First look at Star Trek: The Fall, courtesy of StarTrek.com

As they are wont to do on occasion, the good folks over at StarTrek.com once again have turned their attention to the latest happenings in the realm of Star Trek fiction. This time, they offer up a juicy tease about The Fall, the upcoming five-book mini-series which will be published one book per month from September through January 2014. Leading off the series is friend and veteran author David R. George III, who gives us the next chapter in the ongoing Deep Space Nine saga with his novel, Revelations and Dust.

StarTrek.com’s look at the first book also includes a new interview with David, in which he discusses his own story as well as the entire series, our collaborative efforts, and other tasty tidbits. Have a read, whydontcha:

StarTrek.com – FIRST LOOK: The Next Generation & Deep Space Nine Mini-Series

Similar articles and interviews will be coming for the other authors and books, so stay tuned for updates on that front. For now, here again is the lineup for the series’ books and authors:

Revelations and Dust by David R. George III, “starring” members of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine cast (September)

The Crimson Shadow by Una McCormack, focusing on Picard and Garak (October)

A Ceremony of Losses by David Mack (November)

The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow, focusing on Riker and the crew of the U.S.S. Titan (December)

Peaceable Kingdoms, by me, “starring” Picard and the Enterprise-E (January 2014)

As for my own entry in the series, I’m closing in on the delivery date for my manuscript. It’s been a harder road than normal for me this time around, owing to my getting started late after wrapping up work on From History’s Shadow. As for this project, there’s also the need to keep in synch with everyone else while at the same time not having a wealth of time to devote to such activities while I’m trying to keep pace with my own writing in and around everything else. However, if there’s one thing that can get a writer to bring their A-Game to a project like this, it’s trying to keep up with the other authors on this series. Here’s hoping I hold up my end of the deal!

Happy Towel Day!

Did you remember yours?

Towel Day: Celebrating the Life and Work of Douglas Adams

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Introducing….The Graduate!

Five down. Thirteen to go.

For those wondering what the fuss is about “graduating” pre-school, I guess I should clarify: Rather than regular ol’ daycare, we enrolled her (and her sister before her) in a Montessori early learning school. It was more like traditional daycare when they were babies, of course, but even by the time kids become “mobile infants” their teachers start introducing them to various learning techniques and concepts. By the time the girls were 2 and 3 years old, they were starting to learn in a variety of areas, and of course there also was the socialization aspect of being around their peers.

The development process has been, in a word, staggering. Having already seen the fruits of all that early work paying off with her older sister this past year as she moved from the Montessori school to Kindergarten, I’m confident the transition will be just as successful with the coming school year.

But for now, we celebrate.

Star Trek: Topps Trading Cards tribute book!

Sherman! Set the Wayback Machine for 1976!

Young Dayton is but nine years old, running around his neighborhood playing with his friends. Every so often, between this all-important activity and other, mundane pursuits like school, Dayton finds time to catch reruns of the original Star Trek every afternoon on his local UHF television station (WTOG-44 - Tampa/St. Petersburg FTW, baby!). His parents have thoughtfully provided him with the odd Trek-related toys like Mego action figures, AMT models, utility belts and “exploration sets,” and so on.

Whenever he scrounges together some odd dollars and cents here and there, he journeys to the local convenience store to avail himself of their rather sizable candy and soda selection. Oh, and he’s also started buying football cards, as Tampa has recently acquired a football team of its own, and Dayton does not yet know just how sucky the team will be in its first year. But, that is another story.

Then, one day, he happens across something interesting shelved alongside the baseball and football cards….

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Released in 1976, this series from Topps consisted of 88 cards and 22 stickers. Each pack contained six cards and a sticker and…of course…a stick of that wondrous bubble gum. I’m pretty sure some of that gum is still being used to hold fenders and other accessories onto cars somewhere in Thailand. As for the cards, they feature scenes from across all three seasons of the show, with the stickers highlighting the main cast as well as prominent alien characters.

(Trivia: Sulu appears on none of the cards or stickers. There’s even a card with the cast listed on the back, and George Takei doesn’t even make that cut. Weird, that.)

I have no idea how many packs of these things I bought, but at 10 cents a throw, I’m sure I was channeling whatever loose change I could find into the endeavor. Thinking back on it, I don’t remember ever acquiring a complete set, and the cards I did amass are long gone. I’ve considered buying a set whenever I happen across them at conventions, but in those instances the dealers are asking for more money than I’m willing to pay.

Thankfully, the good folks at Abrams Books have seen fit to do something pretty snazzy. Behold, yo:

Abrams Books – Star Trek: The Original Topps Trading Card Series

As they did last year with their book celebrating the classic 1960s Mars Attacks trading cards, Abrams has created a book showcasing the entire 1976 series of cards. As with that tome, the Star Trek card set will be presented here in book form. Each card will get its own dose of love, showing both the front and back art and text along with anecdotes detailing some bit of trivia about the cards or Star Trek in general. The book also will feature “bonus cards,” designed as add-ons to the original set, and the dust jacket will have the look and feel of one of the wax-paper card wrappers. All that’ll be missing is the gum.

Shut up and take my money.

At the helm this time are friends and fellow word-slingers Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, veteran fans with a very long and distinguished Trek-related resume. They’ve written several books focusing on various behind-the-scenes aspects of Star Trek in its different incarnations, including one of my favorites from recent years, Star Trek 365. Paula and Terry are good people, and they know their Trek, so anything with their name on it is a sure thing.

For those fans who never got a chance to collect the cards, or whose collections have gone the way of the dodo, this book promises to be a perfect way to revisit a fun piece of old-school Trek fandom. It’s listed as being published on September 10th with a price is $19.99, but it’s also up for pre-order at Amazon at 40% off:

Amazon.com - Star Trek: The Original Topps Trading Card Series

That, my friends, is a frappin’ steal.

Here’s hoping this book does well enough that Abrams will consider similar efforts for other card sets, such as the Topps series for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But for now? My copy of this book is pre-ordered. That’s right: I shut up, and they took my money.

Best of Classic Dave Barry 2013, May 11-17.

Buy Dave Barry’s Stuff!
Visit Dave on the Web!

This. So very much THIS.

May 11th/12th
When I was born, during the presidency of James K. Polk, baby showers were pretty basic. There was no registering. A group of women would get together and watch as the mother-to-be opened the gifts and commented on them. (“A blanket! Thank you! Look! Another blanket! That’ll come in handy! Look! ANOTHER…”) In twenty minutes, the shower was over and everybody went back to pounding clothes with different rocks. Equipping your modern baby is a whole different kettle of fish. You’ve seen newsreels of the Normandy invasion, with thousands of supply ships stretching across the English Channel as far as the eye can see? That will give you an idea of the minimum amount of things that you need to adequately support a single modern baby, in the view of today’s baby industry.

Your moment of TrekZen*.

A long time ago, in a comic far, far away…this happened:

 

Writer of Stuff Peter David, with the able assistance of artists Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran, conspired to bring us what arguably is the one of the greatest sequences ever to grace the page of any comic EVAH.

(That’s right: Hyperbole is free here at The Fog of Ward.)

This comes from issue #51 of DC’s first run of Star Trek in June 1988. A member of the crew who possesses telepathic powers if afflicted with a disease that results him start to project hallucinations into other people’s minds. Hilarity ensues.

Star Trek was frequently referenced throughout the run of Berkeley Breathed’s classic 1980s comic strip, Bloom County, so a hat tip going the other way seemed appropriate, right?

Dang. Now I want to reread Bloom County.

(* = with acknowledgments–and apologies–to The Daily Show)

Novel Spaces – “Tips for living with a writer? A list, deconstructed.”

My scheduled “day” in the rotation of writers who post to the Novel Spaces blog has been shifted from the 17th to the 15th, and….BAM! Look what day it is?

This month, I decide to examine one of those “Top 10″ lists of writerly advice nuggets we see popping up here and there, be it on another blog or a picture on Facebook or whatever. In this case it was just such a graphic on FB that prompted this little exercise. Of the ten “tips” the list offers, I agree with some, disagree with others, and scratch my head over the rest.

You can read the new column here: Novel Spaces – Tips for living with a writer? A list, deconstructed.

Anyone have their own unique tips for successfully cohabitating with a writer?

My Novel Spaces archive can be found by clicking here.