It’s the new year, which means the winter breaks for TV shows are coming to an end, and the mid-season shows are starting up. Here’s a quick rundown on what new science fiction and fantasy shows will be premiering in the US this mid-season. For a reminder of which shows started back in the fall, be sure to check out our post from last fall.
The first moderator elections for scifi.stackoverflow.com are now underway! Back in February 2011 we gained “pro tempore” moderators, whose task was to guide the site through the beta phase (before then the Stack Exchange staff filled this role). Now that the site is fully launched, the community gets to elect its own moderators.
Moderators are the patient, respectful, and fair folk that lead the site and get access to the most powerful moderation tools and a few special resources. There’s not much in the way of reward, but there’s plenty of work, so we should be thankful to all of those that have put their name forward, and especially those that end up with the job.
Once elected, the moderators hold their office permanently, so you need to make sure that you get the mods that you want. Likewise, if you want to be a moderator, then this will be your last chance for likely a long time.
The election process is composed of two stages (or three if we get more than 10 nominees, which looks unlikely). The first, which ends in three days, is nominations. Any community member with at least 300 reputation may nominate themselves (you cannot nominate someone else – encourage them to nominate themselves instead). Each nominee writes a brief outline explaining why they are a good candidate, and anyone can comment on these – indeed you are encouraged to do so: ask the candidates anything that will help you make up your mind as to where your votes go.
We’re about to enter the election phase, when all members with at least 150 reputation can cast three votes: 1st choice, 2nd choice, and 3rd choice. All votes are private until the election is complete, at which point the election data file (the vote totals for all the candidates; no identification of who voted for whom) will be freely and permanently downloadable by anyone. The winners are determined using the Meek STV method.
There’s going to be a chat event where you can ask the candidates questions to better inform your vote. See this meta post for details about when it’s scheduled, or just keep an eye on the chat room calendar. You can also post questions on meta, if you find that better than chat.
Democracy is a highly imperfect process, but it is a participatory imperfect process. Please participate in our community elections. Your vote is your voice, so use it!
The Dark Mirror and Blade of Fortriu are the first two books in Juliet Marillier’s Bridei Chronicles. In The Dark Mirror we see the rise to kingship of Bridei, a 6th Century Pict as well as his relationship with Tuala, his half-human foster-sister, and in Blade of Fortriu two of the minor characters from Mirror, Ana and Faolan take center stage in a story that mostly develops their own backgrounds and futures, with one of Bridei’s significant battles forming a secondary backdrop story.
These stories are based on real historical characters (e.g. Bridei I of the Picts), with more overt magic than stories like Stewarts’s Merlin stories, but still maintaining a generally realistic feel. This is a form of historical fiction that I particularly enjoy, although not knowing much about the history of the Picts the relationship to real history mostly passed me by.
The central characters of The Dark Mirror are compelling enough that I enjoyed the novel, although the outcome is never really in doubt to the reader, and of little doubt to most of the characters too. The story never truly captivated me, however, and felt slightly rushed at times, moving quickly from age to age. The quirky cast of characters that educate Bridei as a child were all interesting, but none very fleshed out (I got the impression that they might be recognisable characters from Pictish history, but I wasn’t able to verify this).
I expected more of Bridei (especially given the name of the series) and Tuala in Blade of Fortriu, although Marillier’s sequels often leave behind the central characters of the previous stories. Bridei and Tuala do feature, but are decidedly minor characters. I found the story of Ana and Faolan less interesting, with Ana’s development particularly dull (although the characters note how much she has changed, I didn’t see much change at all), and Faolan’s background less interesting than Mirror suggested it might be.
A love triangle features strongly in Blade; I don’t have any objection to this trope in general, but it wasn’t well done here. Other than his magical nature and exceptional good looks, there was nothing appealing about Ana’s other beau, even though it was obvious throughout that she would end up with him, rather than Faolan. Perhaps there’s some sort of redemption and superior love waiting for Faolan in a later book (the end of the story suggests that he might feature centrally in a later novel in the series), but I was rather unsatisfied that he came out of the triangle so poorly.
I’d recommend reading The Dark Mirror, at least – it works well as a standalone novel – and would recommend Blade of Fortriu to anyone that enjoyed Mirror. However, if you’re new to Marillier, I’d suggest starting with the superior Wolfskin/Foxmask or the Sevenwaters novels.
Flimzy noticed that E.T.’s appearance was being used in dating events in Star Wars and asked a “Are E.T. and Star Wars in the same universe?“, the most viewed question on the site to date.
DVK explains that this is the case: Lucas and Spielberg agreed to merge their universes (although they probably thought they were just adding Easter eggs), starting with a kid in a Yoda mask and a snippet of the “Yoda Theme” in E.T. and matched by the appearance of other “Children of the Green Planet” (i.e. others from the same planet as E.T., Brodo Asogi) in Phantom Menace.
HoloNet News Vol 531 #50 has a brief mention of Senator Grebleips (“Spielberg” backwards), established in Cloak of Deception to be from Brodo Asogi funding an “Extragalactic Survey”, presumably the one where E.T. visits Earth (or the one where a member of Yoda’s race does, making popular the masks).
A sequel to the novelization of the E.T. movie, E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet, confirms the tie in by stating that one of the names given to the planet is Brodo Asogi, and Children of the Green Planet is the translation of the name of E.T.’s species.
If you’re interested in these sorts of cross-over Easter eggs, take a look for Han Solo in Firefly, Alien in Predator, and Warehouse 13/Eureka.