I grew up reading scores of science fiction short stories from the Golden Age and “New Wave” of science fiction… and then went on to various fantasy and science fiction novels of the day, many of which were published by Del Rey Books, still active today as an imprint of the mammoth publisher, Penguin Random House. What I didn’t know was the role one Judy-Lynn del Rey played in the creation of Del Rey Books…
The beginning of the end of Star Trek: Discovery‘s five-year mission streams this Thursday, April 4th. Originally, this fifth season of Discovery was apparently not intended to be the final one, which has caused all kinds of rampant speculation online. However, Trek overall, is not only not going anywhere, the powers that be want to maintain what isn’t just a franchise, but a veritable Intellectual Property (IP) empire. In a longform cover story for Variety,…
The new Babylon 5 movie is out and, since it’s not readily on any of the streaming services I subscribe to, my thrift will delay me seeing it soon. At the same time, when I do see it, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it immensely. Right in time for its release, Tor.com has re-published a wonderfully truthful article by Jennifer Giesbrecht from 2019 that goes into how Babylon 5 is great even as it is not…
With the announcement of a B5 animated feature, I have been reminded that many people have not seen the original Babylon 5, that ambitious and inventive science fiction series from the 1990s. As of May 2023, you can currently watch the entire series for free on Tubi as well as renting or buying it streaming on Amazon. But should you watch Babylon 5? My answer is a resounding yes if you: This last factor of…
How I managed to miss this article last year is something I chalk up to the vast depth of the Internet, but still: I love The Expanse and part of that ardor is absolutely the multi-layered world-building. Those of you who have checked out my space opera Rogue Tyger and its ever-growing “Encyclopedia of the Imperium” will not be surprised at that fact. So I was all into this article by James Hoare for The…
A meme tickled Twitter users’ fancy late last month and for good reason: it was a pair of pithy comments contrasting science fiction and fantasy and skewering the related tropes for both. Mignon Fogarty has a good collection over at the Grammar Girl, but be warned! You’ll start wanting to do your own. To whit: Sci Fi is this blog on an encrypted server you’ll need some cyberpunk hacker to access. Fantasy is this blog…
After watching the Rod Serling video compilation back in July, I’ve gone down a modest Rod Serling rabbit hole looking for other videos and talks and interviews he’s given. As you might imagine, YouTube does provide. This nearly hour-long entry is essentially a long question-answer session from UCLA circa 1971. As with many of the other videos I’ve come across, many of his answers and references are very topical to 1971, so be warned that…
I’m working on some more writing this week, so it felt like time to share this: In my own series, Rogue Tyger, the characters refer to an “FTL drive,” but they also talk about “jumps” so you can deduce that ships in the ‘Tygerverse’ use a form of jump drive. Visually, it’s probably best been represented with the recent incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, but a major inspiration for how the drive works and the variations…
Continuing from the musings about the soon-to-be Foundation TV series, I thought about the different series that have massive, interstellar empires… and it turns out I’m not alone. Quinn (who’s videos you should check out if you want to know waaaay more about Dune before that film adaptation comes out later this year) does some comparisons of three literary biggies:
Just a little over a year ago I posted the teaser trailer for Foundation, a TV series adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s highly influential work of the rise and fall of galactic civilizations. Well, we’ve got a new trailer and a premiere of September, so gird your space opera loins! Already, I’ve seen chatter on the interwebs about some apparent departures from the books, some of which is also hinted at in the io9 piece on…