This one looks better every time I see a new trailer. You can see them all at the Planet 51 official website, so you will know if you want to see it come November. And then there is the trailer for Tokyo!, the movie William Gibson tweeted about today (or yesterday, depending on your time zone), also looking very interesting. Robert J Sawyer, who already holds a number of awards, including the Hugo and Nebula, is up for another one. The Aurora Awards has his short story collection Identity Theft and other stories on the short list for Best Long-Form Work In English. Until the voting ends, you can read it online here.
It is a slow week in Sci-Fi; there are no new episodes on TV this week, because of the holiday coming up (why waste them when the audience isn’t watching TV?). There could have been a monster movie released, since holiday weekends do good box office, but no. Probably no-one wanted to compete with last weeks Transformers 2 and next weeks Blood, The Last Vampire (see the latest trailer here or watch the one before that, below). I don’t know about the book/graphics novel releases; I basically empty my wallet on the counter every time I hit a Borders/Barnes and Nobel/Waldenbooks, and I find if I do my best to ignore the release announcements I can keep from going in more than twice a month. On DVD this week the Stargate Atlantis final season and only half of season 3 of Eureka was all we got (except for a few anime titles I went looking for, but none of my local outlets stocked them). I love Eureka, but why would I buy half a season? Do they think I want to pay $60 for the privilege of being made to wait for the whole thing, when instant gratification would cost me $35? The flip side of that coin is the fact that only the first half of season 3 has aired so far, with the second half kicking off next Friday, July 10th. So if you want to catch up on the story so far, it may be the way to go for you. Yes, this is a slow week in Sci-Fi, but next week promises to be better.
The Chicago Tribune did an excellent interview with David Tennant about his winding up his tenure as the Doctor. Many insights, no spoilers, and a permissible number of hints and teases, including his response to the 11 Doctors Special rumor. BBC America just sent everyone who signed up for their notifications a reminder that they will be rolling out HD on July 20th, with a full week of quality programming. I love the way they have realized who their core audience is! They feature 8 shows to go HD on the page, and the first 4 are SF/F; Being Human, Doctor Who, Primeval, and Torchwood! It should be a killer week!
Speaking of killers, what if the Vampires were at risk of extinction because their food supply (that’s you and me for the Humans in the audience) had been hunted out? That is the premise for Daybreakers, and it may just have the first recognition that even Vamps have a geek side to their culture; the undead scientists who try to figure out a way to save the species, theirs and ours both. The Kate Bush soundtrack cover by Placaebo is just a bonus; enjoy the trailer…
J Michael Straczynski did the best SF TV series ever *, Babylon5. He has now taken on another epic story; he is bringing Lensman to the Big Screen. The brainchild of E.E. “Doc” Smith, Lensman is a huge and complex story, and it couldn’t be in better hands. Besides the many books, part of it has been done as an anime, and of course there are audio book versions available. If you didn’t already know, Lensman is the original Space Opera, inventing the sub-genre. Some claim it was also the very first science fiction series ever written, but with a first story publish date of January 1934, I think Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars** series beat it to print with the February 1912 story Under the Moons of Mars. Which everyone remembers is also being made into a movie now, right?
*: Possibly now eclipsed by the new Battlestar Galactica, but maybe not: I’m going to re-watch both before I decide. You should do the same.
**: Notice how I avoided the whole science-fiction-vs-fantasy category argument for both book series by pretending it didn’t exist. Which it doesn’t when comparing these two works, since both of them would end up on the same side of the argument as voiced by any given debater; which side they ended up on would depend on who was doing the debating.
The Duncan Jones movie Moon hit theaters in limited release yesterday, and I for one am eagerly awaiting its footprint expanding to a screen close enough to visit. The most interesting review or reaction to it I have seen comes from this Scientific American article, which goes into the the scientific validity of Helium 3 as a power source. Cinematical has posted an interview with Duncan Jones that is quite good, and SciFi Squad got him to reveal his Five favorite Sci-Fi Movies. The official trailer has been released for The Time Travelers Wife, another movie to look forward to.
The British Fantasy Society has announced the 2009 nominees for the British Fantasy Awards 2009. A few of the folks up for the competition include Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book, Interzone and SFX, both for Best Magazine, Doctor Who for best TV Program, and both Iron Man and The Dark Night are up for best movie. The awards will be presented at Fantasycon 2009 in September.