SOMETIMES, A WRITER CAN TELL YOU exactly where a book began its journey to publication. That’s the case with Christina Dalcher’s Femlandia, a dystopian take on a women-only society. It sprang into life when she read a synopsis for Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian Herland (1915). “I knew I wanted to flip Herland on its head and create not a benevolent all-female community but a sinister one,” she says. “A place where the idea of living without men is taken to an extreme.”
So why does Dalcher’s protagonist, Miranda Reynolds, choose to live in such a society? Well, she and her daughter, Emma, live in a country undergoing economic collapse, and Femlandia was founded by Miranda’s mother. “For ideas on how to ruin an economy in a short time, I went to a long-time friend who works in investment banking,” says Dalcher. “He told me three words: ‘pension fund crisis’.”
Dalcher also took inspiration from real-world intentional communities. Some of these have a culture that nurtures their members, but by no means all. “These are places built on a specific ideology, shielded from mainstream society and considered havens for their members,” says Dalcher, “The questions that kept popping into my mind were these: how far might the leaders of these communities go to maintain their ideas, and what happens when the members are kept in the dark?”
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2021 من SFX.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2021 من SFX.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Making Alien - Jaws in Space - Forty-five years on from its original release, Alien continues to terrify. We dissect what arguably remains the most chilling instalment in the saga
The seven-strong crew of the commercial mining spacecraft the Nostromo seal their fate after reluctantly responding to a mysterious distress signal on a hostile planet. Here, a face-hugging alien from a derelict ship impregnates and later kills executive officer Kane (John Hurt) after its offspring is birthed onboard. After being unleashed, the fearsome newborn with acid for blood proceeds to dispatch the remainder of the crew.Ridley Scott's much more convoluted prequels have yet to reveal how the knowledge that led to this initial interception was acquired. However, the premise of the original Alien is perfect in its uncomplicated purity.
PURE AND SIMPLE
IN THE FINAL PART OF OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, SHOWRUNNER RUSSELL T DAVIES TALKS RELAUNCHING DOCTOR WHO
TO CAP IT ALL OFF
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF THE BBC SERIES THE TRIPODS
FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE WALKING DEAD SPIN-OFF SHOWRUNNER DAVID ZABEL ON BEING GIVEN THE TOUGH TASK OF REUNITING DARYL AND CAROL IN FRANCE
SILENT KILLERS
THE DIRECTOR OF HOLLYWOOD'S SPEAK NO EVIL REMAKE ON HORROR, COMEDY AND JAMES MCAVOY
BRING OUT YOUR DEAD
THE GHOST WITH THE MOST RETURNS FINALLY - IN BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
TEENAGE DREAM
JOE LOCKE HITS THE ROAD RUNNING
MOB RULE THE PENGUIN
GOTHAM'S UP FOR GRABS IN BRUISING NEW CRIME SAGA BUT WHERE IS THE BATMAN?
SEASON OF THE WITCH
AS MARVEL TELEVISION CARVES OUT A NEW PATH FOR ITSELF, WE SPEAK TO CREATOR JAC SCHAEFFER, PLUS A CAST OF STARS LED BY KATHRYN HAHN AND JOE LOCKE, ABOUT THE MAGIC OF WANDAVISION'S SPIN-OFF AGATHA ALL ALONG
Ghouls Allowed
Even silence can't save you at this year's Halloween Horror Nights