Well, Scott could simply make a movie using all the elements of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? that didn't make it into Blade Runner: Deckard's desire to own a (fake) animal, his wife Iran, the Penfield mood organ, Mercer boxes, kipple, etc.

Speaking of Jack Vance: He somehow, and not at all to the detriment of his stories, was able to get away with using footnotes to convey information (such as definitions of terms) that wouldn't fit felicitously into the story itself. He did so as early as To Live Forever, aka Clarges (1956).

So, it's about two-thirds Theodore Sturgeon's Star Trek episode "Shore Leave" and about one-third Cyrano de Bergerac, then?

OK, someone should mention the co-winner of the Oscar for Pulp Fiction's original screenplay: Roger Avary. I gather his career has been bumpy ever since, but he does get some share of the credit for the success and continued re-watchability of PF.

But the Maltin book is not only more reliable, it responds to readers who point out errors or a need for clarification. Years ago, for example, I wrote to IMDB that Steve Jordan (the drummer for the original Blues Brothers band) should not be credited with appearing as a norteño musician in Cheech Marin's 1987 movie Bo…

"Published every year since 1969" isn't accurate - only during the past 25 years or so has it been annual; it was published every 2 years for some time before that.

You think it's easy to write capsule reviews that are that brief while also being informative and (where possible) entertaining in themselves?

I did likewise, in 1990, and received a phone message reply - I still have the cassette somewhere - from Leonard graciously thanking me (and reporting that his staff was "furiously" making the additions I suggested).

Thanks, I'd never heard about this story but just now found a PDF of its original appearance (unfortunately minus the ending): www.unz.org/Pub/FantasticMy…. A lot of it was reproduced word-for-word in the opening section of Childhood's End.

I'm afraid that'll be Jaden Smith, given the age of Jan Rodricks in the book.

Which original story or novella? I've never heard of any Clarke work expanded from an earlier one, other than "The Sentinel" serving as the jumping-off point for 2001.

SPOILER WARNING
Speaking of the reveal, I started reading Childhood's End at age 12 or 13 (periodically since then) but not until several readings did I catch Clarke's sneaky tip-off in the first section of the book, when Stormgren and his deputy - Stormgren is the U.N. secretary general and is the only human able to…

In the late 1990s Apple's slogan was exactly as "painful," but its unorthodoxy reflected the content of the slogan itself, and obviously didn't hurt Apple's ascent to where it is today: "Think different." (As late as 2001 it was adapted into "Shop different" for the first Apple retail stores - that's what it says on…

NO, no… NO, no… the reddish-brown one!

A further development of this idea was Robert Silverberg's early-'70s short story "Caliban," in which a (self-described) shlubby-looking guy from our era is transported to a future very much like the one in "Number 12" but with public copulatoria and other features not suitable for network TV in 1964. After some time…

Every time I pick up a John Irving book and flip through it, in a bookstore or wherever, he seems to be writing about writers. Did it start with Garp, or even earlier?

The best (and the only truly admirable) creative decision in the entire run of the series was to do the "evil-universe" opening credits and music for "In a Mirror Darkly." This was a well-written article but no one will ever convince me that Enterprise was not a huge waste all around. (The final image of the third…

I'm glad that both Robert (4-D Man) Lansing and Mariette Hartley each got an excellent showcase in their respective Star Trek episodes 4 or 5 years later.

Unfortunately few people today will have heard of Heartburn the novel without first having heard of (or seen) the movie adaptation. It's impossible to truly know what a wretched movie Heartburn is until one has read the novel, despite Ephron having written both. It's partly because the husband in the movie is…

Aw, heck. I was looking forward to the world being told of the very best appearance of the Gumbys - I refer of course to "Gumby Theatre" on Another Monty Python Record.