ITEM #1: I really wish this column didn’t so often become an obituary, but it seems one of the sad realities of pop culture – as with life in general – is that we often lose things we care deeply about, and that loss is at least an opportunity to reflect on why they mattered [...]

Every person is a time capsule, a walking amalgam of memories and experiences filtered through a unique perspective. We lose so many fascinating stories with the passing of every individual, and we’re lucky when we can hold onto some of those memories and share them with others. My grandfather died last week. Benjamin S. Herman [...]

RIP, Starlog. One of the venerable institutions of the sci-fi/fantasy/horror entertainment magazine scene, Starlog is coming to an end (in print anyway) after 374 issues. Debuting in 1976, the mag quickly established itself as the premiere place to go for news on all the latest in genre entertainment. And don’t forget, this is before we [...]

Just bringing you a little nostalgia for the dawn of the 20th century and its quaint but optimistic vision of humanity moving majestically into the stars. Here at GEM we have quite a few examples of early “scientifiction” publications, including pulps and magazines that were aimed at the science/electrical/technical hobbyist audience, featuring all manner of [...]

Providing a little heads-up that the next in our GEM Lecture series is coming up in a couple weeks, but we’ve tweaked things and we hope you’ll enjoy the changes. We’ve decided to reshape the whole series into something that’s more inviting for people getting off work and eager to decompress with some coffee and [...]