T. Rex meets Klaatu. Fisticuffs ensue.

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Christian

So…here we have…the Dinosaurs vs Aliens Motion Comic. Hmmm.

It’s Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld and comic book great Grant Morrison’s unlikely mash up of what has to be two of the surest bets in the realms of pop-culture/kid-in-all-of-us entertainment icon-ery. No idea what the concept part of the high concept is here… like, why would dinos go to the trouble of defending Earth from alien invaders (other than eating any that went walking around poking allosaurs with sticks). And then beyond that, what sort of advanced-techy sort of alien culture would be likely to cobble together starships but then forget to bring their giant, disruptor-ray-spouting howitzers with them? You know, nit-picky stuff like that. Anyway, here’s the minimalist trailer via sfsignal. Doesn’t answer my questions… So, can they pull off this “Hey! You spilled aliens on my tyranosaurus!” confection? Guess we’ll see.

 

Posted in Beasts, Books, Publishing, Space | Leave a comment

Strange Chemistry Books adds Zenn Scarlett to their seething spec fiction mix…

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Christian

Was able to start my day today with the news that editor Amanda Rutter has announced the acquisition of my Zenn Scarlett young adult science fiction series by Strange Chemistry Books.  I alluded to this in an earlier post and one or two (OK, eighteen or nineteen…) places on the blog, but couldn’t reveal specifics until now, lest I draw the laser-eyed attention of Strange Chemistry’s darkly-brooding parental unit, Angry Robot, with who-knows-what repercussions (actually, they all seem quite pleasant at both AR and SC. Strange and angry, but pleasant). Here’s the news-flash from the Strange Chemistry site:

 

ANOTHER ONE JOINS THE FAMILY!

Strange Chemistry, the YA imprint of Angry Robot Books, is delighted to announce the signing of seriously talented debut science fiction author Christian Schoon. Christian has been signed in a two book deal for World English Rights, negotiated between Strange Chemistry’s Amanda Rutter and Adam Schear of DeFiore & Co. in New York. The first of these two novels will be called Zenn Scarlett and will be published in the Spring of 2013, with a second book in the same series to follow.

About Zenn Scarlett

Zenn Scarlett is a bright, determined, occasionally a-little-too-smart-for-her-own-good 15-year-old girl training hard to become an exoveterinarian. She’s specializing in the treatment of exotic alien life forms, mostly large and generally dangerous.

Her novice year of training at the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic on Mars will find her working with alien patients: from whalehounds the size of a hay barn to a baby Kiran Sunkiller, a colossal floating creature that will grow up to carry a whole sky-city on its back.

After a series of inexplicable animal escapes from the school and other near-disasters, the Cloister is in real danger of being shut down by a group of alien-hating officials. If that happens, Zenn knows only too well the grim fate awaiting the creatures she loves.

Now, she must unravel the baffling events plaguing her school, before someone is hurt or killed, before everything she cares about is ripped away from her and her family forever. To solve this mystery – and live to tell about it – Zenn will have to put her new exovet skills to work in ways she never imagined, and in the process learn just how powerful compassion and empathy can be.

About Christian Schoon

Christian has a life-long affection for animals and deep appreciation for science (fictional and actual) and says he’s constantly surprised to find himself living a universe where he gets to spend his time thinking and writing about exactly those subjects. His writing career includes several years as an in-house copywriter/scriptwriter for Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, followed by freelance copywriting for the entertainment industry and scriptwriting for live-action and animated T.V. Currently, he writes from his 150-year-old farmstead in Iowa, which he shares with a fluctuating number of horses (generally less than a dozen, but not always), 30 or so cats, an Aussie mix canine, three ferrets and “…a surprisingly patient wife.”

Christian is represented by Adam Schear of DeFiore & Co. in New York. When Adam informed him that Strange Chemistry, daughter-spawn of the almighty Angry Robot, was interested in publishing his work, Christian reports his pleasant sense of incredulity concerning the universe was ratcheted up several notches.

He can be found online at his blog: www.christianschoon.com

Strange Chemistry’s Amanda Rutter says: “When I read Zenn Scarlett I was astonished at the depth and breadth of imagination on display. Even better, Christian has written a breathtaking story about compassion and truth, featuring a teen character that people will really take to their hearts.”

Unquote… and that’s the news, film at 11. Will report updates as the publishing process moves forward.

 

Posted in Authors & Their Books, Publishing | 2 Comments

Alien contact: “Howdy, let’s be friends!” or “Oh my, these human things are naaaasty.”

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Christian

A number of soft, easily-captured-immobilized-broasted-and-eaten humans with a vested interest have been thinking, furiously it seems, about the down-in-the-weeds details of how our first contact with an alien intelligence might go. And some of our sage-est of sage elders (as in S. Hawking) think things could go very pear-shaped. Really fast.

Let’s review: first, get the in-depth overview from the boffins (love that word) at NASA and a couple of leading American universities in this exhaustive paper, with the no-nonsense-whatsoever title: “Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis.”

For a handy general consideration of the issue, there’s this at Discovery.com: “Do Aliens Exist? If So, Will They Kill Us?” Always a pertinent question. So, you’re wondering, other than simply because they’re voracious, predatory, vaguely-insectoid-or-squidlike-bad-asses-with-no-moral-compass-and-an-appetite-for-hairless-monkey, why would any advanced, star-tripping, alien race WANT to do unto us  in such an ill-mannered manner? Well you should ask. Discovery again has a nice, bite-sized (so to speak) summary for you. Turns out, there are several very good reasons an otherwise benign, enlightened gaggle of off-worlders would want to smoosh us Earthers before we spread beyond the Solar System. Jeesh. And E.T. seemed like such a swell little guy….

Posted in Exobiology, Space | Leave a comment

Oh, the drama…

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Christian

So… what’s been unveiled as the hottest-yet-coolest category of books we’d all be ever-so-sorry to miss out on this summer? According to the velvet-voiced and very bright people at National Public Radio (jazzy drum roll, please), it’s…

…Young Adult Fiction, of course.

In fact, this coveted shelf in your library/ bookstore/Kindle-screen is so very smokin’ hot that NPR has selected YA fic as the spotlighted focus of their annual summer readers’ poll. A poll? you say. Yes. With voting and all. So, if you’ve got a favorite readable,  zip on over to the NPR Books zone and express yourself (you can nominate five faves, either single titles or series). You’ll note that even the exalted wise-guys at NPR struggle, as do many of us, with a nailed-down definition of just precisely what constitutes YA, but they promise to herd together a scrum of experts and elbow-patch-wearing-know-it-alls to pin that semantic sucker down.  So, go on with ya, head over to NPR and tell the world what title(s) rule your 12-to-18-year-old reading realm. Then, check back here later & I’ll let you know if the rest of the YA-book-loving-universe agrees with you. (You are curious, aren’t you?)

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cast members of this show in it for the long run. Long as in pretty much forever.

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Christian

 

 

A Dutch company has been formed to send volunteers to establish a settlement on Mars by the year 2023.  The company’s recent press releases inform us that the colonists’ adventure would be filmed and broadcast back to Earth as part of a new reality TV series. Profits from the global airing of the show would help fund the project. One detail: these settlers would not be coming back to Earth, but would stay permanently on Mars.  Hoax? Delusion? Strange PR stunt for some other undertaking entirely? Hard telling, but  here’s the website for Mars One, the group of people that includes among its number a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.  The company spokesperson, with a very straight face, says they’ve put together a business plan that will let them accomplish this multi-billion-buck interplanetary Exo-Big-Brother in a series of steps that culminate in landing the first four Earthlings on the Red Planet within the next dozen years.

After the initial “what the frack?” response, the scheme  conjures up eerie echoes of a short-lived TV series called Defying Gravity – wherein a small group of astronauts is launched on a mission to the planets. En route, they have their every act recorded for a documentary film that’s vital to the funding of the mission. By the time the series got yanked, most of the crew was hallucinating like mad and no one was getting much science done. There was also an odd plot device about some kind of libido-suppression drug they were all issued which, of course, certain scoff-law astronauts refused to use-as-instructed.

In any case, it’ll be entertaining to see if the Mars One gang is serious, and if they can actually line up partners for their epic, aka crazy-as-over-caffeinated-weasels, idea. We’ll be thrilled… and stunned… to report on any progress.

 

Posted in Films and filmmaking, Space | Leave a comment

Launch your brain into “The Living Cosmos”

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Christian

The Living Cosmos

by Chris Impey

Cambridge University Press

393 Pages, Paperback Edition Updated 2010The Living Cosmos

I write fiction that speculates about life on other planets, and while my attention to scientific nuts and bolts is far from exhaustive, I take pains to make my creatures and their biology believable. To do that, I read lotsa books about what astrobiologists consider likely in the way of potential alien critters and their could-be worlds. Then, I make stuff up…. (hey, it’s fiction). I especially enjoyed a recent read on the subject: The Living Cosmos by Professor Chris Impey. It’s dense with information, but Impey has a great gift for making data easy to digest.  It also covers all the bases in what is a richly interdisciplinary field, drawing on biology, geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, etc. etc. The book deals roughly with a trio of important areas: the population of habitable planets out there, what it takes for biology to get started and thrive on those possible planets, and just how tough is it for bacterial-level life to get its act together and evolve into something we’d recognize as intelligent.  You’ll get a very sound intro to how we think life came about here on our home planet, and then see how that knowledge can be used to think about alien life, in a wide and fascinating array of possible ecologies. There’s also a companion website with plenty of additional stuff to take you farther. All in all, it’s a highly readable, very cool introduction to all things astrobiological for those willing to spend some quality time poking around the nooks and crannies of (fingers crossed!) The Living Cosmos.

 

 

Posted in Authors & Their Books, Books, Exobiology, Space | Leave a comment

The art of the as-yet unreal.

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Christian

Science fiction & fantasy book covers, magazine illustrations and film posters are some of the most reliably awesome well-springs of  artwork that, well… that you just won’t see anywhere else. Every year, the Chesley Awards spotlight the alien/elvish goodness of the artists who fire up our imaginations (and our consumer impulses…) with their creations.  The Chesleys are divvied out by the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists — and here are some of last year’s nominees over at i09.  A gorgeous assortment of unearthly strangeness and beauty!

Posted in Books, Publishing | Leave a comment

Saturn’s moon Enceladus: just one big ol’ salt-water aquarium?

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Christian

 

star zeta Orionis passes behind Enceladus' water plume

Salt-water geyser plumes erupt from Enceladus. We like.
Image credit: NASA

 

NASA’s Cassini probe to Saturn has turned up the best evidence yet that there’s a seriously vast ocean of salt water sloshing around beneath the icy shell girdling the little Saturnian moon Enceladus. The water comes from fissure’s in the moon’s surface called “tiger stripes,” which are spritzing out columns of briny liquid in huge geyers. Cassini flew close enough to Enceladus to snare samples of the salty liquid, in the form of ice grains, in its cosmic dust analyzer. The news-value here is that the amounts of potassium and sodium in the ice grains mean the chemical make-up of the moon’s likely under-ice ocean is somewhat similar to Earth’s oceans, which means the possibility for finding living things there has just increased significantly.

This is especially intriguing stuff to me, since one of the alien creatures that my exoveterinarian Zenn Scarlett deals with in my first book is an Enceladan ice sylph.

Now, what needs to happen next is a new NASA probe to Saturn that can drop a landing vehicle onto the surface of Enceladus, turn on its its heating element to melt thru the ice and launch its little submarine-bot unit to go snap a pic of a slyph that I can use on Zenn’s book jacket. I’ll be waiting….

 

Posted in Books, Exobiology, Space | Leave a comment

Ridley’s SF Re-boot: Promethean… or what?

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Christian

OK, first thing: Ridley Scott’s original Alien is one of my all-time favorite pieces of film-making, from the direction, to the script, to the casting, to the acting, to H. R. Giger’s uber-innovative art direction and genre-defining ship-and-alien-concepts/designs. The Nostromo was a greasy, leaky, working man’s industrial spacecraft; that idea/imagery alone changed SF permanently. I mean, even the crew non-uniforms were breakthroughs, for cryin’ out loud. If you search back to see what SF movies in general were LIKE when Alien came out (1979), the competition that year was Star Trek: The Motion Picture (their uniforms? Leisure suits). And while I’m an unrepentant Trek disciple from way-back, when it comes to comparing these two films…

Nazi+Kirk%2C+Spock+and+Bones+-+Star+Trek+-+Patterns+of+Force

Note the early-model shuttlecraft in background.

 

 

 

 

…well, let’s just leave it there.

Of course, Star Wars premiered two years earlier, and its genre-shifting originality was right up there with our little chest-bursting amigo. But, with its softer, borderline science-fantasy elements, SW was a different animal, IMHO.  So now, the point of this little ramble: Angry Robot Books author, game designer and Viking berserker-afficiando Chuck Wendig gives us an alt-view chewing-over of Ridley’s gleamin’ new protoplasmic leviathan, Prometheus. Mr. Wendig’s angle addresses what we can learn from the storytelling, good/bad/evil/indif, that the movie serves up. Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the flick yet. Also, klaxon-sound-effect-alert: Chuck’s site is for adult-level humanoids only. And even they may come away curled up into a little ball. Not my fault that he wields the language like an off-duty Procyoni warp-catalyst pipe-fitter downing his third sky-stim hi-ball. And, of course, feel free to weigh in with your own opposable monkey-digit rating of the movie. We’re all ears….

Posted in Films and filmmaking | Leave a comment

Livin’ on the edge

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Christian

Just a quick acknowledgment that a landmark, and largely unnoticed, moment in human history is very nearly upon us: the first ape-made objects ever launched from Earth are close to entering interstellar space. The NASA/JPL people won’t know for sure that it’s happened until it happens. But, after some 30-plus years of cruising smartly along, Voyagers 1 and 2  are on the threshold of poking their little antenna-noses out of the Solar System proper and boldly going you-know-where. Really an awesome and momentous achievement… our first baby step toward the stars. Bravo to all who helped these dauntless explorer-droids on their journey. (And cheers also to an American public which, in the distant past, believed that this sort of scientific endeavor was  worth their tax money…. Oh? We can’t afford it? Tell the obscenely non-taxed Exxon Mobil guys that as they wave goodbye and vanish into their private helicopters en route to Monte Carlo.)

(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Artist concept of Voyagers in the heliosheath

Posted in Space | Leave a comment