February 2009

Star Trek Geekery

Because of the new Star Trek movie, due May 8, 2009, there's an absolute frenzy of geeky, fannish Trek stuff online. It's the eleventh movie, so between the movies and five television series, there's a lot of material for bored fans to work with while they wait. For instance the official movie site is here, complete with trailers and promos. There are various sorts of "official" guest appearances, like the cast of Start Trek the Next Generation appearing on an episode of The Family Guy.

There are oddities emerging from Star Trek films of the past, like this very odd test scene from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), the infamous (or possibly notorious) directorial masterpiece of William Shatner. Apparently there were plans for "rock creatures," ten of 'em, to be deployed in a final battle on the planet Sha Ka Ree, the supposed home of, well, god. Or a god, or . . . anyway, the suits cost $350,000 each. You can see the video for yourself, but it's sort of like Hulk meets the Horta.

John Scalzi Launches BigIdeaAuthors.com

Today science fiction author John Scalzi announced that he has launched a new website, BigIdeaAuthors.com, as a standalone site for the "Big Idea" guest blog posts which he has been running on his own blog for some time now. Scalzi will serve as the Executive Editor, sharing the masthead William Schafer (Publisher) and Yanni Kuznia (Editor) from Subterranean Press. The "Big Idea" guest posts have been a fascinating look into the process and background behind many of modern science fiction publishing's best and most interesting novels. I always read the "Big Idea" posts with interest, both for books that I have and books that I haven't read. There is no such thing as a typical "Big Idea" post. In a general sense, it's the literary equivalent of a director's DVD commentary track.

Sci Fi in the New Yorker

The New Yorker website has put up a science fiction short story which was published in its most recent issue. "The Invasion From Outer Space," a delightful work of short science fiction by Steven Millhauser, is generally leaving science fiction fans cold. The most remarkable thing about this story isn't the story itself, but that it was published in the New Yorker of all places. Although the New Yorker has long supported short fiction, when was the last time it published something as distressingly genre as science fiction? Presumably Millhauser's Pulitzer helped soothe editorial fears at the New Yorker. Along with the fact that Millhauser isn't actually a science fiction writer. ("Slumming" isn't the kindest word, but it's the first that comes to mind.) The story is much more about how nothing ever lives up to its hype, and about how anyone who says "Everything from this point forward is different" is wrong.

Donnie Darko Sequel Art Revealed

IO9 has published artwork from the upcoming sequel to Donnie Darko, titled S. Darko. The sequel follows Donnie's little sister (she of Sparkle Motion fame) who leaves town looking for fame and fortune, and then there's something about a meteorite, and probably a lot of weird and confusing special effects. Daveigh Chase (perhaps better known as Rhonda Volmer on HBO's series Big Love) stars as Donnie's sister Samantha. The Darko's mother is nowhere to be found in the IMDb cast list, which isn't too surprising.