Books and Nachos

In partnership with Now Playing's retrospective of all Philip K Dick screen adaptations, Books & Nachos explores the source material that inspired the movies and transformed the science fiction genre for a whole generation of readers. This week Stuart takes a look at "Impostor", the 1953 short story that inspired a Gary Sinise/Vincent D'Onofrio action-mystery.

In partnership with Now Playing's retrospective of all Philip K Dick screen adaptations, Books & Nachos explores the source material that inspired the movies and transformed the science fiction genre for a whole generation of readers. This week Stuart takes a look at "Second Variety", the 1953 novella that inspired the Peter Weller midnight movie SCREAMERS.

In partnership with Now Playing's retrospective of all Philip K Dick screen adaptations, Books & Nachos explores the source material that inspired the movies and transformed the science fiction genre for a whole generation of readers. This week Stuart takes a look at "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", the short story from 1966 that inspired the Arnold Schwartzeneggar/Paul Verhoeven action movie TOTAL RECALL.

In partnership with Now Playing's retrospective of all Philip K Dick screen adaptations, Books & Nachos explores the source material that inspired the movies and transformed the science fiction genre for a whole generation of readers. This week Stuart takes a look at seminal 1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the dystopian detective novel that gave birth to the Harrison Ford/Ridley Scott classic BLADE RUNNER.

Finishing our series looking back at the Rambo novels and novelizations, Arnie sits down with author David Morrell. Morrell wrote First Blood over a decade before Stallone embodied the character onscreen, and then Morrell returned to Rambo by novelizing the screenplays for the first two film sequels. Now David Morrell opens up about why he chose to adapt someone else's story for his character, his thoughts on the films and the Rambo cartoon series, and tell us about how Rambo has influenced his career.

This week on Books & Nachos, we look at Rambo 3, written by David Morrell, author of the original Rambo novel First Blood. The film was a financial disappointment and almost killed the Rambo film franchise, but was the book our worst literary nightmare, or could Morrell save this plotline from the torture? Listen to find out! Then come back to booksandnachos.com next week as Arnie sits down with David Morrell to discuss all three Rambo novels!

Rambo made his first appearance in 1972 in David Morrell's novel First Blood, which was then adapted into a film. The film was a huge success, and so a sequel was made written by James Cameron and Sylvester Stallone. As movie novelizations are big business a novel was commissioned. None of this is shocking until you look closely at the cover--Rambo's original creator, David Morrell, returned to write the novelization of his character in a story in which he had no input. This is a very unique situation, and since our partner podcast Now Playing is reviewing all the Rambo films we felt this movie novelization would be worth a look. Listen to find out if we were right!

Books & Nachos' sister podcast, Now Playing, is spending November reviewing all of the Rambo films, so Books & Nachos decided to look back at Rambo's origin in David Morell's 1972 classic novel First Blood. How does the book compare to the legend? Listen to Arnie's review to find out, then come back later this month as Arnie interviews David Morell about Rambo!

George Lucas's Blockbusting may sound like a book chronicling George Lucas' rise to box office dominance, first through his Star Wars films, and then through Indiana Jones and the other movies he's been a part of; however, this book is actually a cultural and financial look at movies through history, including what Lucas and the editors deemed the 300 "Blockbuster" movies from 1913 through 2005. On this episode of Books & Nachos, Arnie interviews Alex Ben Block to discuss how the included films were selected, and then reviews this book to see if it deserves a place on your bookshelf!

Stephen King's latest work, Under the Dome, is his third longest novel to date, bested in page count only by his classic works The Stand and It. Does this new novel, about a small Maine town cut off from the rest of the world by an unseen force, meet the standards of those books? Listen to find out in this totally spoiler-free review! (Note: There is a spoiler-ish conversation AFTER the review regarding one of the book's larger plot twists but you will have plenty of warning so you can listen to the review and still remain totally spoiler-free).

Indiana Jones is back! With the revival of the Indiana Jones franchise in 2008 with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, now the original novelized adventures of Indy continue as well with Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead. Taking place between the 3rd and 4th Indiana Jones movies we get to see our hero back in action. But as Crystal Skull did not appease many fans of the franchise, will the book fare better? Listen to our review, and find out how you can win a copy of Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead!

Listen to find out how you can win a copy of the Iron Man novel or No Doors No Windows!

It's a house that has no right angles, walls meeting floors at curves, and may just be haunted in Joe Screiber's latest horror novel "No Doors No Windows." Books and Nachos will tell you if this book will have you clawing the walls in fear.

Avid podcaster Scott Sigler has become a novelist. Now his novels are the subject of a podcast. Is that recursive, ironic, or just a coincidence? Either way, here we review his 2008 novel Infected, which began as the podcast novel Infection in 2006. With Halloween around the corner, is this the answer to your need for scares? We'll tell you on Books and Nachos!

He Is...IRON MAN. This novelized version of the Marvel Comics superhero pits him against international terrorist group HYDRA headed by the mysterious Madame Hydra. With the success of the 2008 film this book is sure to get some attention, and we review it for you here on Books and Nachos!