Nation Awakens is an upcoming Pakistani movie which is also the first super-hero movie coming out of Pakistan. It is also supposed to be the most expensive movie ever made in Pakistan costing 250 million rupees. Aamir Sajjad who is the producer as well as the lead in the movie says about the movie, “A superhero in that context [of Pakistan] will be one who aims to preserve humanity on a global level.” Nation Awakes … Continue reading
(An illustration from one of Al-Qizwini’s books) In his review of Arabic Science Fiction Ackhmed Khammas mentions that al-Qizwini wrote a story Awaj bin Anfaq which has proto Science Fiction elements e.g., i.e., a man who came to earth from a distant planet. Abu Yahya Zakariya’ ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini (1203–1283) was a Persian or Arab scientist who is most famous for two books: ‘Aja’ib al-makhluqat wa-ghara’ib al-mawjudat عجائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات (“Marvels of Creatures and … Continue reading
Teesri Aankh or The Third Eye is a stage play that debuted in Lahore in early 2012 and is the first known SciFi stage play in Urdu. The play was directed by Talal Ali Jan. Here is a clip (in Urdu) from Dunya TV and the premise of the play from the Pakistani cultural events website Danka: Humanity is on the brink of collapsing, with prospects of the Third World War becoming ever more real. … Continue reading
The newest incarnation of the Green Lantern re-images the Green Lantern as an Arab-American Muslim from Dearborn. Simon Baz takes the mantle of the Green Lantern after the death of the last Green Lantern. The new version of the Green Lantern was launched on the anniversary of 9/11 and is also supposed to illustrate that Muslim-Americans suffered as much from the unfortunate events of 9/11 as the rest of the nation. While there has been … Continue reading
Turkish Science Fiction has come a long way and it will not be long before Turkey produces world class sci-fi. Long before Sadik Yemni, GORA, Book of Madness etc there was Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam or The Man Who Saved the World. It was one of those movies which are so bad that they are good. The movie is famous for its over the top premise and using unauthorized footage from Star Wars as well as … Continue reading
Technically this is not Sci-Fi or even canonical comic books but the following two images first made rounds in the Turkish blogsphere and then into the wider Muslim blogsphere in the English speaking world and thus we felt compelled to cover it here. The first image is from a prayer guide published by the Turkish department of religious affairs and was geared towards teaching praying (salat in Arabic and Namaz in Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Hindi … Continue reading
Sadik Yemni is a Turkish-Dutch novelist who has been called the Lord of Turkish Fiction. His work combines multiple genres like detective fiction, science fiction, drama, paranormal, horror and humor. Here is a synopsis of some of his well known science fiction novels: The Other Side (Öte Yer): A probe launch to the moon in the mid-sixties sends back the message “Is every thing O.K. D-Boy?” years after it has been terminated. The message appears … Continue reading
One of the earliest Turkish Sci-Fi Utopias was written by the Turkish nationalist author Raif Necdet. In Semavi İhtiras (The Celestial Passion), published in 1933 a future secular and republican Turkish utopia is imagined. The story is about Nobel-prize winning Turkish authors and Turkish girls who have many more freedoms including freedom of mobility as compared to the contemporary milieu, not just in Turkey but in the rest of the world as, in which Necdet … Continue reading
Baska Dunyalar Mumkun or Other Worlds Are Possible is a compilation of science-fiction reviews and critiques. It is the first literary anthology of its kind in Turkey devoted to the subject of Science Fiction as a literary genre - the anthology of science-fiction, dystopia and cyberpunk to be exact. The publishing of this volume also demonstrates the arrival of Science Fiction as a literary genre in Turkey, although it still has a long way to … Continue reading
A.R.O.G is the sequel to G.O.R.A which we covered last week and is also a goof ball sci-fi comedy in the same mold as the first movie. The evil commander from the first movie comes back and sends him back to the past – one million years into the past to be exact. Thus begin Arif’s adventures in trying to educate the cavepeople in a world full of dinosaurs (ok so the dinosaurs went extinct … Continue reading