In the 1790s, Britain was struck by a reading revolution, a taste for terror fiction that seemed to know no bounds. How is it that the age of Enlightenment gave rise to the genre of the literary ghost story? ‘Gothic Documents’ seeks to answer this and other questions.

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BioShock is a revolution in the shooter genre that will forever change the expectations for the FPS. Going beyond “run and gun corridors,” “monster-closet AIs” and static worlds, BioShock creates a living, unique and unpredictable FPS experience. BioShock

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A seductive and shockingly inventive literary thriller that entwines suspense, history, the supernatural, adventure, steampunk, and a wicked sense of adventure into an intoxicating new genre.

EPISODE ONE IN AN ASTONISHING NEW SERIES

New Venice–the “pearl of the Arctic”–is a place of ice palaces and pneumatic tubes, of beautifully ornate sled-gondolas and elegant Victorian garb, of long nights and short days and endless vistas of crystalline ice. But as the city prepares for spring, it feels more like qarrtsiluni– “the time when something is about to explode in the dark.”

Local “poletics” are wracked by tensions between the city’s security forces–the Subtle Army–and the Eskimos who were there first; by suffragette riots led by an underground music star; and by drug round-ups led by the ruthless secret police force known as the Gentlemen of the Night. 

Meanwhile, a mysterious and ominous black airship hovers over the city like a supernatural threat–is New Venice about to come under assault, or is it another government ploy?

At the root of it all is an anonymous pamphlet calling for revolt, which the Gentlemen suspect was written by one of the city’s most prominent figures, Brentford Orsini. But as they tighten the net around him, Orsini receives a message from a long-lost love that compels him to radical action.

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BioShock is a revolution in the shooter genre that will forever change the expectations for the FPS. Going beyond “run and gun corridors,” “monster-closet AIs” and static worlds, BioShock creates a living, unique and unpredictable FPS experience. BioShock is the Shooter 2.0.

After your plane crashes into icy uncharted waters, you discover a rusted bathysphere and descend into Rapture, a city hidden beneath the sea. Constructed as an idealistic society for a hand picked group of scientists, artists and industrialists, the idealism is no more. Now the city is littered with corpses, wildly powerful guardians roam the corridors as little girls loot the dead, and genetically mutated citizens ambush you at every turn.

• Take control of your world by hacking mechanical devices, commandeering security turrets and crafting unique items critical to your very survival.
• Upgrade your weapons with ionic gels, explosives and toxins to customize them to the enemy and environment.
• Genetically modify your body through dozens of Plasmid Stations scattered throughout the city, empowering you with fantastic and often grotesque abilities.
• Explore a living world powered by Ecological A.I., where the inhabitants have interesting and consequential relationships with one another that impact your gameplay experience.
• Experience truly next generation graphics that vividly illustrate the forlorn art deco city, highlighted by the most detailed and realistic water effects ever developed in a video game.
• Make meaningful choices and mature decisions, ultimately culminating in the grand question: do you exploit the innocent survivors of Rapture… or save them?

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One of the most acclaimed celebrity fitness DVDs of recent times, Charlie Brooks’ Before And After Workout finds fitness trainer Dee Thresher putting the former soap star through her paces with a series of five ten minute workouts.

Brooks herself claims to have lost a couple of stone using the routines on the disc already, and it’s easy to believe why. And rather than, as some in the genre choose to do, focusing heavily on the celebrity, this fitness discs puts its firm emphasis on the workout routines. They’re explained clearly, are straightforward to follow, and there’s enough variety to ensure you don’t get bored.

The routines are of varying difficulty, and unless you’re already fighting fit, it’s feasible that you’ll have some trouble with them in the early days. But then that’s the point. And because none of the workouts outstay their welcome, there’s little reason not to stay motivated. Sure, you’ll end up working hard, but there’s nothing on this disc that outstays its welcome.

It’s surprising perhaps to find a fitness DVD that has earned such acclaim, but having followed Charlie Brooks’ Before And After Workout through, the plaudits are well deserved. So if you’ve ever been frustrated by a celebrity workout disc that’s proven to be more about the former than the latter, then this will be a very welcome treat.–Ann Foster

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There’s a satisfying sense of closure to the definitive noir kick achieved in The Big Heat: its director, Fritz Lang, had forged early links from German expressionism to the emergence of film noir, so it’s entirely logical that the expatriate director would help codify the genre with this brutal 1953 film. Visually, his scenes exemplify the bold contrasts, deep shadows, and heightened compositions that define the look of noir, and he matches that success with the darkly pessimistic themes of this revenge melodrama.

The story coheres around the suicide of a crooked cop, and the subsequent struggle of an honest detective, Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford), to navigate between a corrupt city government and a ruthless mobster to uncover the truth. Initially, the violence here seems almost timid by comparison to the more explicit carnage now commonplace in films, yet the story accelerates as its plot arcs toward Bannion’s showdown with kingpin Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his psychotic henchman, the sadistic Vince Stone, given an indelible nastiness by Lee Marvin. When Bannion’s wife is killed by a car bomb intended for the detective, both the hero and the story go ballistic: suspended from the force, he embarks on a crusade of revenge that suggests a template for Charles Bronson’s Death Wish films, each step pushing Lagana and Stone toward a showdown. Bodies drop, dominoes tumbled by the escalating war between the obsessed Bannion and his increasingly vicious adversaries.

Lang’s disciplined visual design and the performances (especially those of Ford, Marvin, Jeanette Nolan as the dead cop’s scheming widow, and Gloria Grahame as Marvin’s girlfriend) enable the film to transcend formula, as do several memorable action scenes–when an enraged Marvin hurls scalding coffee at the feisty Debby (Grahame), we’re both shattered by the violence of his attack, and aware that he’s shifted the balance of power. –Sam Sutherland

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What is literary noir? How do British and American noir thrillers relate to their historical contexts? Lee Horsley’s updated study of the genre, now available in paperback, ranges over hundreds of novels from the hard-boiled fiction of Hammett, Chandler and Cain to the game-players, voyeurs and consumers of contemporary thrillers and future noir.

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This BFI Screen Guide provides an accessible, richly-illustrated introduction to 100 key noir films, from Hollywood classics such as Double Indemnity to more recent titles such as Sin City, as well as examples from Europe, Japan, India and Mexico, together with an editorial overview of the genre and its key debates.

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100 Film Noirs (Screen Guides)

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