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News
& What's New - March 2010 |
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Dutch
Riverworld
(2010) DVD new release date |
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23
March
2010
The Riverworld
(2010)
movie, the Dutch version on DVD had a release date of March 16, 2010.
As I wrote before I
ordered a copy with bol.com.
This was done on March 14th. Shipping time was said to be one or two
days from the day of release on. This changed in the past week in three
to six days and right now it says "probably 6-8 weeks".
I asked in a local DVD shop if they had the movie or when it would
become available. After checking it in the computer the answer was that
the movie would only be released on June 22, 2010.
This is the same date as the release date of the US
version. It seems the Dutch company, Bridge Entertainment,
had to correct the release date, alas.
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The Magic
Labyrinth announced |
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21
March
2010
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Riverworld
TV premiere in the Netherlands |
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20
March
2010
Some
days ago I discovered that the new
Riverworld movie
would have its premiere on DVD in the Netherlands, see the previous
entry. This was much to my surprise, because like many others I thought
the movie would have its premiere on TV in the US with Syfy on
April 18, 2010. And only some time after the show on Syfy would the DVD
being distributed.
It even gets more strange than I discovered before. It seems the new
Riverworld movie had its world premiere on Dutch and Belgian
television! Syfy (NL) had
it programmed on January 31, 2010. The only proof for this, that I have
been able to find online, is this
information
from the Belgian TV Guide Humo. According to the time table it would
have been the first part of the series, for about one and a half hours.
Or... could it maybe have been the 2003
version of Riverworld? I have asked Syfy (NL) a question
about this and hope to receive an answer. Will be continued.
Regarding the Dutch DVD, which I ordered nearly a week ago, I still
haven't received it. There is no information if the release date has
been changed, and I have no idea what the reason is for this delay.
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Peter Wingfield
(as Burton) |
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Riverworld
(2010) on DVD in the Netherlands! |
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15
March
2010
With
the previous entry I mentioned that I will have to wait seeing
Riverworld
till it comes out on DVD. I checked Amazon
and the DVD and Blu-ray will both be released on June 22, 2010. If the
given run time on Amazon of 90 minutes is correct than you only get the
first part of the mini series. Both parts together have a run time of
something more than three hours.
Riverworld may have its premiere on April 18, 2010, but that is only
the US
premiere. It seems the World premiere goes to Latin America. MIchael
Sacal wrote a comment on March 14 on the Sci-Fi
Wire announcement page:
"Apparently part one of Riverworld will air tonight on Studio Universal
in Latinamerica and both parts will air tomorrow night according to
their website, so I'll get to watch it before it airs in the US."
However, I could not find any proof of Michael's statement on SciFi
Channel of Latin America.
The Riverworld
(2010)
movie will be released on DVD on March 16, 2010 in my country, the
Netherlands. Both parts on two discs. See the DVD cover at right. I
ordered my copy with bol.com.
This is the regular English language version with Dutch subtitles
(on/off), but take note, because of the region code (Region 2) it
cannot be played in the US on a regular DVD player. And your TV must be
able to show the PAL system, the US uses the NTSC system. Most modern
TV's have no problem with both systems.
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New
Riverworld
(2010) page |
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14
March
2010
The
new Riverworld
minI series will have its premiere in April, see the
previous entry on this page.
Because of this I have made a
new Riverworld page on the site with the trailer and
information about the movie: the cast and director, many screen shots,
a synopsis and links to other sources. For instance a link to an
interview with Robert Hewitt Wolfe, the writer.
Phil Farmer and his wife have seen the first
Riverworld movie in 2003, but they aren't around here
anymore, alas, to see if this time the story keeps a bit more to the
story in the books. I'm very curious if it does, but I'm afraid I will
have to wait till this version is for sale on DVD.
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Alan Cumming |
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New
Riverworld
movie on Syfy in April |
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13
March
2010
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"Syfy's
Riverworld debuts in April in one 4-hour block!", with this title Sfi-Fi
Wire announces the new Riverworld mini series. The official
trailer of the new Riverworld movie can be seen here.
From the announcement: "Syfy has set an April 18 premiere date for
Syfy's upcoming four-hour TV
movie Riverworld, which will air in one block starting at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
The movie, starring Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett and V's
Laura Vandervoort, is based on the books by Philip José
Farmer and takes place on a world where everyone who has ever lived on
Earth is resurrected simultaneously in an unusual afterlife.
Syfy sets sail this spring with the 4-hour Sunday night television
movie, Riverworld premiering
Sunday, April 18
from 7-11 p.m. (ET). Starring Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar
Galactica/Dollhouse), Laura Vandervoort (V/Smallville) and Alan Cumming
(Tin Man). Riverworld is an epic adventure featuring familiar
characters in an unfamiliar world and is based on the popular
award-winning series of novels by Philip Jose Farmer. Riverworld is
produced by Reunion Pictures and will be distributed internationally by
RHI Entertainment.
Matt Ellman (Penikett) is an American war zone reporter who has
witnessed the worst of humanity first-hand, yet still grasps on to an
optimistic spirit. When a suicide bomber kills both Matt and his
fiancé Jessie (Vandervoort), they awaken separated in a
mysterious world where everyone who has ever lived on Earth seems to
have been "reborn" along the banks of a seemingly endless river.
Determined to locate Jessie, Matt joins forces with a 13th century
female samurai warrior named Tomoe (Jeananne Goossen) and American
novelist Sam 'Mark Twain' Clemens (Mark Deklin). Together they sail
upriver in search of its source, and to discover where they are and who
put them there".
See the full announcement at SfiFi
Wire.
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Science
Fiction and Fantasy Literarture |
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12
March
2010
In
the past years many reference books and books with critical studies
about the science fiction field and its authors were published. And
Philip José Farmer can be found in several of them (see here).
As these books are mostly published in the US and are not to be found
in a local (university) library in my home town in the Netherlands, I
have to do an extensive search to know if Phil is included in a certain
book. Because I want to include the information in this bibliography.
When I receive a book it is always exciting to open the book and to
discover what's in there about Phil. Hopefully something new or
something we missed, but sometimes it's a bit of a disappointment, like
with this book, Science
Fiction and Fantasy Literature 1975-1991
(1992) by Robert Reginald. Nothing wrong with the book itself,
it's huge, 1512 pages, and list all the books by any of the
known
sf&f authors, published in the US during the years 1975 till
1991.
Plus there are some other lists (series index, doubles index and also
major awards lists). But what's
in the book about Phil was already completely known in this
online bibliography, alas...
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Two
remembrances of Phil |
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7
March
2010
Many
obituaries, remembrances and other pieces have been written last year,
after Phil had passed away. Most of the online publications have been
listed on a special page
at the Official
PJF Home Page. The following two are not in that list.
Dr. Edgar L. Chapman, professor emeritus of English, wrote a remembrance
for Bradley
Hilltopics, a magazine of the Bradley University in
Peoria, Illinois. Chapman describes Farmer's relation with the
University (he studied there) and his writing career since: "...Just
how good a writer was Phil Farmer? Well, he wrote mostly for a genre
which is still often disparaged and whose works are often undervalued
or ignored by “mainstream” critics. Of course,
there is a tradition in scholarship on the genre which is about a
generation old, but even this academic tradition has had to battle for
respectability within universities.
Since Phil wrote a number of novels of vigorous adventure, it would be
easy to dismiss his work as merely commercial. But Phil produced some
works of solid quality..."
You can read the Bradley
Hilltopics issue online at Issuu.com
(the remembrance is on page 3), or the somewhat extended version of the
remembrance on the website
of the Bradley University.
Win Scott Eckert wrote a remembrance,
"Doc Savage Loses An Author", for the in November 2009 published Big Book of Bronze,
Volume 2. Win mentions the Doc Savage related works by Farmer:
"...Phil Farmer loved Doc Savage, and he's responsible for the fact
that I love Doc as well, as I received Doc Savaga: His Apocalyptic Life
along with fifteen or so Bantam reprints from a family friend when I
was eight years old. Phil was a trickster, and didn't always express
his affection for Doc in the most straightforward way..."
There is photo with the article of Phil with a woman and a baby. The
caption claims this woman to be Phil's wife Bette and their child, it
is however not his wife, but Mary Turzillo (Brizzi) and her child. They
visited
the Farmers at the time. See here
for the photo and the correct information.
If you want you can order the Big
Book of Bronze here.
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New
publications in 2009 |
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7
March
2010
All
of the new publications of Farmer's work in the year 2009 have been put
together on one page,
like we had done before for the years 2006,
2007
and 2008.
Eleven publications (nine books, one chapbook and one magazine) in
three countries (US, Russia and Spain) were published in 2009.
Also added is a page with the new
publications in 2005, which counted seven books and a boxed
set, plus two magazines, in four countries (US, France, Germany and
Russia).
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Finally,
all the book pages are ready! |
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2
March
2010
Halfway
2006 I started the redesign of this website, and later that same year I
started with the book pages. Next to the redesign I wanted to redo the
book pages, with checking every publication again and adding much more
information and cover scans. It has cost me a lot of work and time to
do all that. It took me more than three years to change only all the
book pages.
The last of the 102 book pages has now been redesigned. It is
the page of The Lavalite World, the
fifth book in the World
of Tiers series. The number of publications changed from 35
to 39 and the cover scans more than doubled, from 15 to 36 scans. I
haven't been able yet to track down a copy of the 1986 Berkley Books
edition, reason why there is no scan of it.
It was thought for a long time that The
Lavalite World was to be the final and concluding novel in
the World of Tiers series. The first four novels were published in a
five year period, from 1965 till 1970. The Lavalite World
followed not until 1977.
In his foreword in the 1983 Phantasia Press edition of The Lavalite World
Farmer assured the readers that there would be two more books in the
series, Kickaha's World
and The Garden of Evil. The
sixth book in the series was published only sixteen years after the
fifth, and had a completely different title, More
Than Fire (1993). A seventh novel in the series has never
been
written by Phil, but he wrote a connected novel instead, Red
Orc's Rage (1991).
In the above mentioned foreword Farmer writes about the novel: "...the
lavalite world has no predictability or stability at all except for the
areas immediately around the large bodies of water, and these can't be
inhabited very long. On the lavalite world, mountains become plains in
a few days and vice versa. Rivers and lakes form and are gone in a
short time. All life has to keep moving to survive, and even then the
place towards which the life is running may change in form before the
life gets there.
Nor are there, as here, the reassuring points of the compass and the
rising and setting of the sun. There is no determinable north, south,
east, and west. No sun. No familiar landmarks. No place to put down
roots or even a place to stay for more than a week. There is little
rest for both wicked and innocent.
It's a hell that makes Earth look like paradise...Whew!"
See also some reviews
of the novel, and the Wikipedia entry
on the World of Tiers series.
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| Added
Books |
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| Statistics |
These are the
numbers for the book pages in March 2010:
 1683
publications
1279 covers
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