Dio: Holy Diver (1983)

Dio: Holy Diver (1983)

Dio's début album is a bona fide music masterpiece that I feel is fully deserving of its lauded status among fans - there's not a single weak track on it. It's one of my favourite records from the entire 80s metal scene.

A number of similar themes recurred time and again in Ronnie James Dio's oeuvre, both in his solo work and during his time with Black Sabbath. 

His imagery-filled lyrics, often reminiscent of a time of chivalry and myth, celebrated an era in which magic could initiate real change and provide a voice to the voiceless.

Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

Dir. Kōji Shiraishi

A crossover of the Japanese Ring and Ju-On franchises that was teased as an April Fool's joke the year before it was released. I'm sure that I'm not alone in thinking it should've stayed a joke - although, while I'm on the subject of such things, does anyone actually like April Fools on the internet? It's fake news. Why is that a good thing?

SvK, however, turned out not to be fake, which is the most praise I can give it, having now seen it. It's getting its own post only because it doesn't fit canonically in any of the other Ring or Ju-On posts that I've made. It's its own thing with its own rules, so can be completely ignored if you choose to, even if you're a fan of the two things that it brings together. You can safely put FoMO to bed.

Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars (1975)

Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars (1975)

Dir. Paddy Russell | 4 episodes, approx 25 mins each

I mentioned that Pyramids of Mars was included as an extra on Series 04 of The Sarah Jane Adventures DVD + Blu-ray, which is a good enough reason for me to want to give a little more information on it.

Stargate is my favourite onscreen merger of sci-fi and Egyptian mythology, but it isn't the only Movie or TV Series to have connected the two things. Doctor Who did it almost two decades before. [1]

It's a Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) adventure in which Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) has a fairly significant role. It's a good example of how much she brought to the series, both as a fully-rounded character in her own right and as a foil for the Doctor.

She isn't his gofer, written in just to do the boring stuff, but is very much there because she wants to be. They joke with each other on equal terms, and she's not afraid to let him know if he's being insensitive or callous when dealing with humans; he's an alien and has an alien perspective.

The Road to DUNE (2005)

The Road to DUNE (2006)

Authors: Brian Herbert / Kevin J Anderson / Frank Herbert | Page Count: 381

'These things I tell: the sequential nature of real history cannot be repeated precisely by prescience. We grasp incidents cut out of the chain. That is why I deny my own powers. Eternity moves. It inflicts itself upon me.'

A collection of DUNE related texts that's primarily another cash-in for two of the named authors but may be of legitimate interest to fans of Frank Herbert because it contains material that he wrote for DUNE (1965) and DUNE Messiah (1969) that weren't used, for various reasons; e.g., it was deemed unnecessary; cut for length; or got rewritten prior to final publication.

Unfortunately, that material makes up just a small portion of the book's content, with much of the remainder being bloat or newly written extended universe crap. In the order it appears in the book: