Here’s a nifty Ray Bradbury item some people may not know about:
Bradbury, Ray, editor. Futuria Fantasia. Graham Publishing/Blood and Guts Press, 2007. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Signed by Bradbury, and containing a picture of him signing copies laid in. Reprints four issues of the fanzine of the title Bradbury produced just after graduating high school. Includes contributions from Robert A. Heinlein, Henry Kuttner, Hannes Bok, Damn Knight, Forrest J. Ackerman, etc. A fascinating glimpse into Bradbury’s early life, and the beginnings of several illustrious science fiction careers. Bought off eBay for $30. Replaces an unsigned copy.
I’m happy to see that the Bring Back Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kickstarter has hit $3.3 million, meaning they’ll produce at least six episodes.
At $4.4 million they’ll make nine episodes, but at this point $5.5 million (twelve episodes) is looking like it might be a stretch.
Also Patton Oswalt is joining the cast as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank, a move I’m pretty “meh” on (though I can see the physical resemblance between Frank Conniff and Oswalt).
Sunday I saw Kung Fury, the crowd-funded parody of every cheesy 80s cop show, science fiction movie, and fighting video game, rolled into one absurdist package.
It has everything you could ever ask for in a short film featuring a kung fu cop traveling back in time to stop Hitler, including dinosaurs, Tron-era grid computer graphics, obviously fake video compositing, and a soundtrack that sounds like it was composed by Giorgio Moroder after a 72-hour Jolt Cola binge.
I’m not a big fan of Guns & Roses, but certainly “Sweet Child O’Mine” has to rank among their best, with one of the all-time great guitar hooks. Here’s Luna with a nicely chill, twangy rendition of it.
The Bring Back Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kickstarter has hit their $2 million goal, which means it’s funded and they’ll do at least three new episodes.
Everybody Smile!
And they still have 25 days to go! Now let’s hope they make it all they way to their 12 episode $5.5 million stretch goal…
Dick, Philip K. World of Chance. Rich and Cowan, 1956. First hardback edition and first thus under this title (the first hardback edition of Dick’s first published novel, published earlier in the U.S. as the paperback original Solar Lottery), an Ex-Library copy with tape ghosts to inside covers, slight signs of pocket removal from FFE, inner front hinge half-cracked, slight dust staining to page block edges, in a dust jacket that has about 1/8″ trimmed from top and bottom, and a larger amount (possibly 1/4″ to 1/2″) trimmed from inner flaps, not removing any text, but trimming the flap edges right to the edge of the text block, plus tape ghosts and a touch of edgewear; call it a Very Good-/Good+ Ex-Library copy, though it presents much better than that list of flaws would lead you to believe. Currey (1979), page 159. Levack, 38b. One of the rarest Dick hardcovers.
