Syndicated Zine Reviews

Opuntia 70.1D

from Blackguard

16 pages, digest size, $3.00 cash for a one-time sample copy, trade for your zine, or letter of comment - Dale Speirs, Box 6830, Calgary, Alberta, CANADA, T2P 2E7
With Dale's unique zine-numbering system, '.1' issues are reviewzines, so that's what we got here.
First up a review of 'Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World' by Tom Zoellner [2009] which covers the history of uranium.
Next up a review of 'Fiat Money Inflation in France' by Andrew Dickson White [1921, revised 1933], a study of hyperinflation in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
So far, pretty dry stuff that didn't interest me very much.
But then along comes 'Thar She Blows!' where Dale reviews a whole bunch of volcano disaster movies and TV episodes, including Dante's Peak [1997] (Dale admits that he has no practical experience with volcanoes - "...the last volcano in Alberta cut loose 63 megayears ago, so we don't have to carry extra coverage on our house insurance"); Volcano [1997]; Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York [2006]; a 1966 episode of TV series The Time Tunnel that featured Krakatoa; Krakatoa: East of Java [1969] (Dale points out that "the movie is more famous for its title than its content, since Krakatoa is actually northwest of Java, but Hollywood never lets piddly little details like that get in the way."); Magma: Volcanic Disaster [2006]; and an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that featured a device that can activate individual volcanoes from the other side of the globe. (Holy shit, pretty awesome weapon for a supervillain right there!)
The issue wraps up with 'The State of Zinedom As Of 2010-12-31', including a table that shows numbers of zines received from Australia, Canada, Britain, USA and Others between 1998-2010. In 1998 Dale received 23 zines from Australia, but that dropped off dramatically within the next few years, but seems to have been holding steady at 5 or 6 for each year since 2006.
Despite the 'just the facts, ma'am' layout and occasional dry, uninteresting piece, every issue of Opuntia has something that totally kicks ass.