Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

The artefact is a circular ribbon of matter six hundred million miles long and ninety million miles in radius. Pierson's puppeteers, the aliens who discovered it, are understandably wary of encountering the builders of such an immense structure and have assembled a team of two humans, a mad puppeteer and a kzin, a huge cat-like alien, to explore it. But a crash landing on the vast edifice forces the crew on a desperate and dangerous trek across the Ringworld.

Holy crap! I, Mark Lawrence, have read an entire book in 4 hours! Admittedly I picked it up after discovering that it was only 24,000 words long, or 1/2oth of a George Martin epic.EDIT: over the long grind of this summer holiday I've been writing a "short" story that I'm being paid to write to inspire an Xbox game. It's nearing the end and has just passed 40,000 words :o Somebody stop me!Still, the copy I have is a hardback, 40 years old, and at 169 pages, not an exceptionally slim novel. Admittedly the font is HUGE!I gave this a 3* from memory and now I'm revising it down to a 2*. It's OK. There are good things in it, and bad things.The 33 Moorcock books on my fantasy shelf speak to the love I had for his work 30-40 years ago. I've been having trouble recapturing it on recent reads though. I have been avoiding my favourites ... so that might be it.http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tMqSP3wcsL4...Anyway, good and bad.Most of the good things are an irrepressible imagination and Stormbringer.The bad things ... are many. It's not much longer than a short story and even so is divided in to THREE books. The whole thing has a dreamy misty feel to it (and is literally described in those terms). It's full of people making vague doom-laden statements and refusing to explain anything "until the time is right". Everything is pre-ordained / fated, and it's basically three short stories with no connection, all of which are really about fights and magic rather than having anything to say.In the first story four aspects of the eternal champion are brought together, Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, and Erekose. This proves to be bad idea as it leads you to suspect that the eternal champion is a handy excuse for writing the same character over and over, with the suspicion being that Moorcock is just better at weird fantasy stuff than characters...My son saw me picking the book up and said something along the lines of "But that's old, why are you bothering?" To which I responded with exasperation, "Fantasy doesn't have a sell by date! What ... are the swords going to be old fashioned? Will the enchantments be dated? Will the demons be wearing period dress?"And he said, "If you pick up any old book you'll find it's rubbish. The writing style has changed. They're too slow. The characters don't feel real.""Nonsense!" I said wittily, and walked off with my 40 year old book.But the thing is. He was right, a bit. Every Moorcock book I've tried in the past few years has seemed terribly dated. The characters really don't feel real. The conversations are always overly pompous/grand or just turning the handle on the plot.The only thing that struck me as quite 'modern' was the level of visceral violence on display. I don't think today's books that are accused of grimdark have any more blood or guts splattering the page than Moorcock did in the 70s.The other two stories were ... OK but really didn't shine, and over all I was disappointed. On the flip side, it's not a Moorcock book that I have fond memories of, so perhaps it was only ever OK and my fanboying was all from the individual Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon tales.  Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #prizes.....

With Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock brings a superior fantasy series to a to formally effective and emotionally satisfying conclusion.I love the Elric series, and sometimes wonder if I rate the books too highly. After all, the prose, ranging from workmanlike to vigorous, is often evocative but rarely poetic, and the tales themselves run to cliche, with too many love-besotted sorcerers, too many queens with hidden agendas, and too many marvelous towers—chock full of monsters and demons—appearing at the conflux of the time streams.Here, however, Moorcock is at the top of his game. His prose is unusually concentrated and disciplined, and many of the plot elements he introduces are both surprising and pleasing. (My favorites? The quest for Roland’s horn, and—even better--the Sad Giant and his shield.)But the best thing about this book is the seriousness with which Moorcock treats his hero, his hero’s destiny, and the startlingly original universe—a world torn between Chaos and Law—in which his hero lives. For it is the brooding Byronic character of Elric himself, fated to kill those whom he loves, and the unique philosophical realm which determines the nature of that character, that together are the twin source of the Elric fans’ delight, making it easy to excuse the patches of mundane prose, the occasional narrative cliche. In fashioning Stormbringer, Moorcock has shown great courage, not flinching from the demands of fate or the requirements of his chosen universe. He brings the Elric series to its inevitable conclusion, and, in doing so, has crafted a thing of harsh beauty, as heartbreaking and bleak as Arthur’s battle at the plain of Camlann.

The long awaited sequel to Gene Wolfe’s four-volume classic, The Book of the New Sun. We return to the world of Severian, now the Autarch of Urth, as he leaves the planet on one of the huge spaceships of the alien Hierodules to travel across time and space to face his greatest test, to become the legendary New Sun or die. The strange, rich, original spaceship scenes give way to travels in time, wherein Severian revisits times and places which fill in parts of the background of the four-volume work, that will thrill and intrigue particularly all readers of the earlier books. But The Urth of the New Sun is an independent structure all of a piece, an integral masterpiece to shelve beside the classics, one itself.

This, as well as the first two books and theoretically the last in the series, is rapidly becoming the most difficult work of SF I've ever read. Why? It's not particularly difficult to follow; the Hero's Quest is rather straightforward throughout. Nor is the main character Severian particularly uninteresting or difficult to like.My main concern, as well as my questionable joy, is in the author's requirement that we take not just an active role in the reconstruction of this tale, but that even a deconstruction, a literary analysis, a creative interpretation, a fuck-you-sideways until you bleed from your eyeballs reinterpretation, might not quite be enough for us to reconcile story elements from action elements from reflective elements from literary elements.I'm assuming, just from my own idiocy, that this is a 4-d topographical map and I must rip out the pages according to odd-numbered reoccurring themes, plaster them together in the shape of the Claw of the Conciliator, and then read the text while standing on my head. And I can't do it while inebriated. This isn't, after all, noir fiction.This is, supposedly, the most brilliant literary mindfuck of a SF novel ever written, only it's so far beyond bizarro fiction that it has usurped James Joyce's throne. Take your pick if you want to liken it to SF Ulysses or SF Finnegans Wake. I mention the last just because this has darkened depths to it where deep literary beasties roam, unseen, and not because it's batshit crazy like the author.I'm not saying that Gene Wolfe is crazy. Not at all. But for all the ways that this *appears* to be sword and sorcery on the surface, and decent sword and sorcery that happens to take place a million years in the future on Earth where the sun is dying and aliens mess with us and tech indistinguishable to magic roams the earth, events, plot elements, and narrative elements will sometimes hit is from out of nowhere and they will make absolutely no sense at all if you are reading on the simple surface.Truly, just the little hints are enough to drive me crazy. Yes, I pick up quite a few, like Severian's little discussion with little Severian about men who decide that living like men is too much for them so they get a special lobotomy so they don't have to reflect or worry about what it means to be a man, that they can live happily like beasts. Little Severian says, "Is that why you go without a shirt? Because you are like the beast men?" "No, I haven't undergone the procedure, but yeah, perhaps I do go without reflection like them." Of course, in the story context, he's saved the kid with his name, vows to be his papa, and proceeds to watch him die, moving on to the next quest without much reflection. Right. (Btw, I'm not checking my review for precise quotations, I'm paraphrasing from memory.)This isn't even the biggest bit of crazy. There's resurrected love interests, either pure memory from an alien juice and another from a time-reversal trick, both of which he loses, aliens with masks as many roles, with the real one being as smooth as unworked clay, as like unformed from conception or story, a mirror for everything else that goes on, and giants who resemble the witches whom Perseus steals the eye and the tooth. Don't get me wrong. It's pretty cool. But when the fiction turns metafiction, when plots get thrown right into some heavy meta-soup and we're left wondering what the hell we just stepped into, we still have the sense that we *ought* to be knowing what the hell is going on. It doesn't let us drop, exactly. It just tries to entice us into rereading the books 5-10 times to try to figure out just what the hell is going on. I have to question myself: Do I care enough to become a devoted scholar of Wolfe and write at least a dissertation on his work? Do I care at least enough to finish through the 4th book?The answer is No, and Yes. It's frustrating to see all those little fishes in the dark water below my feet, see them scurrying away, but I'm not quite hungry enough to get down on my hands and knees and beg Poseidon to make them jump right into my mouth.Maybe someday, when I've burned all my other books and am exiled to a desert island where I have nothing else to read than these four admittedly interesting books will I sit down and devote the rest of life to figuring out just what the hell is going on here. :) I don't quite think I'm alone in this feeling, either.Shouldn't there be a whole cottage industry devoted to figuring this thing out? Where are the scores of scholars? Is this going to go down into history as "The series everyone wants to say is genius but no one has the guts to say they have no idea what's going on"? I'll at least say it. I don't know what's going on. Surface? Sure. Pretty damn straightforward. It's everything else. Gahh!

Volume Four of the Book of the New Sun. Severian the Torturer continues his epic journey across the lands of Urth, a journey as fraught with peril as it is with wonder. Exiled from his guild he is an outcast, but his travels are woven with strange portents. The Claw of the Conciliator, relic of a prophet and promise of a new age, flames to life in his hands. He carries the great sword Terminus Est, the Line of Division. The dwellers in the deep waters offer him a kingdom under the seas. And he is hunted and driven by terrors from beyond Urth. Now all his travels move him inexorably toward a grander fate, a destiny that he dare not refuse. For a devouring blackness gnaws at the heart of the Old Sun, and the fate of Urth rests in the return of the Conciliator, the New Sun long foretold.

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est. This edition contains the first four volumes of the series.

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise, I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead...

The Shadow of the Torturer is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim.The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly, and "one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century" by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Shadow &amp; Claw brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume.

I did not like this book much the first time I read it, but after reading it a second time while visualizing its characters as puppets, I found I liked it much more.This book—particularly the first three stories—irritated me. I found its wizards to be contemptible creatures, morally inferior products of a degenerate age, capable only of memorizing a few detailed spells and casting them by rote (“Vancian Magic,” which later became a key element of “Dungeons and Dragons”). I was also appalled by their sexism: even the best try to fashion ideal women from scratch, while the majority desire only to catch women, cage them and rape them—the real reason for all their pathetic little spells. In addition, the book's prose—particularly the wizards' speeches—is grandiloquent and eccentric, harsh and grating, and crammed full of hard words. Such words—I remember thinking to myself—remind me of what Shakespeare's Angus says of Macbeth's titles: they “hang loose about him, like a giant's robe/ Upon a dwarfish thief.”This Renaissance reference must have unearthed old memories, for soon I was transported back to grad school at Ohio State, some forty years ago. At the time I was studying John Marston, and I was having a good deal of trouble enjoying his tragedies (Antonio and Mellida, Antonio's Revenge) because the speeches were so pompous, so ridiculously passionate, the plots so elaborate and absurd. Then I discovered a fact that changed my reaction completely. Whereas Shakespeare wrote for a general audience at an open air theater featuring adult actors, Marston wrote for an elite audience in a candlelit indoor theater featuring an acting company of children. Each of these passionate, pompous speeches—filled with mammoth emotions and murderous intent—had been declaimed in chiaroscuro by a costumed child. Knowing this, I could now appreciate Marston's mix of humor and biting satire. He was using grand speeches in the mouths of children to show us the littleness of man, a poor paltry creature of monumental passions trapped in a flickering world.So I read The Dying Earth again, as if it were a Punch and Judy show mounted with magnificent sets. Puppet wizards and puppet women now moved through a muted landscape, in a world of distilled evil dominated by a decadent sun. Sometimes they seem like mischievous children, sometimes like degenerate dwarfs, but at other times they seem like creatures of some new myth, a promise of stories to come beyond this dying world.So my advice is: stick with it. Imagine the characters as puppets or children or mice if you have to, but read this book all the way through until you get to the end. These stories—which are among Vance's first—get better as they go along, and the last three are very good indeed. The most interesting, at least as a literary influence, is “Ulan Dhor Ends a Dream.” This account of a metropolis where two different peoples live side by side, completely unable to perceive each others existence, bears striking similarities to China Mieville's The City and the City,. My favorite is “Liane the Wayfarer,” about a quest for a tapestry possessed by “Chun the Unavoidable,” but equally as good is the novella about the inquisitive “Guyal of Sfere,” who has many questions to ask the Curator of “The Museum of Man.”

The first book in the Viriconium series: In the distant future, a medieval system rises from the ruins of a technology that destroyed itself. Armored knights ride their horses across dunes of rust, battling for the honor of the Queen. But the knights find more to menace them than mere swords and lances. A brave quest leads them face to face with the awesome power of a complex, lethal technology that has been erased from the face of the Earth--but lives on, underground.

Multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Greg Bear is one of science fictionâ€™s most accomplished writers. Bold scientific speculation, riveting plots, and a fierce humanism reflected in characters who dare to dream of better worlds distinguish his work. Now Bear has written a mind-bendingly epic novel that may well be his masterpiece.Do you dream of a city at the end of time?In a time like the present, in a world that may or may not be our own, three young peopleâ€“Ginny, Jack, and Danielâ€“dream of a doomed, decadent city of the distant future: the Kalpa. Ginnyâ€™s and Jackâ€™s dreams overtake them without warning, leaving their bodies behind while carrying their consciousnesses forward, into the minds of two inhabitants of the Kalpaâ€“a would-be warrior, Jebrassy, and an inquisitive explorer, Tiadbaâ€“who have been genetically retro-engineered to possess qualities of ancient humanity. As for Daniel: He dreams of an empty darknessâ€“all that his future holds.But more than dreams link Ginny, Jack, and Daniel. They are fate-shifters, born with the ability to skip like stones across the surface of the fifth dimension, inhabiting alternate versions of themselves. And each guards an object whose origin and purpose are unknown: gnarled, stony artifacts called sum-runners that persist unchanged through all versions of time.Hunted by others with similar powers who seek the sum-runners on behalf of a terrifying, goddess-like entity known as the Chalk Princess, Ginny, Jack, and Daniel are drawn, despite themselves, into an all but hopeless mission to rescue the futureâ€“and complete the greatest achievement in human history.

Elric of Melniboné is a requisite title in the hard fantasy canon, a book no fantasy fan should leave unread. Author Michael Moorcock, already a major player in science fiction, cemented his position in the fantasy pantheon with the five-book Elric saga, of which Elric of Melniboné is the first installment. The book's namesake, the brooding albino emperor of the dying nation of Melniboné, is a sort of Superman for Goths, truly an archetype of the genre.The youthful Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. More interested in brooding contemplation than holding the throne, Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne, usually over his dead body. Elric of Melniboné follows Yrkoon's scheming, reaching its climax in a battle between Elric and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga. --Paul Hughes

Tales of Zothique is a collection of fantasy short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, and edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the sixteenth volume of its celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1970. It was the first themed collection of Smith's works assembled by Carter for the series. The stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines in the 1930s, notably Weird Tales. The book collects one poem and all sixteen tales of the author's Zothique cycle, set on the Earth's last continent in a far distant future, with an introduction and map and epilogue by Carter. Contents:"Introduction: When the World Grows Old", by Lin Carter "Zothique" (poem) "Xeethra" "Necromancy in Naat" "The Empire of the Necromancers" "The Master of the Crabs" "The Death of Ilalotha" "The Weaver in the Vault" "The Witchcraft of Ulua" "The Charnel God" "The Dark Eidolon" "Morthylla" "The Black Abbot of Puthuum" "The Tomb-Spawn" "The Last Hieroglyph" "The Isle of the Torturers" "The Garden of Adompha" "The Voyage of King Euvoran" "Epilogue: The Sequence of the Zothique Tales", by Lin Carter

Enter a decaying far, far future society, a time when anything and everything is possible, where words like 'conscience' and 'morality' are meaningless, and where heartfelt love blossoms mysteriously between Mrs Amelia Underwood, an unwilling time traveller, and Jherek Carnelian, a bemused denizen of the End of Time.The Dancers at the End of Time, containing the novels An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands and The End of All Songs, is a brilliant homage to the 1890s of Wilde, Beardsley and the fin de siècle decadents, satire at its sharpest and most colourful.

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you'll recognize it immediately.

Dick at his wildest and strangest - a mystifying but brilliant book - SF: 100 Best NovelsIn the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the drug Can-D, which enables users to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z. It is far more potent than Can-D, but threatens to plunge the world into a permanent state of drugged illusion controlled by the mysterious Eldritch.Cover illustration: Chris Moore

Jason Tavener woke up one morning to find himself completely unknown. The night before he had been the top-rated television star with millions of devoted watchers. The next day he was just an unidentified walking object, whose face nobody recognised, of whom no one had heard, and without the I.D. papers required in that near future.When he finally found a man who would agree to counterfeiting such cards for him, that man turned out to be a police informer. And then Taverner found out not only what it was like to be a nobody but also to be hunted by the whole apparatus of society.It was obvious that in some way Taverner had become the pea in in some sort of cosmic shell game - but how? And why?Philip K. Dick takes the reader on a walking tour of solipsism's scariest margin in his latest novel about the age we are already half into.

For players who already own The Elder Scrolls Online, adventure awaits in this new chapter of the award-winning online series. Morrowind is on the verge of dest...

An epic, open-ended single-player game where you create and play any kind of character you can imagine. Be the noble hero embarking on an epic quest, or an insi...

Oblivion is a single-player game that takes place in Tamriel's capital province, Cyrodiil. You are given the task of finding the hidden heir to a throne that si...

Relive an adventurous tale rich with agents, espionage, and conspiracies. Challenge deadly monsters and villains with your steel and magic. Clear your name by u...

The only Final Fantasy that was never localized—the third installment of the original series—will finally reach North American shores. Lauded as "legendary"...

A Link to the Past revives the classic SNES game on t...

Link returns in an all-new Game Boy Advance adventure. When the sorcerer Vaati turns Princess Zelda to stone, the king of Hyrule sends Link on a quest that take...

Welcome to Sigil, the "City of Doors", a place with gates that lead anywhere in existence, provided you have the proper key. It is a neutral ground and watering...

Kain. Cursed to stalk the dark realms of Nosgoth, he...

Baldur's Gate takes you back to the Forgotten Realms on a visually dazzling role-playing adventure, one that brings to life the grand tradition of Advanced Dung...

In Final Fantasy XIII, you will embark on a journey through the cityworld of Cocoon and the outerworld of Pulse. Along the way, you will encounter diverse allie...

An epic adventure across 3 cd-roms. What begins as a rebellion against an evil corporation becomes much more. And what erupts goes beyond imagination. With vivi...

Valkyria Chronicles is set in a fictitious continent reminiscent of 1930s Europe, divided in two and ruled by the Empire and the Federation. The Empire has set...

The next chapter in Final Fantasy takes the series to the next level. Final Fantasy VIII combines an epic storyline with dynamic role-playing elements, breatht...

A hideous evil has awoken in the Forgotten Realms. Now, in order to save the inhabitants of the town of Neverwinter you must uncover a sinister conspiracy, unma...

An epic continuation of the story that began in "Baldur's Gate," this RPG is set along the southern portion of the Sword Coast, a detailed and rich area of the...

There is one force in the universe that keeps good and evil in perfect balance. It is called the tree of Mana. But a magic sword has tricked a young warrior int...

When a newly developed teleportation device malfunctions at the Millennial Fair, young Crono must travel through time to rescue his unfortunate companion from a...

The last Final Fantasy for the PlayStation, Final Fantasy IX returns to the pure fantasy roots that spawned the series. This latest installment features highly...

Tank Girl (Rebecca) and her friends are the only remaining citizens living in the wasteland that is Earth, where all the remaining water is controlled by Water and Power, the mega corporation/government that runs the territory. While incarcerated at W + P, Tank Girl and her new friend Jet Girl break out and steal... a tank and a jet. After meeting some mutant kangaroo/humans, and rescuing her little girl (adopted by her friends), the kangaroos and the girls kick Water and Powers' butt.

In the distant future high school kids are encouraged to become citizens by joining the military. What they don't know is that they'll soon be engaged in a full scale war against a planet of alien insects. The fight is on to ensure the safety of humanity.

Hacker/arcade owner Kevin Flynn is digitally broken down into a data stream by a villainous software pirate known as Master Control and reconstituted into the internal, 3-D graphical world of computers. It is there, in the ultimate blazingly colorful, geometrically intense landscapes of cyberspace, that Flynn joins forces with Tron to outmaneuver the Master Control Program that holds them captive in the equivalent of a gigantic, infinitely challenging computer game.

In the face of total annihilation by the omnipotent Beast's unstoppable hordes of Slayers, the young aristocrats of two hostile neighbouring nations--the brave Prince Colwyn and the fair Princess Lyssa--are about to come into union, and form an alliance against the common enemy. However, the otherworldly adversary is all-powerful, and before long, a fateful abduction will trigger a desperate quest to the evil entity's grim Black Fortress, as Colwyn and a handful of mismatched defenders are willing to dice with death to ensure the land's future. In this suicide mission, the magical, five-edged weapon known as the Glaive is their only chance of survival. Can Prince Colwyn slay the Beast, save Lyssa and Krull, the small planet in the middle of the vast galaxy?

American footballer Flash Gordon is thrust into the journey of a lifetime: joined with Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov, the three earthbound space travellers will soon become the first humans to encounter alien life, and try to stop the tyrannical alien warlord Emperor Ming the Merciless from destroying the Earth.

In the future, crime is out of control and New York City's Manhattan is a maximum security prison. Grabbing a bargaining chip right out of the air, convicts bring down the President's plane in bad old Gotham. Gruff Snake Plissken, a one-eyed lone warrior new to prison life, is coerced into bringing the President, and his cargo, out of this land of undesirables.

In the year 2139, the Earth has changed into a virtually uninhabitable place called the Cursed Earth. All of the Earth's population have crowded into the cities across the planet, now known as Mega-Cities. The crimes in these Mega-Cities became so violent and so powerful, that the regular justice system was powerless to contain, then it collapsed completely. However, a new justice system came from the ashes, there were three justice systems in one (police, jury and executioner), they were called Judges. In Mega-City One (formerly, New York City), there was a Judge, named Joseph Dredd, who was the toughest and most stringent Judge in history. One day, he was charged with murder, and was tried and sentenced to life in prison because of it.

Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

The year is 2013 and Snake Plissken is back but this time it's L.A., which through the agency of earthquakes has become an island of the damned. But something has gone wrong in this new moral order, because the President's daughter has absconded to L.A. with a detonation device, and Snake is commandeered to retrieve it. But just below the surface there is a coiled Snake ready to strike.

Another planet, another time. One thousand years ago, the mysterious Dark Crystal was damaged by one of the Urskeks and an age of chaos has began. The evil race of grotesque birdlike lizards, the Skeksis, gnomish dragons who rule their fantastic planet with an iron claw. Meanwhile, orphan Jen, raised in solitude by a race of the peace-loving wizards called the Mystics, embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of the Dark Crystal which gives the Skeksis their power and restore the balance of the universe.

On the planet Eternia, Skeletor and his dark army overthrow the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull expecting to acquire her power. He-Man, his old friend Duncan "Man-at-Arms" and his daughter Teela are attacked by Skeletor's soldiers and they defeat them. They also rescue their prisoner, the inventor and locksmith Gwildor. He explains that he was lured by Evil-Lyn that used his invention the Cosmic Key to open the gates and seize the Castle Grayskull. He-Man and his friends retrieve the prototype of the Cosmic Key trying to release the Sorcereress but they are defeated by Skeletor and his army and Gwildor uses his key to open and portal for them to flee. They come to Earth but lose the key. Meanwhile, Julie Winston, who grieves the loss of her parents in a plane crash, and her boyfriend Kevin Corrigan find and activate the key, believing it is a foreign musical instrument. On Eternia, Evil-Lyn locates the Cosmic Key and Skeletor sends her with a group of mercenaries and soldiers to vanquish He-Han and his friends and bring the key back. Will they succeed?

1987 American film directed by Gary Goddard

An astronaut brings home a glowing green orb for his daughter. However, the green orb wipes him out and corners the girl for its purposes. Claiming to embody ultimate evil, the malevolent sphere, known as the Loc-Nar, terrorizes the little girl by showing a series of bizarre and fantastic stories it has influenced. The first is "Harry Canyon", a cynical taxi driver in a squalid futuristic New York who finds himself involved with a damsel in distress who is relentlessly pursued by murderous thugs who desire the Loc-Nar her archaeologist father found. The second is "Den", which chronicles the adventures of a nerdish teenager who is thrown into the fantasy world of Neverwhere, where he is transformed into a handsome muscleman, desired by beautiful women, who must get involved in a conflict revolving around possession of the Loc-Nar. The third is "Captain Sternn", where the title character is a handsome but irredeemable scoundrel who stands accused in a trial that the Loc-Nar throws into chaos. The fourth is "B-17", where a World War II bomber plane limps home after a bombing run, only to have the Loc-Nar ram into it and revive the dead crew members as murderous zombies. The next is "So Beautiful, So Dangerous", where a voluptuous secretary at the Pentagon is abducted by stoned alien wastrels and an oversexed robot. The final story is "Taarna", where the Loc-Nar has to come to a future Earth and changes a peaceful people into a horde of murderous barbarians who rampage with genocidal zeal. Only the last Tarrakian, a silent warrior woman known as Taarna, can avenge the victims and stop the Loc-Nar.

1981 Canadian adult animated sci-fi-fantasy anthology film

In a post apocalyptic future that appears as a blend of World War II Europe and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, a pint-size wizard named Avatar must save the world from a band of fascist mutants controlled by his evil twin brother, Blackwolf, who likes to confuse enemy armies by projecting films of Adolf Hitler speeches during attacks. Painted live-action footage of advancing Nazi armies contrasts with Saturday-morning-cartoon-style animation of fairies and elves as Avatar travels through various magical and radioactive realms on his quest. Aiding him are the beautiful Fairy princess Elinore, hot-blooded warrior elf Weehawk, and Peace, a misunderstood robot rebelling against his Blackwolf-controlled programming. A bizarre and psychedelic meditation on magic vs. technology, this ultimate futuristic fantastic epic cult film still finds an audience on college campuses and will prove quite rewarding to viewers in the right frame of mind.

A bird-themed superhero team battles the threat of Galactor and his minions, an international terrorist organization with advanced technology.

Zoltar and his evil minions constantly attempt to either destroy or conquer the planet Earth. His efforts in this regard are constantly battled by G-Force, a group of five teenagers with high-tech vehicles, weapons, and a thing for bird-like costumes. Each member of the defense team has incredible, cerebrionic-enhanced superpowers. These teenaged orphans have pledged their lives to defend Earth and the Federation from Zoltar, ruler of the planet Spectra. G-Force's missions are coordinated from Center Neptune on Earth by their computerized assistant, 7-Zark-7.

American adaptation of a Japanese anime series

The G.I. Joe Special Missions Force must contend with COBRA who, after a successful raid for a special broadcast satellite, now threatens the world with a revolutionary device called the MASS device which can snatch anything seemingly out of existence around the world as well as normal teleportation. GI Joe finds the original designer of the device who advises that the only way to counter that weapon is to build a MASS device of their own. However to do that, three rare catalytic elements are needed to power the device properly. Now the team must race around the world and find those supplies, while battling COBRA who has the same need for them as well.

American animated television series from 1983

This animated series continues the adventures of the USS Enterprise, taking advantage of the visual freedom of animation to present stories with more alien elements.

American animated science fiction television series from 1973–1974

In the year 1999, an alien battle fortress crash lands on an island in the South Pacific. Over the next ten years, mankind repairs and refits this fortress, using the advanced "robotechnology" found aboard her to create fighter planes that can transform into giant robots. As soon as the repaired fortress is ready for launch, the aliens to whom she belongs finally discover its location. Thus begins a series of wars that will devastate the planet Earth. This television series was created by Carl Macek from three Japanese television series, Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada.

A radical return to Eternia, REVELATION is a direct sequel series to the classic era of MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. Featuring fan favorites He-Man, Orko, Cringer, and Man-At-Arms, the story pits our heroic warriors and guardians of Castle Grayskull against Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Beast Man and the vile legions of Snake Mountain. But after a ferocious final battle forever fractures Eternia, it's up to Teela to solve the mystery of the missing Sword of Power in a race against time to prevent the end of the Universe. Her journey will uncover the secrets of Grayskull at last.

Dr. Benton Quest is a research scientist who is frequently called upon for missions that require his scientific and technical expertise. He is usually accompanied by his son Jonny, his tutor/bodyguard Race Bannon, their bulldog with the distinctive mask-like eye markings named Bandit, and Hadji, an Indian orphan who has special abilities of his own. Together, they investigate mysteries, perform rescues and battle nefarious villains around the world, most notably Dr. Zin.

Computer wiz Jonny Quest and his friends battle international criminals using the resources of the Quest Foundation. Their chief weapon, and the target of many of their enemies, is the permanent, variable, sometimes unpredictable computer-generated Virtual Reality domain, Questworld, which is entered using Virtual Reality headsets. Inside Questworld, they must solve puzzles, locate hidden objects, battle evildoers, and escape very-real danger if they are to succeed.

The story of the adventurous Jonny Quest who travels with his father and his friends around the world.

In an alternative dimension called the Aniverse where the denizens are humanoid animals, the free worlds are threatened by the toads who are under the control of the insane computer, Komplex. The sole defence is the forces of S.P.A.C.E., which unfortunately, consists of a single ship called The Righteous Indignation under the command of Captain Bucky O'Hare. During one engagement, the ship's Photon Accelerator seriously malfunctioned, resulting in the disappearance of the engineer and the opening of a dimensional portal to the room of a human boy called Willy Dewitt, who is an engineering genius as well. Now, that boy has a part time job as part of Bucky O'Hare's crew as the war against the toads continues.

Based on the successful toy series by Hasbro, GI Joe is the code name for an elite strike force comprising of personnel from all branches of the United States military. Their primary purpose is be a counterforce to the huge terrorist organization called Cobra which is gunning for world domination.

1983–1986 American animated television series

After "crashing" the super hero convention in Reno, the nigh invulnerable blue-clad super hero, the Tick, is deemed the protector of "The City." On his first patrol he runs (more like "falls") into Arthur, an accountant in a moth costume. They soon strike up a partnership. When the villainous and muffled idea men threaten to flood The City, the Tick and Arthur come to the rescue. Along the way we meet Die Fledermaus, American Maid, and the Caped Chameleon. The Human Bullet cameos.

In the Marvel Comics universe, mutants, people with genetically endowed superpowers, are persecuted by a hateful and fearful populous. One shelter from this is Professor Xavier's Academy for Gifted Children. But the school has a secret function as a training center for mutants to control their abilities so they can function in regular society. It also serves as a secret headquarters of a superhero team, called the X-Men formed both to be a positive example of mutants and as an opposing force against those mutants who seek to force the world to kneel to their perceived superiority. This series recounts their adventures as they struggle to make the world accept them, while battling villains like Magneto, Apocalypse and the genocidal robots known as the Sentinels.

Animated television series from 1992–1997

When the outer space gangster known as Mon Star escapes from the Penal Planet, the Limbo section of the galaxy is in great peril. In response, an elite team of cyborgs called the Silverhawks are assembled as a counter force that is Limbo's best hope against Mon Star's gang.

Multimillionaire Matt Trakker uncovers an international criminal organization known as V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem), and gathers a group of friends who, like himself, possess extraordinary talents to creates the military organization known as M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand) Their objective; to destroy V.E.N.O.M. and its mastermind Miles Mayhem.

American 1985-1986 animated television series, part of the M.A.S.K. media franchise

The planet Prysmos - post-technological loss. Two groups rise to dominance from the devastation to wage war upon each other. One is controlled by honest and law-abiding people and the other by criminals and villains. Following an open challenge thrown down by the great wizard Merklynn, fourteen surviving knights are granted powers of transformation and magical energy. The groups are now divided between the good Spectral Knights and the evil Darkling Lords. The battle for supremacy begins...

In the year 1994, a comet hurtles between Earth and the moon. The moon is destroyed, and the Earth loses its ozone layer--causing the entire planet to be laid waste. Centuries later, Earth has become "a world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery," inhabited by various evildoers, scavengers, and magicians. Thundarr, a warrior who wields a powerful sword, is joined by his friends Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel as they make their way through this strange world.

When Ming the Merciless returns to wreak havoc, he immediately hunts down the man who caused him to lose his throne in the first place, Flash Gordon. In the process, Ming captures and kills Dale Arden Gordon, but not before she transfers her essence into a special crystal. Flash then gathers together a force made up of The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician and his assistant Lothar. Also joining the heroes are Flash's son Rick, The Phantom's daughter Jedda, Lothar's son L.J. and Madrake's adopted son Kshin. Rick then invents a super computer using the crystal with his mother's essence. Joining Ming is his son Kro-Tan.

In a distant galaxy where magic and technology co-exist, Audric, a scientist, accidentally creates The Monster Minds, a race of mutated plant creatures that goes on a rampage and sets out to take over the universe. In a bid to correct the creation of The Monster Minds, Audric creates a plant called "The Magic Root" which will destroy The Monster Minds, but The Magic Root got split into two pieces and half of the magic root is given to Audric's son Jayce. Joined by a team of fighters known as "The Lightning League" led by a 1000-year-old wizard named Gillian, Jayce embarks on a desperate quest to find his father and put the two pieces of "The Magic Roots" together, which will destroy The Monster Minds and their evil leader, Sawboss, who will try and stop Jayce and Audric from destroying them and stop them from dominating the galaxy.

French American Japanese animated TV show

The inhabitants of the planet Thundera evacuate just before it is destroyed. They were pursued by a band of mutants. All but one of their escape ships was destroyed. Only a small group of Thunderans (Thundercats) remained. With only half engine power, the group, which was led by Jaga, had to set a course for the nearest planet. Jaga commanded their ship while the other 7 were in their stasis tubes. Jaga died on their journey to Third Earth and their ship crashed there. Soon they made friends with various groups in the area and they designed a fortress. Mumm-Ra the centuries-old embodiment of evil, along with the mutants that destroyed the rest of the Thunderans are a constant threat. But Lion-O, the new leader of the Thundercats, with his weapon the "Sword of Omens" will help the Thundercats to have a standing chance.

Brandon Barnes

The book is always better than the film, but I'd never read 2001 before. What I didn't know, until reading the foreword, is that this novel was literally written in tandem with the film, with Clarke and Kubrick feeding each other ideas. At some points, however, filming overtook writing, or vice versa, and the two stories, though similar, split along two different paths. After reading the book, the film becomes little more than a very well crafted container: It's pretty and neat to look at it, but open it up, and it's empty. There is none of Clarke's vision of how a being we'd call God would communicate with us across unfathomable time spans, or teach us, or lead us into higher consciousness. Stripped away by Kubrick is the sense that this being truly wants us to be in its image, and that the whole breadcrumb trail of monoliths was designed to do just that. And completely erased is the notion that David Bowman, as Star Child, is now one with the Universe, in some Zen-like way, and also much more like something we'd called a god.Don't get me wrong, 2001 is still one of my favorite films, but to get the full meaning and understand the full weight of why 2001 has been called "the perfect science fiction story," you must read the book. Clarke marries science, mysticism, theory, and fantasy in ways like no other. Unfortunately, Kubrick stripped away the mysticism and theory and left us what is, in comparison to the book, only a glimmer at something bigger.Kubrick touched the monolith, but Clarke went inside.

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