Xenagia News V2, #4

Welcome back to Xenagia. This week, some discussions of book club and reviews, yet another update on the writer's strike, and a look at the week's most active threads.

Shannon

Site News

MADNESS BECKONS: As previously announced, February's book club book is going to be _At the Mountains of Madness_ by H.P. Lovecraft. We'll start talking about it on February 1st. If you haven't yet picked up a copy, our February voting thread has some advice about which anthologies the story is in.

Madness Books

REVIEWS PAST: Our review queue is currently empty, but we hope you enjoyed our reviews from last week of _Three Shades of Night_, for World of Darkness, and _Ender's Game_, by Orson Scott Card.

Ender's Game
Three Shades of Night

Industry News

WRITER'S STRIKE: The writer's strike is in a state of flux right now because the Director's Guild, which was next up in line to negotiate, popped in and made a deal with the studios. The writer's guild has been entirely silent about the directors' deal, pretty much to their deficit among their constituents, and it might be enough to break the strike even though the DGA deal is pretty far from what the writers feel they need. But as of this week it's all up in the air. The studios have started talking to the WGA again for the first time in over a month. Within the next week, we'll probably know whether we'll see May sweeps or whether it'll be next Fall (or later!) before we see our shows again.

DGA Deal

LOST: Meanwhile, the networks continue to trot out their various delayed shows, to pretend that they still have a TV season. For us the next big one is _Lost_, which premieres a week from Thursday. There's a thread to talk about the show's lurking mysteries.

Lost Mysteries

OTHER THREADS OF NOTE: Here's some other threads which got some notable attention in the last week:

Lovecraft for Newbies
What We Read in 2008
About the Sci-Fi Channel
Stargate Atlantis

Xenagia News V1, #2

Welcome back to Xenagia News. This will probably be the last posting before Thanksgiving, so enjoy your holidays. In the meantime, we've got Xenagia News and Media News just like last time. If there's anything you'd like to see added to this newsletter, please let me know.

This Week: Book Club; Reviews; News Blog; Writer's Strike; Season Scorecard; and Threads of Note.

-Shannon

Site News

BOOK CLUB: We've selected our first book for the Xenagia Book Club. It's _Singularity Sky_ by Charles Stross. This is modern hard science-fiction at its best. The synopsis: "Four hundred years after the computer systems of Earth transcended and became the Eschaton, scattering the population across thousands of light-years of space and a thousand years of time, a backwater colony of a minor interstellar empire is contacted by a much-advanced culture. The empire responds by sending an FTL war-fleet, planning to violate causality by attacking before contact. But the Eschaton's First Commandment is, 'Thou Shalt Not violate causality in my light-cone.'"

We'll be starting discussion on December 1, though I expect the discussion will start really rolling on Monday December 3. Go pick yourself up a copy at your local library or bookstore, so that you can join us.

REVIEWS: Our reviews have continued to roll since last week. As usual, we've got them lined up for Tuesday and Thursday. Today we've got reviews of the books _Man Made Monsters_ and _Templar Chronicles: The Heretic_ as well as the comic book _Secret Identity_. There's three more scheduled for Thursday, and we've already started to put together our reviews for next week as well:

Read Reviews: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/

Submit Reviews: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/submit-review.phtml

NEWS BLOG: At the suggestion of a reader, we've created a blog for these newsletters. If you prefer, you can thus now subscribe to this newsletter online.

Blog URL: http://xenagia.blogspot.com/

Blog RSS: http://xenagia.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

(We'll be updating the look and feel of that blog soon, since it's currently in a rudimentary form.)

Media News

WRITER'S STRIKE: The strike, now entering its 8th day, continues to be the big news. Last time there was a TV writer's strike, back in 1988, it lasted for 22 weeks, so this probably won't be over soon. However, we're now starting to feel the repercussions, with shows going dark and announcing that they've just got a few more episodes in the can. We talked last week about how shows like _Lost_ and _Heroes_ will end up with truncated seasons. Meanwhile, the big winners will probably be the SF shows that got pushed back to spring: _The Sarah Connor Chronicles_, _New Amsterdam_, and _Jericho_ season two, since they should be getting released at a time when the airwaves are barren of pretty much everything but reality shows.

Writer's Strike: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=802

SEASON SCORECARD: So what were the best shows of this probably-to-be-abbreviated TV season? Here's your chance to discuss that:

The Best Shows: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=832

THREADS OF NOTE: A few other threads of note from Xenagia in the last week.

The Books We Read Novemember has kicked off, to talk about the newest tomes you're working on:

Books: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=829

Dr. S. is putting together an "advanced" reading list of swords & sorcery:

List: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=804

Xenagia News V1, #1

Welcome to the first Xenagia News. This will be a weekly or biweekly newsletter (depending on how often we have news of note) in which we'll talk about some of the most interesting happenings in the SF/F/H industries and at Xenagia itself.

If there's something that you'd particularly like to see in this newsletter, either a specific item, or a general topic that you think isn't getting enough coverage, drop me a line, and hopefully we'll be able to mold a newsletter that improves from issue to issue.

In the meantime, welcome aboard, and thanks for the interest in Xenagia!

This week: Book Club; Reviews; Index; Writer's Strike; and Dollhouse.

-Shannon

Site News

Thanks to everyone who joined or rejoined the site last week. As a result we've now got a nicely growing community that I hope will allow us to really create the best independent genre site on the net. Here's some of the notable Xenagia site news from the last week.

BOOK CLUB: We're starting up a book club! Each month we'll select a book to read, and then starting on the 1st of the next month we'll discuss it. The goal is to read some of the classics of all three genres, to introduce people to books that they might not otherwise read, and to have intelligent discussions about them. We're currently voting on the book for December, which you can do here:

Book Voting: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=803

We'll make a choice in the next couple of days, then you'll have a few weeks to read it before we start discussing it on December 1.

REVIEWS: We're kicking off reviews again at the site, and we've already got items queued up for this Tuesday and Thursday. You can always find the newest reviews by clicking on the Reviews link or by following the threads in the appropriate forums. If you'd like to submit your own reviews, you can do so here:

Review Sumission: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/submit-review.phtml

INDEX: We've now got several active contributors helping to grow the Index, and as a result we've got over 2000 unique entries (or to be precise, 1818 books with 290 additional editions and 1 magazine). Thanks to all who are contributing, and remember that you can rate books, mark what you're reading, and list your collections, all in the Index.

Media News

WRITER'S STRIKE: This is the big news for the F/SF/H industry. As of today, the Writer's Guild of Hollywood is on strike. Short-term this means that nightly shows like The Daily Show are going to start being short material, then in another week the shows that tape a week at a time like The View are going to start running into troubles. It'll probably be January before our favorite shows start coming up short on scripts. The worst hit are clearly going to be the serialized dramas like Lost and Heroes, particularly if they were already struggling in the ratings.

There's already been a flurry of weird activity in Hollywood related to the strike, some of which we've been discussing in the forums. Most notably, it's helped various new shows get additional orders of episodes, with Journeyman, Bionic Woman, and Moonlight all being beneficiaries here. In another season some of those shows might already be dead, but this year the networks wanted to get every script they could.

Renewal Discussion: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=696

However some older shows got the raw end of that same deal because there probably won't be enough scripts to finish their complete season commitments. As a result, Battlestar Galactica got bumped three months, to April, and there's talk anew about splitting the last season in two. The Heroes: Origins spinoff got cancelled, and there's talk of the mid-season Heroes finale running in a month becoming instead the season finale. With Heroes greatly struggling in the ratings this year, it could be the show's death knell (either because the network gives up, or more likely sends their suits in and ruins the show).

BSG Discussion: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=754

Heroes Discussion: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=785

Heroes Discussion: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=802


DOLLHOUSE: On the lighter side, word is that Joss Whedon is returning to TV and will be making a show with Eliza Dushku called _Dollhouse_:

Dollhouse Discussion: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=790

Sadly, it'll be on Fox and their mixed attitude toward new shows continues this season. Of their two new SF shows this season, The Sarah Connor Chronicles got pushed back to Spring before it was ever shown and it looks like New Amsterdam got cancelled before they ever broadcast an episode:

Fox Discussion: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=163