Results: Mark English

Visionary writers of Gretna, Manitoba

A.E. van Vogt’s Clane of Linn

BY J.J.S. Boyce

A.E. van Vogt is surely the most famous literary figure in the English science fiction world to come out of the tiny community of Gretna, Manitoba, populated primarily by German-speaking Mennonites during his childhood. Of course this is a comical understatement for a writer spoken of in the same breath as the Big Three of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov, and sometimes wedged, retroactively into the number one or number two spot.

The Just City and The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton

BY Jonathan Crowe

Science fiction has often been described as the “literature of ideas,” so it’s no surprise that books have always been arguing with one another about those ideas. Delany’s Triton with Le Guin’s Dispossessed. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers with Harrison’s Bill the Galactic Hero, Haldeman’s Forever War, and Panshin’s Rite of Passage. Each book adds to the genre’s ongoing conversation, generating arguments for the next book to respond to.

AE #17

Letter from the Editors #17

BY D.F. McCourt and the AE staff

Four years. If AE were a person it would have just started junior kindergarten. But magazines grow up far faster than that, especially today. We say a ten-year old dog is seventy in “dog years” because, like a seventy-year-old human, that dog is starting to get within spitting distance of its life expectancy. If we apply that logic to magazines, AE is ancient. Only 20% of new periodicals survive to celebrate a fourth birthday, making us about 90 in magazine years.

Sometimes, the movies get it right.

Top 5 Film Adaptations which Equal or Surpass the Original

BY J.J.S. Boyce

“It wasn’t as good as the book.” How often do we hear these words from at least one of our fellow movie-goers as we are exiting the theatre? It seems to be taken as a given that any film based on a book is sure to fall short, particularly when the written version already has an established cult following. We went through it with Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, and now The Hobbit.