Monster Insects of the Movies


Book Description

This throwback to kid's monster books from the 1970s examines giant bug movies from the 1950s (like Them!) all the way into the 1970s (Empire of the Ants). Fully illustrated, the book also covers Earth vs. the Spider, Monster from Green Hell, The Deadly Mantis, The Black Scorpion, Kingdom of the Spiders, and more!!!




Monster Bugs


Book Description

Best-selling simplifier of science Lucille Recht Penner unearths the truth about the water bug which sucks its victims' blood like a vampire, the assassin bug which turns its prey to mush with a special poison, and other barbaric bugs. This vividly illustrated collection of sensational but true bug facts is sure to set young readers' skin crawling!




Giant Bug Movies of The 1950s


Book Description

They creep... they crawl... and they're the size of a house! This book looks at the giant bug movie fad of the 1950s that began with the spectacular giant ants of Them! and continued with Tarantula!... The giant grasshoppers of The Beginning of the End swiftly followed, accompanied by The Deadly Mantis, The Monster That Challenged the World, The Monster from Green Hell, Earth vs. the Spider, The Black Scorpion, The Fly, Return of the Fly, Attack of the Giant Leeches, and The Wasp Woman. Giant Bug Movies of the 1950s, the second in a series of books that also looks at Flying Saucer films, Space Travel cinema, and panic in the streets movies of the '50s, looks at the entire phenomenon of these mutated monsters in chronological order, with detailed features on all the films in the genre from the best to the inevitable worst and all the fun in between. The book also includes The Incredible Shrinking Man for his battle with what, to him, was a giant spider, plus photo galleries of sci-fi bugs on TV and insects in the comics. So grab a can of bug spray and some netting, and pray that furry arm around your shoulder belongs to your partner...! D...d...doesn't... it... Jon Abbott is the author of numerous books on 20th century film and television available on Amazon. He has written over four hundred articles and features for over two dozen different publications, trade, specialist, and populist, and is currently writing for Infinity magazine.




Monster Cinema


Book Description

Monster Cinema introduces readers to a vast menagerie of movie monsters. Some are gigantic, like King Kong or the kaiju in Pacific Rim, while others are microscopic. Some monsters appear uncannily human, from serial killers like Norman Bates to the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And of course, other movie monsters like demons, ghosts, vampires, and witches emerge from long folklore traditions. Film expert Barry Keith Grant considers what each type of movie monster reveals about what it means to be human and how we regard the world. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, Grant presents us with an eclectic array of monster movies, from Nosferatu to Get Out. As he discovers, although monster movies might claim to be about Them!, they are really about the capacity for horror that lurks within each of us.




Armor


Book Description

The military sci-fi classic of courage on a dangerous alien planet The planet is called Banshee. The air is unbreathable, the water is poisonous. It is home to the most implacable enemies that humanity, in all its interstellar expansion, has ever encountered. Body armor has been devised for the commando forces that are to be dropped on Banshee—the culmination of ten thousand years of the armorers’ craft. A trooper in this armor is a one-man, atomic powered battle fortress. But he will have to fight a nearly endless horde of berserk, hard-shelled monsters—the fighting arm of a species which uses biological technology to design perfect, mindless war minions. Felix is a scout in A-team Two. Highly competent, he is the sole survivor of mission after mission. Yet he is a man consumed by fear and hatred. And he is protected, not only by his custom-fitted body armor, but by an odd being which seems to live within him, a cold killing machine he calls “The Engine.” This is Felix’s story—a story of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat, and the story, too, of how strength of spirit can be the greatest armor of all.




Bugs Up Close


Book Description

Bugs are usually so small that we hardly notice them, let alone think of them as living beings. But call upon the magnifying glass, and a shapeless jumble of legs, wings, and antennae suddenly start staring back at us. About 80 percent of the Earth’s animals are insects. While there are millions of different species, we rarely see many of them . . . until now. Thanks to the photography of John Hallmén, who took a camera and magnified these magnificent creatures one hundred times, we can see what we’ve never been able to see before. Bugs Up Close takes readers on a journey into a world rarely seen, with incredible photographs of such insects as: Crane flies Yellow meadow ants Black fungus beetles Treehoppers And many more! The diversity of this insect civilization is striking and unknown to most. An insect we may never have thought twice about now looks like a creature from outer space. Fascinating and somewhat monstrous details such as compound eyes, antennae, and sharp mouth parts are visible, and with text by Lars-Åke Janzon, Bugs Up Close is an amazing close look into the strange and beautiful world of insects.




RODOMONTE'S REVENGE


Book Description

As Brett watched, one hand slipped loose, then the other. Tom dropped, screaming, into the flames. His body, all red and bubbled, boiled up once to the surface, then was gone. PLAYER ONE HAS ONE LIFE REMAINING. GAME CONTINUES. Flaming fire rivers. Divebombing buzz-bugs. A cruel king waiting to do battle in his computer-generated castle. Video game whizzes Brett Wilder and Tom Houston think that new virtual reality game Rodomonte’s Revenge is awesome-until it takes over their minds. Then the game playing becomes dangerously real, and one wrong move could be the last.




Attack of the New B Movies


Book Description

Since its inception in 1992, the Sci-Fi Channel (later rebranded as SYFY) has aired more than 500 network-produced or commissioned films. Campy and prolific, the network churned out one low-budget film after another, finally finding its zenith in the 2013 release of Sharknado. With unpretentious charm and a hearty helping of commodified nostalgia, the Sharknado franchise briefly ruled the cultural consciousness and temporarily transformed SYFY's original films from cult fringe to appointment television. Naturally, the network followed up with a steady stream of sequels and spin-offs, including Lavalantula and its sequel, 2 Lava 2 Lantula! This collection of essays is the first to devote critical attention to SYFY's original film canon, both pre- and post-Sharknado. In addition to unpacking the cultural, historical and critical underpinnings of the monsters at the heart of SYFY's classic creature features, the contributors offer a variety of approaches to understanding and interrogating these films within the broader contexts of ecocriticism, monster theory, post-9/11 criticism, and neocolonialism. Providing a further entry point for future scholarship, an appendix details a thorough filmography of SYFY's original films from 1992 to 2022.




Historical Dictionary of American Cinema


Book Description

One of the most powerful forces in world culture, American cinema has a long and complex history that stretches through more than a century. This history not only includes a legacy of hundreds of important films but also the evolution of the film industry itself, which is in many ways a microcosm of the history of American society. Historical Dictionary of American Cinema, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 600 cross-referenced entries covering people, films, companies, techniques, themes, and subgenres that have made American cinema such a vital part of world culture.




Insect Nations


Book Description

An extended essay on cultural entomology from Kropotkin to Bergson.