We’re coming to the close of this first month of the new year and, as we look back, we’ll see that January has been filled with both joy and sadness in sci fi and fantasy culture.

The first day of 2018 actually marked the 200^th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein! And the world seems to be celebrating. Universities and other intellectual institutions all over the world are commemorating the event, including the library in my own home area of Sacramento! Even the U. K.’s Royal Mint is making a 2-pound coin that will commemorate the book. However, unlike the U.S. Postal Service with its Frankensteinstamp that it released as part of its Universal Studios Monster collection years ago, the coin won’t bear the image of the Monster as Fortune.com claims. If Fortune is right about this then I suggest that our fellow horror geeks on the British Isles circulate a petition demanding to put the Monster’s image on the coin! Without the Monster, where would Mary Shelley’s story story have gone? Victor Frankenstein’s creature itself has become iconic not only in horror and sci fi, but throughout pop culture in general.

Frankensteinwas first published January 1^st 1818. Since then, the novel has influenced speculative fiction. When the Universal film adaptation came out in the 1930s, the story influenced pop culture in general. However, Universal’s film wasn’t the original as most people may think. The original movie adaptation was a silent film made in 1910 and instead of the monster being made with the parts of corpses and brought to life by lightning, it was made by mixing chemicals in a cauldron! However, neither of these two versions’ creation of the monster stay completely true to the book. In the book, Victor Frankenstein does not reveal to anyone, reader included, how he brought the monster to life in fear of someone repeating his “mistake”.

At the beginning of the year I said that one of my resolutions was to give the Fantastic Site a new look which hopefully you’ve noticed by now. As much as I like the subject matter of the new blog background, there are a few things that concern me about it. However, I won’t tell you what they are because I want to give you a chance to tell me what you like about the new backgroundand what you don’t like about it. If enough of you don’t like it too much, I’ll chose another one. So let me know what you think in the box below (the comments box, that is).

Sadly, the year has started with the loss of one of the greatest science fiction/fantasy writers of all time a week ago today—Ursula Le Guin. Ms. Le Guin was one of the early feminist science fiction writers of modern times. She was a writer of high quality speculative fiction that explores social and cultural issues and how the future could be shaped by them. One of Le Guin’s most famous and award winning novels was The Left Hand of Darkness which, according to io9.com, will be made into a TV mini series.

Next time, I hope to have some great sci fi/fantasy news to begin the new month of February and I’ll fill you in more on my own writing projects.

Until then!