We here at Den of Geek believe there is no better gift than a good book and, with nerd culture still very much mainstream culture, there is no shortage of geeky books to get the nerd in your life. From Star Wars and Star Trek to Outlander and Wheel of Time to those speculative fiction books that broke into the zeitgeist this year without a franchise to support them, here’s a list of books we recommend for every kind of geek… Editor’s note: Den of Geek may receive a small commission from items purchased through the links in this story....

An original IP from Dutch developer Guerrilla Games, the Horizon franchise is one ripe for further exploration and expansion. And rumor has it that Guerrilla has plans to not only make a sequel but a third installment, turning the Horizon series into a trilogy, but this has not been confirmed. For now, we know that Horizon Forbidden West continues Aloy’s story “as she moves west to a far-future America to brave a majestic, but dangerous frontier where she’ll face awe-inspiring machines and mysterious new threats,” according to the PlayStation Blog....

The opening moments of House of the Dragon episode 4 “King of the Narrow Sea” feature an unfortunate but necessary bit of Westerosi politicking. In an attempt to humor her father, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) has arrived at Storm’s End to hear marriage proposals from all the would-be suitors of the realm. After the old and tedious Lord Dondarrion has his say, another claimant for Rhaenyra’s hand steps forward: an extremely young unnamed royal lad from House Blackwood in the Riverlands....

In the vampire-killing continuity of The Lost Boys, that intriguing humble-brag by Corey Haim’s Sam Emerson could very well be the definitive way to declare yourself amongst the elite of geekdom. Yet, while the 1987 film—notably from future Batman film franchise director Joel Schumacher—was rife with riffs directed at the hitherto untapped masses of comic book fandom, this shout-out to a Golden Age issue would, indeed, make it “a very serious book, man,” as Corey Feldman’s Edgar Frog famously replied....

The Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t do standalone movies—not really. Even the most isolated of MCU narratives have connections to the rest of the fictional universe, and work to set up upcoming stories. Normally, this process may be surprising in precisely how it is executed, but straight-forward in that it is setting up the next story or stories in the MCU. The Black Widow movie, slated for a July release, challenges that obvious structure....

Despite his struggle with colon cancer, which finally claimed him at the age of 43, Boseman made one last film before his death. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on the Tony-winning play by legendary playwright August Wilson, premieres on Netflix this week and marks the final screen appearance of the actor. Boseman plays Levee, a fictional trumpeter in the band of Ma Rainey, a pioneering artist in the 1920s who was among the first African-American blues singers to record and sell her songs....

When Frank Herbert published “Dune World,” the first part of what would become the novel Dune in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1963, it was a moment that would reverberate through modern science fiction for decades to come, especially on the big screen, where the story’s influence can still be felt to this day. In fact, you can easily track how Herbert’s creation led to some of the biggest blockbuster franchises of all time....

Michael Myers isn’t exactly known for indulgently ostentatious displays of his victims, and typically kills with silent efficiency before moving on to find further opportunities. However, the trailer for director David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills has the archetypal slasher in unique form, since we are shown a trio of his latest victims carefully displayed on a playground merry-go-round, each adorned with macabre masks of a skull, jack-o’-lantern and witch, which, of course, are the glow-in-the-dark guises manufactured by the sinister Silver Shamrock Novelties company in Season of the Witch....

“Dreams didn’t make us kings. Dragons did.” The Iron-Throne-accompanying trailer line, delivered by Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), reveals a practical level of self-awareness from the dragon-riding warrior royal, who is the younger brother of ruler King Viserys I (Paddy Considine). While one might offer a snide addendum that incest also played a factor, with Daemon being married to his brother’s daughter, first-born would-be royal heir Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), we always knew how this family rolls, and dragons do tend to dominate conversations....

“Fear is the key to human nature,” the Great Stanton learns in William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley. That 1946 novel was a hit when it came out, even though it was banned and censored. And its spell lingered so long it was adapted by Academy Award-winning horror maestro, Guillermo del Toro, in 2021 with Bradley Cooper starring as the carny medium. This most recent adaptation, however, is just the second screen version, following in the footsteps of a 1947 cult noir classic starring Tyrone Power....

Before our sun burned hot in space and before even my toddler could pull off a reasonable William Shatner impersonation, time portals and paradoxes have been a staple of science fiction. Whether it was Bradbury’s butterfly or Heinlein’s bootstraps, those who love outer space sci-fi have been preconditioned to also love time travel sci-fi, forever. Kirk and Picard told us that “space” is the final frontier, but they failed to mention that the Star Trek franchise is sometimes at its best when it also travels in time, a concept that was introduced early on in Trek canon with the Guardian of Forever....

A perfect example comes midway through White Noise. Using what Lombroso cites as a strong tool for any cinema vérité documentarian, the montage, he tracks how one of the movie’s primary subjects, alt-right personality Mike Cernovich, spent the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign tweeting across the internet an erroneous smear about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Cernovich falsely claimed she had covered up a series of seizures, including on Sept....

Normally we might let something like that go if the rest of the movie entertains or makes up for it, but Infinite doesn’t do either. In addition to that cliché rescue maneuver (which is followed by a destructive and pointless car chase through the inside of a police station), the film contains a string of laughably implausible and uninspired action sequences while borrowing freely and liberally from films like The Old Guard, The Matrix, Nobody, Avengers: Infinity War, and any of the X-Men entries....

Fans of Anne Rice’s book series, and viewers who only know the characters from AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, will be equally shocked by the season 1 finale, “The Thing Lay Still.” If you haven’t seen it, stop reading now. The vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) is given a vampire time-out by those he gave the Dark Gift to, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), and Claudia (Bailey Bass)....

That’s because a German shell (or flak) has pierced directly through the center of his B-24 Liberator. The whiplash is so intense that only harnesses keep him in his seat. Still, Stewart rises in the air; pilot Capt. Neil Johnson’s hands are briefly shaken from the controls; and for a moment, the entire plane is consumed with smoke as it violently ascends. When Stewart finally gets his bearings, he’s able to look down and see the hole in the aircraft—the edge of it is inches from his boot....

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 15 “Our story is about three young women bursting with talent.” When last we saw Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), she was in New York City trying to make her dreams come true on the ill-fated (and gone-too-soon) Riverdale spin-off Katy Keene. Often when characters are spun-off and their subsequent shows fail, they vanish into the pop culture ether — The Ropers from Three’s Company being the textbook case of this phenomenon....

“Legendary composer John Williams is 90 years old. He’s written music for over 150 movies, with several pieces becoming so iconic and recognizable, people know them even if they haven’t seen the film. He’s largely regarded as the greatest composer in the history of cinema, but his career may soon be coming to an end.” Read more at Gizmodo Thor: Love and Thunder has yet to release to the public, but fans are already asking the question of whether or not there will be a Thor 5?...

“Over 20 years before Iron Man kick-started what’s now the Marvel Cinematic Universe—the pop-culture juggernaut that devours so much of the box office—another Marvel hero got his chance to save the world. Big difference, though: the star of Howard the Duck didn’t exactly set the world on fire with his efforts.” Read more at Gizmodo. Few novels are as universally loved as Pride and Prejudice, but even Jane Austen’s most famous work had its contemporary critics....

“Choosing a favorite Pixar movie is an impossible task we wouldn’t wish on anyone—not even Sid, the toy-torturing bully first introduced to audiences back in 1995. But with the release of the Italian seaside adventure Luca on Disney+, we revisited all 24 Pixar feature films that have made us laugh and (especially) cry over the past 26 years to assess them from worst to best.” Read more at Thrillist. Juneteenth’s recognition as an official federal holiday happened in no small part thanks to Opal Lee, the 94-year-old Black activist known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth....

“In Rian Johnson’s whodunnit Knives Out, a metaphorical donut and donut hole lay out the mystery. For the film’s sequel, another food will guide the way: The multilayered onion. That’s right, the title for Benoit Blanc’s next adventure is Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Read more at The A.V. Club The main villain of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has been revealed, and it’s a deeper cut into Marvel comics lore than we expected....