Science Fiction Thursday: 'Star Trek' 50th Anniversary, 'Doctor Who' Crossover, Plus Book and Movie of the Week

By Alexander Joenks | Science Fiction | November 12, 2015 |

By Alexander Joenks | Science Fiction | November 12, 2015 |

Science Fiction Thursday, because Wednesday’s not scientific enough and Friday’s not fictional enough.

In an interview Steven Moffat declared that he would love to do a Doctor Who crossover with Star Trek. Says the Moffat:

“If it crossed over with Star Trek, it would have to be real Star Trek. It would have to be Captain Kirk and Mr Spock. It has to be the Doctor meets Mr Spock - that’s the one you want. I mean, would I do it? Yes, in a heartbeat. I think you might find the Americans a little bit trickier to deal with!”

Just what Star Trek always needed: a goodly dose of incoherent emotion porn.
(source: Blastr)

In other inconsolable Star Trek news, William Shatner wants to do a 50th anniversary special and is having no real luck other than suggestions about making it a musical:

“I’m attempting to sell a 50th anniversary show, but so far I’ve had very little luck. Maybe because Paramount’s going to do their own - but I don’t know how they can do their own without me. I’ve never been contacted. I’ve been actively trying to do a 50th anniversary show … We had a big company say: ‘What about a musical or a music variety show?’ That got some traction - but nothing’s come of it yet.”

Set phasers to fuck this noise.

(source: Blastr)

In other news, the World Fantasy Awards have decided to stop using HP Lovecraft’s head for their awards, on account of him being a virulent racist. I have mixed feelings on this because I’m not in favor of racism, but I’m also not in favor of holding past figures up to present cultural standards and then burying their contributions. But on the third hand, the figures look like this which is creepy as all hell:

(source: Blastr)

For some good real world science news? Pluto has 4 mile tall ice volcanoes. I have no comment to that other than awesome.

Book and movie of the week! This week’s were A Talent for War and the film Monsters. If you want to comment about either of these, put it in its own comment with the first line being either “A Talent for War Spoilers” or “Monsters Spoilers”. Also: if you reply to a comment with one of these spoiler tags, you don’t need to bother putting the spoiler tag yourself. Everyone should just assume that if the top level comment is a spoiler, it’s spoilers all the way down.

A Talent for War Spoilers
I love McDevitt’s novels, and this was the first one I read. He reminds me of Clarke or Asimov in the sense that his stories really aren’t all that memorable in terms of either character or language, but in the slow building sense of awe and wonder that comes from the best science fiction. And in this series in particular, I like the decision to set the series far in the distant future, further from us than we are from the first builders of the Pyramids. We are hardly a memory to them, and their exploration takes as much the form of searching in the past as it does in searching in space. And so it’s even more fitting that when the revelation comes in the end, that it’s premised so soundly on human decisions and human secrets, rather than grand revelations about the nature of the universe.

Monsters Spoilers
Such a subtle movie for something categorized under alien invasion and being titled “monsters”, isn’t it? What it gets so perfectly is that its story isn’t about monsters at all, and neither is it lazy allegory. But it resonates with things in the present so that the story is so much more than it is at face value. That’s what great stories do, even when they’re simple ones, and that’s what this movie does.

Next week: We’ll read The Grace of Kings, the debut novel of Ken Liu, and the best damned fantasy novel I’ve read this year. For a movie, we’ll go with The One I Love, which is a wonderfully done bit of subtle sci-fi/fantasy, in the vein of some of Gaiman’s short stories.