Ricky Lee Grove

Dimension X was a groundbreaking science fiction anthology series that aired on NBC from April 8, 1950, to September 29, 1951. It is celebrated as one of the first radio programs to treat science fiction as a serious, adult-oriented genre rather than "juvenile" space adventures like Buck Rogers . Format : Half-hour episodes featuring standalone stories of futuristic technology, space exploration, and time travel. Narrator : The series was famously opened by Norman Rose , whose deep voice intoned: "Adventures in time and space, told in future tense... Dimension X!" over a haunting echo and a slow-pounding bass drum. Authors : The show gained instant credibility by adapting stories from the era's leading sci-fi writers, including Ray Bradbury , Isaac Asimov , Robert Heinlein , Kurt Vonnegut , and Robert Bloch . Successor : It was the direct precursor to the even more famous series X Minus One (1955–1958), which recycled many of the same scripts and actors. Not...

  Tom Adams designed a whole series of Agatha Christie covers for Fontana Books back in the 70s. His collage method featured clues from the novel. He also added a level of gruesomeness to the covers that isn't often shown in other designs for her novels.  More on Tom Adams here.

 I love samurai movies. There's something about their depiction men and women in nature and stillness that just thrills me. The Zatoichi Series (Blind Swordsman) is probably my favorite, but I'm in love with all of them, really.   I've collected screen caps from dozens of samurai films over the years. And thought I'd share them with you. Put them together as a collection in a folder and make them your Desktop pix for a month or so.  You can download the 20+ images here And here are few samples:

Mayflower 563 11640 X (1973) It’s a shame that this British Mayflower paperback doesn’t list the cover artist because he/she deserves to be credited for creating this dramatic, surrealist cover that fits Michael Moorcock ’s story perfectly. Mayflower reprinted many of Moorcock’s books in paperback, including several of his most popular books, like Stormbringer , Behold the Man (a fantastic book), and The Final Programme . Mayflower states that the book is “ Science Fantasy ,” which I think describes Moorcock’s work very well, although he leans toward the grimdark style of writing that is directly opposite of Tolkien’s “high fantasy” (he hated Tolkien’s work, by the way). From the blurb on the back of the book (which deserves to be quoted for its over-the-top style : “ The world is sick. The Forces of Chaos have energized the planet. Leaders, fuhrers, duces, prophets, visionaries, gurus, and politicians are all at each other’s throats. And Chaos leers over the broken body of the Order...

The female private investigator in the mystery genre dates back to  Victorian fiction and has  evolved through various waves of genre, social changes, and feminist influence. As early as the 1850s–60s, real women worked as detectives in Britain and America’s private agencies, inspiring cross-dressing and tough-minded heroines in stage plays and penny fiction. Victorian fiction highlighted both working-class and upper-class women in detective roles. However, the image was often sensationalized—a mix of reality and fantasy with heroines who handled undercover work and societal suspicion. In the 1920s–30s “ Golden Age ,” series like Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Maud Silver and Hulbert Footner’s Madame Rosika Storey established the professional, resourceful female sleuth in both English and American settings. These characters moved from amateur “ladies’ detectives” to competent, economically active investigators or “private enquiry agents,” setting the stage for the modern PI protago...

  As a reader of paperbacks, I sometimes read more Young Adult (YA) novels than I do the so-called “Adult” ones. In my opinion, YA editors often do a better job than their peers in the mainstream adult publishing industry. The YA novel is often shorter, more precise, and honestly, more fun to read. There’s no better example of this idea than  Joseph  Delaney’s   Spook series . It’s called the “Last Apprentice” series in the USA because of the negative connotations of the word “ spook ”. I get that, but I don’t think the word is as troubling as the publishers do, so I will refer to these books as the “Spook’s Apprentice” series. This series is about Tom Ward, a farmer’s boy who is the seventh son of a seventh son, which makes him special. His mother (a mysterious woman at first) urges her farmer husband to apprentice him to John Gregory , the local spook. A spook is someone who investigates and removes my sterious paranormal events/beings like ghosts, ghasts, and bo...