Sunday SciFi: Firefly Star Trek Crossover pick
Don’t get your hopes up. I’m guessing this is just a bit of fan artwork.
Three interesting bits of SciFi
Ok, one is Pulp, so call it two and half.
First, Matt Smith is coming back for 13 new episodes of Doctor Who, which, like bow ties, is cool. Not so sure about the Fez though. Johnny Johnny can pull it off, but I think River and Amy had the right idea.
Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is coming to the screen, and it’s being done by Ridley Scott and David Webb Peoples. Those are the fellows who brought you Bladerunner.
The juicy pulp rumor is that Quentin Tarantino is working on a Shadow movie, which would be cooler than bow ties.
Sunday SciFi: Star Trek Phase II
I’ve mentioned this group of uber-fans before, but they deserve their own Sunday SciFi post.
Star Trek Phase II is an entirely fan produced continuation of the ST:TOS series. It’s the brain child of James Cawley, who had a couple of bridge scene cameos in the latest Star Trek movie.
They have produced five (six if you count their first effort that they don’t list at their web site anymore, but I have on DVD) high quality episodes. Some of these episode have been written by ST:TOS writers, and/or have had ST:TOS actors in staring role, and one had a guest starring role by Denise Crosby.
How Sir Patrick should have been knighted
Ok, it’s a “Photoshop” job, but I like it.
Today is Towel Day!
“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
RIP Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
SciFi Sunday : A reboot of Little Fuzzy by John Scalzi
SciFi author John Scalzi has written a reboot of the Hugo nominated H. Beam Piper novel, Little Fuzzy.
He figures that rebooting SciFi TV series is all the rage, so why not do it for a really good SciFi novel? He has permission from the Piper estate, even though the original Little Fuzzy book is in the public domain.
I’ve like what I’ve read of Scalzi’s work so far, so I’m looking forward to this reboot book.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Dark Star
From the mind of John Carpenter comes what is considered by many the perfect Traveller Movie. The crew of this small space ship has been on their deep space mission way to long, and things are starting to get more than a bit weird.
Monday Book Pick: The Number of the Beast
The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein
This novel is about four geniuses travelling through space and mutiple-dimensions in a flying car with its own AI. The travellers wander through multiple science fiction universes, including several of Heinlein’s own.
A fun ride for Heinlein fan, but I would not recommend this for someone reading their first Heinlein novel. If you haven’t read any thing by the Grandmaster of American Science Fiction, you are missing not just good adventure stories. As author Spider Robinson so aptly put it, “And I repeat: if there is anything that can divert the land of my birth from its current stampede into the Stone Age, it is the widespread dissemination of the thoughts and perceptions that Robert Heinlein has been selling as entertainment since 1939.”
Friday B-Movie Pick: Princess of Mars
A deliciously low budget adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic. Updated a bit, John Carter is no longer a Civil War veteran (from the losing side), but a Marine in Afghanistan. Traci Lords was the “name” actor in this flick, but poorly cast as Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium. The movie was shot on an obvious shoestring budget and was shot in an amazing short time. Just 12 days to shoot a SciFi adventure story by one of the classic writers of the genre. Ya, the acting was bad, the script so-so, and the Tharks only have two arms. Still, not too shabby for the budget they had. I’m betting most Hollywood “indies” couldn’t pull off a feature film with the time and budget constrants this crew had to work with.
Sunday SciFi: Philip K. Dick on Bladerunner
Bladerunner, the 1981 SciFi classic movie based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. A groundbreaking movie that features Harrison Ford getting beat up a lot.
Jason Calacanis has found a letter Philip K. Dick wrote after seeing Bladerunner.
To put it mildly, he liked it. Way cool, cooler than an Oscillation Overthruster sighting.