Category Archives: Rollerball

Dangerous Visions & New Worlds: the reviews so far & upcoming two-day City Lights SF symposium

It has been a couple of months since my latest collaboration with Iain McIntyre, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985, hit the shelves in the US, and a lot has been happening. So, a short update is in order.

The book, available via the publisher PM Press, as well as all other book selling platforms has been well received. It made The Washington Post’s list of best science fiction, fantasy and horror books for 2021, and was also postively reviewed – twice – on the influential science fiction site, Locus. Ian Mond wrote in one of these reviews that ‘With its gorgeous interiors and thoughtful, de­tailed essays, I know that Dangerous Visions and New Worlds will inform newbies like myself while providing those familiar with the subject matter a contemporary perspective on the New Wave’s radical antecedents and the influential foundational texts the movement produced’ (you can read Mond’s full review here).

Our book was generously reviewed in Forbes magazine, on one of my favourite sites, We Are the Mutants, and for Counterpunch. I was also a guest on the wonderful British podcast, Breakfast in the Ruins. You can listen to the discussion, which ranged from new wave science fiction, to Norman Jewison’s 1975 film Rollerball, and the wonder that is New English Library’s teensploitation novels of the 1970s, in full here.… Read more

Upcoming talk: The motorcycle – rebel in pop culture

A heads up to Pulp Curry readers, that on Thursday April 22 EST, I’ll be giving a talk to coincide with the exhibition currently being hosted by the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire. The talk is entitled, ‘The Motorcycle: Rebel in Pop Culture’.

Throughout the decades, motorbikes have been portrayed as a symbol of freedom and rebellion in fiction, music and on the screen. I’ll be taking you on a journey through the different representations of the motorcycle in youth and popular culture history, mainly in the United States, Australia and Great Britain. I’ll be examining what has given the motorbike its cool reputation as well as discussing how it has also functioned as a lightning rod for post war concerns around various youth subcultures. The talk will focus on film, but I’ll also look at the representation of the motorbike in music and pulp fiction.

The talk, which will take place on Zoom, will start at 7pm EST, is free & your time zone permitting open to anyone anywhere to attend. All you have to do is book at this link. I hope you can attend.

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M and my top 10 reads for 2019

It is no exaggeration to say I have been eagerly anticipating Samm Deighan’s monograph of Fritz Lang’s 1931 film. I love the film and I am a big fan of Deighan’s movie writing, so the combination is bound not to disappoint. And it didn’t.

As Deighan puts it in her introduction, M ‘exists in a liminal space between urban social drama, crime thriller, and horror film’. It was arguably the first serial killer film, long before the FBI coined the term in the early 1970s. Anchored by a superb performance by Peter Lorre as the paedophiliac child killer, Hans Beckert, it was certainly the first motion picture in which a serial killer was the central protagonist. Another crucial innovation was the way in which Lang depicted the character of Beckert in a not entirely unsympathetic light. This same sensibility would have a influence on some subsequent serial killer cinema, most notably in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror/thriller, Psycho.

Deighan discusses M’s broader social and political themes, including the film as a critique of modernity and a text for Germany on the brink of totalitarian control, appearing as it did a year before the Nazi’s assumed power and Lang had to flee the country.

Another fascinating aspect of the book is the discussion of how the themes in M would echo in Lang’s subsequent work, particular the threat of the lawless mob violence and what is perhaps the director’s most defining idea, how even the most noble individual is capable of brutal murderous thoughts and actions.… Read more

Joint launch of new cinema books on Rollerball and The Fly, Sunday, November 4

Melbourne people, a very quick heads up for those of you who may be around on the Melbourne Cup long weekend. On Sunday, November 4, myself and the wonderful Emma Westwood will be hosting a launch of two new film books, my monograph on Norman Jewison’s 1975 dystopian science fiction classic, Rollerball, and her book on David Cronenberg’s 1986 body horror, The Fly.

The launch will take kick off from 4.30pm at Grub Street Bookshop, 1/379 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Melbourne film scholar Dean Brandum will be on hand to do a Q&A with Emma and I about our books, there will be cheap drinks, and special ROLLERBALL and THE FLY themed cupcakes.

There will also be the chance to buy copies of the monographs at cheaper prices than offered elsewhere.

So please come along, help us celebrate, and pick up some great reading about cinema. There is a Facebook page here for the event, if you would like to RSVP, which would be great as it would give us an idea of numbers.

Hope to see you there.… Read more

Nothing but one big shill #2

Yes, another post devoted  to shamelessly shilling my own stuff. Again.

Well, not just my own stuff.

First up, I was happy to learn that the anthology I contributed a story to, The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, published by the New York based independent publisher, Three Rooms Press, has just won the 2018 Anthony Award for best fiction anthology,

The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in the US. They are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America, and a pretty big deal.

The anthology contains fifteen stories of pulpy goodness, featuring robots, lizard people, vigilante killers and various other bizarre creations riffing off the conspiracy theories association with the Obama presidency (although I believe the current occupant of the White House also gets a nod), and was edited by one of the hardest working men in crime fiction, Gary Phillips, critically acclaimed author of mystery and graphic novels.

Anyway, if you have not already picked up the anthology, I reckon the news it has won an Anthony should be as good an incentive as you need to do so.

It features stories by a host of talented writers, including big guns such as Walter Mosley and Robert Silverberg.… Read more