In other words, the author’s copies of my book, The Aliens Are Here, just showed up at my house.
Yeah, somehow I didn’t capture my name under the illustration (from 2008’s The Day the Earth Stood Still) but trust me, it’s mine. It’s available for pre-order now and goes live on Oct. 30.
It feels very good to have a copy in my hand and realize that all that work resulted in a tangible product someone liked well enough to publish. I have ideas for another one, but I want to get plenty of fiction done first. And in retrospect, I definitely need to plan my next one better. One year should have been long enough to finish Aliens Are Here, but I took on other projects and bogged down. The last month was … stressful. If it had been less so, I’d have caught more of the errors I found in August’s proofing and indexing.
But that’s water under the dam, now. I can sit back and be proud. And share two of my favorite posters from the aliens-on-Earth subgenre, included in the book:
The poster obviously does not illustrate a 50-foot woman — more like a 500-foot woman, at least. While I did most of my spotlights (sections on specific movies) on good movies or TV shows, this one is such a bizarre film, I wanted to include it in the genre mashups chapter despite it being awful.
The mashups in the chapter’s other spotlighted films make sense: action movie/aliens (Predator) and copaganda/aliens (Predator II). Mashing up a domestic drama — will Allison Hayes’ husband and his mistress drive her to a crack-up so hubby gets control of her money? — and aliens is much more off-the-wall. And while the movie is crap, Hayes, Yvette Vickers and William Hudson are good in the leading roles.
The Andromeda Strain boasts a cool poster too, and it’s one of the rare movies that improves on the source material. In Crichton’s novel, the only difference between the scientists fighting a xenobacterial plague is their area of expertise; Nelson Gidding’s script gives them some personality and Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olsen and Kate Reid make the most of it.
#SFWApro.
Well done, you look incredibly proud and rightly so.
Despite the glut of aliens visit Earth movies released over the years Close Encounters still remains the best, despite the little kids running about in alien costumes lol.
Thanks!
For some reason I’ve never been able to get into CE3K, and couldn’t when I rewatched it for the book. Though I was interested to read how Columbia nudging Spielberg for a sequel led by strange and winding ways into ET and Brother From Another Planet.
Yes, congratulations!
You should maybe add a “where to buy” link somewhere…
Otherwise, I also really like the Andromeda Strain – you’re probably right that thee movie is actually better than the book, although it’s been awhile since I’ve seen it. The book, however, is nonetheless one of Crichton’s better efforts (like most of the stuff he wrote in his earlier career).
Darn, I thought I’d added the link. I’ll fix that ASAP, thanks.
Like the movie, the book does a good job showing science as a slow, often tedious slog rather than (in John Wyndham’s words) a “deus ex laboratory” breakthrough.