Look Familiar?

I saw this watching the Star Trek reboot on the bigscreen with our Epix OnDemand account. It's during the Old Spock/New Kirk mind-meld, at the part of the story where Spock is transported back in time. The blue box is suggestive, don't you think?

Since Epix lets you stream its movies to a Linux box, unlike Netflix, it was relatively easy to find the shot and save it. No, the resolution's not that great, but, frankly, this movie suffers even on a 48" high-def screen. To do it justice you really need to watch it in a theater.

Nature Publishes Science Fiction

As in The Greatest Science Fiction Story Ever Told, by Eric James Stone.

Nature 467 , 1146 (28 October 2010) doi:10.1038/4671146a

The Shortest Doctor Who Episode Ever

Outside a small house in London. The Tardis appears. Wilfred Mott comes out of the house, just as the Doctor comes out of the Tardis.

Wilfred: Doctor? What are you doing here? Donna might see you.

This is an automatic reaction upon seeing the Tardis. As he pauses, Wilfred notices something has changed.

Wilfred: You've changed again, haven't you.

The Doctor: Hello, Wilfred. Yes, I've changed. Some unpleasantness with — well, with something unpleasant.

Wilfred:But why are you here? If Donna sees you, even in this – this – body, she'll start remembering. And then, you said …

The Doctor: Wilfred! I've found a way to cure her!

Wilfred: Are you sure?

The Doctor: Yes, but I have to take her away …

As they are talking, Donna Noble comes out of the front door.

Donna: Gramps? Who's this, then?

Donna starts to look at the Doctor.

Donna: Look, you, whatever it is you're selling, we don't …

Before Donna can get a good look at the Tardis, the Doctor pulls out his screwdriver. There is a faint whining noise, audible only to those under 50. Donna collapses.

The Doctor: Sonic sedative. Come on, help me get her into the Tardis.

The Doctor and Wilfred carry Donna into the Tardis. Wilfred exits, the Doctor shuts the door, and the Tardis vanishes with the usual noises.

The Tardis reappears in what is obviously a library. OK, it's not just a library, it's the Library. It's dark, probably damp, and the books seem to be moving slightly. Maybe it's just the arrival of the Tardis. Or maybe not. Books left open seem to be turning pages themselves. We see the Tardis from the point-of-view of the Librarian. The Doctor emerges from the Tardis, and approaches the desk.

The Doctor: Here we are then. Did you find the book?

The Librarian: Ook!

The Doctor: Good then. Here's what else I need …

As the two talk, the scene shifts back inside the Tardis, where Donna is waking up. She looks around, pulls herself up, and starts out the door. She sees the Doctor and the Librarian at the desk. She still doesn't remember anything, but that will come.

Donna: Hey!

Both turn to look at her. We shift to a point of view behind Donna.

Donna: What's this. Who are you? Why have you grabbed me and took me to this — this — place? And what's with the monkey?

With that, the Librarian explodes. All we see is a large, dark fist striking the camera. There's lots of fur. Sounds of a scuffle. Lots and lots of Ooks. Then black.

The Doctor: What a waste of a perfectly good regeneration.

The End

---

Thanks to the Doctor Who Wiki and the Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki

Battlestar Galactica: The Summary

After considering the body of work that is the remade Battlestar Galactica, I offer this summary:

Be kind to your sheet-metal friends,
For that toaster is somebody's mother,
We make them do all our hard jobs,
And program them so they can't sob.
Now you may think that they'll kill us all,

WELL THEY WILL!

Neil Gaiman at the National Book Festival

A couple of weeks ago we went to the National Book Festival (the best thing the Bush Administration ever started) to listen to Neil Gaiman and to stand in line for three hours, getting alternately soaked and sunburned, waiting for him to sign The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere. It was worth the wait, Gaiman was extremely nice to us.

My wife says this is a really good picture, so I thought I'd share it.

The Bookshelf

Happy Washington's Birthday, everyone.

Every once in a while (OK, once before) I like to give mini-reviews of the books sitting beside my bed. This time it's all science fiction:

• Radio Freefall, by Matthew Jarpe: A first novel. It's got sex (a bit). Drugs (a bit more). Rock and Roll (lots). It's also somewhat cyberpunky, since everyone and everything is connected to the web. And, finally, it pays tribute to Heinlein, what with a moon colony that's revolting.
  
  Despite all that, the novel most reminds me of George R. R. Martin's The Armageddon Rag, what with a mysterious old rocker called Aqualung raising and obscure band to world-wide fame, with potential world-wide catastrophe looming.
  
  As a first novel it's not bad, though it does require the Evil Villain to be Phenomenally Stupid at just the right moment. Worth looking at, and looking for the next Jarpe novel.
  
  
• Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. You think of Vinge as a hard SF writer, but he does often does something that resembles cyberpunk. This one takes place around 2030, and it's pretty much believable that we'll be as connected as he says here. It's also pretty much believable that the geezers at that time (meaning us) will be pretty much out of it. Great plotting. A little confusing at the end, and I never did figure out who Rabbit was. But worthy of the Hugo it won.
  
  
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Another first novel, and another Hugo winner. Set in the Napoleonic era, it's the story of the magician Mr. Norrell and his partner/apprentice/rival Jonathan Strange. It's definitely not cyberpunk. To me it reads like Vanity Fair, but it's probably technically Georgian, it's just that I'm lot more familiar with the Victorian era. The paperback copy is over 1,000 pages long, and I'm only half finished, but it's worth looking at.
  
  
• Cyril Kornbluth is probably best known for the short story The Marching Morons and his collaborations with Frederik Pohl. His Share of Glory has all of the short fiction written solely by Kornbluth, either under his own name or a pseudonym.
  
  I want to like this book. I really do. But the stories are dated, sexist, racist (see The Education of Tigress McCardle, which manages to be both), and just not fun. It would have been nice to see if Kornbluth could have grown in the 1960s, as Asimov, Pohl, Anderson and Heinlein at least tried to do (though they started from a far higher level), or if his output would have just slowly wound down into total hackdom. Unfortunately he died young, so we'll never find out. Recommended only if you really like 40s and 50s SF, and then you'll want to take it in small doses.

Ranking Science Fiction Characters

A colleague recently introduced me to Google Fight, which let's you stage bouts between your favorite web celebrities based on the number of hits Google gives them.

Well, sort of. For example, if you take the two predominate figures of the longest-running science fiction franchises on US television, Google Fight gives you:

James T Kirk: 296,000 results
Jack O'Neill:      24 results

which is obviously screwy. Going to Google its own self gives you:

James T Kirk: 389,000 results
Jack O'Neill: 573,000 results

which is in some ways even screwier: is the Star Trek franchise so dead that its leading hero gets beat out by MacGyver? (4,870,000 hits, though “Angus MacGyver” gets 29,400)

Anyway, this led me to the task of ranking leading science fiction characters by real Google hits, not Google fight hits. Below are my results, feel free to add to them. The rules are:

1. The Google search string must include the common name of the character, along with a name that distinguishes the work in which the character appears. Thus we'll search for “James Kirk Star Trek“ to distinguish Tiberius from the actor of that name.
2. There are no quotation marks in the search string.
3. Yes, I did search Harry Potter Harry Potter
4. The rank will be the number that appears after the string “Results 1-10 of” on Google, i.e., we'll use the first count Google gives us.
5. If you don't recognize the characters here, don't whine about it, just Google them. The choice of characters says more about me than you anyway.
6. Don't give me any grief about using “Benjamin Sisko” rather than “Ben Sisko” either.
7. If you don't like my definition of Science Fiction, well, frak.
8. No, I don't know why the Kirk searches above and below disagree so strongly. Ask Google.

And the results:

Character	Work	Hits	Comments
Harry Potter	Harry Potter	10,400,000	You expected different?
Luke Skywalker	Star Wars	2,870,000	The Force is strong in this one.
Han Solo	Star Wars	2,370,000	Not bad here, either.
Hermione Granger	Harry Potter	2,150,000	Even Ron likes Harry better than you, Hermione
Albus Dumbledore	Harry Potter	1,260,000	Wonder how many hits are from this fall?
James Kirk	Star Trek	916,000	The Captain Supreme
Death	Discworld	792,000	HOW INTERESTING
Gil Hamilton	Known Space	769,000	A very long arm
Lazarus Long	Future History	730,000	Still read Heinlein, I see
Teal'c	Stargate	539,000	Kree!
Spock	Star Trek	452,000	That I am behind a gold-tattooed alien is not logical.
Daniel Jackson	Stargate	368,000	Needs to Ascend again
Lucas Garner	Known Space	337,000	Old codgers do all right here
Neo	Matrix	335,000	Young twerps, too.
Jean Luc Picard	Star Trek	280,000	Was ahead of Teal'c until the latter stopped shaving is head.
Jack O'Neill	Stargate	257,000	It's a lot worse with only one L.
Trinity	Matrix	257,000	Apparently chicks in leather don't do as well as you'd think
Kathryn Janeway	Star Trek	238,000	Well, better than this, thank God.
R2D2	Star Wars	209,000	The highest-rated robot
Samantha Carter	Stargate	168,000	Should have done nude scenes when they were on Showtime
Adama	Battlestar Galactica	149,000	About half-and-half.
Benjamin Sisko	Star Trek	132,000	Deep in your heart, you know he was the best Captain
Miles Vokosigan	Vokosigan	103,000	Short smart punks apparently don't score as well as tall dumb Colonels.
Rincewind	Discworld	67,700	Wizzards are soon forgotten, especially if they don't get any new book deals.
Samuel Vimes	Discworld	39,900	Cops, too.
The Luggage	Discworld	37,100	But it does iron your shirts.
Granny Weatherwax	Discworld	33,800	Apparently being Good and Right doesn't make you popular, either.
Corwin	Amber	37,800	Obviously in the wrong shadow.
Hari Seldon	Foundation	35,400	Don't worry, his name is all over this one Encyclopedia.
Fafhrd	Lankhmar	15,000	I guess swords aren't all that popular these days.
John Falkenberg	Falkenberg's Legion	10,100	Johnny Christian, we hardly knew ye.
Dominic Flandry	Flandry	9,580	Maybe I'm showing my age.
John Grimes	Rim Worlds	9,200	You think?
Gray Mouser	Lankhmar	8,960	Undoubtedly.
Louis Wu	Ringworld	6,130	Boosterspice, Louis baby, Boosterspice
Kimball Kinnison	Lensmen	1,020	Mentor might not like this.
R. Daniel Olivaw	Robot	1,010	Robots of Doom, indeed.
Nessus	Ringworld	548	Two brainless heads are apparently not better than one.
Tela Brown	Ringworld	73	Heading this list must be unlucky.

And, as I said before, add your contributions below.

The First Generation (Part II)

Once upon a time I think I mentioned the Trek TV-fanfic Star Trek: New Voyages, which purports to tell us of the last two years of the NCC-1701's five-year mission. Tonight I finally got around to watching the latest episode, “World Enough and Time,” which features a guest appearance by Mr. Sulu himself, George Takei, who plays Sulu thirty years out of time.

Of course, there's another (amateur) actor playing the young Sulu, John Lim. The script has to explain how Sulu can be both 30 and 60 in a one hour episode. It does so reasonably well, much better than in New Voyages' previous attempt, “To Serve All My Days,” which has Walter Koenig as an older Chekov. That script sucked, IMNSHO, not to mention it was non-canon, even within the context of New Voyages.

So how was it? The sets are superb, better than the original series. The special effects make you wonder how we settled for the simple models-on-a-starry-background of TOS. The acting, except for Takei, is definitely amateur.

But Sulu's not the star of the show. That role falls to one Christina Moses, who has all of one other role to her credit, when she must have been about five years old. How can I say it? She can act, folks. It doesn't hurt that she's beautiful, but she can out-act half the cast of ER or Boston Legal. This girl needs to get a good agent, 'cause she's got a career in show business.

You can watch the show online, or download it via BitTorent (except, of course, on Comcast).

Go get it. Watch and enjoy.

Spoilers below, folks...

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Still here? OK, I warned you. The script is a reworking of Tom Godwin's classic “The Cold Equations”. There is no miracle save at the end. If you want a happy ending, don't go here. A hopeful ending? Yes. A happy ending? No.

Those of you who have heard Takei lately will find it ironic that Sulu finally has a female love interest, even though that takes place off-screen. Of course, an actor acts, but it's interesting that Sulu-finally-gets-the-girl happens just as Takei tells us he prefers men. Oh, well, it's not a big deal.

Next up for the series is the introduction of Peter (nephew of) Kirk, from a script by David Gerrold. From the trailer, it looks as though Peter and Sulu have something in common, but I might have misinterpreted.

Next up after that is one Harcourt Fenton Mudd.

I Think I'd Try to Get It Pulled From the Shelf

David Lynch (da dum, da Dum) has a book out, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, in which the author "writes candidly about the tremendous creative benefits he has gained from his thirty-two-year commitment to practicing Transcendental Meditation."

The publisher's blurb tells us that the book also "offers a set of practical ideas that speak to matters of personal fulfillment, increased creativity, and greater harmony with one's surroundings."

I like much of Lynch's work. That said, I'm not a big fan of TM, but if I was, and someone was offering Fire Walk With Me as an example of "greater harmony with one's surroundings," I think I'd sue.

(Thanks to Clive Barker's Science Fiction and Telefantasy Databanks for the link to Twin Peaks.)

I've Been Waiting All of My (Internet) Life for This

I first saw the trailer for Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning many years ago. It's a parody (in Finnish, with subtitles) of Star Trek with a healthy dose of Babylon 5. Now, finally, the movie is completed and available for download. Or you can buy it, if you live outside of the United States. Downloading via BitTorrent went very quickly, it took less than 30 minutes to get the whole file. It's a 1 hour 43 minute movie, and it comes in at 541 MB, so it will fit on a CD. If you know how, you can also copy it to DVD and play it on your television.

The instructions say that you need a XviD Codec to play on a Mac or a PC. However, under Linux it plays using my installed versions and codecs for mplayer, Totem, and VLC movie players. Oddly, it didn't play under Xine, but that's probably just my Fedora setup not having the proper codecs. I like the way Totem plays the movie best, though I like mplayer better for playing DVDs from disk. I've yet to try it on a Windows machine, but if I do I'll let you know how it plays.

Anyway, it's a fun movie. I can't totally recommend it, yet, because I haven't watched all of it (baseball and football both today, people). But it's, uh, free, so you don't lose anything but time by trying it out.

And, it's distributed under a Creative Commons License, which allows you to distribute it freely so long as you give it proper attribution and you don't alter it.

The Hindmost remained in footstool mode.

Scotty's Beamed Home

As you probably know, James Doohan passed away yesterday. The BBC has put up this RealPlayer clip about Mr. Scott.

The Thirty-Eight Minute Wormhole

If you don't know what the title refers to, or if you think that the biggest news last night was the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, feel free to read on, if you wish.

If you do know the title reference, then be warned, there are possible spoilers below. I'm going to explain things to the mundane, then discuss the shows. If you haven't seen them yet, you might not want to read any further. Though, really, there isn't much here you couldn't figure out on your own.

---

Back in my youth, there was a rule that at most one Science Fiction story could be shown on television at one time. Thus The Twilight Zone never overlapped with Star Trek. OK, there were a few shows which tried to cash in, like Lost in Space, Men into Space, and even My Favorite Martian, but they weren't really science fiction. (Men into Space was more like "Blue Angels With Rockets", a techno-thriller kind of film. I loved it, but it wasn't SF.)

Post Star Trek, we got a bit more SF on TV: the dreck Space: 1999, the really-cheesy but great back-story Battlestar Galactica, and, when the local PBS station could afford it, Dr. Who. Then came Star Trek: Next Generation, followed by Deep Space Nine, Babylon V, Buffy, etc.

But science fiction on TV really arrived with the SciFi channel. I know, they run a bunch of grade C movie stuff, but they also run SciFi Friday, which features Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica (Mark II, with glowing-backbone female Cylons). These shows are generally as well written as an average Star Trek episode, usually pay more attention to continuity, and have a whole lot bigger budget.

So last night they kicked off the new season for all three shows. SciFi has a strange release schedule: the shows will go on for a couple of months, then they'll show reruns until January, when they'll show the rest of the season. In Britain I understand that the series will start in September and show straight through, so though the UK won't see these shows for a few weeks, by November they'll be ahead of us. Hence the spoiler warnings.

For the past few years a friend of mine and I have been discussing the shows by email. Generally I give a few thoughts on each episode, crack a few jokes, and go on, while he gives a reasoned review of the episode, including how it fits in with his worldview.

Pity you won't get that here, you just get me cracking the jokes. But OK, if he wants to respond, he can, in the comments below.

For what it's worth, last year I liked SG-1 best, followed by Battlestar, and then Atlantis. I can go into the reasons if you like, but that's my prejudice as I look at these shows. This year, though, SG-1 has major cast changes, so my opinions might change.

OK, if you're looking for the possible spoilers, they're just below the line. Don't say I didn't warn you.

---

• Stargate SG-1:
  • Beau Bridges: (who looks much worse than his Dad did at the same age) tries to be a tough guy. But he's not, so far, he's just moaning about how good the SGC people are, which means he can't yell at them. That never stopped Hammond. This guy needs some character development. How come the President answers HIS phone calls? And who is #1 on his speed-dial?
  • Claudia Black: (sorry, I don't know the new character names, yet, so we'll have to go with real names): I liked her character in the tryout last year, and she'll be OK as Daniel's love interest and gadfly. However, she should get a new dress designer. The current outfit just emphasizes the fact that there's not all that much up there. Also (and more importantly?), as portrayed this week, her character is basically stupid. She actually believes what people tell her about devices they've stolen, and she can't think more than 30 seconds into the future.
  • Other Farscape refugee: This is the star of the show? We'll see when they give us a longer-than-10-second opening. Looks too much like Daniel, as Claudia pointed out, and tries to act too much like Jack, without the essential post-MacGyver cool factor. Also, I'm not sure from the flashbacks why he got the Congressional Medal of Honor, and not any of the other X-302/303 pilots that were holding off Anubis. Wasn't he just doing his job, like all the rest?
  • Daniel: Thank God he lost the beard. His rather intimate relationship with Claudia could be fun. It was last year, anyway.
  • Teal'c: Hopefully he'll get more to do than shoot bullets at walls and try to hold up collapsing ceilings. He's supposed to have some conflict with
  • Lou Gossett Jr.: Why is he slumming here? OK, Isaac Hayes did it last year, but that was only for a couple of shows and he's basically got no career anyway. What possesses a Movie Star to appear on a cable SF series? They'd better do something good with his character.
  • Jack: He plays chess? He's good at chess?
  • Carter: Tapping is on post-maternity leave, supposed to be back full-time in a few weeks.
  • Villains: Don't have any yet, so it's hard to tell.
    <Wholesale Speculation>
    It is interesting that Merlin is an Ancient. This means that the Ancients were backing the Celts at about the same time that the Asgard were backing the Norse. This didn't lead to conflicts? Could this explain the rise of the Goa'uld? Battles among the four races. Come to think of it, this could explain why we never see the Furlings. The big four fought amongst themselves, and the Furlings were wiped out.
    And why do the Nox hide? Are they hiding from the Goa'uld? Maybe they're hiding from the Asgard.
    And who created that plague that wiped out the corporal Ancients? Could it be, ..., I don't know, ... maybe ... the Asgard? You'll notice the Asgard are the only ones of the big four still running around the universe.
    OK, probably not.
    </Wholesale Speculation>
    
• Stargate Atlantis:
  
  • Speaking of Asgard, we're corrupting one here. By the time this season is through, Hermiod (bad choice of name, unless they're going to get Preparation-H as a sponsor) is going to be chucking nukes into stars just to watch the pretty light-show. And why does he curse under his breath? Does anyone on the Daedalus understand ancient Norse? Come on, it's not like Daniel Jackson is there.
  • It would have been interesting to have Dueling Colonels ("I get to draw and quarter Sheppard." "No, I get to draw and quarter Sheppard.") but I guess that would get old fast so they had to get rid of one. Interestingly they kept the one who seems easier to get along with. Maybe he's a pal of Beau Bridges.
  • Plot: Did the Wraith really believe that explosion? They didn't even come down to check. And does this mean that the Atlantis team has to stay hidden for the rest of the season? After all, once they blow up another Wraith ship all of the hive will be back.
• Battlestar Galactica:
  • I don't know. But then, I never know about this series. I'm guessing that Adama is going to be out of commission for a few more weeks, so we'll have some conflict between Tigh's sense that he's unfit for command and his wife's pushing him to take control. We've also got to reunite the cast, which is now spread over half the galaxy.
  • I see how the Cylons were able to win the first time: Our heroes cable together a network of three computers, on a presumably shielded spacecraft, and a Cylon virus is able to break it down in minutes. The virus must have been left in the computer's OS, just waiting for a chance to do mischief. And no ones gone through the code for the last 20 years. Or else, all the programmers are secret Cylons.
  • I keep thinking about writing an SG-1/Galactica crossover. Except that Sam (or even Rodney) would figure it all out in about 5 minutes, and Jack (or Farscape Guy) would blow the Cylons to smithereens a few seconds later.

Stay tuned next week, boys and girls

Another Day, Another Claim

Once again, someone claims to have found Atlantis. This time it's in Spain, though not on the plain. At least that's reasonably close to Plato's location, the "Pillars of Hercules", aka the Gibraltar Straits.

Of course, this isn't the first time Atlantis has been "found", and it won't be the last. Recently, it was found near Cyprus. It's also been found further off Gibraltar, under the South China sea (along with Prester John, no doubt), and who knows where.

Of course, the is all just hype, a promotion. As we all know, the real location of Atlantis will be revealed on June 16, on a cable channel near you.

New Element Discovered

APS News reports the discovery of a new element, one that has strange properties never before seen by physicists. The discovery itself sounds quite exciting. Perhaps someone could make a movie about it, or even a series.

From Our People With Too Much Time On Their Hands Department

Japanese version ( via Slashdot):
http://kanamerc.web.infoseek.co.jp/DOGA/NCC1701.MPG.

But where's the fanfare? (Go to http://www.geocities.com/televisioncity/studio/6546/
search for fanfare -- Yahoo doesn't like direct links.)

Hugo Award Nominees --2004

Every year the World Science Fiction convention gives out the Hugo Awards for the year's best science fiction (in English). This year's nominees are out. It looks as though all of the "short" (less than novel) length stories are available online through that link.

This is just very wierd

so I'll just post the clip as Slashdot presented it:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water                              |
|   from the accurate-enough dept.                                   |
|   posted by michael on Friday April 30, @16:10 (scifi)             |
|   "http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/30/1752246"            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

darthcamaro writes "Earthlings Ugly Bags of Mostly Water is the name of a new documentary film - starring Worf (aka Michael Dorn) about Klingon language and culture. They've got a [0]weird website too. 'Earthlings:Ugly Bags of Mostly Water' captures the lives, passions and quirks of the members of the Klingon Language Institute during their annual qep'a' (conference). The film's producers issued a [1]press release about it today with some interesting quotes... 'The perspective of Michael Dorn, the world's most recognized Klingon, provides both serious and comedic elements to the project,' said Earthlings Director Alexandre Philippe. 'This is a man who embodies all the elements of a Klingon warrior: honor, respect, ferocity. For years, Klingon fans have looked to the Worf character for their education in Klingon culture.' Quaplah! /.

Discuss this story at:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=04/04/30/1752246

Links:

0. http://www.earthlings-movie.com/

1. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-30-2004/0002163991&EDATE=

Confused? Don't Be, Read

The Confusion, Neal Stephenson's next entry in his Baroque Cycle. I wrote a little bit about the first entry, Quicksilver, in a previous post. Special thanks to the Anne Arundel County Public Library for getting this on order. (What? You think I buy all the things I read? I only have one house, and for some reason my wife thinks we're supposed to move around in it without tripping over books all the time.)

Sisko: Short Hair, or Bald?

It's up to you to decide. Star Trek Deep Space 9 begins its (re)run on Spike TV starting April 5^th. If they play them in sequence, Bald Ben won't show up for a few months.