Day: 27 February 2014

Classic Tunes: \”Separate Ways\” by Journey

I\’m sitting back at the moment, relaxing, and listening to one of the greatest arena rock albums of all time, the classic 1983 six-times platinum masterpiece, FRONTIERS, by US band Journey, which came out on the Columbia Records label.

This is one of my all-time favourite rock albums, and is, in my opinion, Journey\’s strongest album, surpassing even their previous album, the 1981 classic nine-times platinum ESCAPE.

There isn\’t a single bad song on FRONTIERS (even the \”weaker\” songs are good), but one of the best is the song that is currently playing, the first track on the album, \”Separate Ways\”. This is a truly powerful rock song, pounding drums, driving keyboards and guitars, and above it all, Steve Perry\’s gorgeous, soaring vocals. Sheer bliss!

This is an excellent, strong intro to a fantastic rock album. It\’s also gratifying to know that it ISN\’T all downhill from here, and that the rest of the album is just as good.

FEDERATION by H. Beam Piper

TITLE: FEDERATION
AUTHOR: H. Beam Piper
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Collection
FORMAT: Paperback
PUBLISHER: Ace Books, New York, 1981, ISBN: 0-441-23189-6-295)

Contents:

  • Preface, by Jerry Pournelle
  • Introduction, by John F. Carr
  • Omnilingual
  • Naudsonce
  • Oomphel in the Sky
  • Graveyard of Dreams
  • When in the Course-

The book starts with the brief Preface by Jerry Pournelle, a short but fitting tribute to Piper and his writing. This is followed by the lengthy twenty-page Introduction by John Carr, which is a much more detailed and even more fascinating essay on the life and writings of Piper.

The five stories themselves are from H. Beam Piper\’s acclaimed TerroHuman Future History cycle, one of the most complex and detailed future histories in science fiction literature. This collection, Federation, is made up of stories from the earlier stages of that Future History, and a later collection, Empire, completes the stories from the later part of the cycle.

There are certainly some very good stories in this collection, but the stand-out for me is definitely Omnilingual, which I first read a long time ago, way back in my teens. Along with He Walked Around the Horses (which isn\’t in this collection, and isn\’t part of the Future History), this has always been one of my favourite pieces of SF short fiction, and I regard both Omnilingual and He Walked Around the Horses as his two best short stories.

As far as I\’m concerned, the collection is worth buying just for Omnilingual alone. But the other four stories are nothing to turn your nose up at either. This is H. Beam Piper we\’re talking about here, and he simply did not write bad SF stories.

Very good collection.

Doctor Who: 50 Years in Space & Time (Part 7)

Here\’s the next part of my look back at the Best of the Bunch from Doctor Who\’s 50th Anniversary:

  • The November DVD release of The Tenth Planet
  • The November 50th Anniversary edition of Doctor Who Magazine

3. The Tenth Planet

In third place, it\’s the November DVD release of The Tenth Planet. I\’ve been waiting to see this one for a long, long time, and it didn\’t disappoint. I\’d never actually been lucky enough to own the VHS video release, and had only seen the few surviving clips on the Lost in Time DVD box set. So, finally being able to watch the whole story after all these years, featuring the very first appearance of the Cybermen, was really exciting.

The missing Episode 4 is expertly recreated here in animated form by the same people who did such sterling work animating the missing episodes on the recent Reign of Terror, The Ice Warriors and The Invasion DVD releases. And the excellent Telesnaps reconstruction of Episode 4 which had featured on the VHS video release is also here, in among the plentiful features on this top-notch and long-awaited double-DVD release.

4. Doctor Who Magazine 50th Anniversary Edition

In fourth place, it\’s the November 50th Anniversary edition of Doctor Who Magazine, the biggest and one of the best ever editions of the magazine. There was so much good stuff in this one, simply choc a bloc with 50th Anniversary goodness, that it\’s difficult to know where to start. But if I had my arm twisted up my back and was forced to choose, my two favourites would have to be Ghosts in the Machine, a behind the scenes feature on the excellent An Adventure in Space and Time, and An Unearthly Beginning, which features never-before-seen drafts of An Unearthly Child. Great stuff!

To Be Continued…