@RedCrown: Would that be Western Film on the UWO campus? I took advantage of a lot of $2 Tuesdays when I was a grad student a decade ago.

It might be the most efficient way for all I know, but geography is rarely efficient. Don't the books imply that the Districts were independent lands conquered one by one? The districts would most likely have natural features (rivers, mountains, etc.) as boundaries, especially if most of them are as technologically…

Now he rips out hearts. Literally.

If the Ottoman Empire had held onto Greece, the Balkans and southwestern Europe, there's coal there.

This is the only KSR novel I've read, but I liked it a lot. It's not really a narrative, more the exploration of an idea. I liked it for that, but I can understand why it's not to everybody's taste.

Cool idea. It kind of reminds me David Brin's graphic novel The Life Eaters, though his was set during World War II and had the Axis summoning actual gods. Your premise seems to delve more into the socio-cultural implications, which sounds really interesting.

Michael Moorcock, since all the Eternal Champion stories (and possibly all his work) are connected.

I went to a Sawyer booktalk where he explained the reason he wrote his first two trilogies. His UK publisher at the time told him standalone genre novels didn't sell there. UK readers wanted either perpetual mystery series or fantasy/science fiction trilogies. So he wrote the Quintaglio Ascension and Neanderthal…

As more of these (non-corporate trademarked) pulp characters from a century ago fall into the public domain, I think there will be a lot of attempts to resurrect them into new franchises. Disney and Hammer Horror are just two film studios that rose to prominence on the back of public domain adaptations.

All in a day's work for the Men in Black and Void Engineers.

Buzz Dixon, story editor/writer for the Sunbow-produced GI Joe cartoon, did a web interview years ago where he explained where all that Cobra-La nonsense came from. A funny and kind of sad look into executive meddling.

So it's basically a complete retread of the original movie (not really the short story), but without the cheesy Mars awesomeness? What's the point? I'm generally disappointed in "near-future sci-fi with a message" movies as it is.

Everyone should read the Elric stories to see the root of dark, deconstructionist, counter-Tolkien narrative in fantasy fiction. They also pay homage to pulp era sword & sorcery, especially Fritz Lieber (one of Moorcock's favourite forebears). They're quite short compared to the phone books most epic series produce.

It's been about the same since I started reading epic fantasy (mid-80s). Maybe longer for all I know.

I loved Battle Royale, and saw similarities when I read Hunger Games, which I also loved. But the similarities boil down to: 1) oppressive future government and 2) group of teenagers forced into closed-area, last-one-standing survival game.

I found the gritty realism a welcome change after four decades of Tolkien-clones saturating the market, with only the occasional Moorcock, Glen Cook or Steven Brust to offer respite. But I also agree with @enteecee: I definitely wouldn't want a wave of superficially Grimdark books to completely wash away heroic epic…

That was an amazing opening title sequence. Absolutely fantastic. Which is interesting, because I generally hate Blur's video game trailers. Though to be fair, that's usually because I hate the narrative and portrayal of the characters, and that's probably more the fault of marketing than the artists.

It means "electric execution"; a lot of people just aren't using it correctly.

I don't understand the love for "Limitless". I thought it was yet another movie trying to be smart but not really exploring the logical conclusions of its premise.

Was any superhero movie this year not sexist? Peggy Carter and Mystique were the only women in superhero movies this year that seemed to get any character development.