STV: Mike McMahan, author of TNG's Season 8 'WARPED'

So many great book ideas for Trek fans this holiday, and with the 50th just around the corner next year.

Here's a great fun read I hope you heard about—WARPED,

the Lost Eighth Season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the latest creation born wholly of a Twitter account!—and my chat with the tweeter/author (and TV comedy writer!) who accidentally stumbled across me at San Diego Comic-Con, Mike McMahan!  What I wasn't expecting was the, uh, iconic praise for the TNG Companion…



FYI: Portal 47 members got to view this video up to 72 hours early before it went public—one feature of their deep-dive Trekland access. 

L.A. ALERT: Author signing SUNDAY in Burbank for an incredible TMP book 35 years in the making

UPDATE: The vidchat is finally here ! (below the fold)

If you're in the SoCal area this June 7 weekend, take note!

Writer Preston Neal Jones got a huge break back in 1978-79 to interview some 60 cast and crew for Star Trek—The Motion Picture for Cinefantastique magazine—but who knew the movie and the story would be so delayed?

The massive piece was never published—until now.

Return to Tomorrow was early-published last winter, but now the main run has come in and author Preston Neal Jones has a signing event Sunday from 1-4 p.m. in Burbank at Creature Features, whose publishing moniker funded the printing.


Here's the Facebook Event page for the store signing, 2904 W Magnolia—I will be by sometime after 2 pm, in the last hour of the event. But truly—let that sink in: 60 folks, from Gene Roddenberry and Robert Wise to the full cast and a jillion of the crew (including the troubled visual effects' rescuers) are all recorded here back in the day, before the debut—and far from the changeover to the look of the Harve Bennett /Nick Meyer regime with The Wrath of Khan.


And, finally, my teaser interview with Preston:

Help award-winning Neal write his fantasy novel—quick!

Quick: do me a favor and noise this around. It's another one of THOSE requests, but a
modest one— so the bottom line is the next-best thing you can do is SHARE IT.

My buddy Neal Hallford, whom you may know as the DP behind my CON OF WRATH doc, is also an award-winning game designer — for "Betrayal at Krondor" and "Dungeon Siege," a popular couple of big-selling computer roll-play adventure games a few years back, based in part on Raymond E. Feist's Riftworld series—though this new book has no connection.

With that esteemed fantasy DNA, Neal's jumped out with a very modest Kickstarter campaign for THE THIEF OF DREAMS—a sprawling, richly textured, all-new fantasy novel ...and one that can be the cornerstone for its own spinoff game, or who know what else. (And "modest," as in—a lot is not needed if many do it.) It's even consistently rated in the top 5 projects in the Fiction Publishing sub-category on Kicktraq's Hot-List.

To see how much of it all he has sketched out, Neal has a great video up at the KS page—here it is below—plus he has a THIEF OF DREAMS website as well. He's put a ton of time into this: a map, characters, an FAQ for both the project and the campaign—and of course more on all the rewards they have set up ... especially if you are wondering what all there is for donor gifts for a novel. Updates are there, too.

You know the drill with Kickstarter: if Neal doesn't reach goal, the project doesn't fund and all donors get their money back. So the days may be ticking by, but there's time to kick in, and then share with all the fantasy and gaming fans you know (like via Facebook). It's a great feeling to be able to create and evolve one's own universe, and to be able to weave a fantastic tale you know fellow fans will love.

STV: Author David Mack: Destiny and beyond!

Ol' 2008 is closing in, and boy do we have a pile o'good chats still to prep and share. The past couple months have interfered with my leisurely intentions, so we're going to get a few out vlogs out at a non-leisurely pace here ...

Although the three-volume Destiny megastory from Pocket Books is now out, this visit with Pocket Books author David Mack from Comi-Con San Diego in July is still insightful—there's news from his 2009 to-do list as well, and it's a good intro overall if you've never gotten to meet David at a con or other event. A wry wit, that one...