Sci-Fi Storm

David Martin writes “This is something I came across recently and though I would share it…

Operation Immortality (http://operationimmortality.com) is a project to collect and archive the very best of what humanity is and has accomplished. On October 12, 2008, Richard Garriott, famed video game designer and the first second generation American astronaut, will take this collection of humanity with him to store in outer space when he journeys to the International Space Station.

The archive will include information on humanity’s greatest achievements, messages from people all over the world, and DNA samples from some of our brightest minds and most accomplished athletes. During the month of August, every human being is invited to come to the Operation Immortality.com website to submit their suggestions for our greatest achievements and leave a message for the cosmos. A lucky few may also be selected to add their DNA to the mix and “join” Richard Garriott in this way as he rockets out of the atmosphere.

Enjoy!”

NBC’s first original web series, Gemini Division, hit the wirewaves with its first two episodes. You can even watch them here (click on the Read More link). Gemini Division stars Rosario Dawson (Sin City, Men In Black II) and Justin Hartley (Smallville), and is about NYPD detective Anna Diaz (Dawson) who thinks she found someone special in Nick (Hartley), but when he is murdered she discovers he wasn’t the man she thought – in fact, he wasn’t actually human.

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The Thunder Child writes “For various and sundry reasons explained in http://dailyspace.blogspot.com/2008/08/chicken-heartor-why-read-40-year-old.html, (in which I talk about one of my favorite radio episodes, The Chicken Heart), I went to YouTube to see if any Lights Out/Arch Oboler radio episodes had migrated there.

And someone has actually animated, in three parts, the episode The Visitor From Hades, and you can see all three parts at: http://dailyspace.blogspot.com/2008/08/great-minds -think-alikeor-arch-oboler.html

Now if only someone would do the same thing for The Thing On the Fourble Board…or better yet, The Chicken Heart!” I had the Bill Cosby album in which he talked about listening to Lights Out, and specifically The Chicken Heart…hilarious…

In a surprise announcement, Warner Brothers has announced the delayed release of the eagerly anticipated next installment of the Harry Potter franchise. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was originally scheduled for November 11th, but has now been pushed back until July 17th, 2009. They cited lingering effects of the strike, along with the lucrative summer movie season. They also said this will not affect production schedules going forward, with production on the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows scheduled to start on time.

The 2008 Hugo wards were announced on Saturday at the 66th World Science Fiction Convention/Denvention 3. Read More for a complete list of the winners.

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I’ve talked about this show before: The Harlan Ellison-created but studio-botched Canadian series that starred 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s Keir Dullea. In fact, I recently managed to gather together my network of spies, etc. and see the series again, but had completely forgotten to write up a Retro Review for it. Well, I may just wait a couple months now and see it at least in DVD quality – the [sfs=859]Complete Series[/sfs] will be released. It doesn’t sound like there will be a lot to it – the 16 filmed episodes, a trailer (which may be the more sales-oriented promo that had Douglas Trumbull talking up fancy special effects that they ended up not using). So now, you too can see just how bad it can be…and there is probably a LONG wait for the movie version, as even rumors of it seem to have died.

Of course you are wondering why I’d have an article on the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing, but please tell me that I was not the only one on this: During the part where they were lifting the Olympic rings off the floor, and the people were flying around, waving their arms and turning around, did you have an urge to pump your first in the air and yell, “Renew! Renew!” and wait for a laser to blast them out of the sky??

Just because we had a series recently, doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a movie too. Sony is moving fast with a new version of Flash Gordon, announcing that writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless have signed on. The two don’t have much under their belt yet, so it will remain to be seen where this goes.

The SCI FI Channel has announced another prequel TV movie for Battlestar Galactica, although this one doesn’t seem to go as far into the past as the upcoming Caprica, but the information is a bit conflicting. The new film (no title yet), which will be directed by Edward James Olmos, is supposed to deal with events before the original miniseries, but also supposedly deals with the aftermath of the nuclear destruction unleashed by the Cylons on the colonies. It will focus on Cylon Number One/Cavil (Dean Stockwell), Sam T. Anders (Michael Trucco) and Chief Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas).

Kenth Johansson writes “Top fantasy art community Elfwood (www.elfwood.com) attracts more and more visitors. The website now enters the top 6000 list of most popular websites world wide and just about misses out on the top 3000 among most popular websites in the US.

“Its fantastic that more visitors are finding their way to Elfwood. More visitors means more publicity for our members and the great work they publish”, says Elfwood founder Thomas Abrahamsson.

Elfwood recently launched a supporter type membership called Elfwood Patron, where members by making a small donation get access to new features and supports the future development of the website. This was the latest in a row of new releases that earlier included a Fantasy and Sci-Fi forum, thats rapidly becoming a popular resource amongst the fantasy and sci-fi community in large.”