December 2013

The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

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The novel “The Fall” by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan was published for the first time in 2010. It’s the second novel in the Strain trilogy and is the sequel to “The Strain”.

The heterogeneous group formed by professor Abraham Setrakian, epidemiologist Ephraim Goodweather, his colleague Nora Martinez and exterminator Vasiliy Fet is trying to organize a resistance against the lethal virus that is causing an epidemic definitely out of the ordinary in New York. The infected are turned into vampires, part of the plan of an old master who wants to impose his power.

Screenshot from Doom secret level

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On December 10, 1993, id Software made ​​available the MS-DOS computer game “Doom” in its shareware version on the first of a series of bulletin boards and an ftp server giving rise to one of the most legendary stories in videogame history. The shareware version included only the first episode, titled “Knee-Deep in the Dead”, while the commercial version offered for sale included two more episodes: “Shores of Hell” and “Inferno”.

The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold and Larry Niven (Italian edition)

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The novel “The Flying Sorcerers” by David Gerrold and Larry Niven was published for the first time in 1970 under the title “The Misspelled Magishun” serialized in the magazine “If” and as a book in 1971.

Life in the village of Lant has been going on normally when one day a strange looking magician arrives on a flying egg. Shoogar, the magician of the village, challenges him to a duel, but the newcomer doesn’t seem very interested in him but only to perform strange rituals here and there. His language is unknown but thanks to a spell never seen before he can more or less communicate with the natives and his name seems to be something like Purple.

The artificial heart produced by Carmat (Photo courtesy Carmat. All rights reserved)

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A new type of artificial heart has been approved for human tests in France, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia and Saudi Arabia. The goal is to apply for a business license in the European Union and seek an American partner to extend the offer in the USA. The peculiarity of this artificial heart is that it was built using the space technology developed to build satellites.