It's Deathscribe time again! This week, Summer chats with the five writer/director teams of the finalists for the Deathscribe 2016, the International Festival of Horror Radio Plays.

This year, Deathscribe will be performed live on stage in Chicago on Monday, December 5 at a new venue, Lincoln Hall, and tickets are available online.

Do you enjoy horror performed on stage, in podcast form, or would you rather curl up with a book (or e-reader) on a sofa in the dark? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, send Summer an email, or leave your comments below!

This week, Summer chats with SFX expert Alec Gillis of Studio ADI to chat about the craft and effects behind "The Monster", the latest creature feature to entice our horror appetites.

Alec worked with effects legend Stan Winston on Aliens, Alien Nation and more before co-founding Studio ADI with Tom Woodruff, where they worked on a few more genre favorites, such as Tremors, Starship Troopers, Wolf, and winning an Academy Award for Death Becomes Her.

You can check out Studio ADI's behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube: youtube.com/user/studioADI

How do you prefer your monsters, hand-crafted or digitally designed? Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!

This week, author and new Slice of SciFi contributor Tom Leveen joins Summer to talk about a new indie scifi-horror film, "The Similars (aka Los Parecidos)".

The movie is set in 1968, in a rural bus station outside Mexico City, just as a mysterious storm is engulfing the entire world, enhancing an increasing paranoia & confusion that's gripping the world and how this small group of people handles the deteriorating situation they find themselves trapped in.

The acting is intense, and the cinematography adds to the isolation and the claustrophobic feel, and no obvious musical cues served to try to manipulate reactions, and everything about it can easily remind viewers about classic "Twilight Zone".

Have a question or comment about any cool indie horror movies you've seen lately? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!

This week, author / journalist Rod Pyle joins Summer in a lively chat about science fiction becoming science fact, and exploring those inventions in his new book, "Blueprint for a Battlestar".

The table of contents for this book contains just about everything we've seen or wanted to see of the gadgets -- and the nightmares -- we've been seeing in our genre films for decades.

We talk about the feasibility of the things that are close to existing to the outliers that are still just beyond our scientific know-how, and that conversation wanders from flying cars and self-driving cars to AIs and fembots, from battle drones to insects being used as surveillance drones and more... and to some extent, the human factor that affects this all.

Rod also talks a little bit about his upcoming space race book, "Amazing Stories of the Space Age", out from Prometheus in January, and some of the forgotten or abandoned space projects from our world's attempts to reach farther out into space.

Have a question or comment on things Sci-Fi to Sci-Fact, and the cool toys we still hope are on the way? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!

This week, Summer chats with director William Kaufman about his latest project, an indie apocalyptic zombie/action feature "Daylight's End".

William talks about indie filmmaking, and shooting a genre feature on a shoestring budget, about filming in Texas in the heat of July and August, and the thrill of working with genre icon Lance Henriksen. He also talks about improving yourself as a filmmaker by getting out there and just shooting projects, learning by doing, and the freedom of indie filmmaking.

"Daylight’s End", a post-apocalyptic zombie thriller, is set years after a mysterious plague has devastated the planet and turned most of humanity into blood-hungry creatures that roam by night. A rogue drifter on a vengeful hunt stumbles across a band of survivors in an abandoned police station and reluctantly agrees to try to help them defend themselves and escape to the sanctuary they so desperately need.

Have a question or comment about indie filmmaking, and what types of indies you look to check out? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!

This week, Summer chats with director Marty Langford about "Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four", his recently released documentary about the Marvel movie that was never intended to seen.

Next, Noah and Daren join Summer to talk about the documentary and how the movie being shelved connects with the rest of the history of Marvel Comics, and then we wander into talking about the current elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We digress, a lot.

Have a question or comment about "Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four"? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!

In a story much like "Star Wars" meets "Mad Max", "Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter" focuses on an Artificial Intelligence overthrow of humanity, and follows the determined rebel Sienna (Birdsall) in her quest to take down the droid empire.

First, actor/producer Tracey Birdsall talks about finding the right story and getting the film made, including finding remote locations that looked different enough from each other to represent multiple worlds around the galaxy, about the importance of doing the robots and ships as models and practical effects for this project, the physical demands of her role and more.

Website: traceybirdsall.com

Twitter: @traceybirdsall1

Next, Ashley Park talks about her experiences in making the film, and how much fun she had doing her first scifi feature, and also goes into some recent horror films she's got on her plate, the anthology "Terror Tales" and the upcoming female-focused scifi thriller "Trapdoor".

Twitter: @xoashleypark

Have a question or comment about "Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter"? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!

This week, actor Clifton Collins Jr (Capote, Star Trek, Pacific Rim) stops by to chat about his role in HBO's new original series Westworld, based on the 1973 Michael Crichton film, where people can enter a real-world theme park inhabited by AI "hosts" and indulge uninhibited in any fantasy or desire, no matter how dark or noble it might be.

Clifton plays "Lawrence", a charming but lethal outlaw with a knack for negotiating his way around the various criminal elements of Westworld. While the series does delve into concepts of consciousness and morality, Clifton's connection is more with finally being able to do a Western, like his grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez had done, being in some many movies with Howard Hawks and John Wayne, and being able to wear his grandfather's gunbelt on the show.

This week, Summer chats with SFX artist Jim Ojala about his indie creature feature, Strange Nature. The story behind the mutant monster in the film is based on an actual real-life phenomenon that began mutating frogs in Minnesota in 1995, and Jim has been following this particular syndrome since he grew up near where it first began occurring. And all of the deformed frogs used in the film were real specimens obtained from scientists.

Is this the type of monster movie you'd want to see? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!

This week, science writer Andrew Fazekas talks about his latest book, Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe: The True Science Behind the Starship Voyages. A member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Andrew writes for National Geographic News and for the CBC, and talks about how Star Trek led him into wanting to watch the skies and explore the science and wonders of the universe.

Website: thenightskyguy.com andrewfazekas.com

Twitter: @thenightskyguy

Did Star Trek inspire any science or engineering endeavors for your? Let us know! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!