Thursday, October 30, 2008

Thursday Preview: Enterprise Fish

(click on thumbnail for full-size image)

As you may have gathered from the banner ad, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2 focuses on the writers of TV's various Star Trek series who are also known for their work in prose fiction.

Most of them, like last week's preview subject Harlan Ellison, were well-known in literary science fiction before making the move to television.

David Gerrold is something of an exception.  He hadn't yet made his name in literary SF when he sold his original series teleplay "The Trouble with Tribbles"... which makes the sale all the more impressive.  A Richard Matheson or a Theodore Sturgeon had a reputation on both page and screen to get him in the door.  Gerrold was just a college student with enthusiasm and a great idea.  (And was canny enough to get college credit for his script assignment, on top of a paycheck.)  The reputation came later.

For TWS2, he brings us an exclusive excerpt from A Time for Treason, the upcoming sixth volume in the War Against the Chtorr series.  "Enterprise Fish" works well as a standalone, and— like the Editor —you don't have to have read the novels to understand it.  But it may well persuade you— like the Editor —to catch up on what you've been missing.

The illustration is by Mishi McCaig.  Her father, Star Wars prequel designer Iain McCaig, created the cover of Volume 1, and artistic talent obviously runs in the family.  They worked together on "World Enough and Time," the episode of Star Trek New Voyages that we cover in detail in Volume 2.

If you'd like to use the jpg file for your own blog or website, go ahead, as long as you leave the file intact.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

YouTube Tuesday: A Trip to the Moon & Steam Trek

In 1902, Georges Méliès created the first science fiction adventure, A Trip to the Moon.  Here it is with the narration written by Méliès to be read as the film played, and the lost ending re-created from stills.



"Well, that's all fine and good," you may say, "but he didn't invent Star Trek."  Well, what if he had?  It might... look... something... like... this:

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thursday Preview: Life Hutch

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Here's our first preview from our second volume, coming in December.  Thrilling Wonder Stories, as I like to tell people, is 100 pages of new fiction, 100 pages of classic fiction, and 50 pages of non-fiction.  "Life Hutch" is very much an example of classic fiction, the very first professional publication by Harlan Ellison®, who became such an icon of imaginative fiction, he's had to trademark his name.

And while we're talking about celebrated names, how does Ed Emshwiller grab you?  "Emsh," as he signed himself, was one of the all-time greats in science fiction illustration, and we're delighted to feature four of his distinctive black-and-white illustrations in TWS2.  Here, he helps the story deliver a wallop in more ways than one.

I have to confess something.  I can't see the title "Life Hutch" without singing it to the tune of "Love Shack" by the B52's.

Life hutch, baby, life hutch
Life hutch, baby, life hutch
Life hutch baaay-beee-eee...
(repeat until thoroughly sick of yourself)

Anyway, enjoy the opening spread.  If you'd like to use it in your own blog or website, please leave the file intact.

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"Harlan Ellison" is a registered trademark of the Kilimanjaro Corporation. (You thought, maybe, I was kidding?)