Tag Archives: book reviews

THE LUNARIAN PROFESSOR (1909): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

Lunarian ProfessorTHE LUNARIAN PROFESSOR AND HIS REMARKABLE REVELATIONS CONCERNING THE EARTH, THE MOON AND MARS TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CRUISE OF THE SALLY ANN (1909) – Written by James B Alexander back in the glory days of titles so long they might not fit in a 140 character limit.

The story is set in 1892, when James Alexander pretends that, while on a fishing trip he encountered a humanoid with a head like a globe, six limbs, large eyes and six wings. The being claims to be a “Lunarian,” a man from our moon.

He is a professor and informs Alexander that he and his fellow Lunarians travel from planet to planet by manipulating gravity. They live in vast underground caverns on the moon, caverns with a breathable atmosphere. Their mastery of gravity is the key to their advanced technology.

The professor’s people have been observing Earth for an untold amount of time. James Alexander even learns that in the distant past humans had to fight intelligently evolving reptiles for planetary supremacy. The cavemen won.

The Lunarians grow vegetation in hydroponic trays and dispose of their dead through a disintegration process that breaks the bodies down into their base elements, thus nothing gets wasted. Though their own culture is socialistic the Lunarians have no shyness about earning profits by selling their advanced technology to other inhabited planets.  

The Lunarians have even developed methods of predicting the future. Alexander asks about Earth’s future and the professor from the moon is happy to lay it all out for the Earthling. Continue reading

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BEST BLOG POSTS OF OCTOBER 2017

Balladeer’s Blog’s Best of 2017 continues …

Rappaccini's Daughter 2NUMBER ONE – BEATRICE THE POISON WOMAN – A Halloween Season look at the beautiful but deadly hybrid woman from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s horror story Rappaccini’s Daughter. CLICK HERE  

NUMBER TWO – LATEST DEMOCRAT ATROCITY ROUNDUP – They love to lecture the rest of us for hellish situations of their own making. CLICK HERE 

Frankenstein's Army 2NUMBER THREE – FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY (2013) – A review of this look at a horror movie about a descendant of the original Dr Frankenstein. This Doctor F is reanimating custom-weaponized corpses for the Nazis during World War Two. CLICK HERE 

NUMBER FOUR – My review of ROBERT LUDLUM’S NUMBER ONE NOVEL – THE MATARESE CIRCLE. In this age of debates over globalism and the ugly influence of multi-national corporations on the political process The Matarese Circle is THE Ludlum novel to discover if you haven’t already. CLICK HERE 

Soul of Kol NikonNUMBER FIVE – THE SOUL OF KOL NIKON (1913) – My Halloween Season review of this neglected novel by female author Eleanor Farjeon. The story deals with a Changeling using his supernatural command of music to try to steal a soul for himself from a human victim. CLICK HERE 

NUMBER SIX – THE CENTENARIAN (1822) – My review of a Gothic Horror novel by Balzac himself. A Frenchman has lived for centuries through the supernatural abilities he has learned from the Rosicrucians. He serves as a veritable Puss In Boots for his descendants, using his powers to prey on anyone who gets in their way. CLICK HERE

Bourne IdentityNUMBER SEVEN – THE BOURNE IDENTITY – My review of ROBERT LUDLUM’S NUMBER TWO NOVEL, about amnesiac intelligence agent Jason Bourne. CLICK HERE  

NUMBER EIGHT – THE BLACK REAPER (1899) – My Halloween Season review of this Gothic Horror story about a black-garbed figure who springs from the corn fields, wielding a scythe to very deadly effect. CLICK HERE

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SEPTEMBER 2017’s BEST BLOG POSTS

More from Balladeer’s Blog’s Best of 2017 …

MantisNUMBER ONE – With superheroes practically taking over pop culture it should come as no surprise that my look at Marvel Comics’ character Mantis was a huge hit.

For the links to every chapter of my examination of the Celestial Madonna Saga during Mantis’ time with the Avengers – 1973-1975 – click HERE 

corporate fascist Mark Zuckerberg

CORPORATE FASCIST MARK “SKIPPY” ZUCKERBERG

 

 

NUMBER TWO – In second place for September was this look at the way Democrats are trying to use their corporate fascist allies to police everyone.

At all times. Everywhere. With draconian punishments for expressing opinions that Left-Wing Archie Bunkers disagree with.

For DEMOCRATS LOVE CORPORATE FASCISM just click right HERE 

Laura Palmer wrapped in plasticNUMBER THREE – David Lynch’s excellent Twin Peaks returned for 18 more episodes that continued the story from the original 1990-1991 series, the 1992 film Fire Walk With Me and 2014’s The Missing Pieces.

 

As a courtesy for potential fans of Twin Peaks who are put off by the way a lot of people claim it “makes no sense” I gave the most basic look at the horror/ sci fi concepts at play in the show. For TWIN PEAKS IN B-MOVIE TERMS click HERE  

Freedom of expression amnesty internationalNUMBER FOUR – The American Left has come to love censorship as much as the religious right always did.

Past works of art are examined to see if they “offend” the hypersensitive fascists of “the academic world” (LMAO).  

The blog post titled DEMOCRATS HATE ART AND LITERATURE covered that HERE

chancellor manuscript 2NUMBER FIVE – Balladeer’s Blog was examining various espionage novels by Robert Ludlum, the man behind the Jason Bourne books.

I reviewed his very relevant novel The Chancellor Manuscript, which dealt with J Edgar Hoover, the FBI and abuse of intelligence-gathering by BOTH the political right AND political left.   

To read ROBERT LUDLUM’S TOP SEVEN NOVELS: NUMBER FOUR click HERE  

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THE PURPLE DEATH (1895): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

Purple DeathTHE PURPLE DEATH (1895) – Written by William Livingston Alden. Presented in the first person this story is narrated by a British gentleman staying in Italy. He becomes friendly with his neighbor, a German M.D. and bacteriologist named Dr Schmidt.

Subsequent conversations reveal that Schmidt is a good old-fashioned mad scientist who has some very odd sympathies. The German doctor sides with Anarchists (among the biggest bogey-men of the 1890s) and his only objection to the occasional assassinations that Anarchists commit is how impractical those crimes are. Continue reading

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JULY 2017’s BEST

Balladeer’s Blog’s Best of 2017 continues!

democrats and poor peopleNUMBER ONE – My two-part look at NEW DEMOCRAT SLOGANS was a comedy hit. This “Party of CEO’s” has come to deserve its reputation for having driven away all of us except pompous snobs and hilariously pretentious asses.

For this look at humorous slogans for this political party which Franklin Roosevelt and John F Kennedy would not even recognize CLICK HERE  

AND FOR PART TWO CLICK HERE 

Incubated GirlNUMBER TWO – One of Balladeer’s Blog’s most popular Ancient Science Fiction posts EVER was this look at a very obscure 1896 work and its fascinating female lead.

Very fascinating.

For my review of THE INCUBATED GIRL click HERE 

Camille PagliaNUMBER THREE – Legendary Camille Paglia was in rare form this year, speaking on behalf of all of us who left the Democrats in disgust in recent years.

In July came CAMILLE PAGLIA BLAMES THE DEMOCRATS FOR DESTROYING JOURNALISM WITH THEIR ANTI-TRUMP HYSTERIA. Click HERE

Berenger Avenging Angel 2NUMBER FOUR – For Frontierado Season this year one of my blog posts dealt with the story-telling possibilities inherent in a neglected aspect of Mormon history.

To read DANITES: GUNSLINGING “KNIGHTS” OF THE OLD WEST just click HERE 

Delia Haskett RawsonNUMBER FIVE – Another western figure got a lot of attention in July, a gunslinging lady who braved Old California on a stage coach route.

For my article on DUSTY DELIA: FEMALE STAGE COACH DRIVER click HERE

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ATLAS (SEABOARD) SUPERHERO PANTHEON

Atlas figuresBalladeer’s Blog marks the shortest day of the year with the shortest-lived comic book company since Pelican Publishing!

It’s Atlas-Seaboard, to distinguish this publisher from Marvel Comics, which went by Atlas Comics in the 1950s. There IS a Marvel connection, however, in that Martin Goodman, Stan Lee’s old colleague, launched Atlas Comics through Seaboard Periodicals for one brief shining moment several months in 1975. 

Calling themselves “The NEW House of Ideas” clearly threw down the gauntlet at Marvel Comics’ feet. As it turned out, however, even Alan Thicke was a bigger danger to Johnny Carson than Atlas was to Marvel.

PhoenixPHOENIX

Secret Identity: Ed Tyler, Astronaut

Origin: Astronaut Ed Tyler was part of a three-man crew on the orbiting space station Threshold I. A leak in the main portion of the station forces the trio of astronauts to abandon their mission early and they evacuate in a shuttlecraft.

Complications cause the vessel to crash-land in the Arctic ice with Ed Tyler as the sole survivor. Tyler found himself in the hands of an alien race called the Deiei, who have been observing humanity from their underground Arctic base for untold millennia. The Deiei guided humanity’s evolution to make us more in their image.

The haughty aliens had recently decided Earth people are a failed experiment. They planned to preserve Ed Tyler for study to see what might have gone wrong but intended to wipe out all other human life on the planet and start from scratch. Tyler escaped custody, donned one of the high-tech battle suits of the Deiei and flew off, determined to thwart the Deiei’s genocidal plans 

Phoenix 2First Appearance: Phoenix #1 (January, 1975). His final appearance came in October of that same year.  

Powers: The Deiei space suit worn by Phoenix enabled him to fly at thousands of miles per hour, to shoot atomic energy blasts from his gloves and to withstand high levels of energy and large projectiles virtually unharmed. The suit also granted him a modicum of greater than human strength.  

The media named this hero Phoenix when they saw him emerge from the smoldering ruins of part of Reykjavik, where he drove off the first assault by Deiei spaceships.  

Comment: After fighting the Deiei for awhile Phoenix encountered another alien race called the Protectors of the Universe. Magus, the leader of the race, disagreed with the Deiei’s desire to wipe out humanity and granted Phoenix an opportunity to prove the people of Earth deserving of a second chance.

Phoenix’s adventures combined elements of the Silver and Bronze Age Green Lantern with Adam Warlock’s “philosophy for pre-teens” approach during his Counter-Earth period. Personally I found Ed Tyler’s gloomy “Humanity is so awful maybe we don’t deserve to be saved” musings to be ridiculous. Compared to the genocidal and callous Deiei, the human race seems like the definite lesser of two evils.  

All that aside, Phoenix had a certain charm. In fact he was one of the few Atlas characters popular enough to be given a second chance with 2010’s attempted re-launch of the title.  

Destructor 1DESTRUCTOR

Secret Identity: Jay Hunter, teenager

Origin: When aspiring criminal Jay Hunter ticked off Max Raven, the crimelord he answered to, that gangster put out a hit on him. The attempt on Jay’s life took place at the lab of his scientist father Simon, who was working on a super-soldier formula.

Both men were mortally wounded, but Jay’s father – knowing there was enough formula to save one, but not both of them – gave it to his son to save his life. Jay pulled through, discovered he now had amazing super-powers and took to wearing a costume to fight crime. He called himself Destructor and was determined to atone for his criminal past.   Continue reading

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JUNE 2017’s BEST

Balladeer’s Blog’s Best of 2017 continues!

Democrat sloganNUMBER ONE – Hatred is in the DNA of the Democrats. One of the worst ways that it manifests itself is the way Democrats are so often the cause of the atrocities they then blame on everyone else. Slavery, the Trail of Tears, Japanese Internment, the Ku Klux Klan, the Spoils System, Tammany Hall, Jim Crow, you name it.

This DEMOCRAT ATROCITY ROUNDUP takes a look at just a few of the outrages that the Party of the Democrats – the American Institution MOST responsible for them – tries to say that THEY are free from guilt over but claims that “the nation as a whole” should bear guilt for forever. CLICK HERE 

Nth Man 2NUMBER TWO – From my Ancient/ Vintage Science Fiction category came this review of an unjustly neglected tale. The Nth Man is a gigantic, Kaiju-sized man with green shell-like skin who does battle with military and political powerhouses in America of the “future” 1930s.

For THE Nth MAN: (1920) – VINTAGE SCIENCE FICTION click HERE  

Mascot with demo and repub headsNUMBER THREE – The pampered white children of privilege who pretend to be “the resistance” (LMAO) against President Donald Trump are a joke. They are the oppressors while trying to pretend they are the oppressed.

For RESISTANCE, INC: THE FAUX REBELS OF THE ANTI-TRUMP HYSTERIA click HERE 

alien covenant 2NUMBER FOUR – Alien: Covenant had been out for awhile by this point and Balladeer’s Blog reviewed it as the comedy that it is.

You mean it’s NOT a comedy?

I beg to differ.

To read ALIEN: COVENANT – YOU’LL LAUGH TIL YOU CRY click HERE

NUMBER FIVE – Finishing off the Top Five from June here is 6-14’s NEVER ACCEPT CENSORSHIP. Click HERE

offend everyone

 

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MAY 2017’s BEST

Balladeer’s Blog’s Best of 2017 resumes with this look at May.

mapNUMBER ONE – Hillary Clinton and her deluded supporters kept manufacturing excuses about her humiliating LOSS to President Donald Trump. (Red counties on map- TRUMP, blue ones – Hillary) The funniest ones involve the way Hillary and her supporters had no clue about how the Electoral College works. No, Hillary-drones, winning California and New York by large margins does NOT make you president – those numbers are meaningless statistics.

This article examining how PRESIDENT TRUMP EVEN DEFEATED HILLARY CLINTON AT IRRELEVANT STATS looked at how Trump crushed Hillary in terms of counties won, states won and geographical area won, but those, too, would have been as meaningless as Hillary’s popular vote in California and New York (LMAO) if he had not won the Electoral College. CLICK HERE  

The Comic bigNUMBER TWO – Balladeer’s Blog’s reviews of bad movies – the more obscure the better – always attract a lot of attention.

In May I reviewed THE COMIC (1985) a bizarre sci-fi/ horror/ post-apocalypse/ art film which boggles the mind with its weirdness. How much of that weirdness was deliberate and how much was caused by ineptitude on the part of the filmmakers? Well, you can decide for yourself. CLICK HERE 

Dr Frank N Furter

NUMBER THREE – My examinations of Ancient Greek Comedies often strike a chord with readers, especially the ones with lots of sex or political jokes in them.

BAPTAE (415-413 B.C.) had a lot going on, including the memorable anecdote about Eupolis – the comedy’s author – running afoul of Alcibiades aboard ship. CLICK HERE

Trump doing rightNUMBER FOUR – Balladeer’s Blog often hypes the need for Third Parties in the U.S. to start whittling down the power of those two rival gangs of white collar criminals called Democrats (DemCorp) and Republicans (RepubCorp).

Donald Trump is a de facto Third Party President. That’s because – unlike garbage like Barack Obama and George W Bush – President Trump is NOT a career politician. American career politicians are among the lowest life-forms on the planet. For confirmation of how well the Donald rocks the crooked boat of American politics see PRESIDENT TRUMP: INFURIATING ALL THE RIGHT PEOPLE by CLICKING HERE 

Star by C I Defontenay betterNUMBER FIVE – Ancient Science Fiction reviews have become a staple here at Balladeer’s Blog.

In May the most popular review of an ancient or vintage science fiction story was STAR: PSI CASSIOPEIA (1854) a “Tolkien in Space” style look at multiple planets in a Trinary Star System. CLICK HERE 

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THE LAND OF THE CENTRAL SUN (1903): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

Land of the Central SunTHE LAND OF THE CENTRAL SUN (1903) – Written by Park Winthrop. The Wintons – Jack and Louise – plus the Livingstons – Bert and Lily – are among the passengers on the ship Golden City when it gets blown off course. The ship winds up near Antarctica and gets trapped in ice.

Damages cause the vessel to start sinking, but some passengers are rescued by the arrival of a (literal) CIGAR-SHAPED aircraft made of metal. The crew members of this mysterious ship are all dwarves and they are captained by Baron Montavo.

The Baron explains to his guests that the ship is called the Meteor and is run by anti-gravity devices in the center and by magnetic devices at the front and back. Montavo pilots the Meteor under the sea and into a subaquatic tunnel which goes on for miles.   Continue reading

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APRIL 2017’s BEST

Balladeer’s Blog’s Best of 2017 continues with the best from April.

Donald Trump rock starNUMBER ONE – We have a tie at Number One – First, President Donald Trump, America’s first de facto Third Party President, has been doing more for the working class of ALL colors than the Democrats or Republicans have in decades. CLICK HERE  

Second, an item about Left-Wing Archie Bunkers who refuse to join the 21st Century. CLICK HERE 

Psycho Gothic LolitaNUMBER TWO – Up next on this countdown is my review of the Japanese horror film PSYCHO GOTHIC LOLITA (2010).

Blood, guts, silly jokes and almost non-stop action are – as always for J-Horror – present in this very entertaining film.

CLICK HERE 

hippyNUMBER THREE – Balladeer’s Blog often deals with the way Left-Wing Archie Bunkers from the 1960s generation distorted the educational system into centers for irrational thought.

Those Faculty Lounge Fascists abuse their positions by browbeating students to agree with their political prejudices. CAL-BERKELEY is their Nuremberg – CLICK HERE

Begotten 4NUMBER FOUR – Another movie review is in fourth place.

This time around it’s my review of the bizarre, horrific movie BEGOTTEN (1990). This is definitely a very unusual film that is definitely not for the squeamish.  

For that review just CLICK HERE 

trump-and-hillary-map-behind-themNUMBER FIVE – Every day that Hillary Clinton is NOT President is great! My Hillary Clinton interview dealt with her defeat at the hands of President Donald Trump, the New Franklin Roosevelt.

For a Hillary Clinton interview the way it SHOULD go read HILLARY EXPLAINS IT ALL by clicking HERE

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