I'm amazed you kept them in that quality all those years. I don't think I own anything from that age that is in any kind of condition.
Glen Larson's BSG novels from the 80s
- Thread starter Wingsley
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I'm amazed you kept them in that quality all those years. I don't think I own anything from that age that is in any kind of condition.
Heh. My mom once worked as a librarian. I was well-trained to value books and keep them in fairly good condition. Hell, I still have my Man From UNCLE paperbacks that I bought from a garage sale in high school; they were published three years before I was born. I still have them; they're a bit fragile and pretty yellowed, but I have them.
Honestly, I'm not sure that should be sole determinant of quality. The world is full of great shows that are not suitable for children. ("But I can't watch DEXTER or THE AMERICANS with my kids!")
Nobody ever said every sci-fi show has to be family-friendly.
Me, I'll take the reboot over the original BSG any day.
I haven't kept any of mine, but I remember having at least the pilot novelization, War of the Gods, and Galactica Discovers Earth (probably the first thing I ever read by Michael Resnick, whom I'm actually acquainted with now -- small world).
What bugs the heck out of me is the pervasive use of "intergalactic" to mean anything space-related at all. I once saw a TV listing describe Total Recall as a tale of "intergalactic intrigue" or something like that. Earth to Mars. Intergalactic. That's like walking one block and calling it interplanetary travel.
A lot of people simply don't understand what a galaxy is, or have any understanding of the scale of things in space. I once read this art book, a set of various pieces of space art accompanied by a crude epistolary narrative the artist had contrived to link them loosely together. At one point, the narrator character was en route to Earth, and the narration said something like, "We're about two light-years from Earth now. Only a few more galaxies to go."
I dunno that I'd go as far as some here in pillorying Larson's writing overall without first looking at a broarder swath of his work than the shows he produced. He wrote a bunch of McCloud's, for instance. Maybe they suck, but I won't presume they do on the basis of Manimal. 
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But wasn't the network basically looking for a Star Wars knock off? As I understand it, the initial interest behind the Star Trek Phase II TV series was the success of Star Wars.
But that doesn't mean it was conceived as a Star Wars knockoff. Larson had been developing the premise in one form or another since the 1960s (originally under the name Adam's Ark). The success of SW was what convinced a network to buy it at last, because they were looking for SW-like properties and that one was already out there.
Also, BSG had some creative talent in common with Star Wars, like John Dykstra and his visual effects team, and Ralph McQuarrie as a concept artist. As a result, they had similar looks, and people who didn't read the credits mistook that continuity of design for imitation.
One concept I remember from the novels which unfortunately was beyond the scope of then current SFX to show us on screen-
When the Cylon Raiders were in combat they used a tactic called a 'Pinwheel Attack' where three Raiders would swirl around a Viper, trapping it inside until they destroyed it. The closest we ever saw of this was seeing the Raiders travelling in groups of three and the shot of the Raiders whirling down to a planet from orbit during an attack...
There was one novel I read involving Cain- I do not know if it was one Larson 'wrote'. Cain had established a base and was constructing a new Battlestar. He had a trick where two modified Vipers would leave the launch tube connected and fight joined together for a while with each covering the others blindspot in the firing arcs. Does anybody remember this book and what the title was?
When the Cylon Raiders were in combat they used a tactic called a 'Pinwheel Attack' where three Raiders would swirl around a Viper, trapping it inside until they destroyed it. The closest we ever saw of this was seeing the Raiders travelling in groups of three and the shot of the Raiders whirling down to a planet from orbit during an attack...
There was one novel I read involving Cain- I do not know if it was one Larson 'wrote'. Cain had established a base and was constructing a new Battlestar. He had a trick where two modified Vipers would leave the launch tube connected and fight joined together for a while with each covering the others blindspot in the firing arcs. Does anybody remember this book and what the title was?
Sounds like Warhawk
Not really. In the mid 1970ies Paramount was looking to start it's own TV network (like FOX eventually did decades later) and 'Star Trek Phase II' (Star Trek's popularity was confirmed by the response the the animated series).
While Phase II was still in pre-production (and some film tests of new sets and costumes had been done); "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" came out, did very well in theatres. Paramount had originally planned to do ST Phase II on a budget similar to the original series. After they saw the level of special effects in Star Wars and Close Encounters, they know that what they were planning for TV wouldn't fly for even a TV audience; so they scrapped the idea of a 'new network' and started retooling 'Star trek Phase II' into a feature film (with high quality visual effects as well) to capitalize on the 'Star Wars phenomenon. They still felt they got a late start in that arena, and that's why many aspects of the production were rushed because they were worried by the time they got it out - the current 'fad' would have faded and affected BO returns.
Oh I love the show. I would never dream about showing kids the show though. It's great because of the sex and violence!
My son and I are watching the premier episode of TOS-BSG while model building together. I am putting together the new Moebius kit of the Galactica and he is building the USS Arizona. After this show we are watching 'Tora, Tora, Tora' (he is eleven and not quite ready for the unedited Pearl Harbor film yet).
I like both shows a lot. I've only seen a couple episodes of the original, and they were fun in a goofy, cheesy kind of way. The Moore series on the other hand, was a great serious modern drama series.
I'm also a huge fan of True Blood, Game of Thrones, and Banshee, so a show being family friendly doesn't really matter to me. I like plenty of family friendly shows too though.
I have all of the Larson novels and one of the Hatch novels. Haven't read the Hatch one yet.
Most of them are still in brand-new condition. You can't tell them from right off the shelf.
Sounds like the pack of idiots currently attempting to write astronomy articles for the CBC.ca website (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). The latest goof was an article yesterday about one of the exoplanets, which "at 21 light-years away is the closest rocky planet to Earth."
Apparently Mercury, Venus, Mars, Ceres, and Pluto (yes, I know the last two are officially dwarf planets) are made of marshmallows, or something...
Somebody asked which of these are original novels. Numbers 11-14 are original stories. Surrender the Galactica is number 14.
And yeah, I have the entire set.
Yep, all the ones with the red strip on the corner are original stories.
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