Star Trek: “Make-Believe”
In 2003 Pocket Books began a series of short-story anthologies commemorating the anniversaries of the various Star Trek series: Deep Space Nine's tenth anniversary in 2003, Voyager's tenth anniversary in 2005. The fall of 2006 would see the publication of an anthology celebrating the 40th-anniversary of the debut of the original Star Trek, and who wouldn't want to be a part of that? I approached Pocket editor Marco Palmieri in May 2005 in an unusual manner. I sent him a birthday card, a story pitch, and a note: "If you're taking pitches for the 40th-anniversary anthology would you consider ...
Star Trek Generations: The Decline and Fall
An analysis of Star Trek: Generations, the seventh Star Trek film; published in Star Trek Magazine #26 (US)/#153 (UK). How did the film come to be? Did it succeed? Did it fail? This article analyzes the film in the context of the Star Trek film series — and in the context of the times in which it was made.
Star Trek: Corps of Engineers: Grand Designs
A collection of six Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers stories, including my first novella, Ring Around the Sky. That story, published as an eBook in 2004, took the crew of the da Vinci to the world of Kharzh'ulla IV, a Tellarite colony world that suffered an attack on its system of orbital elevators during the Dominion War. There, second officer Tev had to confront his own personal demons while assisting the crew in fixing the unfixable.
Doctor Who: “The Spindle of Necessity”
One evening in November 2006, I received an e-mail from Keith DeCandido — he was putting together a Doctor Who anthology for Big Finish Productions, a small UK-based media (books, audios, that sort of thing) publisher. Would I be interested in pitching? Here's the pitch document. My first reaction was, "ZOMG!" My second reaction was, "Okay, what am I going to pitch?" The concept of the anthology was encapsulated in the title — "The Quality of Leadership." The time-traveling Gallifreyan was going to meet leaders throughout time and space. I pulled out a notepad, and I jotted down some ideas. ...
Star Trek: New Frontier: “Performance Appraisal”
Kat Mueller, introduced in Peter David's Once Burned, is featured in this story about her days aboard the USS Grissom. How did she decide to go into command? When the Grissom is confronted by an insane Romulan, Mueller's quick thinking saves the ship — and prevents an interstellar incident.
Featured
On the Lewis Chessmen
For March I’m planning a trip to New York City. I put my vacation request in yesterday for a few days in the middle of the month. The Lewis Chessmen are on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through early April, and they’re something I would very much like to see while they’re on this side of the Atlantic. While I’m a terrible chess player, I’m fascinated by the... [Read more]
On Swapping Twitter’s Columns Around
Yesterday morning I logged into Twitter. This is what I saw: Yes, I’d been upgraded to “New New Twitter,” which began going live to users a month and a half ago. It’s fine, and it’s functional, but one thing irked me. I didn’t like the column layout. For as long as I’ve been using Twitter, the stream is on the left, and the sidebar is on the right,... [Read more]
On Revisiting the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy
Yesterday a package arrived in the mail. It was a book, Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Hardcover with dust jacket. A first printing, it looks new, even though it was published nearly fifteen years ago. And with that book I am ready. This year — this month, actually — I intend to reread the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. All... [Read more]
On Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
A few weeks ago, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows came out. While it’s not the Sherlock Holmes production most of my friends were anticipating — that would be the second season of the BBC’s Sherlock, which began airing on BBC1 yesterday — it’s the Sherlock Holmes event I was most anticipating. Don’t misunderstand. Much as I liked Sherlock, I didn’t... [Read more]
On 2011 In Review
January 1st. The start of a new year. A “turn the page” moment, a time when the slate is wiped clean and one can start fresh. That’s my feeling on every day, that the new day is a blank slate on which anything can be written, so it should be my feeling on the start of a new year, too. Except that it isn’t. New Years is, for some reason, just another... [Read more]
Writing
On Making Merlin Plans
Two years ago, I wrote an outline for a Merlin novel. I sent it off to the editor handling the Merlin novels at Random House Childrens UK, and about six weeks later it came back with a very nice rejection letter. The editor liked the story, but they weren’t publishing original Merlin novels, just novelizations of the BBC Series. While I mused at times on how to de-Merlin-ify the story,... [Read more]
On Contemplating Philcon
Yesterday evening I received a surprising e-mail — it was a pre-invite to Philcon. Well, it was surprising to me; things like this are always surprising to me. Philcon is, obviously, a science-fiction convention held every November in Philadelphia. I knew of it it when I lived outside Philly about a decade ago, but working in retail as I did, getting down to the con would have been impossible;... [Read more]
Comic Books
On Things I’ve Been Reading
Peanuts #0 BOOM! Studios/kaboom! Created by Charles Schulz Written by Ron Zorman & Vicki Scott Art by Zorman, Scott, and Paige Braddock Earlier in the year, BOOM! Studios published Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, a hardcover graphic novel adaptation of the most recent Peanuts animated special, which was based on a number of Peanuts comic strips published over the years. Last week,... [Read more]
On Things I’ve Been Reading
Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #1 IDW Publishing/DC comics Written by Chris Roberson Pencils by Jeffrey Moy Inks by Philip Moy A starship streaks by. Her lines are somewhat familiar — saucer, secondary hull with a navigational deflector, two cylindrical warp nacelles — but there are some details that are unusual — the saucer has a rollbar with a photon torpedo launcher, the... [Read more]
