SF News: Hubble at the Liberty Science Center

Attention: Due to flooding in my area, I am bereft of a stable internet connection and am thus updating as I can.  I will try to continue on through the rest of the week as follows: Book Review on Thursday, Gaming Review on Friday, and TV/Movie review on Saturday (that's right, Bob, we are in the presence of the rare Saturday update.  Anyway, we now return you to your regularly scheduled program...

Prepare yourself for a journey through time and space, complete  with the most stunning visuals your are likely to see this side of planet Earth.  No, I am not talking about the next Star Trek movie, I am talking about the IMAX Hubble experience.  I was honored to be invited to a press event at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ on Saturday for a screening of this magnificent film and a tour of the renovated facilities.

First thing we noticed when we arrived at the Liberty Science Center was the amazing new IMAX Dome.  For those of us who were not aware, this 88 foot diameter IMAX Dome is currently the largest in the nation, and as impressive as it is from the outside, that is nothing compared to the view from the inside.  On arrival, we quickly made our way up to the theatre on the second level, and took seats near a structure referred to as 'The Doghouse'.  These were, it was explained to us, the best seats in the house, a statement which I can hardly argue with.  Eventually, the lights dimmed and the presentation began.  Hubble is a visual feast which combines gorgeous pictures taken from the Hubble Deep Space Telescope with footage shot by the astronauts of the last Hubble repair mission from May 2009.  
Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, this is a visual event that really beggars the imagination.  There were many great visuals, however the sequence that most stuck in my mind was a journey through space and time to the Orion Nebula that has to be seen to be believed.

My recommendation: Contact the Liberty Science Center and go see this as soon as possible!

Week at a Glance: March 29 to April 5

Well, here we are in a new week, and what do we see?  Well a whole mess of new stuff cascading across our consciousness!  Let's take a look at some of the most interesting stuff I can dig up...

In the SFSNNJ:
While there are no events in the group this week, there is still a whole lot going on at our Yahoo Group open forum.  Check out the link to the right and catch up on the conversations.

In the Movies:
Last week's big new movie release, How to Train Your Dragon, toppled Alice In Wonderland from its perch at the top of the box office, but can it hold out against this week's up and comers?  The only truly genre film coming out this week is Clash of the Titans, but this one looks like it could be a hugely profitable juggernaut!  On the family side, Furry Vengeance is looking to take the market share from How to Train Your Dragon, but somehow, given the pre-release lack of hype, I doubt it will gain any traction.

On DVD & Blu-Ray:
From the ridiculous to the sublime, look for a bunch of new releases this week at your local video stores and libraries.  Sherlock Holmes comes home, but can the venerable detective hold his own against the Alvin and the Chipmunks Squeakquel in DVD sales?  Also, look for The Baader Meinhof Complex, which, while not SF or genre, is a taught and fantastic historical piece from 2008 exploring the crazy Germans of the 1960-1970 revolutionary organization.  IMAX Under the Sea hits the shelves, giving those with an interest in the oceans of the Earth a wonderfully beautiful look at the splendor of the deeps, without the tedious and semi-intelligible gabble of a Jacques Cousteau narrative.  Finally, I Sell The Dead explores a creepy horror scene of ghouls and corpse eaters, right in the luxury of your living room.

On TV:
Although Caprica is now going on hiatus until summer, weep not for Stargate: Universe returns to SyFy!  The second half of season one promises to be full of adventure and excitement, with action around every corner as the cast of survivors tries to cope with life stranded on the Ancient starship Destiny.  I look forward to Friday, when I can watch the new episode, Space.

In Video Games:
Well, this week sees a plethora of games plastered around the stores.  The most important release of the week is, of course, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II: Stimulus Package, which hits stores on the 30th for all major platforms.  PC Gamers can look for the first expansion to the popular Mount and Blade series with the release of Mount & Blade: Warband, as well as titles like Commando Complete, Heroes of Gaia, Icebreakers, Tank Ace, Three Kingdoms, and Bittos e.  Mortal Online joins the crowded ranks of the MMORPG world this week, though given the massive and sweeping presence of the MMO market, it likely will not hold its own for long.  Looking for some new games on the PS3, well here comes Bomberman Live: Battlefest and the latest Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and the Damned game.  XBox 360 sees a lot of action this week with games like Battle for Atlantis, Starhammer Tactics, Zeno Clash Ultimate Edition, and the much anticipated return of the little blue cyborg who could with MegaMan 10.

In Books:
Ian McEwan's Solar debuts this week, and it looks like this one will be the big splash in the book world.  In other book news, keep your eyes peeled for the latest Patricia Briggs novel, Silver Borne, the fifth book in her Mercy Thompson series.  A new series hitting bookshelves this week, Changless (The Parasol Protectorate) by Gail Carriger, shows us the upside of young, proper, lycanthropes, while The Earth We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer takes us into the realm of post-apocalyptic survival one more time.

TV & Movies: Caprica Mid-Season Finale Tonight

Last week I saw a rough cut of this week's episode, and I have to say that I am looking forward to seeing the final product tonight.  Of course, I will be seeing the extra-late showing since this evening is also the night of Modern Masters, meeting up in Ramsey at the Borders Interstate Plaza, but still, it will be one heck of a ride!  I know!

Why am I writing about Caprica again, you ask?  Well, it is going to be a while before we get to see more episodes, so I am getting it out of the way now.

Well, what can I say about Caprica that I did not address in last week's write-up of the Caprica panel?  Well, first of all, I have to say that never before has a show so obviously diversified its viewers.  Seriously, though, many critics posit that this show is a polarizing effort, but I often wonder if they are watching the same program that I am.  In every episode of Caprica thus far we have seen a variety of differing views and opinions, and the show does not espouse or promote any one of them over the others (except maybe the concept that blowing up commuter trains is bad).  Say what you like about Caprica, it is not a single view-point show.

So, Todd, what issues are important to you?  Well, I have to admit that I love the whole big gay gangster scene (more scenes of Sasha Roiz would be greatly appreciated), but that sort of goes without saying.  Religious differences, though interesting, are not necessarily a subject that excites much interest in me, though I have to admit to sharing Sister Clarice's interest in apotheosis, though we in the real world would call it extropianism, or singularity, or transhumanism.  How about the impact of technology on people?  Well, I tend to think that the show tends to look at science and technology as dirty words, and it seems to me that although they do try to show both sides of the argument, they stress the statement that high technology dehumanizes and debases the players more than it brings folk together (it should be noted that this has been said about many things over the past few years, and psychologists have pretty well debunked that, even though the myth persists).  Social differences are, to me, the most important and interesting things that the show addresses, and Caprica does a great job of showcasing these issues.

To wrap up: If you aren't watching, catch up On Demand or online and watch tonight!

Gaming: AT-43 A New Option Part 3

The Armies

Like most wargames, AT-43 pits different kinds of forces against one another in battle.  These forces range in scope and style of play from the hordes of Red Blok to the high tech sophistication of the Therians or Cogs.  One interesting thing is that each army has a number of different factions which determine the force organization and the extra advantages and disadvantages at your disposal.  Since the Army books are now available for free on Rakham's website, I am going to only briefly describe each force and its playstyle so you can begin to think about what army fits your personal ideals.

Cogs
One of the few actually alien forces in the current AT-43 group, the Cogs rely on cloning and high technology to obtain dominance on the field of battle.  Though their forces are few in number, their cloaking shields, which allow them a cover save even in open terrain, make them pretty hard to kill.  Cog Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) are basically giant robots with highly sophisticated weapons.  With their technological superiority well established, the Cogs can easily reach out and punch someone, or run up and slaughter their enemies in brutal assaults.

One of the big disadvantages of the Cogs is their reliance on going first.  A Cog commander generally wants to wager as much as he or she can to ensure they have the initiative each turn.  Why?  A Cog commander has lots of long range, accurate shooting units, which should be leapfrogged one in front of the other to give inactive units the benefit of cover from shielded units out front. 

Kharmans
Another alien species, well another non-human species at any rate, is the Kharmans.  If you have seen the movie Planet of the Apes, you have the basic idea of how the Kharmans work.  The primary discipline of the Kharmans is to hit hard and fast.  Kharman troops are brutal in close combat, with a number of long range artillery support troop options, and many troopers have the ability to lift even Type II AFVs.  Kharman AFVs are hover-bikes with great maneuverability and speed, very much unlike the walker variants of the other race.  Kharmans love a static enemy against whom they can use their best advantages.

While speed and maneuverability are great assets, it should be pointed out that the Kharmans don't have it all their way.  The greatest disadvantage that the Kharmans have is a dearth of units.  The average troop unit is 2-4 men, smaller even than the Cogs' units, and there are not anywhere near as wide a variety of special weapons available to most of those troop choices to give the the punch they need to deal with heavy AFV opposition.  Kharman AFVs are incredibly fragile, trading armor for speed, and are suited more to smashing troops than vehicles.


ONI
One of the most recent additions to the AT-43 universe, Oni Corporation is possibly also one of the strangest.  Unlike the two other human factions, Red Blok and UNA, Oni forces are mercenaries and can be incorporated into any other army list, giving the less flexible armies a more potent stable of options.  Oni troops come in two flavors: plain old humans and Zombies!  That's right, Oni uses virus Zombies with guns and weapons that turn opponents' units into more virus Zombies.  In spite of this major advantage in the ability to increase your forces with a volley of Zombie Gun blasts, Oni is a bit lite on diversity.  Oni AFVs represent the first wheeled vehicles in the game, but while they are fairly hardy, they are nowhere near as versatile as the walkers of other races.  One other interesting point in the Oni's favor is that some of their AFVs are also transports, allowing you to get the normally pokey zombies to the front lines more quickly and keeping your OniKorps mercs alive a bit longer.


So far as I have seen, the only real disadvantage of the ONI is that their AFVs are incredibly expensive compared to the slightly more survivable options of other races.  They are easily immobilized as they have only one structure point for propulsion, and generally only get one or two shots a turn.  While all of their vehicles have the mechanic ability, a decent volley of UNA missiles or Red Blok rockets will shred them pretty quickly.


Red Blok
My personal favorites in the AT-43 universe, the collectivist forces of Hades and the Red Blok, are basically space Commies!  Red Blok has the worst technology in comparison to the other races, but this is more than made for by the massed numbers that the collectivist forces can put into the field.  Red Blok troops have little in the way of defenses, aside from numbers and medics, and their weapons really rely on volume of fire to make up for their lack of accuracy.  Where the Red Blok shines, however is in their Type III infantry and AFVs.  Both are extremely capable and can fill multiple roles far better than their UNA counterparts.


Red Blok's primary disadvantage is in the fragility of its Type I and Type II troops, and their lack of any real assault elements.  While this may not seem a particularly big problem, all it takes is one enemy assault to teach you not to get too close to your enemies.  Another big problem is the Red Blok infantry's lack of survivability against pretty much anything.  Even the weakest of enemy guns will easily mow down large numbers of Krasnye and RPG Soldaty.


Therians
While I have fought many battles against the Therians, and do not own enough of them to field a coherent force, I have to admit that the Morphos are probably my second favorite army.  They are a tough nut to crack, with the strongest and most powerful troops in the game, coupled with the best AFVs.  Couple these incredibly tough units with Hero units that are well nigh immortal, and you have an army that can pound even the toughest units into the dirt.

All this comes at a pretty hefty price, though, as the Therians have to pay a high cost per unit for their fancy ray-guns and immediate repairs, and regeneration.  The Therians use up leadership points faster than you can blink, and anything that restricts their leadership will cripple their ability to do all the fancy tricks that their nano-machines make possible.    Of course, even without the nano-shenanegans, the Therians are still the biggest bad-boys around, so beware!


UNA
The United Nations of Ava, or UNA, are the good guys (unless you are a space commie), and their forces are built to be effective in all situations.  Their troops can be put through their paces in pretty much any role from anti-personnel to anti-AFV, and their effectiveness is unquestioned.  Their AFVs, however, are fairly lackluster, with only a few good Type I and Type II choices in the field.  UNA has some pretty competitive heroes, though, and an army with Captain Newton at the front can pack a pretty nasty whallop.


The main disadvantage of the UNA: a lack of effective vehicles.  The UNA Fire Toad is probably the best AFV in the game, but the problem is that most of the other AFVs fill functions that can be better done with infantry.  Another issue with UNA is a definite need to have more and more Type III infantry units to combat the more survivable armies.


So those are the current armies at a glance.  For more information on each individual army, please visit the Rakham corporate website at http://games.rackham-e.com.

Book Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny by Simon R. Green

The latest entry in Simon R. Green's John Taylor series brings us again to the depths of the Nightside, the secret twisted heart deep below the streets of London, where John Taylor is faced with a series of difficult and horrible choices.  Yeah, I know what you are thinking: What else is new?  Well, this is the first book where events of Green's newer Drood series (The Man With the Golden Torc, Daemons Are Forever, and The Spy Who Haunted Me) actually impact the Nightside.

For those of us, like myself, who have been reading Simon Green since the days of Hawk & Fisher, we all know that Green's various universes, with the exception of the Hawk & Fisher universe, are intertwined.  Often characters from Drinking Midnight Wine or Shadows Fall or even Deathstalker will make appearances in the Nightside, or among the Droods, but generally these are specific to the events of the story itself.  In the case of this book, Green links events discussed in The Spy Who Haunted Me with the ongoing action dealing with Walker in The Good, The Bad, & The Uncanny.  While I do not wish to give any spoilers for either book, I will say that there is something going on with Walker that effects the events of both books, and the bridging of the two series likely means some very exciting things on the horizon for both.

OK, on to the book itself.  Like most of Green's stories, this one starts off with a tangential mission that will be tied into the main story later in the book.  That is the point at which this story departs from the standard Green formula.  Unlike most of his works, The Good, The Bad, & The Uncanny, contains not one but three different mysteries to be resolved.  The initiating action of the story leads into an Elf hiring John Taylor to escort him to a fairy gate at the edge of the Nightside.  This takes up a full third of the book and introduces a bunch of excellent new characters like Ms Fate, the Transvestite Avenger.  Next up, Larry Oblivion hires Taylor to help find his brother, who was last seen helping John Taylor during the Lilith War (Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth).  In the midst of this investigation, Walker keeps popping up and trying to seduce the unflappable and incorruptible Taylor to take his job as spokesman for the Authorities of the
Nightside.

THAC0: 6
While not the absolute best of the series, I have to say that this is a strong departure from the standard John Taylor formula, and a great book on its own.  My only real issue with the book is that reading the newer Drood series is pretty much required.  Of course, if you are a fan of Simon Green, then you have likely already done that, but if you are simply a fan of the John Taylor series, there will be a great deal of information missed without access to the other books.  Still this is a great book and a worthy addition to the John Taylor series.

Week at a Glance: March 22 to March 29

Life continues and evolves here on the East coast, and things are really starting to get interesting for the Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey.  We have reformatted and re-jiggered our website to showcase more of what makes us unique, and the excitement of a variety of new concepts is sweeping over us as we continue our spring cleaning.

And now for the Week at a Glance:

In SFSNNJ Club News:
Tuesday 3/23 at 7:30 PM we meet at Uno's Chicago Grill in Wayne NJ (South Route 23) for Themes of the Fantastic, where Jim Spinosa and Bill Wagner will guide the group through a discussion of Youth in Science Fiction!
Friday 3/26 at 8 PM Modern Masters will be meeting at Borders Books & Music in Ramsey Interstate Shopping Center to discuss C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen.

In the Movies:

Alice in Wonderland continues to dominate at the box office, even though a slew of new titles came out last weekend.  Two new genre movies coming out this week are Hot Tub Time Machine and How to Train Your Dragon.  With Clash of the Titans in 3D and more coming soon, this looks like it could be a big year for movies.

On DVD & Blu-Ray:

The Men Who Stare At Goats hits the small screen, along with a huge number of Horror movies this week.  Zombies of Mass Destruction, and Dread join the ranks of the After Dark Horror Festival offerings on DVD, and the film adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox joins Toy Story and Toy Story 2 on the animated front.  You can also catch Ian McKellen in The Prisoner, and watch vampires in The Lair Season 3. 

In Video Games:
Just Cause II emerges this week, along with Settlers to entice PC Gamers with interesting concepts.  Red Steel II thunders onto a Wii near you, while Nintendo DS players can work their wiles in WarioWare.  In Xbox 360 and PS3 releases, we have a new Prison Break game as well as Quantum Theory, a new SF TPS apparently in the vein of Gears of War and the like.

In Books:

The big new release in Books this week is Walter Mosley's Known to Evil, the second book in his new Leonid McGill mystery franchise.  Another series entry for the week is Peter Hamilton's The Temporal Void, the third book in the Void series.  If you are looking for a more romantic story, check out Rebels and Lovers by Linnea Sinclair.  For fans of first person shooter video games, Peter David's new HALO  book, Helljumper, hits the shelves this week.  The end of the week will see the release of Grand Central Arena by Ryk Spoor.

TV & Movies: Paley Center Caprica Panel

For those in the know, Wednesday 3/17 I was at the Paley Center for Media with my friend Craig Hatler to watch two preview episodes of the hit SyFy show Caprica, and to enjoy a panel discussion with actors and production staff after the previews.  I want to give a quick shout out to Tony Tellado, past guest of the SFSNNJ, who was there for his podcast Sci-Fi Talk (http://www.scifitalk.com/).

If you have not been following the show, it is a prequel series to the multiple award winning Battlestar Galactic series.  The story, which details the struggles of two families, the Adamas and the Graystones, in the aftermath of the deaths of Dr. Daniel Graystone's (Eric Stoltz) daughter, Zoe Graystone (Alessandra Torresani), and Joseph Adama's (Esai Morales) wife and daughter.  Graystone, a brilliant cyberneticist who had developed a massive virtual reality internet, is in the midst of developing Cylons for a military contract when he discovers that his daughter has created an artificial version of herself.  Adama, who is a lawyer for the Tauron mob, in which his brother Sam Adama (Sasha Roiz) is a high ranking enforcer.  The show deals with all manner of social issues including gender and sexual orientation, drug abuse, family tragedy, religious schism, terrorism, and morality.  Featuring a stellar cast and great writing by veteran writers like Ron Moore (Star Trek TNG, Battlestar Galactica), Jane Espensen (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Remi Aubuchon (24), and a stable of great directors and cinematic talent, Caprica is a force even greater than the series that spawned it.

I am going to say right off the bat that if you are looking for spoilers, look elsewhere.  We were asked very nicely by Mark Stern, EVP of Development for SyFy, not to leak any information about the episode content for episodes 108 and 109, which air tonight and next Friday, and I intend to honor that request.  This article will be focusing on the panel, however there is one thing I will say about these upcoming episodes: if you have not been watching, catch up and watch these!  I have to say that these will likely be the most talked about pieces of TV to come down the pike!  Anyway, on to the panel.

The panel included:
Ron Moore, Co-Creator & Executive Producer

David Eick, Executive Producer
Esai Morales, Actor "Joseph Adama"
Alessandra Torresani, Actor "Zoe Graystone"
Magda Apanowicz, Actor "Lacy Rand"
Sasha Roiz, Actor "Sam Adama"
Mark Stern: Executive Vice President of Development for the SyFy Channel
David Bushman, Curator of the Paley Center for Media, and Moderator of the Panel

The event started off with rousing applause for the two episodes that we just screened, and that I am definitely not going to talk about, and David Bushman introduced the panelists.  The first topic was on the differentiation between Caprica and Battlestar Galactica, and David Eick was quick to point out that Caprica is a major change in tone and context from BSG, and was more akin to "Dallas in space, where the robots are the oil."  Everything from that point on was raucous and fun. 

Here are some random quotes from the panel with a few notes on the topics:

Question: What is it like operating in a show with no absolute moral authority, like Adama and Roslin were in BSG?

Sasha Roiz: This world is so morally ambiguous my character actually comes across really well.
Esai Morales: Well, it's not really Battlestar, we are reverse engineering our characters as we go, here.
Esai Morales: You have to keep in mind that no one is evil all the time, no one is good all the time either.
Magda Apanowicz: It is more like reality because we have to keep choosing between really bad choices all the time, and we mostly just make bad choices because they are the least bad.
Alessandra Torresani: She (Zoe) has been betrayed by everyone, but she grows and changes and evolves in every scene and every episode.
David Eick: It's like we are dancing on the edge of  the precipice, and the fact that we could fall off is exciting.
Esai Morales: What's great is that it gives the audience the chance to decide for themselves who is right or wrong.
Alessandra Torresani: Yeah, you can root for a different character in each episode!


Ron Moore: People are complicated, and a tendency of TV is to simplify the characters.  We wanted these to be more like real people.

Question: How was the casting process?
David Eick: You really need to get lucky with actors and with casting.  You can't have a firm idea of who is who until you start looking at parts.
Mark Stern: Whatever they said they liked, they got!
Ron Moore: Casting and writing are organic processes, they grow out of what you are doing.
Sasha Roiz: Well, I initially auditioned for Lacy, the best friend!  Seriously, I was up for the part of Tomas Vergis, but got cast in as Sam Adama, and yeah, I'm a thug.  They must have liked me though, 'cause next thing I knew I went from guest star in the pilot to regular.
Esai Morales: I started to look around at all these other high profile actors, and I got angry.  You have to get angry for doubting yourself at times like that.
Magda Apanowicz: I hate auditions, and I was getting my wisdom teeth pulled the next day, so I figured I would get the pain of one over quickly so I could suffer through the other.
Alessandra Torresani: I cheated, during my network test I discovered that the director and I shared a love for the LA Lakers, so I think he made me look good.

Question: Do you get flack about the religious elements of  the show?
Mark Stern: They never question the important stuff, we really don't get much flak about it.
Esai Morales: I get some flak because I have a few fundamentalist relatives.  The thing is they don't understand if they are being insulted or not.  It just confuses them.

Other random stuff:
They kept shifting who would play Tomas Vergis.  Jane Espensen had suggested James Marsters, but they decided they liked him better as Barnabas (a decision I have to agree with).  Mark Stern observed that you have to be careful in dealing with characters that are linked to certain aspects of pop culture, like James Marsters and Patton Oswald.

We will be seeing a lot more of Tauron and Geminon in the next few episodes.

Amazing Stories of the 1950's was a major source of inspiration for the V-World game New Cap City, in which much of the virtual action takes place.

Smoking is in the show because they want it to look like a stylized 1950's era, but with super high tech stuff.

Esai: I was very upset because smoking is bad and kills people!
Sasha: Hey, Sam is bad and kills people too, you don't seem to have much problem with him!