The Sword and Laser discussion

Veronica wrote: "Hey everyone!

We have a hard time keeping up with all the various threads for updated news! If you want us to read a news story on S&L, post it in this thread along with why you think we should talk about it! That way, we can view new entries by date!

Thanks to Dara for the idea!"

New Thread for a New Year. Share your quick burns for 2016!

George RR Martin finally admitted what everyone knew - that The Winds of Winter won't be out before the premiere of season six of Game of Thrones on HBO

Sky wrote: "George RR Martin finally admitted what everyone knew - that The Winds of Winter won't be out before the premiere of season six of Game of Thrones on HBO"

In other news, rain is wet. At this point I may not bother to read it if it ever comes out.

John Scalzi dropped some interesting news on his blog earlier this week: he won’t have a new novel coming out in 2016. Instead, his next will come in 2017.Link to his blog post.

Man raises a million dollars to make his own Star Trek film. Viacom lawyers respond, "Yeah, no."

Rob wrote: "Sky wrote: "George RR Martin finally admitted what everyone knew - that The Winds of Winter won't be out before the premiere of season six of Game of Thrones on HBO"

In other news, rain is wet."

You totally stole my line from the last time he announced a delay. :p

Sean wrote: "Man raises a million dollars to make his own Star Trek film. Viacom lawyers respond, "Yeah, no.""

That's a shame his ambition blurred the line of what's acceptable, because the short film "Prelude to Axanar" is easily the best Star Trek movie made since Wrath of Khan. The guy's got the skills.

Sean wrote: "Man raises a million dollars to make his own Star Trek film. Viacom lawyers respond, "Yeah, no.""

They didn't even know they were being sued until they read the news. http://io9.gizmodo.com/star-trek-fan-...

The Expanse, the Syfy TV series based on Leviathan Wakes and its sequels, has been renewed for a second season before the first has finished airing: http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/the-e...

Tamahome wrote: "Sean wrote: "Man raises a million dollars to make his own Star Trek film. Viacom lawyers respond, "Yeah, no.""

They didn't even know they were being sued until they read the news. http://io9.gizmo..."

Paramount/Viacom is particularly litigious when it comes to Trek. A couple decades ago they tried to shut down pretty much every fan site dedicated to Star Trek. They do things wrong a lot, because they have that bully mentality.

NPR just posted that Harlan Ellison has a new book out.

Harlan Ellison. Released. A. New. Book.

WHY WASN'T I INFORMED?!

Came out December 31st from Subterranean Press. It's called Can & Can'tankerous. Which is awesome.

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/02/4612813...

Tamahome wrote: "They didn't even know they were being sued until they read the news. "

Supposedly.

"CBS has not authorized, sanctioned or licensed this project in any way, and this has been communicated to those involved,” a representative from the network told TheWrap. “We continue to object to professional commercial ventures trading off our property rights and are considering further options to protect these rights.”

That article is from August.

Trike wrote: "Paramount/Viacom is particularly litigious when it comes to Trek."

Not recently. They've taken a very laissez faire attitude towards fanfic and fan films for at least a decade -- provided the makers don't try to monetize it (and even then they'll let productions run fundraisers for specific purposes, like "Hey, we need $1000 to build a transporter room set"). Viacom's legal department will even lay ground rules for groups that ask.

They're going after Axanar because Alec Peters stepped way out of line -- I mean, the guy's selling his own Star Trek branded coffee.

I'm not saying he's an innocent victim -- I'm sure he knew he was stepping over the line -- but that he was playing chicken with a company that has a well-earned reputation for attacking people who cross them.

I mean, Viacom sued Google for a billion-with-a-B dollars over copyright infringements committed by users uploading clips to YouTube from their library, including Star Trek. YouTube users were infringing Paramount's copyrights (according to Viacom) from day one of the service, which Viacom ignored. Google bought YouTube in October 2006. Viacom sued Google in March of 2007. They didn't go after any other video services.

I'm guessing it's because those other services were start-ups without deep pockets.

Viacom appealed the multiple rulings against them and Googled finally paid them money to go away in 2014, 7 years after the lawsuit was initiated.

You don't swim with sharks and not expect to lose a limb.

Friend of show, N.K. Jemisin Launches SFF Column at The New York Times Book Review

http://www.tor.com/2016/01/04/nk-jemi...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/boo...

Writing Excuses podcast, having wrapped up their "masterclass" season, have started a new season talking about various plot elements in stories. So the mystery our hero investigates, or a scifi story with an ensemble. Horror with a romance element. That sort of thing.

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/01...

A quick search didn't tell me if someone posted about this yet, so I apologize if it's old news, but Alex Garland, director of Ex Machina, is making a movie of Annihilation.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-director-o...

A "looser adaptation", whatever that means.

Oh, Ex Machina. Visually and technically, you were fantastic, but I found you disturbing.

This has nothing to do with neither Sword Nor Laser but HBO has greenlighted the much promise " 'Deadwood " film. Deadwood is my favorite HBO series so I am hopeful it will happen,
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/01/0...

Stephen wrote: "This has nothing to do with neither Sword Nor Laser but HBO has greenlighted the much promise " 'Deadwood " film. Deadwood is my favorite HBO series so I am hopeful it will happen,
http://www.ign.c..."

I'm... happy for you? I guess?

Why is it here and not on the Western group's news page? This is kind of topic-specific, after all.

Trike wrote: "Why is it here and not on the Western group's news page? This is kind of topic-specific, after all. "

What kind of lily livered yellow bellied sapsucker wouldn't be thrilled to read about the news on quick burns? It's about as on topic as any of the hundreds of posts about the latest marvel comic to come to netflix. It also happens to be my favorite HBO series of all time as well.

Oh, well if you guys like it, then gee it must be fine to bring it up on a completely unrelated message board.

The difference between Deadwood and Marvel comics is that the former is a Western while the latter is Fantasy. Therefore everything -- Every. Single. Thing. -- about Marvel is germane to this group, while nothing -- literally nothing -- about Deadwood is on topic.

I love the Great British Baking Show -- I'm not kidding at all, it is, in the parlance of Deadwood, "Totally f**king sh*t-hot sumb*tch fun and godd*mn games! F**k!" -- and I'm stoked to see it come back.

But I won't post about it here because it's off-topic.

TechCrunch reports that Pottermore has abandoned exclusivity for the Harry Potter series. You can now purchase the ebooks directly through Amazon and B&N.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/08/harr...

Also, Deadwood is awesome!

Trike wrote: "Oh, well if you guys like it, then gee it must be fine to bring it up on a completely unrelated message board.

The difference between Deadwood and Marvel comics is that the former is a Western whi..."

If a work were a western with fantasy aspects, which I've heard described as "weird western", then it would be on point, although maybe not as popular with this crown. So says the me.

Yes, Cowboys & Aliens or High Plains Drifter or Timerider or Back to the Future III or The Dark Tower or Preacher, Vol. 1: Gone to Texas or Territory or the HBO remake of Westworld ... all of these would be on point.

A straight Western like Deadwood, no.

OK. If you want to debate about what content is appropriate to share in the group, please do so in another thread. Let's try to keep this thread to news posts.

Thanks.

Data from 200 floppy disks containing unpublished Gene Roddenberry works recovered
http://www.geek.com/?p=1643990
---------------------------
The data on the disks were written in a custom version of CP-M
but some of the disks have "Word star 4" written on them.
The total amount of data was around 2-3 meg.
I have no idea how efficient his custom CP-M was but I took a look at a ebook that I had close at hand.It was 495kb. (less then half a meg). So in theory there could be a few novel's worth of material on those disks. Or maybe he just saved some boot leg copies of Zork, Castle Wolfenstein or his very own version of ST.
https://goo.gl/0ma2fb
http://www.z80.eu/startrek/first_st.jpg
(I hope its a actual script.)

2016 Phillip K. Dick Award Nominees

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2016/01/...

The Magicians pilot is online (and On Demand). It's like Harry Potter mixed with Game of Thrones (isn't everything?). http://www.syfy.com/themagicians

‏@JamesSACorey -- People gave us crap about "Game of Thrones in Space," but a lot of new shows seem to be, "Game of Thrones but... no, just Game of Thrones."

“I got a phone call quite recently from somebody who said, ‘I saw that picture you did with Christopher Plummer and Timothy Dalton. It’s a good little movie. And now I think, instead of a little drama, you’re trying to show you’ve got acting chops, you should go back to doing what made you: a big, giant action movie! I have one, you rewrite the script, you say the word, you’re the director. We’ve got a fifty million dollar budget, it’s right up your alley!’ And I say, ‘What is it?’ ‘It’s not “Die Hard On A Boat” or “Die Hard In A Shopping Mall”, it’s a fresh idea: it’s Die Hard… but in a building!’” – Steven de Souza (writer of Die Hard), Dreams on Spec

For fans of the Rho Inception and Rho Agenda series, author Richard Phillips is about to release a third trilogy, The Rho Assimilation. The first book, The Kasari Nexus, will be released in April 2016, but if you can't wait, previews of the first 2 books are up on his blog.

http://secondship.com/

http://rhoagenda.me/2015/09/11/previe...

Maybe GRRM won't be late with his next Game of Thrones book. It turns out publishers can put out books as fast as they want. http://io9.gizmodo.com/it-turns-out-t...

Tamahome wrote: "Maybe GRRM won't be late with his next Game of Thrones book. It turns out publishers can put out books as fast as they want. http://io9.gizmodo.com/it-turns-out-t......"

Comparisons to older books isn't fair as they were written on a typewriter not on a word processor.

I thought he wrote everything in Wordstar on an old MSDOS computer. http://grrm.livejournal.com/197075.html

Tamahome wrote: "I thought he wrote everything in Wordstar on an old MSDOS computer. http://grrm.livejournal.com/197075.html"

That's my understanding

I believe he does now. However his first book came out about ten years before Wordstar. He'd been writing almost 20 years before starting the Song of fire and ice series. It makes sense that his early book were done on a typewriter (or possibly hand written).

*sigh* We lost another one. Alan Rickman, aged 69 due to cancer.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment...

Tamahome wrote: "Maybe GRRM won't be late with his next Game of Thrones book. It turns out publishers can put out books as fast as they want. http://io9.gizmodo.com/it-turns-out-t......"

Well, he and his publishers wanted it out before season 6 of Game of Thrones so he's late.

Joanna wrote: "*sigh* We lost another one. Alan Rickman, aged 69 due to cancer.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment..."

By Grapthar's hammer!

Argh.

They have made a movie of 'Pride Prejudice and Zombies', trailer available on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syjfm...

A new Joe Abercrombie short story edited by the new guy at Tor.com.
http://www.tor.com/2016/01/12/twos-co...

The new guy is Jonathan Strahan (Coode Street podcast, Best SF&F of the Year anthologies...).

I just got a message to my Goodreads inbox that Goodreads is going to interview Lois McMaster Bujold for the February Goodreads newsletter. It's not up there yet, but when it is, it will appear at this link:

https://www.goodreads.com/voice

An interesting story on how The Winds of Winter
can hit the market in three months instead of the normal timespan.
http://www.tor.com/2016/01/13/winds-o...

The Mountain From 'Game Of Thrones' Claims A New Record For Fridge-Carrying http://digg.com/video/the-mountain-fr...

His name is actually Thor!

Here Are The Nominees For The 2016 Philip K. Dick Awards.

Amazon Echo can now read your Kindle books aloud on request

http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/16/am...

HBO has shut down production on Westworld for two months due to script problems. It's being spun as the scripts are late, but scuttlebutt has it the early screenings went very badly. This is the second time the show has been halted.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/hbos-westworld...

Trike wrote: "HBO has shut down production on Westworld for two months due to script problems. It's being spun as the scripts are late, but scuttlebutt has it the early screenings went very badly. This is the se..."

They decided to finish writing the scripts before shooting the rest of the season.

Crazy talk!
(George R R Martin)
-----------------------------------
Quote- “As we head into the final phase of production on Westworld, we’ve made the decision to take a brief hiatus in order to get ahead of the writing,” said a statement released by HBO. So basically, things were going well but writers Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight) and Lisa Joy (Burn Notice) just wanted some time to finish the final four scripts. So it’s a good thing. They don’t want to rush production just because they have to. They want to make the product as good as possible. The show will go back into production in March, according to Variety, and it still on track to premiere at some point this year."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/hbos-westworld...

Trike wrote: "HBO has shut down production on Westworld for two months due to script problems. It's being spun as the scripts are late, but scuttlebutt has it the early screenings went very badly. This is the se..."

If you want to post about Westerns...Hah! Just kidding...

Did you know that the original Westworld was the first movie to use CGI? Westworld was one of my favorite movies when I was little.

The original Westworld was direction by author Michael Crichton!