http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/01/14/one-of-my-big-announcements-for-january/
This sounds like a positive development.
This sounds like a positive development.
John Scalzi Has Joined The Stargate Universe Team
- Thread starter DWF
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I don't think I've ever read any of his work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scalzi
But he could be the new blood that some people have been asking for.
Interesting.
Well, let's see what the guy can do. The novel writers they hired for ENT did a good job. Novelists are forced to be more imaginative than TV writers - they have nobody but themselves to fall back on. No actors, no music scorers, no makeup or costume people, no set designers, no SFX. With novels, it's hard to hide behind gimmickry. Maybe the whole writing team should be novelists.
Very cool! (and this is from a 'basher') 
This is the first SGU news that has me really excited... I'm a big fan of his "Old Mans War" series of books. I think he is among the best of the "new" SF writers.
If all he does is help them create interesting alien/enemies - something he excels at in his books - it will be well worth it.
This is the first SGU news that has me really excited... I'm a big fan of his "Old Mans War" series of books. I think he is among the best of the "new" SF writers.
If all he does is help them create interesting alien/enemies - something he excels at in his books - it will be well worth it.
fine. But really they need to either start casting or letting the cast be known!
We know the characters but not the actors except for Robert Carlyle
We know the characters but not the actors except for Robert Carlyle
Awesome cool! Scalzi is a damn fine writer and one of the few SF writers that I read nowadays. More importantly, I'm glad to see a SF-TV series utilizing LitSF talent to enhance the stories. I wish more SF-TV did that.
New blood is new blood.
I think maybe a season before he's fired because he doesn't agree with the big wigs.
Scalzi is an interesting writer. Didn't Old Man's War win a Hugo or a Nebula? That was in many ways a rewrite of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, except as a competently written novel. Then, in the sequels (ashamed to say I've forgotten the second one's name but the third was The Last Colony,) Scalzi addresses the implicit cruelty and tyranny of Heinlein's uptopian regime. Scalzi never quite says (or realizes?) he's pissing on Heinlein's grave. But then, I think that shows good taste and judgment, so I consider it a plus.
Scalzi has also written comic SF, which is promising for the new series. The Stargate series always function well as comedies, with the occasional drama slipped in, not the other way round.
Scalzi has also written comic SF, which is promising for the new series. The Stargate series always function well as comedies, with the occasional drama slipped in, not the other way round.
Scalzi won the John Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2006; however, OMW was nominated for a Hugo. Scalzi's only Hugo is for his blog, Whatever, for fandom writing. Although, The Last Colony missed winning the Hugo by nine votes.
Well, Scalzi has never been coy about how his novels appropirate and are inspired by the miltiary SF work of Heinlein and Hadleman. He even acknowledges it in his afterwards to his books.
To say that OMW a mere "rewrite" of Troopers is a backhanded compliment. Like all miltary SF, OMW series plays with the tropes of the genre and uses them to its advantage. Scalzi also admits to taking concepts from Heinlein and Hadleman to deal with them in his own way, exploring them further.
Contemporary fiction, be it genre or not, is always "in conversation" with fiction that can before it. Writers are influenced by what they read growing up and still read as adults, and that influence is reflected in their work. Scalzi fully admits to his influences.
The 4th book is called Zoe's Tale, for the record.
And after doing a bit of digging around, I'm officially excited about SG:U now!
(Here's hoping it will be broadcast in Canada at the same time that it is in the US - SG-1 was, but Atlantis wasn't...)
And after doing a bit of digging around, I'm officially excited about SG:U now!
(Here's hoping it will be broadcast in Canada at the same time that it is in the US - SG-1 was, but Atlantis wasn't...)
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The "except as a competently written novel" was supposed to say Scalzi's version is a superior novel. Which it is, even making allowances for Troopers originality. Nothing backhanded was meant. The idea that Scalzi has input sparks my interest in Universe.
Well except those comic book writers who got fired from Heroes really frakked the show up by paying more attention to gimmickry than consistent characterization, confusing and annoying the audience and pushing the Nielsens off a cliff. As much as I slam Stargate writers, at least they keep characters essentially consistent, if static, from one episode to the next. So writing for comic books doesn't strike me as any guarantee of quality or even minimal competence.
Scalzi's Old Man's War Trilogy contains:
Old Man's War
The Ghost Brigades
The Last Colony
Zoe's Tale
By the end of The Last Colony, our hero from Old Man's War has completely screwed over his military masters. Zoe's Tale is the last two books in the trilogy told from the perspective of Zoe, the adopted daughter of our hero and his sort-of-late-sort-of-not wife.
I have Agent to the Stars, a tale of first contact with aliens and the Hollywood agent selected to "sell them" to the American public in my book queue. It's either going to absolutely hilarious or absolutely horrible. I'm expecting the former.
I'm a fan of his works, but I'm not a partaker of the Kool Aid. Having him on Universe will either kick ass or be terrible. He will prevent it from being "meh," but I would expect a lot of hardcore fans of SG-1 and Atlantis to be very "what the fuck?!" with where he'll take the show.
Old Man's War
The Ghost Brigades
The Last Colony
Zoe's Tale
By the end of The Last Colony, our hero from Old Man's War has completely screwed over his military masters. Zoe's Tale is the last two books in the trilogy told from the perspective of Zoe, the adopted daughter of our hero and his sort-of-late-sort-of-not wife.
I have Agent to the Stars, a tale of first contact with aliens and the Hollywood agent selected to "sell them" to the American public in my book queue. It's either going to absolutely hilarious or absolutely horrible. I'm expecting the former.
I'm a fan of his works, but I'm not a partaker of the Kool Aid. Having him on Universe will either kick ass or be terrible. He will prevent it from being "meh," but I would expect a lot of hardcore fans of SG-1 and Atlantis to be very "what the fuck?!" with where he'll take the show.
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