THE MILLTILLIONAIRE (1895) – This novel was written by American author Albert Waldo Howard under the pen name M. Auburre Hovorre. A second edition came out in 1898.
The concepts and storyline are all over the place in this minor utopian work from the 1890s. Howard often treats mutually exclusive concepts as if they are interchangeable. He does do a deep dive into the advanced technology of the future as well as the political changes, so that is a positive factor.
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At some point in the far future, the entire Earth is under one government – the Bardic State. Howard seems at times to be using the reference to bards as if they are his version of Plato’s Philosopher Kings, and at other times as if the term means simply “rulers.”
A twenty-six-member council called the Alphabets seem to fill a parliamentary role. Sometimes. It’s that kind of book. Half the twenty-six must be male and the other half female. They each hold the title Bard.
A Bard Regent handles many administrative tasks for the figure above them – the “True Bard” or the “Positive Poet.” The wealthiest person in the world – our title Milltillionaire – is above the Bard Regent and serves as the True Bard.
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PRIMER (2004) – HAPPY NEW YEAR! Yes, I’m just childish enough to pat myself on the back for that play on words in the title of this blog post. With that out of the way I know I’m late to the game when it comes to Primer but my own skepticism about it made me keep it on the back burner in terms of priority movies to watch. 
Shane Carruth stars as Aaron and David Sullivan portrays Abe. The pair are engineers who – on the side – run a tech business out of Aaron’s garage. As a side effect of a project they are working on the two discover a means of time travel. 
SUPERSONIC SAUCER (1956) – In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday Balladeer’s Blog presents a look at another harmless, all-ages sci-fi turkey, this one from England. Supersonic Saucer was produced by our old friends in Great Britain’s Children’s Film Foundation, the same group behind 
Top-billed actress Marcia Manolescue, an English actress of Asian descent, plays Sumac, one of the students whose family could not pay travel fare home and back. Another such student is Greta (Gillian Harrison) and rounding things out is Adolphus (Andrew Mette-Harrison), the tubby youngest character. 
We viewers know the kids are in the right, and the spaceship/ flying saucer is really a Venusian youngster. That alien entity used its race’s ability to morph from Muppet-like form to amoeboid form to flying saucer form fit for interplanetary travel. 
The goofy looking Venusian resembles a thick, tall worm in a white hijab in its “normal” form but is hilariously rendered as a cartoon flying saucer with eyes for its airborne and spacefaring form. The “special” effect is as laughable as the cartoon spaceships in American movies like Invaders from Mars.
MASTERS OF VENUS (1962) – A year before Doctor Who came to British television this 8-part movie serial played theaters as part of the viewing block for Saturday Morning Cinema Clubs. 
Because Balladeer’s Blog reviews items that range from mild and child-friendly to blood-soaked and transgressive, let me make it clear that Masters of Venus, directed by Ernest Morris, is just fine for family viewing. 
The base comes under attack by mysterious Men in Black (I’m serious) armed with ray guns that shoot knockout beams. Security guard after security guard falls to the Men in Black, who turn out to be Venusians who don’t want Earthlings visiting their planet. 
VOYAGE TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH aka Planet at the Center of the Earth aka “Journey to the Centre of the Earth, or Various Adventures of Clairancy and His Companions, to Spitsbergen, to the North Pole, and to Unknown Countries, translated from the English of Hormidas Peath by M. Jacques Saint-Albin”. 
This particular story centers around the fictional seaman Hormidas Peath and his crew who became shipwrecked in the icy Arctic Sea in 1806. They were shocked to discover that temperatures got warmer the further north they went, so they kept following the warmer air until they reached the Iron Mountains. 
HOME aka Future Soap (1968) – This science fiction drama set hundreds of years in the future first aired on January 19th, 1968 on American Public Broadcasting’s N.E.T. Playhouse. Home is a 90-minute piece about the threat of overpopulation – and the excuses that threat gives the government to impose authoritarian conditions on the populace – set among a honeycomb of claustrophobic rooms in which citizens of the future must spend their lives due to the dictates of the government. 
Food is in pill form, rituals praising the government are required and “happy drugs” must be consumed daily in order to keep the populace in line. When a couple is able to obtain permission to have a child they must wait until someone in their communal room dies. 
CITY BENEATH THE SEA (1962) – For starters, this is NOT the 1970s movie nor the 1950s movie of this title. This City Beneath the Sea is a seven-part television serial from Great Britain. In the past Balladeer’s Blog has covered similar British tv serials like the original Quatermass adventures, Pathfinders in Space and its sequels, in addition to The Trollenberg Terror, plus Object Z and Object Z Returns. 
City Beneath the Sea stars Gerald Flood as reporter Mark Bannerman and Stewart Guidotti as his photographer Peter Blake. The villains are led by Germans who served in World War Two, like Denis Goacher as former U-Boat commander Kurt Swendler and Aubrey Morris as mad scientist Professor Ludwig Ziebrecken. 
AN AUTOMATIC ENIGMA (1878) – By Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the past Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed some of 
BETWEEN TIME AND TIMBUKTU – A SPACE FANTASY BY KURT VONNEGUT JR (March 13th) – Dated humor mars this generally well made 86-minute sci-fi story directed by Fred Barzyk and based on the writings of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 
THE CLONES (1973) – This neglected sci-fi item from the 70s was directed by Lamar Card & Paul Hunt, based on Hunt’s story. The Clones falls into that category of films that I always refer to as “X-Movies” because of the way they put one in mind of the paranoid and conspiratorial air of the best X-Files episodes. 
Gregory Sierra, best known to trivia buffs as “And Gregory Sierra” for the number of times he was credited like that in various television shows and movies, plays Nemo, a government agent tasked to keep the clone project a secret and bring in the escapee. 
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