23 years of this site still chugging along...
Niven/Pournelle’s The Mote In God’s Eye in development as a series
by Doc on Dec.02, 2024, under Books, Television
[Whoa…a new post?!?]
On Saturday at Loscon 50, at a panel on “The Influence Larry Niven has had on Science Fiction”, which the grand master himself in attendance and led by writer/producer Dr. Harry Kloor (Star Trek: Voyager), Kloor announced that the Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle novel The Mote In God’s Eye, is in development as a series to be produced and written by Kloor and Joseph Mallozzi (Dark Matter, Stargate: Atlantis), with Mallozzi as showrunner. Michael Rosenberg (Hell On Wheels, Hung) also will produce.
Before getting your hopes up, this is just an “in development” announcement, and it still has a long road ahead of it, but I am very hopeful especially with Mallozzi involved.
Published in 1974, the The Mote In God’s Eye is set in the CoDominium universe of stories, in a time after a civil war destroyed the first Empire of Man, and while a second empire is forming, a lot of the advanced technology has become scarce and primarily in the hands of an interstellar navy trying to hold the empire together. The technology includes the Alderson Drive, a jump drive that allows ships to travel instantly via “Alderson points” that link the systems together along gravitic “tram lines” that connect between most all star systems. Ships still need to travel in normal space at slow speeds to reach these points, and also retain their momentum when they jump. There is also the Langston Field, a forcefield of sorts that can protect against and dissipate energy, including weapons fire – but if they are unable to dissipate the energy fast enough can have catastrophic results for the ship it is protecting.
In the Trans-Coal Sack sector of the empire (the opposite side of the Coal Sack nebula from Earth), the Second Empire of Man is recovering from devastating Secession Wars, and ships and Langston Fields have become scarce. On the other side of the Coal Sack, while the navy fights battles against rebels and pirates, a new potential threat is discovered – an alien space ship is approaching from a course from the “Mote”, a small star near a red supergiant called Murcheson’s Eye. No one has ever visited the Mote before, as the theoretical Alderson Point to jump to it would exist within the photosphere of Murcheson’s Eye itself. The ship is approaching New Caledonia via normal space – a solar sail craft launched over a hundred years earlier by a massive laser that for a time made the Mote brighter than the Eye. Now man’s first encounter with an alien species approaches, and the INSS MacArthur, captained by Roderick Blaine, is sent to intercept – only to result in an incident where the alien pilot – a strange brown and white furred, three-armed creature, is killed. A new mission is formed, including the MacArthur, to travel to the Mote and find out where the strange occupant came from.
The Mote In God’s Eye was followed up by a sequel, The Gripping Hand, in 1993, and an e-publication sequel written and published by Pournelle’s daughter Jennifer in 2010.
As Twitter circles the whirlpool of doom…
by Doc on Dec.18, 2022, under General News
I know I don’t post much here anymore, as I enjoy semi-retirement from the media circus, I still tweet and comment n Twitter at @scifistorm…but the situation is becoming more and more untenable for anyone that doesn’t match the Supreme Overlord’s view of “free speech”. Since it is now apparently in violation to tell people what other social media platforms you are not on that Herr Musk doesn’t approve of, I just want to let you know that I am on Mastadon as @scifistorm@bbq.snoot.com . I’m still figuring that platform out, but I will try and post more to it.
Calling all Warehouse 13 Agents and Regents…REBOOT!
by Doc on Sep.10, 2022, under Television
We’re getting the band back together! Or at least, we’re trying…
In case you haven’t heard, either via Eddie McClintock’s leaked “secret” email, or from the actual announcement at DragonCon last weekend, there is an attempt at rebooting Warehouse 13! Original producer and showrunner Jack Kenny, and former Syfy executive Mark Stern, are seeking a meeting over at NBCU (home of Syfy and the Peacock streaming network) about bringing back the show.
While the exact form of the show may yet to be determined, original stars Eddie McClintock (Pete), Allison Scagliotti (Claudia) and Saul Rubinek (Artie) have all committed to return.
There is still a lot of work to do. Buzz from the recent marathons on Syfy and streaming on Peacock is great, but right now you can help a lot by keeping it trending on twitter by using both #Warehouse13 and #RebootWarehouse13 hashtags. Tell us why you want Warehouse 13 back, or what your favorite artifact was, or find something in your house and give it an artifact history, anything…I’m already posting pictures from the Warehouse set including artifacts you’ve never seen before over at our Twitter so come join the fun and lets show the Powers That Be that we really want the show back!
RIP Nichelle Nichols, 1932-2022
by Doc on Jul.31, 2022, under Obituaries, Television
Not a good week. Now we mourn the loss of another Star Trek icon, Nichelle Nichols, who passed away at the age of 89. Nichols played Uhura in the original series. Well respected by and respectful of the fans, she once planned to quit the series, but was convinced to stay on by none other than Martin Luther King, Jr., who told her, “You cannot….for the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful, people who can sing dance, and can go to space, who are professors, lawyers.” After Star Trek, she actually consulted with NASA to help recruit minorities and females, and was the inspiration of many engineers and astronauts.
Alas, she retired from the convention circuit before I could meet her owing to her deteriorating health, but she visited with the fans as long as she could. She was a true pioneer who will be missed.
RIP British actors David Warner and Bernard Cribbins…
by Doc on Jul.28, 2022, under Movies, Obituaries, Television
This week we lost two great British actors, David Warner and Bernard Cribbins.
David Warner played a number of memorable roles, from pure villains like the brutal Pomponius Falco in Masada (for which he won an Emmy) and the Evil Genius in Time Bandits, to sympathetic enemies like Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Always a memorable actor in every role, he did guest spots on many shows including Babylon 5 and Star Trek: The Next Generation and many animation voice roles. He was also a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and played many classic roles on stage.
When I first had access to cable and the movie channels, there were a few movies I would watch over and over – two of them were Time Bandits and Time After Time, where he played Dr. John Stevenson, who in fact was Jack the Ripper, who escapes from 1893 London in H.G. Wells time machine to 1979 San Francisco. They were followed by Tron, where he played the dual role of Ed Dillinger/Sark – END OF LINE.
Bernard Cribbins is perhaps best known for his role as Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble’s grandfather, during David Tennant’s run in Doctor Who. He originally appeared in the Christmas episode, “Voyage of the Damned”, and was later retconned as Donna’s grandfather when he became a recurring character. His emotional pleas in Tennant’s final episode could really be felt. Cribbins also appeared in the 1966 theatrical movie Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., a film adaptation of the William Hartnell episode The Dalek Invasion of Earth” which starred Peter Cushing as wholly human Dr. Who. He even interviewed for the part of the Doctor in 1974…but lost to Tom Baker.
An actor since he was 14, he is also well known in Britain as the most frequent storyteller in the children’s series Jackanory, as well as appearing or narrating many other children’s programs, and received a special award from the British Academy Children’s Awards in 2009 and in 2011 received an Officer of Order of the British Empire (OBE) honor for services to drama. In 2014 he received the J.M. Barrie award for contribution to the children’s arts.
Babylon 5 reboot in active development for the CW with JMS in charge
by Doc on Sep.27, 2021, under Television
Holy Hand Grenades!!! It seems like hell hath frozen over at the offices of Warner Bros, or at least those in charge don’t still have hatred against – or remember – the old Prime Time Entertainment Network shows. In fact, the people in charge are fans.
JMS announced on twitter today (link to first post in thread) that a reboot of Babylon 5 is in active development for the CW network, and he’s working on the pilot currently and will be the showrunner once again upon pickup. And it is indeed a reboot, which JMS spells out in his tweets – not the least of which is “because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim. ow do you telling continuing story of our original Londo without the original Vir? Or G’Kar? How do you tell Sheridan’s story without Delenn? Or the story of B5 without Franklin? Garibaldi? Zack?”
Babylon 5 is a big reason why this site even exists, starting with the first real information post (after our Welcome message) 21 YEARS AGO next Tuesday. The B5 Encyclopedia was the first popular web site I created. It got me into understanding how Hollywood worked (or didn’t as the case may be), for this poor guy who was too far away to be a part of it in person. The first convention I traveled more than a few miles to go to was to meet JMS in person. Since then I’ve been on TV sets, made friends of actors, directors, etc. and even been paid as a background actor (not science fiction, but it had Chris Evans in it…)
I was born into Star Trek and grew up with it, but I chose Babylon 5. If Star Trek is family, Babylon 5 is the lifelong best friend.
JMS, if you are reading…if there is the opportunity to be a background actor, just tell me when and where.
Baseball, War, and Hope: A Fastball for Freedom, second in “The Dark Depths” trilogy
by Doc on Mar.21, 2021, under Books
Author and playwright Gary Morgenstein is back for the seventh-inning stretch – his acclaimed first novel in “The Dark Depths” trilogy, A Mound Over Hell, introduced us to the bleak world at the end of the 21st century, after a war against an extremist Islamic regime resulted in the defeat of the western world, clawing itself out from the ruins under the auspices of The Family, the de-facto government of what was the United States, where pretty much everything enjoyable is illegal, and baseball struggles to remain relevant. The devastating events at the end of the story appear to renew the interest in baseball – and the patriotism it invokes.
(continue reading…)What did the 33-star U.S. Flag in Ascension mean?
by Doc on Sep.02, 2020, under Television
Hey all…still alive and kicking around here…obviously I haven’t posted anything in a while as many other things have taken on priority lately, but we are edging closer to our 20th anniversary! So I figured I post something original, about something I never clearly understood.
In the 2014 mini-series Ascension, originally on Syfy but now available on Peacock, we are introduced to the residents and crew of the multi-generational Orion-Class starship U.S.S. Ascension, halfway through a 100-year journey to colonize another planet.
In the show we are shown a U.S. flag, but it isn’t the normal flag. This one had the normal 13 red and white stripes, but in the blue field there were only 33 stars, arranged in a slightly odd way. They were mostly in the same pattern of rows (alternating 6 and 5 stars per row), but some stars were missing, but there was a slight irregularity in the positions of the stars as well. Here is a screen capture of the appearance of the flag in a black-and-white video shown on the ship – the extra dots in the field were from the starfield in the background of the shot:
(continue reading…)In case you were wondering where I’ve been…
by Doc on Aug.29, 2019, under Sci-Fi Storm
Just thought I’d give an update, since I haven’t posted any articles in a while…I decided to take some time off from this site as it was taking up a lot of time just trying to keep up with the news lately, and I’ve been super busy with many other things that I just couldn’t concentrate on it the way I’d like. We also had a big family vacation this summer.
To be honest, the site has been running on fumes for a while. Any sort of revenue has slowly dwindled away to a fraction of what other relatively static sites I have generate (which still doesn’t cover the cost of the server), and and while Amazon’s associate program made doing this worthwhile in the early years, changes in policies made it much more time consuming than what the dwindling revenue was worth. I have to pay for a kid in college now and another one in a few years, and this isn’t paying for lunch.
Not to mention that since Syfy’s abandonment of the always-fun digital press tours several years ago and due to my being on the opposite side of the country from Hollywood itself, there have been no real opportunities to get face to face with the talent in front of and behind the scenes beyond local conventions – and even then, I’ve been doing it as a fan and not as a press person (although, if you need an interviewer or moderator in New England, I’m here…)
All this has led to overall interest fatigue, and thinking about the future. I had hopes to make it to the 20 year anniversary of the site next year.
So, where do we stand? I think at this point updates to the site will be sporadic at best. I’m not actually going anywhere, but you are more likely to see me commenting over on Twitter (@scifistorm), especially doing things like teasing Eddie McClintock…and I’ll certainly have some updates from Walt Disney World’s Galaxy’s Edge – but not until next Spring.
For those of you who might have been tagging along for these 19 years, THANK YOU.
The Orville moves to Hulu for Season 3
by Doc on Jul.20, 2019, under Television
The Orville star and creator Seth MacFarlane dropped a bomb at San Diego Comic Con – the show will move off of Fox onto the Hulu streaming network for season 3.
In a statement MacFarlane said, “The Orville has been a labor of love for me, and there are two companies which have supported that vision in a big way: 20th Century Fox Television, where I’ve had a deal since the start of my career, and Fox Broadcasting Company, now Fox Entertainment, which has been my broadcast home for over 20 years. My friends at the network understood what I was trying to do with this series, and they’ve done a spectacular job of marketing, launching and programming it for these past two seasons. But as the show has evolved and become more ambitious production-wise, I determined that I would not be able to deliver episodes until 2020, which would be challenging for the network. So we began to discuss how best to support the third season in a way that worked for the show. It’s exactly this kind of willingness to accommodate a show’s creative needs that’s made me want to stick around for so long. I am hugely indebted to Charlie Collier and Fox Entertainment for their generosity and look forward to developing future projects there. And to my new friends at Hulu, I look forward to our new partnership exploring the galaxy together.”
So it appears that was just a move due to the production schedule not fitting with a broadcast schedule well, so the streaming service became a better option.