One of our Forbidden Planet Stores is missing
01/07/1999 . Source: Jessica Martin 

Can you guess which one?

In the UK, if you are into science fiction and fantasy in a big way, than the chances are that you have visited one of the Forbidden Planet bookshops set up (or franchised out) by Nick Landau of Titan Publishing.

These specialist book, comic and merchandise shops have been the saviour of many a green horn fan.

Why, we at the Nest were mere strapplings rather than the oaks we were to become, when we attended the opening of Nick's first shop, the Denmark Street Forbidden Planet.

That's the good news. Here's the bad …

In those days the only competition was a Soho-based store called Dark They Were With Golden Eyes, which went down the swanny when the FP quickly out sci-fi'ed them - expanding into distribution (Titan Distribution - now owned by Diamond), and Titan Publishing.

The latter has manga magazines, graphic novels, and share-cropped media novels under its belt. But alas, we fear for the Forbidden Planet, in these days of Amazon 50% off all book type category killers.

Has the Forbidden Planet been Amazoned too? They seem to be diversifying into toys in a big way now, perhaps as a way to survive (maybe they haven't heard of e-toys.com or the orbitaltradingpost.com).

But the 100 million $ question is where the fick are Titan or the FP's web site? Even a shallow piece of brochureware would be welcome as a sign of life.

Our pals at Internic tell us that Titan has registered the URL www.forbiddenplanet-stores.com - but when we surfed on over today, we got a site registered but does not exist message.

They are in a tricky situation, because they can't out shoot Amazon on the pricing front, and their lack of a virtual presence midway through 1999 hardly denotes a web savvy attitude.

When they launch on the Web, will it be too little too late?

Nick Landau has often been characterised to us as a cautious man - a trait we share and understand, but we do hope that his outfit is going to survive into the next century.

It'll leave a sad and gaping hold in the UK professional scifi scene if the Forbidden Planet becomes another statistic in the commercial Killed by the Net massacre that is going on at the moment.

Out take on the situation? Get jiggy with the web stuff, Nick, or get ready to be spending a lot of time on a Spanish beach enjoying your hard-earned old media loot.