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Tag Archive: HarperCollins
borg's Best of 2019–The Best Books of the Year
Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Con Culture, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
Our borg Best of 2019 list continues today with the Best Books of 2019. If you missed them, check out our review of the Best Movies of 2019 here, the Kick-Ass Heroines of 2019 here, the Best in Television 2019 here, and the Best Comics of 2019 here.
We reviewed more than 100 books that we recommended to our readers this year, and some even made it onto our favorites shelf. We don't print reviews of books that we read and don't recommend, so this shortlist reflects only this year's cream of the crop.
So let's get going. Here are our selections for this year:
Best Read, Best Fantasy Read, Best New Edition of Previous Published Work, Best Translated Work – A Hero Born: Legends of the Condor Heroes 1 by Jin Yong, translated by Anna Holmwood (St. Martin's Press). The first book in one of the most read books of all time finally makes its way to the U.S. after its premiere in Great Britain. Readers will learn why George Lucas pulled its concepts for his Skywalker saga, and why generations of Chinese fans of fantasy of flocked to its heroes and villains. Honorable mention for Best Fantasy Read: A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery by Curtis Craddock (Tor Books), The Dark Lord Clementine by Sarah Jean Horwitz (Algonquin Young Readers).
Best New Novel, Best Horror Novel, Best Historical Novel, Best Mystery Novel – The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils by James Lovegrove (Titan Books). A truly literary work combining a smart Holmesian adventure and the dark mind of H.P. Lovecraft. Readers will love Lovegrove's approach, Holmes and Watson's journey, and all the creepy surprises.
Best Sci-Fi Novel, Best Thriller – The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel H. Wilson (HarperCollins). Wilson successfully conjured the spirit of Michael Crichton for this smart, creepy, and oddly current sci-fi sequel to The Andromeda Strain. A cast of characters just like Crichton would have put together, and a must-read.
Best Franchise Tie-In Novel – Firefly: Magnificent Nine by James Lovegrove (Titan Books). One of the best authors around crafts a worthy story to expand the Firefly canon and give fans their own new movie of sorts for the franchise. Runner-up: Alien: Prototype by Tim Waggoner (Titan Books). Honorable Mention: Death of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E.C. Gaska (Titan Books).
Best Retro Read – Mike Hammer: Murder, My Love, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan Books). Collins continues to bring Spillane's characters to life with thrilling prose and all the best pieces of noir drama and action. Honorable mention: Brothers Keepers by Donald E. Westlake (Hard Case Crime).
Best Genre Non-Fiction – Industrial Light & Magic Presents: Making of Solo: A Star Wars Story by Rob Bredow (Harry N. Abrams). Bredow's unique access to the production made for a rare opportunity in any production to see details of the filmmaking process. Every movie should have such a great deep dive behind the scenes. Honorable mention: The Making of Alien by J.W. Rinzler (Titan Books).
There's much more of our selections for 2019's Best in Print to go…
Tags: 1980s Trivial Pursuit 2019, 2019 ReAction line, A Hero Born, A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery, Abrams Books for Young Readers, Alex Lopez, Algonquin Young Readers, Alien: Prototype, Andrew E. C. Gaska, Andromeda Evolution, Anna Holmwood, Baby Yoda, Baseball All-Stars ReAction figures, Ben Herrera, Best Books 2019, Best in Print, Best in Print 2019, Best of 2019, Bloomsbury Sigma, Brothers Keepers, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, Christmas is Coming book, Collin Fogel, Curtis Craddock, Dan Jones, Daniel H. Wilson, David Hahn, Death of the Planet of the Apes, Disney Plus, Donald E. Westlake, Dynamic Dames: 50 Leading Ladies Who Made History, Feast of Legends, Firefly, Firefly: Magnificent Nine, Firefly: The Big Damn Cookbook, Hard Case Crime, Harper, HarperCollins, Harry N. Abrams, Hasbro Gaming, Industrial Light & Magic Presents: Making Solo: A Star Wars Story, J.W. Rinzler, James Lovegrove, Jin Yong, Joshua Dysart, Kathryn Harkup, Kevin Eastman Studios, Klaus: The Art of the Movie, Lucasfilm, Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Marina Amaral, Mario Mentasti, Max Allan Collins, Men in Black International novelization, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer, Moviemaking Magic of Star Wars Ships +Battles, Murder My Love, Pegasus Books, R.S. Belcher, Ramin Zahed, Rob Bredow, Running Press, Sarah Jean Horwitz, Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils, Simon Gane, Sloan De Forest, Solo: A Star wars Story, St. Martin's Press, Stranger Things, Stranger Things Back to the 80s Trivial Pursuit Game, Super7, The Child, The Color of Time, The Cthulhu Casebooks, The Dark Lord Clementine, The Making of Alien, The Mandalorian, The Moviemaking Magic of Marvel Studios: Heroes and Villains book review, The Moviemaking Magic of Star Wars: Creatures & Aliens, Tim Waggoner, Titan Books, Tor Books, Trivial Pursuit, Wendy's, Wendy's Feast of Legends, Wendy's RPG, Weta
The Andromeda Evolution–Sequel to Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain a gripping new thriller
Filed under: Comics & Books, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café — Leave a comment
Review by C.J. Bunce
It's as good as it gets for Michael Crichton fans. Not only is The Andromeda Evolution a new thriller being released more than a decade after the author's passing, it's a sequel to a Crichton classic novel–his original science fiction cautionary tale The Andromeda Strain. Created by writer Daniel H. Wilson (Robopocalypse) in collaboration with Crichton's estate (CrichtonSun LLC), The Andromeda Evolution is nicely timed to arrive 50 years after The Andromeda Strain was first published, the book that launched Crichton's fame as master of the technothriller. The Andromeda Evolution has all the components of Crichton's best works–the trademark structure of a team of unique experts colliding to prevent catastrophe, the integration of cutting edge science to both inform the reader and carry the plot forward, and the surprising juxtaposition of the improbable and the unimaginable. And the ripped-from-the-headlines timeliness is eerily creepy–it all begins with a disaster in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, complete with government clashes and misinformation campaigns, and ends with a surprise that will stop you in your tracks.
Nothing defines Crichton's storytelling as much as his interaction of characters, always an unlikely grouping of personalities that some far-off puppetmaster thinks is the right team to solve problems. A mix of the wise, the pragmatic, the cerebral, the sensitive, and the reactionary, common to the Crichton elite team are individuals who must struggle to get along like any group trying to complete a project in the real world. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle, but can everyone survive long enough to contribute their piece? In The Andromeda Evolution that first means introducing us to Dr. James Stone, son of The Andromeda Strain bacteriologist Dr. Jeremy Stone. The son is a late addition to a core unit assigned to investigate and prevent the spread of what appears to be that dreaded, fast-moving viral strain his father faced so many decades ago that almost destroyed Earth. Haunted by a lifetime of living with the threat of the virus's return, Stone has acquired expertise under his father's wing. With the alert of a new threat, on a moment's notice he's dropped at Ground Zero with only hours to collect data with other similar elite minds to try to save the world again.
In The Andromeda Evolution, everything you think you know about the constructs of modern science and technology was a lie, dating back to the original Andromeda Strain virus, documented in Dr. Michael Crichton's original account (recall Crichton was in medical school when he began his career as author). Hidden by world governments, never losing ground as the world's primary threat to security and survival, the Andromeda Strain was real. NASA, the Center for Disease Control, all the framework for technological initiatives we think about every day from the 1970s forward have been preparing humanity for the return of the dreaded AS-1 and AS-2. And the biggest secret is staring us all in the face.
Tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 50th anniversary The Andromeda Strain, advance review, Advance review Andromeda Evolution, Advance review The Andromeda Evolution, Andromeda Evolution, Andromeda Strain, Andromeda Strain sequel, apocalypse story, Best of 2019, brilliant marketing campaigns, CrichtonSun LLC, Daniel H. Wilson, David Morse, Debt of Honor, Fantastic Voyage II, franchise sequels, HarperCollins, Julia Whelan, Michael Crichton, Michael Crichton novels, pandemic fiction, technothriller, The Cloverfield Paradox, The Philadelphia Experiment
New monumental book on Peter Jackson's Middle-earth film saga a must for all fantasy fans
Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix — Leave a comment
Rarely has anyone been able to create a single work that includes so much information in such spectacular fashion about such an epic body of work. Writer Daniel Falconer has done just that with Middle-earth: From Script to Screen–Building the World of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, his new 512-page, exhaustive, encyclopedic chronicle of the making of both of director Peter Jackson's trilogies adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Never before seen photographs, never before published recollections of cast and crew of the films that all-told would add up to nearly 24 hours of award-winning cinema, garnering seventeen Academy Awards for The Lord of the Rings films and seven nominations for The Hobbit. Weta Workshop's Daniel Falconer, who has written some of the best-reviewed books we have looked at here at borg.com, catches up The Lord of the Rings to the coverage he has documented in his books on the making of The Hobbit trilogy, without providing any redundant content from his prior books, including The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Chronicles: Art and Design, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles–Creatures & Characters, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles: Cloaks & Daggers, The Hobbit, Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Art & Design, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The Art of War. In doing so he has created the definitive resource for fans of the films, and fans of the Tolkien books now have a visual, fully-realized geographic resource guide to Middle-earth.
Beginning with a fabulous map of Middle-earth that includes cross-references to the pages of the book where each location is discussed, the reader can take his or her own tour across the film (and book's) fantasy realm and real-life New Zealand filming locations. The journeys of Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring from The Lord of the Rings and Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin and the other Dwarfs in The Hobbit are overlaid so that the reader's tour sweeps across the landscapes and environments created entirely by concept artists, artisans, and skilled workers of every imaginable category, required to faithfully reflect Tolkien's and Jackson's visions. Even more exciting are accounts, including descriptions and photographs, of places that Jackson filmed, but did not make it to the final cut of the film. The weight of this task–the task of creating the films and also in creating this hefty document–are reflected in the artistry and organization of every single page.
Along with the primary narrative focusing on selection, planning, building and filming each environment, readers will discover several sidebars covering topics like key characters, races, and creatures, and a veritable how-to guide to making an epic film series that takes readers through breaking down a script, set conceptualization, set drafting, use of "big rigs"–a twist on forced perspective filming, sound design, location scouting, art direction, set construction, set decoration, cinematography, performance/motion capture, building model miniatures, previsualization, aerial and scenic photography, organic sets, the greens department (charged with plant life set dressing), talismans and props, set and prop finishing, post-production, color grading, lighting, shooting on location, using locations responsibly, and creating digital environments.
Throughout the book readers will learn what materials and settings could be re-used from The Lord of the Rings for The Hobbit. Initially environments were not built to last, but after the success of various filming locations in New Zealand as tourist attractions when filming wrapped on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, many sites were rebuilt to survive past production for The Hobbit films. This included the creation of 44 Hobbit holes that can be visited today among many other sites. The journey across the map of Middle-earth will take readers to The Shire, Lands of Arnor, Rivendell, The Misty Mountains, Khazad-dûm, Wilderland, Mirkwood, Lothlórien and the River Anduin, Realms of Rhovanion, Rohan, Enedwaith & Calenardhon, Realms of the North & Wastes of the East, Ithilien & the Morgul Vale, and Mordor and the Shadowed South.
Tags: Alan Lee, Ben Milsom, Best of the Best, Brian Massey, Dan Hennah, Daniel Falconer, David Farmer, David Whitehead, Grant Major, HarperCollins, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joe Letteri, John Callen, John Howe, K.M. Rice, Matthew Wear, Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, Ra Vincent, Richard Taylor, Simon Bright, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, WETA Workshop
Retro read–Abraham Lincoln returns as an android in Philip K. Dick's novel, We Can Build You
Wonder Woman arrives at 750th issue with nearly 50 variant covers
Creating the Alt World–Book explores adapting Dick's complex The Man in the High Castle for the screen
Rising Sun–Tabletop game tie-in brings Japanese heroes to comics
Dispatches from Elsewhere is AMC's next quirky, strange drama
Rom: Dire Wraiths–Sci-fi monster tale pits the Apollo 11 astronauts against classic alien threat
Gears of War: Ascendance–Tie-in novel leads into the Gears 5 video game
Next Black Widow trailer arrives with Taskmaster face-off and a look back
First look–Team Jared leads Marvel/Sony's next comic book adaption, Morbius
Now streaming–Dark, vivid futurism awaits in Netflix's Altered Carbon, with new season on the way
New Back to the Future and Ghostbusters toys bring 1980s sci-fi favorites home
Now streaming–DC Universe's Swamp Thing is not a superhero series to skip
Supernova Era–Cixin Liu's ambitious sci-fi novel of children leading the world arrives in English edition
Designing Jaws–Production designer Joe Alves reveals concept art and more in new look at the 1970s blockbuster
Killing Quarry–Max Allan Collins puts Quarry in the crosshairs in latest novel
New trailer–Finally! X-Men origin story The New Mutants is almost here
The Moviemaking Magic of Star Wars–Ships and battles take center stage in new Star Wars guide
Doctor Who in theaters today, returns to regular timeslot tonight after strong opener
Retro fix–Vertigo, Boileau and Narcejac's novel that inspired the Hitchcock film classic
Retro fix–Bond on Bond, Roger Moore's reflections on 50 years of James Bond
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