John on Jul 5, 2008 7:50 PM | I enjoyed this movie as well. Very well done with lots of sf elements. And Fred, you should be ashamed of yourself for neglecting to mention the parallels with "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster. ;-)...

Eoghann Irving on Jul 5, 2008 5:39 PM | My first thought on listening to this was how the fading of genres as a category might play into the never ending debate on the definition of science fiction....

Jonathan M on Jul 4, 2008 1:43 PM | Trust John C. Wright to suggest that the market can solve prejudice :-P...

Gordon Van Gelder on Jul 4, 2008 11:06 PM | I think I like Tempest better. ABW seems to be spoiling for a fight. Problem is, I don't see how a flame war will result in F&SF getting more diversity among its contributors, so I'll sit this one out....

the angry black woman on Jul 5, 2008 12:25 AM | Always nice to be dismissed for my tone! Because nothing I say under the heading "angry black woman" can be worthwhile or valued, particularly when other people decide what that moniker implies for me. I guess the name Tempest doesn't give any sort of clue as to the nature of my personality. As for the flame war part, I don't actually see one going on or even ramping up. If you'd rather not say in public what you've said about my position on this issue in other, more private places, that's completely fine. But please don't pretend you're "walking away" because of some pretense of flaming or wars. ...

Gordon Van Gelder on Jul 5, 2008 8:08 AM | I'm walking away because I haven't seen any evidence that these online discussions actually encourage anyone to write more fiction and I believe my time is better spent reading submissions. ---Gordon V.G....

Howard on Jun 30, 2008 8:07 AM | I also tracked this down after the Locus review. I found it an amazing movie, and suggested it to my local book group....

John Wright on Jul 1, 2008 11:37 AM | I remember seeing this film when I was ten years old. Some images still linger: the sight of a submarine equipped with a ramming prow, or the steam-powered sub whose fins were worked by gears, to impersonate the motions of a fish, rather than having a propeller; the sight of a giant four-story crane handing a scientist a pencil; the montage of telegraph wires weaving a city like a spiderweb, all flickering with desperate news. "Yes, the SFX is poor by today's standards, but this was a 1958 foreign film so I'm going to cut it some slack. " Even modern viewers might be impressed by the care that went into these special effects, especially getting that engraving-and-woodcut look. Let me quote from a description from Locus Online: http://www.locusmag.com/2004/Reviews/10_WaldropPerson_Verne.html Karl Zeman (the director) lets out all the stops. This is a live-action black and white movie — but it uses every camera trick and every form of animation known in 1958 ... Methods include stop-motion, paper cutout, drawing and painting animation, drawn foregrounds and backdrops, dissolves, miniatures and models, double exposure (probably in-camera and superimposition), still images, traveling and stationary mattes — they're all here. There were at least eight people watching; someone yelled out at one point "There are at least seven different things going on in this scene!" (I counted eight.) And all this before the invention of blue screens! ...

John Wright on Jul 1, 2008 11:39 AM | More from Locus Online on this last topic. What impresses most about the film is the sheer fanatical devotion to detail, of the meticulous composition of so many diverse elements in a single shot that occasionally puts even such painstaking stop-motion giants as Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen and Nick Park to shame. In terms of black and white trick photography, you'd have to reach back to films like Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. to find anything even remotely comparable, and this is easily an order of magnitude more sophisticated. There are lines drawn on sets, and even on people, to keep the original steel-engraving feel. The scenes of ships of the water have been treated with some sort of light, striped screen (probably cloth, probably double-exposed) that makes the moving waves of real water take on the appearance of the engraved lines in a 19th century drawing of the sea. There's a scene of a train coming down a track — the train is drawn; the wheels and the tracks are animated; the (real) engineer stands on an open platform in the engine's cab and (real) people lean out of the (drawn) passenger car. (It's so simple and powerful it takes your breath away.) Actors walk through back-projected sets; at the same time they're walking behind animated full-sized paper cutouts of spinning flywheels and meshing gears, all this in front of a painted set in the middle-background. For maybe five seconds of screen time. There's a scene of an animated shark attacking a real diver in a model set with painted water. We could go on... ...

Steve on Jul 5, 2008 12:25 AM | I also remember seeing this movie on TV when I was a kid in the early 60's. It was sufficiently memorable that I recently remembered about it and conducted a search. It would appear that there is a purchasable copy but the quality is not too good. I would suspect that the film, like so many of the older films, has been subjected to the ravages of time and there may not be a viable copy out there, but I plan to keep looking....

Matte Lozenge on Jul 3, 2008 10:04 PM | There were a couple on that list of 32 novels I thumbed through but didn't get very far: Frankenstein and Clockwork Orange. Two examples where the film versions were canonical, the book versions relatively obscure. I should give 'em another try, maybe....

jp on Jul 4, 2008 7:24 AM | "32 books that have pushed the boundaries of the genre, inspired generations of thinkers and in some cases have even predicted key aspects of societies development" Really? Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Timeline? Really? Oh, 23 out of 32. Darn old, old SF books....

Joe Sherry on Jul 4, 2008 8:42 AM | I might buy in with the Doctorow because it was several kinds of awesome, but Timeline? ...

Steve S on Jul 4, 2008 10:56 AM | Thanks for the mention (re: 32 books). I explained a lot better in the comments, but here's a brief justification for Timeline. Yea, it's not a great book. It is, however, for all it's flaws a popular (as in lots of people have read it) book. I wanted the list to cover a broad range of "types" of SF. What was really nice was that if you read the comments so many of you provided me with books I just didn't remember (The Left Hand Of Darkness, shame on me) and many I hadn't read. I hope this helps ease your mind a little, and thank you for reading....

Lou Anders on Jul 3, 2008 2:10 PM | Burn Notice is amazing. The two-part season finale blew me away....

Tim on Jul 3, 2008 9:36 PM | Oh yes - Burn Notice... Tricia Helfer - I was already into the show, and now I am even more giddy. When will Grace Park show up? Mmmmm Boomer......

jp on Jul 3, 2008 7:33 AM | Excellent question Morjana. I'll have to find out. For the moment, assume US/Canada only as per the last contest....

Morjana Coffman on Jul 3, 2008 7:38 PM | Thank you, JP! Morjana...

John on Jun 30, 2008 10:50 PM | @Larry: There's always next year. (H) @Jayme: Joe Lansdale himself planted that seed at the Nebulas. It's been growing ever since. @Fred: This is a used 1985 Ace copy with the TOC listed here. ...

Karen Burnham on Jul 1, 2008 8:22 AM | John - Glad you had a good time! I'm sorry I missed my first opportunity to hit ApolloCon, but next year is looking clear for end-of-June local con-going....

John on Jul 1, 2008 8:28 AM | Ah yes...but you got to rub elbows with Clute! Did he ask you for pointers on reviewing? ;-)...

Karen Burnham on Jul 3, 2008 6:05 PM | [Spit Take] :O Yeah right! He was really nice, though. He and his awesome wife Judith hosted a brunch for us - they have a lovely place right next to Camden Market. He talked a lot about the 4th edition Encyclopedia of SF, which may be available online sometime next year. ...