And books!

WICKED RIVER: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild by Lee Sandlin looks back at the centuries when the Mississippi represented both the boundary of American civilization and the continent’s great natural wonder, a seemingly untameable force (“The flow could change so abruptly that there were slave-owners who woke up in free states and discovered their slaves were now emancipated.”) whose rep for wickedness related as much to the countless natural dangers for travelers as to the thieves, con man and counterfeiters who headed up and down the mighty river, often one step ahead of “Judge Lynch.” Sandlin touches a wide variety of topics including duels, pirates, slavery, trade, the Mound Builders (though in showing the misconceptions of past Mississippi residents he doesn’t make it clear that they were, indeed, built by Native Americans) and the 19th century process that created the more controllable river we have today. Very good.
Four years after Captain Future Magazine bit the dust, Startling Stories picked up Edmond Hamilton’s space adventure for a run of short stories, now collected in CAPTAIN FUTURE—MAN OF TOMORROW. The stories shoot for fewer pulp thrills and more thoughtfulness (in “Return of Captain Future,” Future simply talks a bodysnatching alien out of its war on humanity) with a lot of emphasis on the impact of Curt Newton’s unnatural upbringing disconnecting him from everyday people. The series also includes one story narrated by Future’s loyal robot Grag and one focusing on Curt’s mentor the Brain (curiously none for Otho the Android); not as much fun as the original run, but still entertaining, with lots of Hamilton’s imagination on display.