Our NWWonFD columnist is on a short break (don’t worry, he’ll be back soon). While he’s off exploring new worlds to report back on, here’s a look back at some of the top New Worlds Weekly columns over the past few months:
1. How Indian maestro Satyajit Ray was duped by Hollywood — and the ultimate truth behind Ray’s story ‘The Alien’ and Steven Spielberg’s E.T.
Oftentimes, the best stories (read, the really interesting, spicy ones) are not the ones that are told within the pages of a book or on the screen. This is one of them.
‘Dear Ravana, You May Keep Seetha’: The story of Satyajit Ray’s unmade sci-fi classic, The Alien
2. Lessons — 42 in all – that the writer has learnt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. If you need to ask why 42, you should be fed to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
New Worlds Weekly 42: 42 things I learnt because of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’
3. Where does one begin to write about one of the finest and enduring SF novels? This book has influenced the modern classic American Gods, whose author Neil Gaiman counts it as one of his favourites, as does George RR Martin. It’s one of the most creative and twisted sci-fi adaptations of Indian mythology. All good, but what does Argo, the 2012 Oscar winner for Best Picture, have to do with this book about ancient gods and their descendants? Read this incredible story to find out.
The book that Argo forgot: SF Classic Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light
4. Grotesque. Graceful. Macabre. Beautiful. Bleak. Disturbing. Hopeful. Surreal. Symbolic. Fantastic. Phantasmagorical. The contrasting adjectives go on and on when trying to describe the work of Swiss artist HR Giger, who was born 77 years and 5 days ago on February 5, 1940. More about Giger and sci-fi’s most influential monster in this piece:
Father of the Alien: The Story of HR Giger and sci-fi’s Most Terrifying Monster
5. Seminal and wildly influential science fiction writer, typist par excellence, and a writer (and singer) of bawdy love songs: there are many sides to Isaac Asimov
The ‘second-best science fiction writer in the world’ also wrote bawdy verse and crime fiction
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