At the moment, the biggest science fiction blockbuster is neither to be found at the movies, on the bookshelves, or on television. It's Halo 2, a video game designed by Bungie Software for Microsoft's Xbox that took in $125 million within twenty-four hours of its worldwide launch, and has since gone on to sell five million copies.

Liverpool University Press would like to trace the artist Robert Adragna (or his estate) as they wish to use one of his paintings from a cover for Fantastic on the next volume of my History of the Science Fiction Magazine. Could anyone with any information please contact Andrew Kirk at Liverpool University Press at andrewk@liverpool.ac.uk.

I'm trying to track down Maria Gavelis Pavlac regarding a photograph of George Alec Effinger taken by Ross Pavlac for Chicon 2000. I'm hoping that Maria reads Locus Online, or perhaps a reader knows Maria personally and can let her know of my query. I can be reached via www.goldengryphon.com/contact.html.

On November 3rd, 2004, Godzilla — the giant Japanese monster and pop culture icon — became exactly 50 years of age... About to be unleashed is the 28th Godzilla installment, Godzilla: Final Wars, which will debut in Los Angeles at Grauman's Chinese Theater on Nov 29th, the same day that Godzilla receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Incredibles is the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow wanted to be — a fully-realized, narratively-revelatory alternate-world film. The thing is as jam-packed as the Wild Cards world, or the one in Watchmen. It knows superheroes, it knows people, and it knows the difference between the high and low mimetic forms of narrative.

Zeman has kept the period feel throughout — all the futuristic inventions are 1890s projections of what planes, machine-pistols and giant cannon would look like, not what actually came to pass in the real world.

The Grand Master's career encompasses a "vast and intense body of work that explores the darkest emotional scars of the human psyche, combining literary innovation with some of the most deft and resonant use of classic SF tropes and themes the field has ever seen."

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow isn't a great movie. Sometimes, it isn't even a believable movie. But it sure is a swell movie.

A DVD cult hit and midnight movie favorite, despite (or perhaps because) no one could quite understand exactly what happened, Donnie Darko is back in movie theaters in the form of a director's cut that attempts to clarify some of the original's most puzzling points.

In this film, destroying any hopes for a truly Asimovian story, Spooner just pulls out his gun and starts blasting robots in the head. [... Yet...] There are fleeting glimpses of a certain intelligence at work, suggesting that the screenwriters and director might have been capable of doing a decent job of adapting Asimov if they had wanted to.

Books by Erik Orsenna, Redmond O'Hanlon, DBC Pierre, Clare Dudman, Yehuda Koren & Eilat Negev, D.M. Mitchell, and Iain Banks

Throughout his various works Ellis has, more than any other comics writer working in English, shown himself to be a serious speculative writer, brimming with intriguing and resonant ideas about the effects of technology on consciousness and culture and prone to articulate his vision via multiple sciencefictional subgenres.

It's fun to read, and it's a fine source of fresh SF/F. So let's imagine we've already had the conversation you've had with mundane family and friends about how SF is actually a serious literature, and isn't like those crappy TV shows. Just replace the term "SF" with "manga."

More than just a funny show, it's one of the smartest and most assured genre series ever produced, with a solid grasp not only on the conventions of SF but one that employs them with an easy familiarity. In terms of sensibility, it's almost without precedent: an SF show that's accessible to everybody, yet at heart a show for fans, created by fans.

It's true that with many scenes what Jackson is offering is not quite Tolkien — but something merely Tolkienesque. That was inevitable. But we're not likely to feel Jackson has shorted us — he has sincerely tried to bring us The Lord of the Rings and he has succeeded with much of this imperfect but wonderful film.

Some good and even brilliant SF-and-Fantasy-tinged operas did get made in the 20th century, somewhat off the radar.