Saturday, September 06, 2003
So, today it's been one year since David Kemper and Ben Browder leaked the news that the Sci-Fi Channel had refused to honour their commitment to a fifth season of Farscape. I didn't actually learn of the cancellation until the following day, September 7th. I frelling hate anniversaries. But the campaign to save the show is still going strong (visit SaveFarscape.com for the latest news and to learn what you can do to help). Two of my essays on th e show are still available online, at SF Site and RevolutionSF. I never imagined I would fall so entirely in love with a television series, but I did, and, a year after the news of the cancellation, I'm more in love with it than ever. The same passion that keeps me working for the continuation of Farscape keeps me coming back to my writing desk day after day. It's the love of character and story, the desire to see What Happens Next.
This has been the shortest year of my life.
And as long as we're on the subject of mass-media and lame-headed decisions, you may have heard by now that White Wolf Publishing, creators of Vampire: The Masquerade and the other "World of Darkness" role-playing games, along with author Nancy A. Collins (Sunglasses After Dark, etc.) have filed suit against Sony Pictures, Screen Gems, and Lakeshore Entertainment, alleging copyright infringement. WW and Collins claim that Underworld, the soon-to-be-released (Sept. 19th) vampire/werewolf take on Romeo and Juliet, was lifted directly from the "World of Darkness" rpg system and from Collins' short story, "Love of Monsters" (set in WW's "World of Darkness"). Of course, anyone familiar with the WW game Vampire: the Masquerade knows that huge portions of the games' millieu were taken directly from the works of Anne Rice and a number of other authors, with little attempt to disguise the source material. Which is to say that people in glass house shouldn't throw tantrums, or something like that. As for Collins, you may recall her recent suit against the now-defunct Chaos! Comics, claiming that they'd taken the idea for their Chastity character and storyline from her Sonya Blue character. Chaos! countersued and Collins immediately backed down. This thing with Underworld is a load, of course, as you may not copyright a broad concept, in this case warring clans of vampires and werewolves and a love affair that spans the conflict. Were I to wish to ever do such a foolish thing, I would be free to write such a story myself. And why did WW and Collins wait so damn long to bring their suit, when the plot of the movie has been public knowledge for quite some time? I wouldn't think of denying WW and Collins their "right" to be litigious in our eternally-litigious society, but I do find this sort of thing extremely distasteful. Anyway, for my part, I look forward to Underworld, which ought to at least serve up some sweet eye-candy and killer music.
Yesterday, I did not finish Chapter Eight of Murder of Angels. I wrote 1,469 words and discovered that the chapter's closing scene would be roughly twice as long as expected. So, hopefully, I'll finish the chapter today ("No alarms and no surprises please").
Last night was Kid Food/Horror Movie night. Spooky and I began this ritual a couple of months back, as a means of winding down at the end of the week. We have "kid food" for dinner (for example, hot dogs, French fries, and mac and cheese, followed by Klondike bars and popcorn) and (usually) cheesey horror films. Last night was our "In" fesitival, which included Infested (a bizarre spoof of The Big Chill with mutant, brain-eating, zombie-spawning flies) and Inhabited (Michael McDowell trapped in an odd tale of a little girl whose imaginary fairy playmates are real). And we sleep on the floor in front of the television. It's small things like this that get me from one day to the next.
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