Film

I have always held a special place in my literary heart for books about post-apocalyptical times. Despite leaning away from the more fantastical Zombie style of dystopian futures they are sometimes still close enough to engage my interest here is a list of some of my current favourites.

Books

David Gemmell – The John Shannow series.

This series follows a gunslinger, the Jerusalem man, through a fantastical future vision of the world. As with much of Gemmell’s work this is a tale of hero’s and warriors however unlike his other work the world is based on a post-apocalyptic society. Expect a heavy western feel with this one.

Cormac McCarthy – The Road (Being released on film on the 16^th of October)

A disturbing trek through a realistic post-apocalyptica. Full of anti-heroes, cynicism and death this is a gripping book. Who needs zombies when cannibals are so much more realistic/frightening? I can’t recommend this one enough.

Max Brook’s – World War Z

In the sequel to “The Zombie Survival Guide” Brook’s really hit the nail on the head. The book is a loose collection of memories regarding a Zombie or “African Rabies” pandemic. Un-like his first book World War Z has much more plot and surprisingly a decent amount of realism.

Films

In no particular order:

Zombieland – (NEW) Humorous

Mad Max – Lots of people count this series as one of the best but it’s never been a massive favourite of mine.

28 days/weeks Later – Fantastic, loved every minute of both of these movies.

I am Legend – Contains what I like to call “modern” Zombies or realistic zombies unlike all the old “Living dead” style clichéd zombies. This is an excellent film.

Blindness – A great book/film that really comes to terms with the reality of human suffering during a pandemic type situation. Human weakness, greed, love and hate are all brought home in sometimes disturbing detail.

Resident Evil – This series of films was much better than I expected excluding the second film which seemed somehow wrong. The third film falls very neatly into my post-apocalypse catchment and was in my opinion done very well. Not a masterpiece but worth a watch.

Having been happy at the arrival of “district 9″, which is well worth watching, i have been on the lookout for other possible sci-fi future blockbusters. The main ones that seem to be around the corner are.

Tron 2.0 (Based on the classic Tron which kicked ass)

Moon (A small Sundance film festival sci-fi that’s getting some good reviews)

and the outsider Avatar:

I am undecided as to if this might make a decent sci-fi movie perhaps falling too far into the realms of fantasy. Fantasy is a great genre by its self but  a mixture of the two always seems to go wrong. Let’s hope James Camerons reputation holds up and this isn’t just another CGI fan boy fest.

Avatar is now due towards Christmas time, the updated trailer is available on the apple site here. Fox might produce some bullsh*t news programs but they seriously seem to know where it’s at when it comes to quality programming.

The new Peter Jackson movie is coming soon; admittedly I am not a fan of all his movies however being a bit of a sci-fi junky I am looking forward to “District 9”. The new film promises to be a virtual CGI fest packed with interesting “Alien tech” and a 99% chance of bad guys getting beat the F*&K down. The bad guys in this film though appear to be the human governance keeping those aliens in a Ghetto style camp.