It's Fun To Stay at the Blue Falcon Hotel: The SyFy Interviews, The Expanse
Based on the sci-fi mystery novels penned by James S.A. Corey (a nom de plume serving the endeavours of the writing team Daniel Abraham and Ty Franc, Leviathan Wakes) The Expanse titles have spread like flowering spores into a SyFy original series. Some two-hundred years in the future, a now-fully-habitable solar system serves as the ripe-for-rivalry mise-en-scène. Space provides the optimum landscape, especially space under colonial administration, to host not one, but all three classical conflicts of storytelling: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself.
It is in this expanse where a new breed of mankind operates in roughly the same rigid, egocentric and tenuous fashion that ancient mankind did when Earth was, essentially, his only domain; yet, now there is more territory to cover and more peoples to monitor, and control. If resources, greed, logistics, prejudices, power trips and egos proved existential beasties on one planet, whilst the endgame may remain the same when dealing with an entire solar system, the wider struggle proves a significant hurdle.
In The Expanse, dominant Earthlings, militant Martians and second-class Belters (those living and working in space, in the asteroid belt) clash like Real Housewives thrown together at a theme party. As the humans delicately co-exist, the United Nations - yes, still in "action" - persuades against a roiling warfare burgeoning between Earth and Mars, under the auspices of violet-cloaked U.N. exec Chrisjen Avasarala (played regally by Shohreh Aghdashloo whom, if you know your Portlandia, will recognize her from S2e3 as the visiting author at Women and Women First.).
In these potentially warring skies, Captain James Holden (Steven Strait) and his skeleton crew of the ice trawler Canterbury face a more immediate concern: who blew up their ship? Fortunately, Holden and his crew were saved from annihilation, as they all happened to be on a (set-up?) distress call, on-board a Canterbury short-range shuttle. So, who killed the Cant? The offending machine was a stealth vessel. Who has the funds for, and access to, a stealth vessel. The war-happy Martians, of course ... or was it?
Whilst scouring the colonies for the real Canterbury destroyer, Captain Holden and his stragglers, Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper), Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar) and Amos Burton (Wes Chatham), are hired by Outer Planets Alliance (OPA): a quasi-terrorist organization fighting for the rights of the second-class Belters. Their mission? To find a missing compatriot, one Lionel Polanski. On their travels, in their new ship, Rocinante, they locate the very vessel that took out the Cant: the Anubis. A seemingly abandoned ghostship, there's plenty of life in the old girl yet. The Anubis is festering with "spiraling layers of an amorphous, glassy, blue-green mass, clutching the reactor like a strangler fig". A self-aware protomolecule, the Phoebe Bug, as it were.
Elsewhere, a young, wealthy scion named Julie Mao goes missing. On the case is hard-living, self-damaged Det. Joe Miiller (Thomas Jane). When it is learned she is, in fact, OPA-sympathizer Lionel Polanski, Miller follows her alias until he finds she is registered at the Blue Falcon Hotel, as Polanski. Oddly, she is covered in the same Phoebe Bug that took control of the Anubis. The spaceship that killed the Cant and the disappearance and bizarre death of Julie Mao/Lionel Polanski can't be related ... or can they?
As with any quality, conspiracy-heavy sci-fi series, the simple, seemingly unrelated elements of a workaday spaceship, a self-aware, extra-terrestrial protomolecule and a dead, Phoebed, rich girl must be connected, and all via top-level, high-stakes, interplanetary, 23rdC. battle for air and water ... or must they?
San Diego Comic-Con 2016 and the good folks at SyFy afforded Yours Truly a seat at The Expanse roundtable, for a bit of chat and interview with the series' cast and writers. When I asked exec producers/writers Mark Fergus and Naren Shankar for a hint of what's to come in S2, specifically the self-aware Phoebe Bug, I was given a deftly crafted non-answer and, as the picture shows, a couple of Paddington Bear-style "very hard stares".
Jennifer Devore: Obviously, you can't give any direct hints as to the next season, but ... in the beginning of next season, will the origins of the discovery, of the spores or matrix, will that be divulged, or, and I apologize f it sounds like I'm asking a derivative question, but will it be similar to something like "Helix" or "The X-Files", where, like, the black oil becomes its own character throughout season after season ... or, will it be solved right away?
Naren Shankar: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to get some answers for sure. No question about that. But, like the books, what it does is, it keeps changing. So, you can't ask anybody questions about that! You have to figure it out.
Mark Fergus: One of the joys of the books is it takes you, you know, three books before you really understand what this thing is. But it is something v specific, the mystery of it is ... there's no reason to put yourself in the shoes of your characters, trying to figure out what it is. Ultimately it does become its own character in the sense that it's become the elephant in the room for humanity. It's the new thing we have to grapple with. But, this show is about how does a new, game-changing technology change humanity? It is always about people. it's not about this thing. The thing never becomes more important than how do people ... deal with ... a new reality, given that it now exists.
Jennifer Devore: Whiich is very apropos to current events.
Mark Fergus: Absolutely. This show is about people. The beauty of the books is, it never starts to say, "Oh, this thing is so cool, let's leave our people behind and follow this cool, interesting, game-changing thing." The story is about how our guys are going to survive and react to that. That will always be our focus.
The Expanse S1 streams on Amazon beginning December 2016; S2 starts on SyFy January 2017. Need a little S2 tease? Voila!
{youtube width="580" height="380"}3gj8tRaFIfs{/youtube}
The Expanse
Creators
Mark Fergus
Hawk Ostby
Executive producers
Naren Shankar
Mark Fergus
Andrew Kosove
Sharon Hall
Sean Daniel
Jason F. Brown
Hawk Ostby
Broderick Johnson
Producer
Lynn Baynor
Prod. Companies
Penguin in a Parka
SeanDanielCo
Alcon Entertainment
Distributor
NBC Universal TV Dist.
Original Network
Read Jennifer Susannah Devore's) previous SDCC/SyFy roundtables with the cast and writers of Helix: So Many Monkeys and It Ain't Easy Being Human: SyFy Interviews
JennyPop’s other fave places to lurk online?
amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore
#SDCC2016 #The Expanse #SyFy
Bongo and Jeepers, Kids! Danger-prone Daphne Heads to SDCC 2K13
Cheers, kittens! If you'll kindly check your calendars, you'll see it's summertime and if you regularly follow the scribblings and adventures of Dr. Lucy Devereaux and Moi, you'll know summer here in sunny San Diego means just one thing: San Diego Comic-Con!
Summertime lists of entertainment alternatives for the geeky and the pale put SDCC firmly on top of the pile. It's air-conditioned fun where we ghosties and our fellow friends of pasty pallor can hide from the vile sun and retain our dewy freshness. It's a venue where geeks, dorks and nerds of every shade of pale can gather in costume, greedily clutching their comic books and collectible figures whilst dork-walking at revved speeds to snag front-row seats to panels such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Action Figure Showcase and I Can't Write, I Can't Draw, But I Love Comics!, all without fear of a wedgie anytime during the day ... as long as conventioneers don't wander too far into the neighboring Gaslamp District. The Gaslamp is no place for a lone nerd in costume, especially at night when the surfy sportos, apathetic hipsters and sloshed beach thugs roam, and own, the darkness. Travel in nerd packs if you must; but be assured, like any Star Trek exploratory mission, the one in the red shirt will be sacrificed. Don't be the red shirt.
The Lost Jenny Travelogues & "Le Petit Prince" of Edinburgh: You Write the Ending!
Scribbling and bibbling is not something I decided to "try my hand at" one day. I did not think to myself amidst a sunny sojourn along La Côte d'Azur, "Hey, Magnolia. You should take a stab at writing." It's just what I do. I imagine I was keeping a journal in utero, à la Stewie Griffin, until that blasted Man in White came and removed me from my quiet study.
If I was prone to Glee-style melodrama, I would flip my curls and toss my chin, proclaiming loudly, "I have to breathe, don't I?! Well, dammit, Janet! I have to write!". Thank Jebus I am not thusly prone. Many of you know of this early proclivity, with the emergence of Book Bird, my very first, "published" tale, hardbound by the Parental Units when I was a wee thing, at the age of six. Before that, loads of notepad novellas, written on Garfield stationery and bound nicely with yarn or staples and sporting my very own cover art: "The Bear and the Bees", "The Cat and the Mouse" and, the already legendary, "Jennifer Will Be a Pink Fan Forever!". (Perchance, I shall share these someday.)
If I was a Tombstone gunslinger, I'd have a leather journal in one holster and my Waterman pen in the other. "Draw!" "I'd rather write, Pardner!"
Now, I am almost as famous for my proclivity to scribe as I am infamous for my laziness. There forever looms the certainty that I shall become very bored at a moment's notice and drop that which is my current endeavour. To that end, kudos to Moi for actually finishing and publishing four novels! In fact, I'm feeling very bored this very minute and just may pour a glass of wine and see what's in my Hulu queue. Cross your fingers for some "Real Housewives"! BRB!
I'm back. No "Real Housewives". Yet, there was some "Hotel Hell " (Chef Gordon Ramsay! Hubba-hubba!) and there's always time for a "30Rock" and "American Dad" break. Now, where was I? Oh, yes ... journals.
So, I start off big, with the honest intentions of filling each and every leaf of those gorgeous, blank books I take such pleasure in selecting, and oft decoupaging, themed just so. Some are for travel, some are for working on specific books and some are mere notepads, jotting down everything from Nordstrom wish lists to the Drake Equation.
Journals, especially travelogues, are very similar to the lush, Irish cable knit sweaters I used to knit as a young girl, only to "finish" them some two hours later, claiming, "Look, Daddy! It's a doll rug!" or, the painstakingly sewn, Ralph Lauren-pattern suit I once made in high school. I worked my bony fingers to bloody nubs all summer long: three months of tedious darts, French stitches, princess seams and hand-rolled silk edges, not to mention using bonkers-expensive wool and vintage buttons. Upon its near-completion, you guessed it, I grew bored. Oh, so bored. I ended up safety-pinning the entire hem and refused to iron the fold lines out of the whole thing. So many of my travel journals are beautiful tweed suits with safety-pin hems. Now, you get to fix the hems of a select few travelogues!
How do you think my trips ended? What do you think happened? I'll post a series of these unfinished scribblings over the next few posts and you write the ending! There's even an entry written by a friend with whom I travelled to the U.K. and France one summer. Some of you may know of Miss Nancy: Gloomy, Funny Laguna Girl. Whilst she would essentially, quizzically break up with me years later -I suspect it was politically motivated- I have to give props; she was, probably still is, a damn funny and gifted storyteller. Not nearly as gifted as I, though. Heh heh heh. I wonder if she's still sporting her Goth-lite look?
Nance took over a section of my journal at lunch one day in Edinburgh. It's quite humourous and, in fact, whilst I did finish that particular journal, all the way to its end at LAX, she left her entry somewhat open-ended. Hey! You could finish her entry! Nance, if you're out there, you could finish it, too! Have a read and finish Nancy's Scottish saga! I'll just add one of my own next time. Voila!
Excerpt from Jennifer Susannah Devore's Travel Journal
8 June 1994, Noon (apparently)
Guest Writer, Nancy Owen Freeman
After a couple of hours in and about the grounds of Holyrood Palace, we headed up the Royal Mile, an historic mile-long street which connects Holyrood with Edinburgh Castle. Today, it is lined with antique shops and specialty boutiques and a certain French restaurant called La Crêperie. I'll let Nancy write the ensuing entry.
Nancy's entry -We wandered in not exactly famished, but definitely prowling for a brie and a little mineral water. I plopped down at a corner table relatively quickly, Jennifer however wandered aimlessly turning this way and that trying to summon a hostess with her umbrella. She still had trouble grasping the self-seating theory observed in most English & Scottish restaurants. After a pleasant barmaid emerged and confirmed that we could sit wherever we wanted, Jennifer joined me.
Moments later, after the barmaid had simply removed the large chalkboards with the day's menu from their hangers outside, and leaned them up against the table opposite us for selection, a rather tall shadow fell over the table.
I looked up from the menus and was greeted by what I can only describe as a 6'2" adult "Petit Prince" from the children's novel by Antoine St. Exupery. He had a tastefully sculpted, blond afro, blue eyes and strangely appealing spaces between his teeth. All this sat atop a tall, thin frame, which flowed about the pub with puma-like grace. He was in short, a most delectable Frog.
"Hallo", he began, in an arousing baritone that in no way resembled his prepubescent, fictional twin's soprano squeak. "Bonjour," Jennifer replied. "Ah, bonjour," he returned with a little raise of his eyebrows, a gesture made purely to torment me in my geographically imposed celibacy. He and Jennifer chatted back and forth in French, she finally ordering for both of us since I had slipped into a fuzzy stupor. A surging tide of suppressed hormones was mercilessly tossing me about in the sexual vacuum I had become accustomed to living in over the past 2 years. The disorientation had left my vision blurry and my palms itchy. I was as articulate as a kiwi fruit.
He slinked away and in the somewhat lengthy time it took for him to bring our appetizers, I regained tentative control over my motor functions and told Jennifer how much he resembled an adult "Little Prince". Her eyes bulged in agreement and she threatened to tell him what I'd said when he returned. Just then he flowed back to the table laden with plates of assorted cheese and a basket of French bread.
- Pardon the interruption. I would just like to let whoever is reading this journal know that Mrs. Jennifer Susannah Noelani MacPherson Girstle [sic] Devore is a pathological cleptomaniac [sic]. A conclusion I have come to after just moments ago witnessing her philch a "First Class" head rest cover from the train seat. The second one she has snatched on our trip.-
Back to our story. After he placed our food on the table, Jen proceeded to tell him, in French, about how I thought he looked like "Le Petit Prince, all adult". He giggled and said in his thick Frog accent, "Oh no, he was naive ... " after taking a few steps away from the table he tossed an insidious little grin over his shoulder and finished with, "I am not." At which point I became a complete puddle and Jen had to squeegee me out the door.
What happens next? Where did Le Petit Prince go after his shift? Where is he now? Where is Nancy? Is Le Crêperie still writing menus on chalkboards? Think it over and leave a brief ending or, write out something longer, then copy and paste it in the handy-dandy, JennyPop Contact Page! I'll post the best ending, with proper attribution, of course. (Keep your amendments clean, folks. I may be part-Edwardian upstart, but I am also part-Victorian dowager.)
Copy and Paste your ending here!
Walt Disney, Edgar Rice Burroughs & Robert Louis Stevenson: The Literariest Place on Earth
As of late, the adventure-lit of Edgar Rice Burroughs has captured my interest with a pleasant focus. The travel narratives of 19thC. adventurers have forever suited me well: Mark Twain, Richard Henry Dana, Charles Darwin, Henry James and Thomas Jefferson with his 18thC. accounts of Italian and French sojourns. To that end, contemporary travel essayists fill a healthy portion of our nearly 2,000 volume library: Bill Bryson, Peter Mayle, Hunter S. Thompson. Perhaps these travel writers and novelists have fueled my Wanderlust; perhaps I am drawn to them because of said-lust.
I have certainly been intrigued by adventure-lit since I first flipped through a fave and well-dogeared volume of Mom's 1940s I Married Adventure by Martin and Osa Johnson. Tales of a 1930s power couple, he a photographer and contemporary of Jack London (another childhood fave of mine), she the devoted and steel-spined wife and protective riflewoman, they travelled South America and Africa well before the likes of Margaret Mead, Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall: all ladies whose works were also regular reading material about the house. (Mom was an anthropology major when I was wee and I suppose the lure of travel, questions of man's origins and the eternal quest for social knowledge set in early. Her degree was largely focused on Southeast Asian Studies; but I always thought it was Southy Station Studies, as in people who rode trains in the South. Silly girl.) Natch, I could go on here ad nauseum about all this twaddle, but I must save zee leetle grey zells' work for my current endeavour ... which brings me to the animal-loving Brit in the loin cloth.
Motivated by this year's themes for San Diego Comic-Con -for which I am anxiously awaiting press passes for the purposes of reporting from the convention floor for GoodtobeaGeek.com, as my alter ego/pseudonym Miss Hannah Hart, ghostdame- I have dipped my feathered quill and now sit pensively, pondering my submission to the official Souvenir Book, my inky nib aloft and hesitating just inches above my parchment. My theme of choice? The 100th anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes.
I utilize this casual canvas, similar to my previous post wherein I gathered some Savannah of Williamsburg thoughts -how to formulate my fourth book in this series- as a sounding board to crystallize some free-radical ideas in my noodle. It seems to be working; I feel the gears moving, like one of Dr. Lucia Devereaux's steampunk contraptions sputtering to life. (If you read Hannah, you'll know of Dr. Lucy.) Some of you may know I was published in the 2010 Comic-Con Book: lead story even for the 60th Anniversary of Peanuts segment! My task at hand this time is considerable. These Tarzan geeks are tough competition.
Now, being the weird combination of she whom reveres original fairy tales -Grimm (Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel und Gretel), de la Fontaine (The Grasshopper and the Ant, The Tortoise and the Hare), de Ségur (Blondine), etc.- yet also adores the Disney reiterations thereof, my Viking and I ventured to Disneyland to get my noggin revving and skittered amidst the branches of Tarzan's Treehouse in Adventureland. In fact, the attraction used to be the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and far superior ... to the Tarzan Treehouse, not superior to the Robert Louis Stevenson book. Ha! It was a subtle homage of vintage suitcases, silver hairbrushes and antique china to the durable and genteel, accidental survivalists from the mind of the man from Edinburgh. Happily, some of the props have remained in place.
Once again, merci pour écouter, thanks for listening; I think I have some ideas brewing. I imagine, alongside reading more of Mr. Edgar Rice Burroughs, a few more trips through the treehouse may very well be in order.
Update to Post: I did indeed come up with an article for Comic-Con 2012 and it was published in the annual Souivernir Book. Read it here!