Back in June I reviewed George Pal’s first Science Fiction film, “Destination Moon” (Here:
http://www.republibot.com/content/classic-sf-movie-review-%E2%80%9Cdesti... ) a movie with some fairly profound pacing problems and spotty acting, but a heart as big as all outdoors. Ridley Scott once said that he wanted to be “The John Ford of Science Fiction Cinema,” though really Pal had already filled that role. Pal’s career went onward and upward from “moon,” cranking out a new eye-popping Science Fiction film every year, each one more successful than the rest. I had hoped to review all of his movies in the order they were released so we could sort of chart his progression as a film maker, but I guess that isn’t gonna’ happen, so let’s just jump right to the bitter end of his surprising run of successful films with “Conquest of Space.”

Man, you really have to hand it to Walt Disney: The man went beyond just typical mid-century American enthusiasm about the future, he was clearly obsessive about it. This came to fruition in the tense days following the launch of Sputnik (October 1957), in which America - caught flatfooted - struggled to figure out how to make sense of what this new "Space Age" meant.

Best. Alternate. History. Novel. Ever.

Seriously: Best. Alternate. History. Novel. Ever. Period. End Sentence.

I love alternate history novels. I like a window in to worlds where established history traveled down a different road from our own. I love visions of the myriad different ways the modern world could have turned out. I adore the questions of identity arise when you see how people could have turned out differently had they lived through altered circumstances.