a cop or a army guy or a sword-swinging lady with cool hair. It’s a superhero. Well, one with superpowers, that is, not just some rich dude with parental abandonment issues. At least that what I’ve gleaned from the Ex- novels by Peter Clines, who explains what inspired these novels as well as both the zombies and superheroes in them.

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Books Video Games

GAME/BOOK NEWS: Guinness World Records 2014 Gamers Edition Released

The Guinness World Records people — not to be confused with the Guinness Delicious Beer people —  have announced that the Guinness World Records 2014 Gamers Edition has been released.

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Books Comics Reviews

Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground Graphic Novel Review

 

As anyone who saw the misfiring movie Parker can attest, adapting the crime novels Donald Westlake wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark is no easy task. But as he showed with his previous graphic novel adaptations of Stark’s Parker books, writer / artist Darwyn Cooke has a real sense of what makes the character, and his misadventures, so unique and engaging. One that serves well for him in Richard Stark’s Parker: Book Four: Slayground (hardcover, paperback, Kindle), the latest illustrated take on Stark’s master thief.

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Books

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Rise Again Below Zero Writer Ben Tripp

Be it in movies, games, or books, zombies are either fast or they’re slow, and never shall the twain meet. But in 2010’s Rise Again, writer Ben Tripp dared to suggest that one might actually evolve into the other (and we all know how some people feel about evolution). Now Tripp has released a sequel, Rise Again Below Zero (Gallery Books), in which he suggests that the living impaired may evolve even further.

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Exclusive Interview: Fiendish Schemes Author K.W. Jeter

With his 1987s novel Infernal Devices, writer K.W. Jeter presented a unique and (ultimately) influential work of steampunk fiction. Now — after twenty-five years and as many other books — hes following it up with Fiendish Schemes (Tor Books), a sequel of sorts that catches us up with the original books main character, George Dower.

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Books Movies Reviews

J.W. Rinzler’s The Making Of Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi Review

 

In J.W. Rinzler’s The Making Of Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi (hardcover, Kindle), we learn, in great detail, how the titular sci-fi movie was made, complete with behind-the-scenes photos, numerous new interviews, original concept drawings, script pages, and other bits of movie minutiae. But if you think this makes the book just for film students or people who have to know every single trivial detail about this film, you couldn’t be more wrong.