A RATHER BLOODLESS VAMPIRE

 Giesen. The Nosferatu Story, The Seminal Horror Film, its Predecessors and its Enduring Legacy. McFarland Company, 2019.

There is an unfortunate typo on the back cover of Rolf Giesen’s book. We are informed that the author is “an expect on early fantasy and science fiction films.” Shame on you, McFarland proof readers! 

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CURIOUS CUSTOMS

Following on from the earlier announcement
http://pelicanist.blogspot.com/2019/06/curiouser-and-curiouser.html 

I am now able to reproduce clear images of the eight 'Curious Customs' stamps that will be issued by Royal Mail on 9th July. There has been some controversy about the designs, but I rather like them;  they have a slightly folksy, amateurish feel about them. I could imagine them as locally-made posters advertising the events.If you've any comments, use the Comments link, below.

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ABSOLUTELY QUACKERS

S. D. Tucker. Quacks! Dodgy Doctors and Foolish Fads Throughout History. Amberley, 2018.

‘Purity’ has been the theme of a few books I have reviewed lately, basing my views on Peter Rogerson’s comments in his last ever Magonia piece: “… surely all the worst crimes are committed in the name of purity and pure lands: pure religion, pure nation, pure race, new model pure people, a pure world cleared of ‘human pollutant’, pure souls freed from organic bodies, pure lands that no actual-existing human being is ever pure enough to inhabit.”

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BRITAIN CONQUERS SPACE (IN 1956!)

Satellite in Space by Professor A.M. Low. London: Brown Watson Ltd, 1956.

I found this piece of fascinating British SF in a secondhand bookshop in Cheltenham. A.M. Low was, as the book's blurb said, a former president of the British Interplanetary Society and the author of many scientific papers. Science Fiction, it has been said, is as much about the time in which it's written as about the future, and this book is fascinating for what it says not just about how the British in the 1950s viewed the future, but also about the fears and hopes haunting their time.

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INSIDE THE BIG TENT

Timothy Green Beckley and Sean Casteel. Alien Strongholds On Earth; Secret UFO Bases Exist All Around Us. Inner Light/Global Communications, 2019.

Alien strongholds, or what John Keel would have called window areas, are believed to exist throughout the world. These areas are where aliens have their secret underground bases that maintain their fleets of flying saucer and where they can conduct their nefarious activities, often in league with mysterious human military units.

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DIARY OF A SOMEBODY

Jacques Vallee. Forbidden Science 4, The Spring Hill Chronicles. The Journals of Jacques Vallee 1990 – 1999. Anomalist Books. 2019.

This is the fourth volume of a mammoth (2000 pages and counting) series released over the past 25 years which form chronological diary entries covering a decade in the life of one of the most important scientists in the field of anomaly research.

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