#1970s — Public Fediverse posts

What To Watch On YouTube Right Now – Part 153

Welcome back my readers, YouTube viewers and all others who followed this series of articles focused on YouTube videos worth watching.

Have you been searching for something fun or interesting to watch on YouTube? Do you feel bored right now and you crave for something to see on the world’s most popular online video destination?

I recommend you check out the following videos I found.

#1 Reaction Videos of The Transformers: The Movie – I can hardly believe it has been forty years since The Transformers: The Movie was first released. Following its disappointing theatrical run, the animated feature film became highly pursued by Transformers fans as soon as it was released on home video, and me and my friends enjoyed it a lot. It’s theatrical disappointment never stopped it from becoming a classic for Transformers fans and its importance in pop culture has been established solidly. By today’s standards, The Transformers: The Movie is a showcase of not only high-quality animation and a great lineup of characters, it also has the fine vocal performances of entertainment legends Orson Welles, Peter Cullen (who died recently), Leonard Nimoy, Scatman Crothers, Robert Stack, and Frank Welker. That said, it is not surprising that the 1986 animated film is featured in many movie reaction videos and I found the most entertaining ones for you to enjoy.

https://youtu.be/OshUi1rVkcg?si=g7MQ8jIaCxOQyMX1

https://youtu.be/7yaZPfwJUUs?si=j56ni3PbY5-Vfef0

https://youtu.be/swVpW3-mLNk?si=tYA_UXTJfzUpo4gz

#2 Summer Bargains in Japan – Are there a lot of bargains offered by your local grocery or department stores during the summer season? In Japan, as captured by Nippon TV, a grocery store organized “all-you-can-stuff” events that offered customers the golden opportunities to accumulate as many fresh vegetables (sourced from the summer produce of local farms) as they can for a fixed rate per attempt. Watching this Nippon TV video is entertaining and informative. I encourage you all to watch it from start to finish.

https://youtu.be/X0miUs-mwrM?si=M_M7Jetc2TPgeGjH

#3 1978 Interview Clip of Ingrid Bergman – If you have seen the classic movie Casablanca, you would remember the radiant beauty of Ingrid Bergman and her on-screen romance with Humphrey Bogart’s character. A few years before she passed away, Bergman was interviewed on TV and I posted below a short video excerpt for you to see. Not only will you learn from Bergman a notable revelation about her co-star’s presence behind the scenes of Casablanca’s production, you will see how intellectual and insightful she was. Go watch the video below.

https://youtu.be/EV-r4I584A8?si=ENkx6cJakbzh50lg

#4 The Indiana Jones Game Konami Was Never Allowed to Make – Time for retro gaming! Back in the 1980s, Konami was a very prolific producer of video games for both arcades and consoles. In 1987, Konami released Arumana no Kiseki for the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom) disk system. What struck me when I first played the game was the many creative elements it shared with the 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The playable action hero was designed with close resemblance to Indiana Jones (complete with the fedora). The game even had locations that looked like they were ripped off from the 1984 movie. To learn more about Arumana no Kiseki, who created it and why it had lots of Indiana Jones-related elements in it, watch the video below.

https://youtu.be/jqL2DI08cP8?si=STKM6XSPWXaxq_eW

#5 Roger Moore Technically Played James Bond in The Cannonball Run – Released in 1981, The Cannonball Run was an all-star comedy film with an emphasis on racing and stunts. It was heavily inspired by a real-life illegal cross-country motor race that happened in America in the 1970s and the movie had the very popular celebrities of the time like Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Farrah Fawcett and Roger Moore. Moore, who was already famous as the cinematic James Bond, technically played Agent 007 in The Cannonball Run. If you are curious and you want to know more, go watch Calvin Dyson’s retrospective of the movie and Moore’s presence.

https://youtu.be/lF9sB52rgyc?si=A54tn93OdoLiMj4q

#6 Jerusalem Walk Video – During the day-off of the Israel pilgrimage tour I joined in 2023, I took the rare opportunity to explore the city of Jerusalem on foot. I started the day at the Old City of Jerusalem where I visited the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and other holy sites before marching all the way to the modern part of Jerusalem going as far as the famous Mahane Yehuda market. This Jerusalem walk video brings back memories to me and if you love world travel, I encourage you to watch it.

https://youtu.be/uum2fk0BKUE?si=zHC8wR0vqQo4y4oU

+++++

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"Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?"

-Leonard Nimoy as Spock
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Dir: Robert Wise

#Movies #Cinema #StarTrek #MovieQuotes #MoviePosters #1970s

Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round Results:

David Bowie (post 1976) v Stevie Wonder
Heroes 59% v 41% Songs in the Key of Life
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) 59% v 41% Innervisions
Low 60% v 40% Talking Book

Overall Result: David Bowie (post 1976) 3 Stevie Wonder 0

David Bowie (post 1976) progresses to the Third Round

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round Results:

David Bowie (post 1976) v Stevie Wonder
Heroes 59% v 41% Songs in the Key of Life
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) 59% v 41% Innervisions
Low 60% v 40% Talking Book

Overall Result: David Bowie (post 1976) 3 Stevie Wonder 0

David Bowie (post 1976) progresses to the Third Round

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round Results:

David Bowie (post 1976) v Stevie Wonder
Heroes 59% v 41% Songs in the Key of Life
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) 59% v 41% Innervisions
Low 60% v 40% Talking Book

Overall Result: David Bowie (post 1976) 3 Stevie Wonder 0

David Bowie (post 1976) progresses to the Third Round

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round Results:

David Bowie (post 1976) v Stevie Wonder
Heroes 59% v 41% Songs in the Key of Life
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) 59% v 41% Innervisions
Low 60% v 40% Talking Book

Overall Result: David Bowie (post 1976) 3 Stevie Wonder 0

David Bowie (post 1976) progresses to the Third Round

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round Results:

David Bowie (post 1976) v Stevie Wonder
Heroes 59% v 41% Songs in the Key of Life
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) 59% v 41% Innervisions
Low 60% v 40% Talking Book

Overall Result: David Bowie (post 1976) 3 Stevie Wonder 0

David Bowie (post 1976) progresses to the Third Round

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #6
Making Movies - Dire Straits v Blue - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #6
Making Movies - Dire Straits v Blue - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #6
Making Movies - Dire Straits v Blue - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #6
Making Movies - Dire Straits v Blue - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #6
Making Movies - Dire Straits v Blue - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #5
Dire Straits - Dire Straits v Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #5
Dire Straits - Dire Straits v Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #5
Dire Straits - Dire Straits v Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #5
Dire Straits - Dire Straits v Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #5
Dire Straits - Dire Straits v Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #4
Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits v Ladies of the Canyon - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #4
Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits v Ladies of the Canyon - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #4
Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits v Ladies of the Canyon - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #4
Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits v Ladies of the Canyon - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #4
Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits v Ladies of the Canyon - Joni Mitchell

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

"The Mage." --Three portraits of Jon Vickers-Jones, through the ages, painted for his eighty-ninth birthday. Two by three foot oil on stretched canvas. 2026. #oil #oilpainting #oilpaintings #stretchedcanvas #stretchedcanvasses #stretchedcanvasoilpainting #stretchedcanvasoilpaintings #smalltown #smalltowns #mifflintown #juniatacounty #pennsylvania #town #towns #inbred #hillbilly #soap #soapopera #soapoperas #1970s #twentiethcentury #gang #ourgang #youthgang #gangs

@ungenannter

Nun gut

Heardle Super 70s #1117

🔇⬛️⬛️⬛️🟨🟨🟨

#Heardle #1970s #Music

https://super70s.heardledecades.xyz

@ungenannter

Nun gut

Heardle Super 70s #1117

🔇⬛️⬛️⬛️🟨🟨🟨

#Heardle #1970s #Music

https://super70s.heardledecades.xyz

@ungenannter

Nun gut

Heardle Super 70s #1117

🔇⬛️⬛️⬛️🟨🟨🟨

#Heardle #1970s #Music

https://super70s.heardledecades.xyz

@ungenannter

Heardle 1970s #1584

🔊🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️

#Heardle #1970s #Music

https://70s.heardledecades.com

@ungenannter

Heardle 1970s #1584

🔊🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️

#Heardle #1970s #Music

https://70s.heardledecades.com

@ungenannter

Heardle 1970s #1584

🔊🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️

#Heardle #1970s #Music

https://70s.heardledecades.com

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCLIII (C. J. Cherryh, Alan Burns, Brian M. Stableford, and Irene Clyde)

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. C. J. Cherryh’s Serpent’s Reach (1980)

• David Mattingly’s cover for the 1980 paperback edition

From the back cover: “The constellation of Hydrus, known as the Serpent, is compact and obscure as seen from Earth’s sky. Even in the great era of interstellar colonization it remained obscure. For it was under strict quarantine – harboring an intelligent race, powerful, alien, and inhuman.

Yet there were human colonies within the Serpent’s Reach, cut off from the galaxy beyond, with their own inbred culture, their Families and traditions, and their special relationships to the inhuman majat.

This is the strange and brilliant novel of Raen, the last of the massacred Sul Family, and of her lifetime pledge to find vengeance. It was to take her across the worlds of the Reach into the very center of the alien webwork, into the strands of thought and counter-thought that knit the forbidden constellation into a complex of interbred cultures that no outsider could hope to unravel.”

Initial Thoughts: My collection of Cherryh’s pre-1985 SF grows slowly. I still have a few of her pre-1985 SF novels (and short story collections) to track down. I do not know that much about this particular novel other than its place in her sprawling Alliance-Union universe.

2. Alan Burns’ Europe After the Rain: A Novel (1965)

• Cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “Europe After The Rain is a disturbing book, a creation and, no doubt for many people, a re-creation of the nightmare of utter devastation, of hope, of complete disillusionment and of re-affirmation. The author has taken his title from a painting by Max Ernst but the connection between the two works is far more complex. The painting prophetically depicts a vision of rampant destruction close to that which has become a terrifying reality in modern times. Alan Burns, taking the theme to its logical conclusion, shows man not merely trying to come to terms with desolation but combating human cruelty with that resilience of spirit without which survival, both physical and moral, would be impossible.

The narrator is engaged in an arduous search for a girl. The ‘Europe’ through which he travels is a devastated world, twisted and misshapen both geographically and morally. Life and death are curiously intermingled with fear the motive force of men and women expressed through a cupidity and violence which takes on much more than a physical significance. The narrator brings an interested apathy to the horrific events he is forced to witness but never succumbs to complete despair or an easy cynicism. The book ends with a profound experience in love but the initial vision, original and deeply personal, is never marred by sentimentality.

Alan Burns has succeeded in presenting a picture of his age, has captured with disturbing realism what well may be the ‘collective unconscious’ of the twentieth century. And he has done this in a language that can have few rivals for economy, beauty and rhythm. His austere sentences glow with intelligence, colour and force.”

Initial Thoughts: Burns strikes me as a very J. G. Ballard-esque writer. I’m basing my assessment on Babel (1969) and Dreamerika!: A Surrealist Fantasy (1972), both of which I read but never managed to review. Both utilize collage and post-modern experimentation. At least there’s a new edition of Dreamerika!. When I read it more than a decade ago prices hovered around $150. I managed to ILL a copy through my university. As I’ve said many times before, I endlessly fall victim to British post-apocalyptic visions, especially those like Anna Kavan’s Ice (1967), where the physical landscape manifests the psychological afflictions of humanity.

3. Brian M. Stableford’s The Mind-Riders (1976)

• Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “If millions pay today just to watch two men fight for a champion’s crown, tens of millions will pay for the additional thrill of being actually within the mind and body of the boxers themselves, to experience in person the tension and combat, to throw themselves into punch and counter-punch without having to feel the pain.

This is the story of Ryan Hart’s final fight. His was not the publicized name of the boxer. Nobody knew him but the insiders, because he was the man who operated the challenger, whose mind handled the boxer’s muscles, whose agonies were never felt by the E-linked millions, but who would be for a few dozen minutes the embodiment of half the human race!

It’s a novel of two unforgettable battles one the seen and obvious, the other the fight of a single solitary man to regain honor and self-respect in a world he had ceased to believe in.

Initial Thoughts: I’ve had little success with Stableford’s works. However, the plot of this one — sports as a SF vehicle for social commentary on commercialism, trauma, alienation, the media, and violence — is right up my alley. Check out reviews of William Harrison’s “Roller Ball Murder” (1973) and Gary K. Wolf’s Killerbowl (1975) for other 70s exemplars.

4. Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth (1909)

• Seth’s cover for the 2026 edition

From the back cover: Beatrice the Sixteenth (1909) is “a pioneering 1909 feminist utopia. Mary Hatherley, an intrepid British explorer, finds herself transported to an alternate version of Earth. Arriving in Armeria, she discovers a society in which the very concept of gender is unknown. By avoiding the use of gendered pronouns, the story’s author–herself a genderfluid activist–challenges our assumptions about gendered social paradigms.”

Initial Thoughts: I’m a huge fan of the MIT Press Radium Age series. I’m all for bringing back more esoteric utopias and dystopia. For a great recent article on this book, check out Elizabeth A. Allen’s review over at Strange Horizons.

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCLIII (C. J. Cherryh, Alan Burns, Brian M. Stableford, and Irene Clyde)

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. C. J. Cherryh’s Serpent’s Reach (1980)

• David Mattingly’s cover for the 1980 paperback edition

From the back cover: “The constellation of Hydrus, known as the Serpent, is compact and obscure as seen from Earth’s sky. Even in the great era of interstellar colonization it remained obscure. For it was under strict quarantine – harboring an intelligent race, powerful, alien, and inhuman.

Yet there were human colonies within the Serpent’s Reach, cut off from the galaxy beyond, with their own inbred culture, their Families and traditions, and their special relationships to the inhuman majat.

This is the strange and brilliant novel of Raen, the last of the massacred Sul Family, and of her lifetime pledge to find vengeance. It was to take her across the worlds of the Reach into the very center of the alien webwork, into the strands of thought and counter-thought that knit the forbidden constellation into a complex of interbred cultures that no outsider could hope to unravel.”

Initial Thoughts: My collection of Cherryh’s pre-1985 SF grows slowly. I still have a few of her pre-1985 SF novels (and short story collections) to track down. I do not know that much about this particular novel other than its place in her sprawling Alliance-Union universe.

2. Alan Burns’ Europe After the Rain: A Novel (1965)

• Cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “Europe After The Rain is a disturbing book, a creation and, no doubt for many people, a re-creation of the nightmare of utter devastation, of hope, of complete disillusionment and of re-affirmation. The author has taken his title from a painting by Max Ernst but the connection between the two works is far more complex. The painting prophetically depicts a vision of rampant destruction close to that which has become a terrifying reality in modern times. Alan Burns, taking the theme to its logical conclusion, shows man not merely trying to come to terms with desolation but combating human cruelty with that resilience of spirit without which survival, both physical and moral, would be impossible.

The narrator is engaged in an arduous search for a girl. The ‘Europe’ through which he travels is a devastated world, twisted and misshapen both geographically and morally. Life and death are curiously intermingled with fear the motive force of men and women expressed through a cupidity and violence which takes on much more than a physical significance. The narrator brings an interested apathy to the horrific events he is forced to witness but never succumbs to complete despair or an easy cynicism. The book ends with a profound experience in love but the initial vision, original and deeply personal, is never marred by sentimentality.

Alan Burns has succeeded in presenting a picture of his age, has captured with disturbing realism what well may be the ‘collective unconscious’ of the twentieth century. And he has done this in a language that can have few rivals for economy, beauty and rhythm. His austere sentences glow with intelligence, colour and force.”

Initial Thoughts: Burns strikes me as a very J. G. Ballard-esque writer. I’m basing my assessment on Babel (1969) and Dreamerika!: A Surrealist Fantasy (1972), both of which I read but never managed to review. Both utilize collage and post-modern experimentation. At least there’s a new edition of Dreamerika!. When I read it more than a decade ago prices hovered around $150. I managed to ILL a copy through my university. As I’ve said many times before, I endlessly fall victim to British post-apocalyptic visions, especially those like Anna Kavan’s Ice (1967), where the physical landscape manifests the psychological afflictions of humanity.

3. Brian M. Stableford’s The Mind-Riders (1976)

• Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “If millions pay today just to watch two men fight for a champion’s crown, tens of millions will pay for the additional thrill of being actually within the mind and body of the boxers themselves, to experience in person the tension and combat, to throw themselves into punch and counter-punch without having to feel the pain.

This is the story of Ryan Hart’s final fight. His was not the publicized name of the boxer. Nobody knew him but the insiders, because he was the man who operated the challenger, whose mind handled the boxer’s muscles, whose agonies were never felt by the E-linked millions, but who would be for a few dozen minutes the embodiment of half the human race!

It’s a novel of two unforgettable battles one the seen and obvious, the other the fight of a single solitary man to regain honor and self-respect in a world he had ceased to believe in.

Initial Thoughts: I’ve had little success with Stableford’s works. However, the plot of this one — sports as a SF vehicle for social commentary on commercialism, trauma, alienation, the media, and violence — is right up my alley. Check out reviews of William Harrison’s “Roller Ball Murder” (1973) and Gary K. Wolf’s Killerbowl (1975) for other 70s exemplars.

4. Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth (1909)

• Seth’s cover for the 2026 edition

From the back cover: Beatrice the Sixteenth (1909) is “a pioneering 1909 feminist utopia. Mary Hatherley, an intrepid British explorer, finds herself transported to an alternate version of Earth. Arriving in Armeria, she discovers a society in which the very concept of gender is unknown. By avoiding the use of gendered pronouns, the story’s author–herself a genderfluid activist–challenges our assumptions about gendered social paradigms.”

Initial Thoughts: I’m a huge fan of the MIT Press Radium Age series. I’m all for bringing back more esoteric utopias and dystopia. For a great recent article on this book, check out Elizabeth A. Allen’s review over at Strange Horizons.

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCLIII (C. J. Cherryh, Alan Burns, Brian M. Stableford, and Irene Clyde)

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. C. J. Cherryh’s Serpent’s Reach (1980)

• David Mattingly’s cover for the 1980 paperback edition

From the back cover: “The constellation of Hydrus, known as the Serpent, is compact and obscure as seen from Earth’s sky. Even in the great era of interstellar colonization it remained obscure. For it was under strict quarantine – harboring an intelligent race, powerful, alien, and inhuman.

Yet there were human colonies within the Serpent’s Reach, cut off from the galaxy beyond, with their own inbred culture, their Families and traditions, and their special relationships to the inhuman majat.

This is the strange and brilliant novel of Raen, the last of the massacred Sul Family, and of her lifetime pledge to find vengeance. It was to take her across the worlds of the Reach into the very center of the alien webwork, into the strands of thought and counter-thought that knit the forbidden constellation into a complex of interbred cultures that no outsider could hope to unravel.”

Initial Thoughts: My collection of Cherryh’s pre-1985 SF grows slowly. I still have a few of her pre-1985 SF novels (and short story collections) to track down. I do not know that much about this particular novel other than its place in her sprawling Alliance-Union universe.

2. Alan Burns’ Europe After the Rain: A Novel (1965)

• Cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “Europe After The Rain is a disturbing book, a creation and, no doubt for many people, a re-creation of the nightmare of utter devastation, of hope, of complete disillusionment and of re-affirmation. The author has taken his title from a painting by Max Ernst but the connection between the two works is far more complex. The painting prophetically depicts a vision of rampant destruction close to that which has become a terrifying reality in modern times. Alan Burns, taking the theme to its logical conclusion, shows man not merely trying to come to terms with desolation but combating human cruelty with that resilience of spirit without which survival, both physical and moral, would be impossible.

The narrator is engaged in an arduous search for a girl. The ‘Europe’ through which he travels is a devastated world, twisted and misshapen both geographically and morally. Life and death are curiously intermingled with fear the motive force of men and women expressed through a cupidity and violence which takes on much more than a physical significance. The narrator brings an interested apathy to the horrific events he is forced to witness but never succumbs to complete despair or an easy cynicism. The book ends with a profound experience in love but the initial vision, original and deeply personal, is never marred by sentimentality.

Alan Burns has succeeded in presenting a picture of his age, has captured with disturbing realism what well may be the ‘collective unconscious’ of the twentieth century. And he has done this in a language that can have few rivals for economy, beauty and rhythm. His austere sentences glow with intelligence, colour and force.”

Initial Thoughts: Burns strikes me as a very J. G. Ballard-esque writer. I’m basing my assessment on Babel (1969) and Dreamerika!: A Surrealist Fantasy (1972), both of which I read but never managed to review. Both utilize collage and post-modern experimentation. At least there’s a new edition of Dreamerika!. When I read it more than a decade ago prices hovered around $150. I managed to ILL a copy through my university. As I’ve said many times before, I endlessly fall victim to British post-apocalyptic visions, especially those like Anna Kavan’s Ice (1967), where the physical landscape manifests the psychological afflictions of humanity.

3. Brian M. Stableford’s The Mind-Riders (1976)

• Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “If millions pay today just to watch two men fight for a champion’s crown, tens of millions will pay for the additional thrill of being actually within the mind and body of the boxers themselves, to experience in person the tension and combat, to throw themselves into punch and counter-punch without having to feel the pain.

This is the story of Ryan Hart’s final fight. His was not the publicized name of the boxer. Nobody knew him but the insiders, because he was the man who operated the challenger, whose mind handled the boxer’s muscles, whose agonies were never felt by the E-linked millions, but who would be for a few dozen minutes the embodiment of half the human race!

It’s a novel of two unforgettable battles one the seen and obvious, the other the fight of a single solitary man to regain honor and self-respect in a world he had ceased to believe in.

Initial Thoughts: I’ve had little success with Stableford’s works. However, the plot of this one — sports as a SF vehicle for social commentary on commercialism, trauma, alienation, the media, and violence — is right up my alley. Check out reviews of William Harrison’s “Roller Ball Murder” (1973) and Gary K. Wolf’s Killerbowl (1975) for other 70s exemplars.

4. Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth (1909)

• Seth’s cover for the 2026 edition

From the back cover: Beatrice the Sixteenth (1909) is “a pioneering 1909 feminist utopia. Mary Hatherley, an intrepid British explorer, finds herself transported to an alternate version of Earth. Arriving in Armeria, she discovers a society in which the very concept of gender is unknown. By avoiding the use of gendered pronouns, the story’s author–herself a genderfluid activist–challenges our assumptions about gendered social paradigms.”

Initial Thoughts: I’m a huge fan of the MIT Press Radium Age series. I’m all for bringing back more esoteric utopias and dystopia. For a great recent article on this book, check out Elizabeth A. Allen’s review over at Strange Horizons.

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

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The decade that saw Joe Walsh spiral out of control

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Second Round Results:

The Rolling Stones (1970s) v Black Sabbath
Exile on Main St. 59% v 41% Black Sabbath
Goats Head Soup 54% v 46% Master of Reality
Some Girls 44% v 56% Paranoid

Overall Result: The Rolling Stones (1970s) 2 Black Sabbath 1

The Rolling Stones (1970s) progress to the Third Round

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Second Round Results:

The Rolling Stones (1970s) v Black Sabbath
Exile on Main St. 59% v 41% Black Sabbath
Goats Head Soup 54% v 46% Master of Reality
Some Girls 44% v 56% Paranoid

Overall Result: The Rolling Stones (1970s) 2 Black Sabbath 1

The Rolling Stones (1970s) progress to the Third Round

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Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Second Round Results:

The Rolling Stones (1970s) v Black Sabbath
Exile on Main St. 59% v 41% Black Sabbath
Goats Head Soup 54% v 46% Master of Reality
Some Girls 44% v 56% Paranoid

Overall Result: The Rolling Stones (1970s) 2 Black Sabbath 1

The Rolling Stones (1970s) progress to the Third Round

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Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Second Round Results:

The Rolling Stones (1970s) v Black Sabbath
Exile on Main St. 59% v 41% Black Sabbath
Goats Head Soup 54% v 46% Master of Reality
Some Girls 44% v 56% Paranoid

Overall Result: The Rolling Stones (1970s) 2 Black Sabbath 1

The Rolling Stones (1970s) progress to the Third Round

#Music #PopMusic #RockMusic #Songs #Poll #SoulMusic #RockNRoll #1990s #1980s #1970s #1960s #1950s #FavouriteAlbumArtistsPoll

Our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Second Round Results:

The Rolling Stones (1970s) v Black Sabbath
Exile on Main St. 59% v 41% Black Sabbath
Goats Head Soup 54% v 46% Master of Reality
Some Girls 44% v 56% Paranoid

Overall Result: The Rolling Stones (1970s) 2 Black Sabbath 1

The Rolling Stones (1970s) progress to the Third Round

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Low - David Bowie (post 1976) v Talking Book - Stevie Wonder

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Match-Up #3
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Match-Up #3
Low - David Bowie (post 1976) v Talking Book - Stevie Wonder

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Third Round
Match-Up #3
Low - David Bowie (post 1976) v Talking Book - Stevie Wonder

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Match-Up #3
Low - David Bowie (post 1976) v Talking Book - Stevie Wonder

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Match-Up #2
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) - David Bowie (post 1976) v Innervisions - Stevie Wonder

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Third Round
Match-Up #2
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) - David Bowie (post 1976) v Innervisions - Stevie Wonder

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

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I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #2
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) - David Bowie (post 1976) v Innervisions - Stevie Wonder

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

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I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #2
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) - David Bowie (post 1976) v Innervisions - Stevie Wonder

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

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I’d like to invite you to vote in our Favourite Album Artists Poll

Third Round
Match-Up #2
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) - David Bowie (post 1976) v Innervisions - Stevie Wonder

Please vote for your favourite album artist👇

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Third Round
Match-Up #1
Heroes - David Bowie (post 1976) v Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder

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