Primarily for the English science fiction fan -- usually neglected -- we present this monthly feature. But other readers will no doubt be helped by it -- we hope so, anyway.

SCIENCE FICTION THIS SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC

The first two months of this year were rather prolific in books of interest to the science fiction fan One of the first was "THEY FOUND ATLANTIS" by Dennis Wheatley (Hutchinson 7/6), also published serially in the "Daily Mail" --- A German scientist locates Atlantis below the ocean and finds it peopled by degenerate beings and also by a utopian race; incidentally his beat is seized by gangsters

Early in the year also, came "WORLD D" by Hal P. Trevarthen, (Sheed and Ward 7/6) in which among other things a scientist with a mind a hundred times greater than Aristotle makes a world under the Pacific Ocean

Two film releases of the first few weeks of January have a scientific flavour: "MURDER BY TELEVISION" featuring Bela Lugosi is a routine but ingeniously handled mystery with a few television technicalities of science fiction nature. Both this film and "DEATH FROM A DISTANCE" (featuring Russell Hopton, and is a moderate murder mystery, the circumstances of the murder adding interesting scientific touches), are American.

The January London Mercury was distinguished by containing a science fiction poem "Time is past" by Tee Poh Leng.

Hutchinsons are the publishers of "THE TABLE" by R. Curtis, a variation on "The Island of Dr. Moreau". It is priced 7/6. "SKIN AND BONES" by Thorne Smith describes how a man turns into a skeleton, experiencing gruesome adventures, such as being buried alive. (Published by Baker at 7/6)

Marion Mitchell author of "Traveller in Time" (Sheed and Ward 7/6) introduces "tempevision" in a series of travel sketches

The scenario of the H. G. Wells film "THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES" was published in January "Nash's Magazine". Not particularly scientifictional though it looks like a good film. The outstanding science fiction film release of the first six weeks of the year was "HANDS OF ORLAC". This was adapted from a story by Maurice Renard (the H. G. Wells of France) who wrote "The Flight of starred, gives a fascinatingly good performance of a doctor who grafts the hands of an executed murderer on to the wrists of a famous pianist injured in a railway accident. The film is not particularly remarkable for its science fiction angle but for Peter Lorre's acting and the imaginative direction of Karl Freund who was the cameraman of the German science fiction film "METROPOLIS". "Hands of Orlac" was made by M.G.M

In "WOMAN ALIVE" by Susan Ertz (Hodder 5/-) a man is transferred to 1985 for one year during which a world wide war manages to kill all women but one, by a special poison gas -- neatly written

The February "New Health" has an article "GLANDS AND CHARACTER" in which Dr. Leonard Williams gives an absorbing account of the real facts about glands, and for most fans who have read 30(0) gland stories this article is worth reading, to see that a large percentage had a real scientific basis.

"Tarzan and the City Of Gold" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bodley Head 7/6 needs no comment

Finally, two more books: "THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS" by C. C. Furnas, (Cassell 8/6), "From Eugenics to economics, from the constitution of the atom to flight in the stratosphere the author ranges over a whole field of scientific research pointing out what has yet to be done before the researchers can rest on their laurels" ---- and "IN THE SECOND YEAR" by Storm Jameson, Cassell 7/6, is an account of England under a dictatorship in the year 1940; propaganda, not science fiction

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(Data entered by Judy Bemis)