Our review of Noah Lemelson’s #steampunk novel The Sightless City
Politics, science, intrigue, the supernatural and a murder mystery that seems to be at the heart of it. It sounds like an excellent combo and, yes, at first glance The Sightless City seems to have it all. But while the concept is good, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
It’s the same old story: warring states, races that don’t get along and an evil mega corporation with an evil mastermind…
Titanic Alternatives: The what-ifs of the most famous disaster at sea.
Titanic.
It’s a name that conjures up images. The grand ocean liner of the Edwardian era caught up in fate and circumstances on its maiden voyage. A ship full of the rich and famous, as well as those hoping for a new life. All of their lives intertwined when the vessel hits an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic. And without enough lifeboats to save them all from the freezing water around them. It’s a…
American soldiers, a French chateau and the Nazi supernatural. Dieselpunks can rejoice in Ghosts of War
I finished my review of Overlord, the fantastic 2018 World War II zombie movie, with a call on Hollywood to be so bold as to green-light more movies like it. I was greatly pleased when I encountered Ghosts of War, a 2020 World War II horror film that seemed to be following in Overlord‘s footsteps. I’m an alternate historian, and so I’m a sucker for anything that mashes up history and the…
Sometimes the conventional wisdom is right: Army of Shadows really is a masterpiece
Sometimes the conventional wisdom is right.
When Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 French Resistance classic Army of Shadows was released in the United States in 2006, many reviewers listed it as their favorite movie of the year. Newsweek called it a “fatalistic masterpiece”, The New York Times an “austere mise-en-scène in which Resistance fighters carry the shame of a nation on their squared…
A brief history of Weimar Germany’s Zentrum party
Zentrum (the Center Party) was founded in the 1870s to protect the rights of the Catholic minority and was always held together by its commitment to Catholicism.
In the years of the Republic, it shared some views with the left. It supported the welfare state, for example, and worked for an international understanding among nations. Its leader, Matthias Erzberger, helped to uphold the Weimar…
New #dieselpunk animated sci-fi adventure Metropius releases teaser trailer
Think Rapture, but above ground. Metropius is the most exciting dieselpunk project currently in production. The teaser trailer, released on Thursday, reveals a city of flying cars, neon lights and robotic traffic cops.
The website describes Metropius as “a city rich on the profits of an endless WWII,” operating under corporate rule.
These corporations have a stranglehold on their citizens’…
The atomic-era art of Frank Tinsley
Frank Tinsley was a prolific illustrator of the atomic era. If you’ve ever browsed the archive of Modern Mechanix, you will have seen his work, perhaps without realizing many of the magazine’s iconic illustrations were done by the same artist.
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