From the Archives: Six Degrees of Separation: The Beatles to SF Gateway

It comes to our attention that 50 years ago today (originally published 5/10/2012), musical legends The Beatles released their first single, Love Me Do. Now, we at SF Gateway are as ardent fans of The Fab Four as the next sentient carbon-based lifeform, but it didn’t strike us as particularly relevant to classic science fiction – until we started thinking . . .

1. The youngest of The Beatles was George Harrison.

2. Harrison counts among his many achievements the founding of Handmade Films, in 1978.

3. Handmade Films produced many notable British movies, including Guy Ritchie’s BAFTA-nominated hit Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

4. In addition to having the dubious honour of marking the ‘acting’ debut of self-styled-football-hard-man-turned-thesp Vinnie Jones, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels also featured an appearance by singer/actor Sting.

5. Sting is no stranger to the fantastic, having appeared in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the BBC’s adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books, served as the inspiration for John Constantine in Glenn Fabry’s wonderful Hellblazer covers, and – of course – played Feyd-Rautha of House Harkonnen in David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune.

6. And Frank Herbert’s Dune – as we finally get to the point – is, of course, both an SF Gateway eBook and an SF Masterworks hardback.

So there. The Beatles and classic SF – they’re virtually indistinguishable . . .