Sci-Fi Storm

[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.

Amazon has seen what big name genre programming can do for other outlets, so it is looking for its own, putting three big projects on the development slate: Larry Niven’s Ringworld, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and Greg Rucka’s Lazarus.

Ringworld, which would be co-produced with MGM, has previously done a couple of development stints as a mini-series at Syfy, most recently in 2013. Word is that the series will potentially draw from all the novels. The first novel follows some explorers from several races who investigate – and crash land on – a gigantic artificial structure orbiting a star that has the surface area of millions of Earths.

Snow Crash, which would be co-produced with Paramount Television, follows Hiro Protagonist, a pizza delivery driver and hacker in future America, where a computer virus is attacking hackers and Hiro hunts down the virtual villain. Joe Cornish will executive produce along with Frank Marshall.

Lazarus, based on the comic book by Rucka, is set in an alternate near future where the world is ruled by 16 families in a feudal style, and each family has a Lazarus – a personal killing machine who acts as champion for the family.

Fans of writer Larry Niven have been waiting eons for adaptations of his works, most notably Ringworld, but we’ve had our hopes raised before. So far, the only works of his that have been adapted have been “The Slaver Weapon”, adapted into an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series (as “The Soft Weapon”), and a 1996 episode of The Outer Limits based on “The Inconstant Moon”.

Well, now it appears the latter might get a new adaptation, but this time a bigger one – a full feature film. Fox 2000 has started development on the film in conjunction with Arrival‘s Shawn Levy and his production company 21 Laps. Director James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now) is attached, with Daniel Casey writing the script. 21 Laps Dan Cohen, Ponsoldt and Created By’s Vince Gerardis will also produce.

“The Inconstant Moon” starts with an apparent brightening of the Moon being observed on Earth. Most simply commented on it being pretty, but the narrator of the story has a dreadful explanation – that while the Sun was shining on the other side of the Earth, it went nova, and the planet has mere hours before it is destroyed.

Hopefully this will give more exposure to Niven’s works, and we can get some Known Space stories soon!

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) today announced that the 2015 recipient of the 31st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is none other than one of our favorite authors, Larry Niven!

The multiple Hugo and Nebula winning author is best known for his [asin=0345333926]Ringworld[/asin] novels that helped define the megastructure genre, but he was also a prolific writer of short stories set within multiple universes, and teamed up well with other authors, notably Jerry Pournelle, with whom he shared several Hugo and Nebula nominated novels.

SFWA President Steven Gould said, “One of the great honors of being SFWA president is the announcing the latest Grandmaster recipient. One of the drawbacks is only getting to name one at a time when we have several worthy candidates. I take great pleasure in naming Larry Niven as this year’s Damon Knight Memorial Grandmaster. As Lev Grossman said in Time Magazine about Niven’s work, “It’s a bravura demonstration of technology and psychology both playing off and feeding back into each other. This feedback loop — so fundamental to great science fiction’s power — is at the heart of Niven’s work: we create tools, and our tools shape the world, but they also shape us, in unintended and unexpected ways.”

“I’ve always wanted one of these. It does definitely mean I’ve gotten old,” said Niven. “I’ve been publishing fiction for more than fifty years now. I’m convinced I picked the right career.”

Niven joins 30 other Grand Masters, with names as prestigious as Bradbury, Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov and more.

Bravo, Master.

Could we yet see an adaptation of Ringworld, SF writer Larry Niven’s most well known novel? It appears so – according to EW, Michael Perry (The River, Paranormal Activity 2) is adapting it for a mini-series, and Syfy just confirmed it at the up-fronts taking place right now in New York City. Ringworld follows some explorers from several races who investigate – and crash land on – a gigantic artificial structure orbiting a star that has the surface area of millions of Earths.

In addition, EW says another classic novel, Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End is also looking at a mini-series adaptation executive produced by Michael DeLuca (The Social Network), and is about a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival ends all war and turns the planet into a near-utopia. However, I have not seen a confirmation on this yet. [Update: This was confirmed in a press release]