Keep Watching for
Keep Watching the Skies

A new edition of Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies, the definitive book about science fiction movies made in the 1950s, will soon be on the way. Just before last weekend Bill mailed off the 750,000-word manuscript, along with seven pounds of photos, and illustrations by Frank Dietz. Howard Waldrop wrote the introduction. Bill explains how they became acquainted:

I’ve never met Howard, and only talked to him on the phone twice (once the day before his surgery), but years back he wrote me a fan letter regarding Keep Watching the Skies. This was about the time I heard of his Howard Waldrop’s Condensed Cream of 1950s Science Fiction Movies presentation at a convention in, I think, Denver. He acted out key scenes from a lot of the movies. For 3-D movies, he hid under the table and threw wadded-up paper at the audience. That guy I decided I just had to know. So we started exchanging letters, beginning when he was in Texas, continuing on through his fly-fishing sojourn in Washington (state), then when he returned to Texas.

He wrote a story about the kids from 1950s SF movies — the boy befriended by Klaatu, the kid menaced by Martians in Invaders From mars, Tobor the Great’s pal Gadge, etc. — and dedicated it to William Schallert, Joe Dante and me.

3 thoughts on “Keep Watching for
Keep Watching the Skies

  1. Bill said he expected McFarland to publish it (they published the previous editions). I’ll ask him whether things have advanced far enough for there to be a release date.

  2. Illustrations by Frank Dietz? The Frank Dietz who has a tattoo by Hannes Bok on his arm?

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