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The success of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels and HBO's Game of Thrones series underscores the perennial popularity of medieval history-or rather ""medievalism,"" the idea of the Middle Ages. Medievalist movies, books and video games are lucrative property in the multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry, and Renaissance fairs, reenactment groups and historical martial arts clubs have become prominent in pop culture. Yet actual medieval history-especially medieval military...

In The Handmaid’s Tale and Philosophy, philosophers give their insights into the blockbuster best-selling novel and record-breaking TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale. The story involves a future breakaway state in New England, beset by environmental disaster and a plummeting birth rate, in which the few remaining fertile women are conscripted to have sex and bear children to the most powerful men, all justified and rationalized by religious fundamentalism. Among the questions raised by this riv...

Zombies have changed dramatically in the new millennium. They are no longer the comical, shuffling, mindless monsters of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). In works such as 28 Days Later... (2002) and World War Z (2013) they are fast, rabid, and absolutely terrifying in large hordes. In Warm Bodies (2013) and In the Flesh (2013-2015), they are thoughtful, sensitive, and capable of ethics and empathy. Audiences of this modern cinematic monster have changed, too, from teenaged camp a...

A scientific discovery of witches in fiction-Chilled Adventures of Sabrina, Sleeping Beauty, Wicked and so many more! Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl, authors of The Science of Women in Horror and co-hosts of the Horror Rewind podcast called "the best horror film podcast out there" by Film Daddy, present a guide to the history of witchcraft through the stories and characters we all know and love. Reveal the spellbinding science behind the legends and lore surrounding fiction's most iconic witch...

This is the ultimate unofficial guide to Stranger Things! Now updated with all new Season 4 content and Season 5 speculation! If you love 80s references, scary monsters, playing Dungeons and Dragons, riding your bike, hanging with your friends and saving the world, then this show is for you, and this guide is all you need! Now packed with even more fun facts about your favourite episodes, character profiles, new series speculation, awesome pi...

Dark, dangerous and transgressive, Bram Stoker's Dracula is often read as Victorian society's absolute Other-an outsider who troubles and distracts those around him, representative of the fears and anxieties of the age. This book is a study of Dracula's role of absolute Other as it appears on screen, and an investigation of popular culture's continued fascination with vampires. Drawing on vampire films spanning from the early 20th century to today, this book is an examination of how different ge...

Each volume brings together a collection of the best of the official Angel Magazine content, celebrating the unforgettable vampire with a soul, his ongoing quest for redemption, and those that helped him along the way. This un-missable volume collects together cast and crew interviews, in-depth features and behind the scenes pictures and secrets, making it an essential read for Angel fans old and new.

The definitive guide to the making of the Prime Video smash hit The Boys, featuring exclusive insights into the origins, themes and production of the show from the cast and crew. The Art and Making of The Boys is a fascinating insight into the darkest, wittiest, most shocking series on TV - a pitch-black satire of superheroes and corporate America based on the classic comic books. It's packed with eye-popping exclusive art, behind-the-scenes photography, and interviews with the cast and crew d...

A brand-new Star Trek book series will delve into every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, all 178 installments, season by season. Hero Collector is making it so, introducing a series of seven volumes that will cover each season of The Next Generation, with in-depth looks at all 178 episodes. Each volume serves as a standalone, building to a valuable personal collection. Author Matt McAllister shines a light on the showrunners’ ambitions, the casting, the writing, the directing, the act...

Looming onto the television horror landscape in October 2011, a new drama known simply as American Horror Story gave its eager viewers a lurid and graphic weekly dose of psychological unease and gruesome violence. Embracing recognized horror conventions of spooky settings, unnerving events and terrifying monsters, series co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk employ shocking visual effects and a distinctive anthology format to ensure their show continues to provide a contemporary TV take on th...

Stranger Things and Philosophy is an important book, the first of its kind to examine the fantastical world of this award-winning, widely beloved, phenomenal show with a philosophical lens. This is important precisely because the show rests so heavily on a complex and thought-provoking mythos based around secretive government experiments and a parallel dimension that darkly reflects readers' own. The series as a whole has asked more questions than it has delivered answers, and the chapters in t...

NBC's Grimm is an understudied series full of compelling characters, including Monroe, the charmingly knowledgeable vegetarian who looks like a werewolf; Wu, the funny cop who beats his way to the truth; Adalind, the enjoyably vengeful, risk-taking witch; Trubel, the furious young loner accused of insanity; Kelly, a powerful older warrior-woman; Nick, a compassionate detective; Hank, Juliette, Rosalee and others. This book, which includes a chapter on each key figure, explores the fascina...

Telling an American Horror Story collects essays from new and established critics looking at the many ways the horror anthology series intersects with and comments on contemporary American social, political and popular culture. Divided into three sections, the chapters apply a cultural criticism framework to examine how the first eight seasons of AHS engage with American history, our contemporary ideologies and social policies. Part I explores the historical context and the uniquely-Amer...

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...

In October 1957, Screen Gems made numerous horror movies available to local television stations around the country as part of a package of films called Shock Theater. These movies became a huge sensation with TV viewers, as did the horror hosts who introduced the films and offered insight--often humorous--into the plots, the actors, and the directors. This history of hosted horror walks readers through the best TV horror films, beginning with the 1930s black-and-white classics from Universal...

New York Times bestselling author Robb Pearlman focuses on STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’s breakout star, Grudge the cat. Full of cat photos and whimsical illustrations! Sharper than a claw and more stunning than a phaser blast, The Book of Grudge’s Prime Directive features her take on everything from space travel to the proper care and training of an array of alien species, STAR TREK-inspired quotes, and haiku meditations on Grudge’s most favorite things, including napping and people (as long as they’r...

Featuring ships from the first season of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY! The story of how the creative teams reimagined STAR TREK for the 21st Century with previously unseen production art and interviews with the show's artists and designers. Every ship for season 1! Showcasing ships such as the U.S.S. Shenzhou, the U.S.S. Discovery and the Klingon bird-of-prey, this book brings you all the Federation and Klingon ships as they appeared in the decade before Captain James T. Kirk's five-year-mission, and i...

This official Minecraft cookbook expands beyond its sixty recipes, giving aspiring young chefs the tools needed to begin a lifelong love of cooking—as well as important lessons on environmental stewardship.   Welcome to The Crafter’s Kitchen, an official Minecraft cookbook and your starting point for a food journey across the Overworld and our very own planet! Your guide is a Minecraft chef named the Gourmand who sees the planet Earth with wonder—as well as concern. Where they come from, apples...

This new book goes behind the scenes on the award-winning TV series Battlestar Galactica to discover the concepts behind the designs of dozens of spaceships! Battlestar Galactica debuted on TV in 1978 and acquired a phenomenal following, breaking new ground for TV drama and winning several awards. It returned to TV screens in 2003 in a critically acclaimed reimagined series, with Time Magazine naming it one of the 100 Best TV Shows of All Time. This behind-the-scenes guide looks at the creatio...

What makes a horror television drama interesting? Like any other drama, it is often the character development or plot, and this certainly applies to the dramatically-resonant Supernatural and its beloved characters. However, Supernatural has achieved a dedicated fandom and a record-breaking 15-season run by skillfully engaging with the social reality inhabited by the show's audience. Additionally, the show plays with the fourth wall by having an in-world fandom for the main characters. Supern...

Provides a history and criticism of an important disrupting force in early science-fiction television programming. Joanne Morreale highlights the differences of The Outer Limits (ABC 1963-65) from typical programs on the air in the 1960s. Morreale argues that the show provides insight into changes in the television industry as writers turned to genre fiction-in this case, a hybrid of science fiction and horror-to provide veiled social commentary. The show illustrates the tension between networ...