New Jurassic Park reprints

Check out this beautiful omnibus of Jurassic Park and The Lost World. I'm very tempted to replace my mismatched copies with this pretty version:

Amazon's description:

From master thriller writer Michael Crichton: Two imaginative masterpieces of speculative science, full of adventure and larger-than-life characters. In Jurassic Park, scientists of today clone dinosaurs of the prehistoric past to serve as attractions in a modern theme park. When a rival biogenetic firm attempts to steal the scientists secret, the stage is set for a nightmare of science and dinosaurs run amok. The Lost World picks up the story six years later, with scientists scrambling to find the jungle island that served as the dinosaur production factory for Jurassic Park. Once again, rivalry and subterfuge combine to create life-threatening dangers for the scientists, who must contend with the rampaging dinosaurs as well as their cutthroat competitors. This volume contains the full text of both of Michael Crichton s bestselling novels. Featuring a beautifully stamped bonded leather cover, gilt edging, colorful endpapers, and a satin-ribbon bookmark, this collectible edition is a fine addition to any home library.

The novel omnibus is out already, while coming in January from IDW is their fourth omnibus of classic Jurassic Park comics: Return to Jurassic Park, Part One. With another nice cover:

Amazon's description:

The fourth volume of Classic Jurassic Park stories continues with Return to Jurassic Park #1-9, which contains the lead-in story to the four-issue adaptation of The Lost World. It also contains the two part stories "Heirs to the Thunder" and "Photo Finish" ending with the final issue, "Jurassic Jam," which featured multiple artists such as John Byrne and Walter Simonson.

And IDW's solicitation blurb:

The fourth volume of Classic Jurassic Park stories continues with Return to Jurassic Park #1-4. When a U.S. soldier is found floating, dead, off the coast of Costa Rica word makes its way to InGen headquarters in Palo Alto. Before long, Grant, Ellie, and Muldoon are headed back to Isla Nublar! And they're not going to like what they find on the island... Fills in the story between the first JP and The Lost World.

Bookshelf for your bookshelf

One of my favourite obscure-subject blogs is Bookshelf, a blog dedicated to showing the world the many varied bookshelves you can get, or make, to put your books on. They blew-my-storage-space-obsessed mind recently with an incredible stairs/drawers post. Due to being so awesome and unique the blog is being turned into something to be kept on its own subject matter, a book! And they have recently been showing off the cover, featuring, of course, a quirky bookcase:

So go check out the blog, or pre-order the book; should be good!

Out of This World

Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It, was an exhibition recently held at the British Library, looking at the historical origins of science fiction - A review of it, by Wired, suggests they nailed that down to 170AD! I unfortunately only heard of it a couple of weeks after the exhibition closed, thanks to a review of the accompanying book I found on Grasping for the Wind. The exhibition and book were/are split into six thematic sections: Alien Worlds, Time and Parallel Worlds, Virtual Worlds, Future Worlds, The End of the World, and The Perfect World. Reflecting the exhibition the book is richly illustrated, and also goes to some effort to expand its exploration of the subject to include sources outside the usual english language male dominated world of sci-fi. It sounds really interesting, and is certainly being added to my to-read list, so I mention it here imagining you might feel the same - Have a read of those aforementioned reviews and I’m sure you'll agree.

Arthur Christmas trailer

Arthur Christmas, is the latest animation from Aardman (makers of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, etc), and looks just as brilliant as everything they've made before, with an original take on how Christmas works:

Latest Muppets trailer

Need I say more? Watch:

BBC's Frozen Planet

The BBC has released a trailer for it's next big natural history series, Frozen Planet:

The BBC's Youtube channel also has several clips up from the series.

Doctor Who complete season six box set

Doctor Who News has reported details of the forthcoming Doctor Who complete season six boxset. All thirteen episodes will be included, plus cutdown versions of Doctor Who Confidential. Also included will be the last christmas speical, A Christmas Carol, the comic relief mini episode, Space & Time, the five webisodes that were released before episodes this season, and audio commentaries for four episodes. Additionally there will be a special five-miniepisode story just on the DVDs and blurays, called Night and the Doctor, with an accompanying Confidential episode.

The UK release will also be available in a limited edition Silence edition, with four lenticular prints (gifs of which are after the jump):

Doctor Who Confidential cancelled

As reported by The Guardian, Doctor Who Confidential, the behind-the-scenes companion program to Doctor Who, will not be returning with the next series, as part of the BBC's cost cutting. The BBC had this to say on the matter:

Doctor Who Confidential has been a great show for BBC3 over the years but our priority now is to build on original British commissions, unique to the channel.

I can't deny Confidential is far from perfect; it's too long, so gets padded out with fluff. But both excuses given by the BBC seem flawed to me: It must be one of the cheapest programs they can make, as everything they need for it is already in place from the production of Doctor Who; all they have to do is throw an extra crew in to film it, and pop it through an edit suite. And it is an original British commission, or is documentary exempt from that classification? What other program gives viewers such an incite in television production? An inspirational and informative look at one of the UK's biggest industries. It seems to me that the BBC should be the proud home of such programing, not removing it for poor reasons.

Jurassic Park Dangerous Games #4 solicitation

IDW's solicitations for December are out, which include the penultimate issue of the Jurassic Park series, Dangerous Games. Here's how they describe it:

Agent Espinoza has evaded near death on Jurassic Park countless times over the past 24 hours. Now he's looking to payback the man behind it all- drug kingpin Cazares! That means breaking into Cazares' headquaters in the Jurassic Park hotel... which is fortified with countless gun-toting goons! How can Espinoza storm the compound? A herd of triceratops might not hurt, for starters!

The issue will be available in a standard cover or black white retail incentive:

 

Out this week was the second issue of the series; if you haven't got it yet Comic Book Resources have a seven-page preview. Here's one page: