Last month I reviewed Alien: Colony War, a novel in the Alien universe that finds hated corporation Weyland-Yutani weaponizing Xenomorphs for an all-out interplanetary war. Xenomorphs are weaponized in an entirely new way in Philippa Ballentine and Clara Čarij’s next Alien novel, Alien: Inferno’s Fall, and this time nobody knows who is behind it. This is not another political story unpacking and unraveling Earth’s future, but a gritty and down in the dirt tale of survival from the vantage of three interesting heroines. One you know, one you sort of know, and the other is all new. The Colonial Marines battalion known as the Jackals are in prime form in this sci-fi blend of elements from Armageddon, Aliens, and Blade Runner.
The Alien universe makes a major shift in storytelling in its latest novel, Alien: Colony War, realizing the long-standing promise of Weyland-Yutani, the most hated corporation in sci-fi, finally weaponizing Xenomorphs for an all-out interplanetary war. In the running for the most action-packed story in the series, it also covers a lot of territory, merging political intrigue with personal trials and one of the best examinations of its cybernetic Synthetic characters yet. Writer David Barnett taps into surprising tropes as he weaves into the bigger Alien narrative stories from the comics and video games. It has the suspense of Into Thin Air, the pacing of Jurassic Park, the layered plight of cyborgs from the Humans TV series, and dips back into science fiction’s past with a dose of Forbidden Planet. That’s a pretty good mix for an Alien adventure.
Last year Netflix delivered what Blade Runner creator Philip K. Dick would have flipped over–the futurism and dark beauty of Adult Swim and Crunchyroll’s Japanese and American half-hour anime series Blade Runner: Black Lotus. With a second season of the brilliant Blade Runner anime up in the air, Titan Comics is offering the next best thing. This week the TV series continues in the first issue of Blade Runner: Black Lotus–the monthly comic. This past May we previewed the comic here at borg.
The officially licensed roleplaying game for Blade Runner is almost here, and you have less than three days left to get in on its Kickstarter and some unlocked stretch goal extras. Fully funded in just three minutes, the Kickstarter from RPG publisher Free League is approaching a whopping $1.5 million in pledges. Set in the year 2037, Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game begins with a core rulebook of more than 200 pages featuring an adventure set shortly after the Wallace Corporation debuts a new cyborg: its Nexus-9 Replicants, giving players the choice to play as either human or Replicants.
Check out the Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game Kickstarter here and its website here now for more information, and below is a look inside the first release, its core rulebook.
Even creator Philip K. Dick would be impressed with the futurism and dark beauty of Adult Swim and Crunchyroll’s 2021 Japanese and American half-hour anime series Blade Runner: Black Lotus. Is the mysterious drifter Elle a young woman with amnesia or a new type of replicant that can fool the Voight-Kampff test? What does it mean to be an android or cyborg with feelings and memories? Those were the questions asked in the series, and this summer the story continues in Titan Comics’ new monthly comic book, Blade Runner: Black Lotus. Get your first look at the covers for the first issue, a look inside, and a peek at Issue #2 below.
I Love the ’80s was a ten-hour VH-1 series that waxed nostalgic for all things pop culture in the decade, and a new five-hour documentary strives to do the same thing with the sci-fi genre movies of the decade as its focus. In Search of Tomorrow: A Journey Through ’80s Sci-Fi Cinema is the result of a crowd-sourced project, now available for pre-order exclusively at the project’s website here. It is one of several projects we’ve seen like it over the years, the best being Must-See Sci-Fi (reviewed here), Turner Classic Movies’ guide to 50 significant science fiction movies, and James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction (reviewed here), a book and series which gives insight into the genre’s most significant creations via interviews with the directors that made them. In Search of Tomorrow features only a handful of A-listers in its interviews–the advertised top talent being Peter Weller, Billy Dee Williams, Dee Wallace, and Nicholas Meyer. It pulls together a group of the few remaining actors, visual effects artists, and other creators behind the scenes who fans of the genre probably haven’t seen in decades (yes, it’s been more than 30 years since the 1980s). Writer/director David Weiner focuses on a swath of 54 movies that reflects the best–and the worst–of the decade.
Fans of sci-fi noir have another world to dive into. It’s Jason Arnett and Rob Schamberger’s The Wave, a future world of colonization in the realm of Altered Carbon, Blade Runner, and Total Recall. The first novella of The Wave is Rudow Can’t Fail (available now here at Amazon), following a few days in the life of Mars colonist William Rudow, a “fixit” who falls for the wrong dame, the wife of a wealthy corporate executive.
I’d wager even story creator Philip K. Dick would be impressed with the futurism and dark beauty of Adult Swim and Crunchyroll’s new Japanese and American half-hour animated series Blade Runner: Black Lotus. Is the mysterious drifter Elle a young woman with amnesia or a new type of replicant that can fool the Voight-Kampff test? What does it mean to be an android or cyborg with feelings and memories? Those are the questions asked in the first five episodes of the excellent new series, now streaming on Adult Swim and the Adult Swim app.
The new Netflix series Cowboy Bebop, an adaptation of the 1999-2001 anime series, is so good, so well-written, so jazz-filled, stylish, cool, and sexy that you won’t deny it’s the best streaming series yet. It’s not only the best science fiction series in years, but also solid noir, solid space Western, peppered with martial arts action. If you loved the space life of Firefly, the dark future Earth noir of Altered Carbon and Blade Runner, and the lived-in future realism of Alien and Outland, you’re in for some great television. Funny dialogue, actors inhabiting their characters, cool noir vibe, the drudgery of life as a space pilot and exploits of a space bounty hunter. It’s as good as TV gets. It’s as good as sci-fi and space westerns get.
But what’s the best part? The music? The style? The characters? The lived-in sci-fi world? The dog? Or the year’s coolest borg character?
Spanish artist Fernando Dagnino (Superman, Resurrection Man, Suicide Squad) has designed the future of Blade Runner in the continuation series of Ridley Scott and Syd Mead’s future world for Titan Comics over the past few years. Now fans of his artwork can see Dagnino take his work further in his own series. In Smart Girl, readers will meet Yuki, a multitasking gynoid in the future called a Smart Girl, as in “smart phone” (the male Smartdroids are called Smart Boys)–human-like tools created exactly like the domestic assistant Synths of BBC’s Humans television series. But like the Emergency Medical Holograms of Star Trek Voyager fame, the time comes when Yuki is no longer the latest, most advanced model, and it’s time for her to be replaced by the new androids and be deactivated. Yuki becomes self-aware, and like the Replicants of Blade Runner, she decides she has more to offer the world and makes her escape before it’s too late.
Writer and illustrator Dagnino offers a black and white future noir comic that leans into what he does best–those shadows and layouts that feel like the stuff of 1950s pulp novels. As much as I’d love to see his work in color, the black and white works for this tale of the bleak not-so-distant future. Yuki is Atomic Blonde and Alita upgraded. The story is tech-forward like Altered Carbon. Dagnino’s style is familiar in a good way, mixes of Mike Grell layouts, Phil Noto characters, and the action and appeal of Jackson Herbert–the best of the modern Miss Fury artists. If you like speculative science fiction, issue-driven narratives wrestling with timeless questions in the manner of the best of Alan Moore and Frank Miller, this should be your next graphic novel.
Check out our sneak preview of Fernando Dagnino’s new graphic novel, Smart Girl:
