BSG Meets The Atlantic Monthly (!)

The Atlantic is a terrific magazine, but possibly the last place I would have looked for an article on Battlestar Galactica, the edgy TV series that’s probably done more to shake up science fiction on television since the original Star Trek. Nevertheless, in the new (Jan/Feb 2009) issue, James Parker writes in The Atlantic about BSG, just as the show locks and loads for its final stretch (hitting the cablewaves next Friday night!). In Lost in Space, Parker gives a reasonable account of the origin of the reimagined show, except that he brings L. Ron Hubbard into the account—Hubbard having said that space opera was really “the stuff of deepest prehistory, somber emanations from the memory of the species.” That dovetails, admittedly, with BSG’s premise that Earth is not the cradle of humankind, but rather the latest stop on a long journey.

Parker turns a tad snarky about the direction of the show, saying that “Battlestar Galactica is presenting all the symptoms of a an extended-run high-concept TV series in its decadent phase.” Now, he may be right—certainly I’ve wondered more than once whether the show’s writers actually know themselves where they’re going with the story. I’ve wondered that ever since I wrote the official novelization of the miniseries, and had the feeling that there was a lot they weren’t telling me about the direction of the show because they weren’t sure themselves. Fair enough. Half the time I don’t know where I’m going when I’m writing a novel. Why should it be any different for the creators of a years-long TV series?

On the other hand, maybe those writers know exactly what they’re doing, and we’re just entering the twistiest part of the world’s most gut-wrenching aerobatics show. That’s my vote, an expression of white-knuckled faith. They better know what they’re doing—it’s coming back on, and looks like it could be augering in, and I, for one, want to know how they’re going to land that baby!

“You write about the thing that sank its teeth into you and wouldn’t let go.” —Paul West

BSG Novel—Free at Tor.com!

The e-book version, that is. This week only, you can download my novelization of Battlestar Galactica (the miniseries that began the new BSG) for free from Tor Books. And by the way, if you like e-books, Tor offers a weekly free book. If you sign up for their email newsletter, you’ll get a reminder notice each week when a new title becomes available. You have to act fast, though, because when a new one comes, the old one goes away. (Sort of like woot.com, but without the price and the funny descriptions.)

Speaking of e-books, here’s a reminder that many of my novels are available as e-books in various formats. Go to e-reads.com for a complete listing. And, of course, you can also order new, bound-paper codices (books) directly from me.

“The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.” —John Steinbeck

Spring Is Here!

Spring has sprung here in Massachusetts! And most welcome it is! I don’t know why, but this last winter felt like the longest I’ve ever known. I’ve been counting the interesting species of wildlife I’ve been seeing right around our house here in the Boston ‘burbs: cardinals, bluejays, black-capped chickadee (I think), mockingbirds, crows (making a comeback after nearly being decimated by the Nile virus), a cute little rabbit, a toad, and—just a few days ago—a wild turkey. (It practically cut me off as I was coming up on my moped; it was flying up the street at an altitude of about six feet, then landed in a neighbor’s driveway.) Oh and, yeah—termites.

Blasted termites ate a piece of wood paneling in our downstairs rental apartment. So now I’ve got to hire a Terminator. Jeez, that’s an expensive proposition! And it’s not just a matter of getting estimates and picking a terminator; I have to decide which approach I want to take—pesticide injection into the ground (the tried and true method), or bait trapping (much less pesticide, but newer, less tested, and more expensive).

Which reminds me that my wife and I have become big fans of the new show, Sarah Connor Chronicles. I just read that it’s been renewed for next season. Yesss! And BSG has started up again. We’ve only watched one episode so far, but clearly they’re going to be messing with our minds for the rest of the series. And I mean that in a good way, of course.

I haven’t had as much time to pursue my Roomba hobby as I’d hoped, but I did bring an ailing Scooba back to life! Turned out have some defective soldering inside. I never would have found it if someone on Roombareview.com hadn’t suggested that I solder a couple of leads for a voltmeter in there, so that I could see what was happening. Lo and behold, the act of doing that solved the problem. And I just got a very nice note from someone in Italy, telling me that my method worked for him, too! (No, he didn’t put leads in, but he did remelt the solder on the crucial connection—and that fixed his Scooba, too.)

In keeping with the theme of BSG and Roombas, I present here a couple of funny videos I stumbled across on youtube. The links will open new windows in your browser.

And I, Roomba, a Roomba love story, of sorts (a little long, but cute):

(I tried embedding the videos, but they played erratically for some reason.)

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” —Cicero

Where Does the Time Go?

The last two weeks sure went fast (at least in blog years). The nasty head cold that I’d been dodging all winter while people fell to my left and to my right finally caught me (and most of my family). With perfect timing, it came just before we were to receive a Japanese student to stay with us for five days. We took a lot of vitamins and Echinacea and green tea, and prayed. She arrived today, and is a total sweetheart. I know we’re going to want to adopt her.

A week ago, the high school wrestling team had its annual end-of-season banquet. To my immense relief, someone else produced a video of season highlights, so I didn’t have to. To my immense pride, my daughter Lexi (a graduating senior) received the Coach’s Award for outstanding contribution to the team. She was taken completely by surprise, because she hadn’t had a winning season. But the coach gave a very moving tribute to her hard work and discipline, and her willingness to compete head-on in a sport completely dominated by boys. It was a great moment.

I wrote a while back about the impressive work that Star Trek fans were doing in creating all-new Star Trek episodes. It seems that the producers of Battlestar Galactica have noticed all the fan activity, also, and have decided to facilitate it. They’ve created a video toolkit of special effects, sounds, etc., that anyone can use to produce their own four-minute BSG spinoffs. They’ve even got a couple of samples up. They’re running a competition, and the winning piece will be shown along with an actual BSG episode. (Speaking of which, I’m a few weeks behind in watching, so don’t anyone post any spoilers about what happened to Starbuck in the next-to-last episode!)

Finally, here’s another interesting link, courtesy of my wife:

How about a dance club that’s built their dance floor on top of piezoelectric elements, so that the bouncing of the dance steps provides the electricity to power the club? Go to http://www.inhabitat.com/, and scroll down a little ways to Sustainable Dance Club for a short video. Gotta dance!

Wikis and Pedias and Obsessions, Oh My!

Somehow or other, I stumbled across the existence of Scifipedia, an SF-oriented wiki developed by SciFi.com. Of course, I looked to see if they had a good section about authors, and specifically about me. The answer: authors, yes; me, no. So I set about to remedy the situation. You wouldn’t believe how long it can take to compose a simple encyclopedia article about yourself, especially when most of the information already exists in various documents readily at hand. Nevertheless, I got it done, and you can read all about me and my stuff at Scifipedia | Literature | Authors.

Well, one thing leads to another, and soon I was checking to make sure that various articles about Battlestar Galactica included information about the novels. (They didn’t; I fixed that.) And that led to the discovery of Battlestarwiki, and a search to see if the books were properly referenced there. At first, the answer seemed to be no. A search for novels didn’t lead to much, but eventually I found an article titled “List of Books,” which probably isn’t the best title for search purposes, but never mind. That led to the discovery of a detailed page about my BSG novel, which is truly mind-boggling in its excruciating attention to detail. Some of their speculations are interesting and fun, and some lead me to scratch my head. I’m torn between awe at the energy and intelligence devoted to this, and wanting to say, “Get a—!” But no, no, that’s the last thing I would say to fans! Amazing, truly amazing what these people have pulled together.

BSG—It’s Everywhere

I finally decided to take a few minutes to switch my Blogger account over to the “new” Blogger, whatever that means. I was amused by their informational page, which explained the upgrade by comparing it to the difference between the old Battlestar Galactica, with Lorne Greene, and the new Battlestar Galactica, with Edward James Olmos. (Their link to the Wikipedia article on BSG then led me to squander an hour figuring out how to add information about the book series to the BSG article. So much for just taking a few minutes.)

I’m amazed at how thoroughly Galactica has permeated popular culture. I mean, it doesn’t even play on a broadcast network. If it weren’t for the recent move to free On Demand rebroadcasts, I wouldn’t be seeing it on my own cable box. And yet, I frequently see references to it in print, it turns up in comic strips like Sheldon, and here it is, being used as a point of reference on Blogger. It’s fun to be associated with it, even if the association is small. Last night we watched episodes 8 and 9 of the current season (boxing episode and food-crisis episode), which weren’t at all bad, if not up to the level of the preceding 7. I’ve been asked not to give spoilers, and I won’t, but I’ll say that while there was great backstory in #8, I was less drawn in by the front story; and #9, about the food crisis, showed once again that they’re better at writing stories about human drama (or melodrama) than they are at anything involving science. (Even so, it had a powerful ending.)

Speaking of Wikipedia, check out the new article on star rigging created by blog reader Kitty. (Kitty is a relative of mine, but I’ll be danged if I can explain how we’re related. Can you, Kitty?)

Holiday Greetings, Everyone!

I hope all of you out there are enjoying your holidays. Hope you had a great Christmas, or Solstice, or Hanukah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate. We had a wonderful Christmas here, with family and friends visiting. Which is just one reason I am, typically, offering Christmas greetings a few days after the fact. (I’ve hardly been online at all in the last few days, much less writing blog entries.)

One of my favorite comic strip discoveries of last year was Sheldon, which I started reading on comics.com, then subscribed to after it moved to its own web site. The last couple of days, Sheldon has been doing a riff on Battlestar Galactica, which has been very funny—and accurate. If you’d like to read it, start here and move forward. (Sheldon is the kid; the talking duck is Arthur.)

We’re actually a few episodes behind in watching Galactica, so I don’t know yet exactly what’s happened in the mid-season cliffhanger (though I glimpsed a bit of it while recording from free On Demand on our Comcast cable). But in general the writing on the show this season has been superb—the best yet. I wish I could say that sales of the book have been equally superb, but it would be a lie. There have been various screwups in distribution, including a long delay in getting the mass market paperback listed on Amazon.com and into bookstores. (Borders still doesn’t seem to be carrying it in most stores.) If you don’t see it, by all means ask for it.

I feel a cold coming on (people around me have been dropping left and right with colds and flu), so this might be my last entry before the new year. If I don’t see you before then, have a great one!

Jeff

Writing Media and Other Tie-In Novels

Lately I’ve been getting a spate of emails from people asking questions such as, “How can I write a Battlestar Galactica / Aliens vs. Predator / Universe-of-Your-Choice novel? Do I just write it, or how do I get the rights, or what do I do?” It’s a perfectly natural question, and a natural desire. The answer, though, is one that most people won’t want to hear.

First I should specify that it depends whether you’re talking about writing “fanfic” just for fun, for your own amusement—in which case, the answer is, have at it! (Just don’t try to publish it.)

But I suspect that’s not what most people mean. Most correspondents, I think, hope to write and publish a tie-in novel. I suspect the motivation stems partly from a love of a particular show or universe, and partly from a belief that this may be an easier way to get published. It’s not. What you have to understand is that these projects come about through complex rights arrangements which publishers make with the studios, before so much as a word is set to paper. Once the publisher has an arrangement, then the editor in charge of the line goes looking for writers to write the books (whether novelizations of film/TV productions, like my Battlestar Galactica book, or original spin-off novels, like Craig Shaw Gardner’s Galactica book).

In other words, tie-in projects are generated by the studio and publisher, who then look for writers they think are best for the job. And editors for these books tend to turn to writers whose work they’re already familiar with, maybe even writers they’re already working with. Other writers may apply, but there’s little chance of getting a nod without a publishing track record. They want to know you can do the job. And they usually want the book written yesterday.

So…the short answer is, if you want to write a book in someone else’s universe, get busy and write some stories in your own universe first. (Quit wasting time reading blogs!) Get published, get noticed. Then maybe one day you, too, will get the call.

Oh—and you can learn a lot more about this business than I can tell you at http://www.iamtw.org/articles.html.

Galactica Website

It seems I’m getting a lot of visits here from people who found a mention of my Battlestar Galactica: the Miniseries novel on http://www.gateworld.net/galactica/. Hi everyone! Yes, it’s true that you can read here a lot of my thoughts on writing BSG. But you’ll have to scroll down a ways. There are probably half a dozen entries, if you look far enough. (Or do a search.) Anyway, welcome and feel free to look around the place. It’s small, but we’re all friends here.

Hi Again!

Well, it has been a long gap in my postings. I wish I could say it’s because I’ve had my head deep in the world of Sunborn, but the truth is, it’s because tax return time is upon us and I’d fallen a year behind in my bookkeeping. So I’ve been living in receipts and Quicken, and am about to dive into Turbotax. (For those of you not from the U.S., we have this national ritual in the weeks and months leading up to April 15 every year, when everyone has to file their income tax return with the national government. It’s no fun for anyone, but for self-employed people like writers, artists, and small business owners, it’s an exercise in accounting torture.) However, I’m starting to glimpse a few stray photons, which I hope are the first promises of the light at the end of the tunnel. And praying it’s not a freight train coming the other way.

I-Con was great fun, by the way—for me, but maybe even moreso for my family. We saw a number of friends, made a couple of new ones, and indeed got to say hello to George Takei (Star Trek’s Sulu) and Ron Glass (Firefly). I had a brief but pleasant chat with Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica). The con was far more media-oriented than most I go to, and it seemed as if there were hardly any actual books being sold in the dealer’s room—and yet I sold more copies of my own books at the autograph table than I have in most recent cons that were more book oriented. And, I got my first look at the middle and outer end of Long Island, very pretty.

I have a whole bunch of links to quirky things stored up to mention here, but that’ll have to be for next time. Right now, I really do need to get to work on the book!

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