Galactica Collects Peabody

Battlestar Galactica executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick were on hand in New York June 5 to accept a prestigious Peabody Award for the SCI FI Channel original series. They were joined by cast members Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, Katee Sackhoff and Grace Park at the 65th annual Peabody Awards ceremony, hosted by TV satirist Jon Stewart, which took place at the historic Waldorf-Astoria hotel. The show's writing staff was also in attendance.

Video of Moore and Eick's acceptance speeches—as well as praise from fellow Peabody winners and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone—have been posted on SCIFI.COM's SCI FI Pulse video feature.

Peabody winners were announced in April by the event's organizer, the University of Georgia. The awards honor "distinguished achievement and meritorious service by radio and television networks, stations, producing organizations, cable television organizations and individuals."Alba Among MTV Winners

A few genre stars took home golden popcorn buckets at the MTV Movie Awards, held June 3 in Los Angeles, including host Jessica Alba, who picked up the award for sexiest performance for Sin City, the Reuters news service reported.

Other SF&F winners at the irreverent awards ceremony included Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, the real-life couple who won for best fight in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The couple, who announced the birth of their first child in Namibia last week, were not on hand to pick up the award. "Angelina and Brad are stuck in traffic," actor Colin Farrell joked after announcing the couple's win.

The award for best hero went to Christian Bale for his starring role in Batman Begins, while best villain went to Hayden Christensen for his portrayal of Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith. The MTV Movie Awards will be broadcast in the United States on MTV on June 8.Johns Talks Blade: The Series

PHILADELPHIA—Comic author Geoff Johns, who is a writer and consultant for Spike's upcoming Blade: The Series, told fans here that he co-wrote the pilot for the show with the Blade movie writer David S. Goyer, who is one of the TV show's executive producers. "We have been working together, obviously, in comic books for about four years, so about a year ago David called me up said, 'Hey, we are thinking about doing Blade the TV series. Do you want to help me co-write the pilot?'" Johns said in a panel at the annual Wizard World Convention over the weekend. "I said, 'Yeah,' because I love the movies and the character. So we sat down with Spike TV and started talking about ideas."

Blade: The Series, starring Kirk "Sticky" Jones as the title character, is based on Marvel Comics' vampire-hunter franchise and its series of movies. Goyer and Johns drafted the overall direction of the show's first season, Johns said. "The advantage of doing a TV series compared to a movie is that we get to delve into the history of the character, so there is a lot of year-one type stuff," he said "We see a lot of his origin and what he was before [he was] Blade. We see how he got his tattoos, and we see where he picked up his sword, everything as the series progresses. That's what interests me: Why and how did this guy become Blade?"

Besides Goyer and Johns, the show's writers include show runner David Simkins (Charmed, Dark Angel), Daniel Truly (The Pretender), Adam Targum (The Dead Zone), Barbara Nance (The X-Files) and Marv Wolfman (Teen Titans0.

The first season will comprise 13 episodes, "and we have stories within that, but a lot of it is serialized, and a lot of the stand-alone episodes are built into the overall arc, like The Shield," Johns said. "Goyer always wanted the 13 to be one big movie with little stories in between, so there will be a conclusion at the end of the 13, with plot threads that will continue into season two. It's like a comic book. Overall, the series focuses on Blade coming back to his hometown of Detroit and trying to clean it up. There we meet all sorts of people from his past, and there are a few Marvel guys in there, too." Blade: The Series premieres June 28 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Spike.Birds Remake Clarified

Brad Fuller, an executive with Platinum Dunes, told the Bloody-Disgusting.com Web site that the production company is still developing The Birds, a movie based on Daphne du Maurier's short story, which was also the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 thriller film.

"We are considering remaking The Birds, but our remake is not based on the Hitchcock film," Fuller told the site. "It is based on the Daphne du Maurier short story. So while the concept of birds attacking will be the same, the plot is totally different from Hitchcock's film. We are currently in the process of developing the script."

In Hitchcock's film, birds mysteriously and inexplicably attack the California town of Bodega Bay and its inhabitants, including stars Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren.

Du Maurier's story, by contrast, was set in Cornwall in the United Kingdom and tells a story of birds' becoming hostile after a harsh winter with little food. She was said to have been unhappy with Hitchcock's film version.Singer Talks 3-D Superman

Bryan Singer, who directed the upcoming Superman Returns, told SCI FI Wire that the IMAX version of the film will be something to behold and will quite possibly offer some additional bells and whistles to moviegoers. "Fortunately, we shot [the film] with a Genesis camera, which is a digital system," Singer said in an interview. "So we have a much higher resolution. So it projects really well to IMAX. That's one benefit for IMAX."

Superman Returns brings back the Man of Steel in a movie that continues the story of the first two Superman films. Brandon Routh stars as Superman/Clark Kent, Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. The potential summer blockbuster also becomes the first live-action movie to get the IMAX 3-D treatment, with 20 minutes of the film's action transformed into 3-D.

"We're doing something else which is a little P.T. Barnum and a little funky," Singer said. "To the best of my knowledge it's still happening. I've been knee-deep in printing and mixing, but certain sequences will be in 3-D. The idea is that Clark takes off his glasses, and you put yours on. Not in every sequence, but in a few sequences. They have this amazing system at IMAX. I was extremely blown away when they took some of my 2-D material and '3-D-ified' it using their process. And it was astonishing. I don't know how they did it. It's complex, a lot of man-hours involved and obviously a lot of computers, but with that combined with offering them up some of our visual-effects-separated material they'll be able to create a different experience for some of the sequences." Superman Returns opens in both traditional and IMAX theaters on June 28. —Ian SpellingSuperman Flies To Phones

Warner Brothers Wireless announced the creation of a direct-to-consumer mobile portal themed to Warner Brothers' upcoming movie Superman Returns for mobile phones. The portal, referred to as a WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) site, will feature free promotional content and will allow consumers to purchase paid mobile content for their phones.

In order to access the WAP site, fans text "S" to 43892 on their mobile phones and will receive a text message back that will push them to the Superman Returns wireless portal for wallpapers, alerts, games, tones, wallpapers, showtimes and more.

Superman Returns hits theaters on June 28.Combs Figures More In 4400

Ira Steven Behr—executive producer of USA's SF series The 4400, which begins its third season this week—told SCI FI Wire that guest star Jeffrey Combs will appear in seven of the upcoming season's 13 episodes, reprising the role of twitchy scientist Kevin Burkhoff.

"Jeff is up in Vancouver even as we speak filming show nine, 'The Ballad of Kevin and Tess,'" Behr said in an interview in his West Hollywood, Calif., office on June 2. "So, yeah, ... he's still going to be in other episodes."

Combs, who was also a recurring cast member on Behr's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was introduced last season as the human scientist who discovers the secret behind the powers held by the 4,400 people who had been abducted and returned mysteriously. This season, he will continue to figure out a way to develop his own powers, a quest that culminates in the season's ninth episode.

"It's Kevin's experiment that he's been conducting on himself, trying to see if he could be the first non-4400 to develop 4400 capability," Behr said. "[It] is reaching its climax, and he is in a great deal of trouble. A lot of people are looking for him, and he is ... on the run with Tess, who is [played by former Firefly star] Summer Glau, who we met last year as well. So the two of them are off together, and there's a connection with Diana [Jacqueline McKenzie] and Kevin that we play throughout his episodes that's kind of nice." The 4400 returns at 9 p.m. ET/PT on June 11 with a two-hour season premiere. USA is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. —Patrick Lee, News EditorCampbell Absent From 4400

Ira Steven Behr, executive producer of USA Network's The 4400, told SCI FI Wire that key player Billy Campbell, who played 4400 leader Jordan Collier, hasn't returned from his holiday as part of the crew of a sailing ship on an 18-month, around-the-world cruise, though the show is already in production on the ninth episode of its upcoming 13-episode third season. But Campbell will return soon to shoot the season's final episodes.

"From the very beginning of the season, of course, we knew that Billy Campbell was taking off to go sailing for 18 months on his tall ship," Behr said in an interview in his West Hollywood, Calif., office last week. "So we knew we were going to lose him, right, and then get him back. But we knew we were going to lose him."

Campbell's character, the charismatic leader of a group of returned abductees with special powers, appeared to have been assassinated last season, but showed up briefly in the surprising final scenes of the season finale. But the show won't pick up the story of Collier's apparent resurrection for a while, and writers have had to write around Campbell's absence, Behr said. "You will hear about him [before that]," Behr said, adding: "You're not going to see Jordan until the 11th episode. ... There's going to be things along the way that keeps the mind wondering, ... but, no, you will not ... be seeing the living, breathing guy [until then]."

Campbell had informed the producers that he would be taking off on the cruise, but "we thought he'd get bored," Behr admitted. "It's not a vacation. He's an active crew member, so he works every day, you know, ... hauling the riggings up and down and down and up. He was telling us this two years ago, and I thought he was lying. I was like, 'What?' We knew he wasn't going to be back for the beginning of the season, but we did not think [it would be this long]. ... I had a couple of very funny e-mails with Billy, who loves the show. ... [He] was, you know, 'I can't wait to come back,' blah blah blah. ... And I'm going, 'Huh?' 'Well, yeah.' ... I'm like, 'OK. Tick. Tick. Tick.'" The 4400 returns at 9 p.m. ET/PT on June 11 with a two-hour season premiere. USA is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. —Patrick Lee, News Editor4400 Gets Mythological

VANCOUVER, Canada—Scott Peters, creator and executive producer of USA Network's SF series The 4400, told SCI FI Wire that the series will focus more on the show's central mythology and its effect on the main characters, including Joel Gretsch's federal agent Tom Baldwin and his partner, Jacqueline McKenzie's Diana Skouris. "I think the idea is to try and pull away a little bit," Peters said in an interview on the show's set earlier this year. "We're still going to see new 4400 members. We're still going to have things for Tom and Diana to investigate. But I think what's also really fascinating—something untapped that we're trying to go for here—is the bigger mythology. The bigger questions of who did this. We kind of know who did this, but who specifically did this? And why did they do this? We kind of know why, but why specifically did they do this? And now that they've taken this step, what are the ramifications? And what has changed that maybe they couldn't have predicted?"

The 4400, which returns with its third 13-episode season this week, focuses on the lives of 4,400 people who vanished at various periods over the last several decades and suddenly reappeared, without aging a day and with strange new powers. In the show's first season, it was revealed they were snatched by humans from the future and returned to help prevent some unknown calamity. "We're looking at the span of humanity from before us to what we are now and possibly what we're going to be in the future," Peters said.

Returning cast members include Patrick Flueger (Shawn Farrell), Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (Richard Tyler), Conchita Campbell (Maia Rutledge) and Samantha Ferris (NTAC director Nina Jarvis). New cast members include Karina Lombard as Alana Mareva and Megalyn Echikunwoke as a newly grown-up Isabelle.

As for Baldwin and Skouris, Peters said: "We see their home lives, and they're intertwined with their work lives, and so it makes for a much more rich story, I think, and really rounds out the character. So it's not just the business suit all day long, and that's all you see. You get to see them in their pajamas at night or out at the bar or whatever it is. Or the kid is having trouble at school, and you have to go deal with that, but you still have to catch the killer. So it helps round everything out."

Peters added that he will be directing at least three episodes this year. The 4400 returns at 9 p.m. ET/PT on June 11 with a two-hour season premiere. USA is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. —Patrick Lee, News EditorHorror Reunites Gordon, Combs

Cult horror filmmaker Stuart Gordon told SCI FI Wire that his upcoming movie for Showtime's second season of Masters of Horror will be based on a classic horror story and will reunite Gordon with his Re-Animator star, Jeffrey Combs. "I'm going to be doing Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Black Cat,'" Gordon said in an interview. "Jeffrey Combs [who also appeared in Gordon's From Beyond] is going to be playing Edgar Allan Poe, so that's going to be pretty wonderful. What we've done is we've combined the story and Poe's life. I've always wanted to do a biography of Poe, because his life was like one of his stories. I mean, there was just so much stuff going on."

In the first season of the hit anthology series, Gordon directed a one-hour movie based on H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House. Showtime describes Gordon's next Horror show: The great Edgar Allan Poe, out of ideas and short on cash, is tormented by a black cat that will either destroy his life or inspire him to write one of his most famous stories.

Gordon said of Poe: "He married his 13-year-old cousin. At a recital, she was singing, and a blood vessel burst in her throat, and blood came spurting out of her mouth. It turned out she had tuberculosis, and she went through a long illness, which made Poe drink even more heavily. So we've sort of mixed that story with 'The Black Cat,' which is a story about a guy who turns very nasty when he gets drunk and starts doing terrible things to the cat. I'll be shooting that in September. We just turned in the first draft of the script, and I'm real pleased with it. I think that's going to be terrific."

The second season of Masters of Horror debuts in the fall and will again comprise 13 original one-hour films directed by horror veterans. In addition to Gordon, directors returning for a second outing include Dario Argento (Suspiria), John Carpenter (Halloween), Joe Dante (The Howling), Tobe Hooper (Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and John Landis (An American Werewolf in London). —Ian SpellingFrom Beyond Cuts Restored

Cult filmmaker Stuart Gordon told SCI FI Wire that he welcomed the opportunity to restore his 1986 horror film From Beyond to its original, unrated glory for an upcoming 20th-anniversary airing on Monsters HD. Gordon directed From Beyond as a follow-up to his cult classic Re-animator, but the Motion Picture Association of America forced him to make trims in order to secure an R rating.

"Monsters HD helped me put back all the material that I had to cut out," Gordon said in an interview. "It was a wonderful feeling to see it put together again. What's great about the new version is that it's the first time it's ever been shown in letterbox, so you're seeing the full frame. And also, being in high-def, the colors and the sharpness and everything; it just looks fantastic. I'd forgotten how beautiful the film is."

From Beyond, which is based on an H.P. Lovecraft tale, centers on a scientist (Ted Sorel) who creates a device called "the Resonator" that stimulates the pineal gland and opens the mind to other dimensions. The scientist takes his obsession too far, unleashing a sixth sense that essentially devours him and threatens to get the better of the scientist's nervous assistant (Jeffrey Combs) and a female scientist (Barbara Crampton) eager to learn more about the wayward experiment.

"The cuts we'd had to make, ... I would say, ... castrated the movie," Gordon said. "That's the way I would put it. We had to cut out some of the strongest material in the film. You have to go back through history a little bit. Re-animator was released unrated, and the MPAA was not happy about that, and so they were kind of getting their revenge with From Beyond."

Asked to describe what scene he was most satisfied to restore, Gordon replied: "I think the biggest scene is the one in which Crawford Tillinghast [Combs] is being examined, and he's got this thing, the pineal gland, growing out of his head. He sort of escapes from his room and then is discovered eating brains. And that whole sequence was the one that they really hit the hardest. We had to cut the murder of the psychiatrist [Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, the director's wife], in which he sucked her brain through her eye socket. In the release version, none of that was shown. There's a cut to them struggling, and then we see a shot of her shoes and blood splattering on the floor, and that's about it. So that sequence was completely restored." Monsters HD will air the world premiere of the "director's cut" of From Beyond on June 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingCage: Ghost Almost Ready

Nicolas Cage, who stars in the much-delayed comic-book movie Ghost Rider, told SCI FI Wire that the film is all but finished and that the delays resulted from a desire to get the visual effects right. "They're just tweaking certain things toward the end," Cage said in an interview during a break in filming of his next film, the SF thriller Next. "The reason why the movie was delayed—I know that's been on people's minds—is there were some effects that finally got authorized by the studio that [writer-director] Mark [Steven Johnson] really wanted, and they're pretty big, and it took time to put them together and design them. So we had to delay it. I think it's good, because it's something we really wanted to fight for, with Ghost Rider going into battle with the helicopter."

In Ghost Rider, which is based on the Marvel Comics series, Cage plays a stunt motorcycle rider who makes a pact with the devil and spends his nights as an avenging demon whose head is a flaming skull. The film has had several rumored release dates and has been officially slated for a Feb. 16, 2007, release, several months after its last official release date of July 14.

Cage, an avowed fan of comic books, agreed that Ghost Rider was a dream project. (Cage even has a real tattoo of the Ghost Rider's flaming skull on his left upper arm—a tattoo, ironically, that had to be covered up for him to play the part.) "Of all the characters, I feel like that's the one that we really haven't seen anything quite like yet, and it's new territory, because he deals with the spiritual as well as the physical world," he said. "And that's pretty complex stuff for a comic-book character. Also, he's a lot of fun. The character is Johnny Blaze. The way we designed him, he's a fun character, and I wanted to bring a little humor to it as well."Next's Moore Used FBI Skills

Julianne Moore, who plays a federal agent in the upcoming SF movie Next, told SCI FI Wire that she was able to make use of FBI training she received when she played special agent Clarice Starling in 2001's Hannibal. "Certainly the gun training," Moore said in an interview between takes during Next's production in the Port of Los Angeles on June 1. "I mean, the funny thing is, with Hannibal, I did extensive research at [the FBI academy at] Quantico [Virginia] and stuff, and the nice thing was that, because I'd already done it, I didn't have to do it again. And, ... also, I think we take many more liberties making a movie like this than we did with Hannibal."

In Next, which is based on the Philip K. Dick short story "The Golden Man," Moore plays Callie Ferris, an FBI agent who is tracking a Las Vegas magician (played by Nicolas Cage) because she believes he is a real psychic and can aid in the hunt for terrorists. Aside from being another FBI agent, Moore said that the character is a departure for her in some ways.

"The nice thing about playing a character who is the pursuer is that ... I don't have responsibility of making my character the emotional center of the movie," Moore said. "Whereas you do when you're doing something like Hannibal: ... Her story is what's driving the movie. With this, I'm almost the bad guy in a way. I'm the person who's pursuing the emotional center of the movie, who's Nick. I'm going after Nick. ... For me, I have a lot of permission to be the bad guy, to be like, 'Well, I don't care! Well, let's just go get him.' Which is sort of fun to do, because it's just a different way to approach things. And you find out that she's not bad. But she is the person who's pursuing him. So it's fun."

Moore added that Next is not as farfetched as it seems. "I have a pretty close friend that works for the FBI, and you'd be astonished at the kind of stuff that they [do]," she said. "Oh, yeah. They work with psychics. Oh, yeah, they do that stuff all the time. Chandra Levy, there were a lot of psychics on that case." Next is currently in production, with an eye to a September 2007 release. —Patrick Lee, News EditorNext Is SF Love Story

Todd Garner, producer of Nicolas Cage's upcoming SF movie Next, told SCI FI Wire that producer/star Cage had a lot of input into the film, which is based on a Philip K. Dick short story. "It's based on a Philip K. Dick story called 'The Golden Man,' but there’s very little that resembles it other than the character being a precog [someone who can see the future]," Garner said in an interview on the film's set in the Port of Los Angeles last week. "The writer, Gary Goldman, took that notion and created a whole new world with it, ... and Nick had his own spin on the character."

Cage is a producer on the film through his Saturn Films production company, along with partner Norm Golightly. Cage also stars as Cris Johnson, a man who can see the future—but only two minutes ahead. On a sunny day last week, SCI FI Wire was on set as director Lee Tamahori shot a climactic fight sequence on a dock, complete with three dozen machine-gun-firing commandos and terrorists, three helicopters and a container ship with a nuclear bomb on board. Cage and co-stars Jessica Biel and Julianne Moore all took part.

Garner was also there, describing how Cage tailored the character of Johnson to his own tastes: "The character is kind of this very low-rent magician that works in kind of the sleaziest house in Vegas, and he does two shows a day, one in the morning and one at night for the tourists, and he's essentially hiding in plain sight, because he does have this precognitive power." But the movie isn't just SF action, Garner added.

"It's not," Garner said. "Truthfully, it's a love story at the center of it, because the actual core essence of the movie is that Cris Johnson is a man who can see two minutes into the future. That's how far his powers work. Which isn't that great of a power, necessarily. There are certain things you can do and certain things you can't do. But for some reason, when he imagines or precogs his life with Liz, played by Jessica Biel, he can go much further into the future, and he doesn't have any idea why he can do that. And, really, the movie is about figuring out: Is this woman his destiny? And why does his power expand when it comes to her? In essence, it's a love story, because he goes and seeks this girl out to find out why her." Next is in production with an eye to a September 2007 release. —Patrick Lee, News EditorBiel Surprises In The Illusionist

Jessica Biel, who stars in the upcoming period supernatural movie The Illusionist, told SCI FI Wire that her role as a 19th-century Viennese princess marks a departure from her previous parts, which included a kick-ass vampire hunter in Blade: Trinity and a cocky fighter jock in Stealth. "I'm trying to diversify away from any type of stereotype whatsoever," Biel said in an interview on the set of her current film, the SF action movie Next. "[I] definitely don't want to be thought of as an action actress or just a period [actress] or just a comedian."

In The Illusionist, based on Steven Millhauser's short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist," Biel plays Princess Sophie, the romantic object of a turn-of-the-century magician played by Edward Norton and his rival, Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), to whom Sophie becomes engaged. The role allowed Biel to explore a different kind of character.

"I'd like to really do everything," Biel said. "I don't ever want to get stuck in a box. It's just not fun at all. But yeah, I did The Illusionist. It went to Sundance and was directed by Neil Burger, and [stars] Ed Norton, Paul Giamatti [and] Rufus Sewell. It's a 1900s romance kind of mystery, a magic movie. It's got a lot of different elements. Just went to the Seattle film festival. It's going to the Maui film festival." The Illusionist debuts Aug. 18. —Patrick Lee, News EditorStrauses Confirmed On AvP 2

Variety confirmed that visual-effects pros Greg and Colin Strause have been hired to direct Alien vs. Predator 2 for 20th Century Fox, a story first reported on IGN FilmForce. Shooting is slated to begin in September for a summer 2007 release.

Armageddon writer Shane Salerno, who rewrote the original Alien vs. Predator, wrote the script.

Davis Entertainment's John Davis and Robbie Brenner are producing. Davis Entertainment also produced the first film in the franchise, as well as Predator and Predator 2.

The Strause brothers own Santa Monica, Calif.,-based visual-effects house Hydraulics and have extensive visual-effects credits on films including Titanic, The Day After Tomorrow and X-Men: The Last Stand.Horror Guild Nominees Named

The International Horror Guild announced nominees for its 2005 awards and named Chelsea Quinn Yarbro the recipient of its annual Living Legend award. Yarbro becomes the first woman so honored for her contributions to the field of horror and dark fantasy, the guild said. The awards will be presented during the World Fantasy Convention in Austin, Texas, Nov. 2-5. A full list of nominees follows.

Novel: Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel, The Stone Ship by Peter Raftos, The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot, His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred by Carl-Johan Vallgren, translated by Paul Britten-Austin

Short Fiction: "There's a Hole in the City" by Rick Bowes, "The Third Factor" by Brian Evenson, "Go Between" by China Mieville, "Invisible" by Steve Rasnic Tem

Mid-Length Fiction: "Proboscis" by Laird Barron, "Boatman's Holiday" by Jeffrey Ford, "My Father's Mask" by Joe Hill, "La Peau Verte" by Caitlin Kiernan

Long Fiction: "The Imago Sequence" by Laird Barron, "Kiss of the Mudman" by Gary Braunbeck, "Voluntary Committal" by Joe Hill, "The Serial Murders" by Kim Newman

Collection (Single Author): Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham, 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill, To Charles Fort, with Love by Caitlin Kiernan, Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

Anthology: No award

Periodical: The Book of Dark Wisdom, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Postscripts, SciFiction, Subterranean

Illustrated Narrative: The Black Forest 2 by Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes; The Dark Horse Book of the Dead, Scott Allie, ed.; Memories by Enki Bilal; The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Will Eisner; Plucker by Brom

Nonfiction: Mad, Bad and Dangerous? The Scientists and the Cinema by Christopher Frayling; Horror: Another 100 Best Books, Stephen Jones and Kim Newman, eds.; Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia, S.T. Joshi and Stefan Dziemianowicz, eds.; The Ring Companion by Denis Meikle; Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales by Norman Partridge

Art: Exhibition Visions of Heaven and Hell (and Then Some) by Clive Barker, 2005 Hellblazer covers by Tim Bradstreet, exhibition at the World Horror Convention 2005 by Caniglia, production design of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride by Alex McDowell, exhibition Altarwise by Owl-Light by Elizabeth McGrathSagan Finds Voice In Everfree

SF author Nick Sagan, son of astronomer Carl Sagan, told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, Everfree, concludes his debut trilogy and is a piece of social science fiction. "[Social SF] is my favorite kind of SF, and it's a privilege to be able to write a book like this, especially in these dangerous times," Sagan said in an interview. "In Cosmos, my dad said, 'There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably into self-destruction. I dream about it, ... and sometimes they are bad dreams.' I think we all dream about where we're collectively headed, and Everfree is my small contribution to that dialogue."

The trilogy, which began in 2003 with Idlewild, tells the story of a pandemic that kills billions, leaving genetically engineered children as the only survivors, Sagan said. "Raised in isolation by AIs, these immuno-optimized kids come of age to inherit a depopulated world, where they're faced with the enormous tasks of finding a cure for the disease, and then reviving the humans who've been cryonically preserved," he said. "It's an overwhelming responsibility, and throughout the series there's a struggle between what they want to achieve personally and what they've been designed to do."

Sagan said that in Everfree, the post-humans have gotten the plague under control and are in the process of thawing and resuscitating thousands of cryo-preserved humans. "But ... only the richest and most powerful could afford cryonic suspension, so it's the corporate moguls, heads of state and the ultra-privileged who wind up inheriting the earth. ... And while our characters work toward building an egalitarian society of fellow survivors, some of those they rescue have other ideas and want to reinstate themselves into positions of power," he said. "Everfree is about who gets to control the future. Can we build a better society than the one we knew before the plague, or are we destined to fall into the same traps?"

The series began with the protagonist, Halloween, struggling to understand who he is and ends with him facing his demons and finding a kind of peace, Sagan said. "That's a personal story to me, as in the course of writing the series I've followed a similar path," he said. "When you grow up in a famous family, you tend to wrestle with your own identity. To now be on the other side of this trilogy with so many people connecting with my characters and themes gives me a tremendous sense of pride. I'm grateful for that."

Although Everfree concludes the trilogy, Sagan said that he has future plans for the series' characters. "Because I love these characters and the universe they inhabit, it's hard to leave them behind. I know I'll return to their story somewhere down the road, whether in a future novel, short stories or another format entirely," he said. "There are other stories I want to tell right now, but this certainly isn't the last of Halloween." —John Joseph AdamsOmen Debut Blesses Fox

The unusual Tuesday release of 20th Century Fox's The Omen remake film—timed to take advantage of the once-in-a-century date of June 6, 2006, or 6-6-'06—turned out to be a box-office blessing, resulting in a record Tuesday take of more than $12.6 million, according to figures from the Box Office Mojo Web site.

To be precise, the studio reported revenues of $12,633,666 at 2,660 theaters—with the "666" a sly nod to the film's satanic theme.

The Omen edged out Meet the Fockers by about $4,000 to claim the highest Tuesday gross ever.Battle Royale To Be Remade

New Line has bought the remake rights to the Japanese SF movie Battle Royale and is setting up the project with Neal Moritz and Roy Lee, Variety reported.

The original film, produced by Toie and released in 2000 amid concerns about its violence, is set in an apocalyptic future in which schools are overrun by uncontrolled violence; the government responds by organizing an annual Battle Royale, in which a school class is picked at random, and students are pitted against each other on an abandoned island in a game of survival, the trade paper reported.

Toie also produced a sequel in 2003, Battle Royale II—Requiem, in which a new class of teen students are forced to battle a rebel group led by a survivor of a previous Battle Royale.Minkoff Heels Bad Dogs

Director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little) has been attached to helm Bad Dogs, a live-action film about a pair of mismatched mutts who are sent to obedience school, escape and head off on an adventure, Variety reported.

Level 1 Entertainment, the partnership between Bill Todman Jr., Edward Milstein and Paul Schwake, will finance the picture.

Drew Fellman and Mark Pressman hatched the idea and the first draft, which is being rewritten by Mike Wilson (Ice Age, Shark Tale).Mondays Dark With Humor

SF author Kage Baker told SCI FI Wire that she uses humor to cope with a difficult life—humor that is evident in her upcoming short-story collection Dark Mondays. Readers and visitors to her Web site are well aware of her humor, and in the new collection, she lists each short story and then mentions that there are no cyborgs in any of them. Baker described the story "Monkey Day," for example, as "Faith and Reason duke it out, with monkeys. The fight ends in a draw. No cyborgs were injured or even involved in any way whatsoever."

"My humor did rise as a defense mechanism and has sustained me through a fairly painful life," Baker said in an e-mail interview. "Youth starting out has no clue how beautiful, and how unspeakably horrible, the world can be. As the truth begins to dawn on you, you can either jump ship, weep in self pity or laugh. It seemed to me I might as well laugh. The 'no cyborg' recurring joke is a reference to the fact that I usually write science fiction stories about cyborgs, and there are none in this book."

Dark Mondays, which is due June 15, is often dark and ironic, much like the original Twilight Zone TV series, of which Baker is a fan, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In Baker's stories, normal people discover aspects of their realities aren't what they seem. Baker said the story set in 1970s Hollywood ("Portrait, With Flames"), the one set in 1938 ("Katherine's Story") and the stories set in her hometown of Pismo Beach, Calif., are the best examples. "To a lesser extent it's true of the other stories in the collection as well, but those are the ones most likely to have had the camera pull back to reveal Rod Serling standing in the wings, cigarette in hand," she said.

"Silent Leonardo" is an alternate history of Leonardo da Vinci, who is very much in the public consciousness because of the book and movie The Da Vinci Code. Baker said she wrote the story well before reading Dan Brown's novel.

"The book did not inspire me to anything except a sense of gratitude that I read a copy from my local library, rather than spent money on it," Baker said. "It's a piece of badly written, bigoted and unoriginal crap, and gets most of its 'secret history' wrong into the bargain. I was approached for a contribution to an alternate-history anthology; I don't usually write alternate history, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Being a left-handed person myself, I have always admired da Vinci's work. I thought I'd explore what might have happened if he'd had an accident in childhood and been forced to use his right hand instead of his left."

Baker's next work is The Machine's Child, the next book in her Company series. It is due in September. —Lee BarnathanSpore Evolves For PC

Spore, a new simulation game from The Sims creator Will Wright, made a big splash with a detailed hands-on demo at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles last month. The game allows players to create a character that will evolve from a single-celled organism into an advanced being, joining herds, clans and civilizations on planets that become increasingly complex and dangerous.

Electronic Arts' 20-minute demo highlighted key points in the game, and Spore won several E3 awards. The 1up.com Web site named the title best of show; the Game Critics Awards named it best original game, best PC game and best simulation game; and IGN.com called it the PC game of the show and the most innovative design.

The demo began with the creature editor, which starts with a basic blob of DNA with vertebrae. From there, everything—body shape, limbs, eyes, claws, hands, mouths, feet and color, textures and patterns—can be modified. The creature editor can animate the character and show what the creature will look like walking, fighting and playing.

With a newly created creature, the demo dove into real gameplay that showed off the massive variety of creatures running around the landscape, some of which were dangerous and some of which were food. As the game time-lapses into the future, the creatures can end up flying UFOs, being abducted for transplant to other planets, getting caught in a tractor beam or thrown around the landscape. Their information can be scanned for entry into the "Sporepedia," a catalog of every creature. The game can be zoomed out to the view of the entire galaxy, filled with millions of planets and an almost infinite amount of gameplay.

Spore can be played at any level: cell, wild creature, civilized and organized society, planetary or interstellar levels or online, connecting with other worlds and other gamers. Spore is due sometime in 2007 for the PC. —Casey LynchSwanson Slays In Living Death

Kristy Swanson, who played the title character in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, told SCI FI Wire that she's just completed shooting another horror film, Living Death, which is a kind of Double Indemnity with blowfish and paralysis. "We just finished that a week ago," Swanson said in an interview. "It was fun. I had a really good time with some blood and guts."

Swanson said that she plays a character named Elizabeth opposite Canadian actor Greg Bryk, who will appear in the upcoming SCI FI original series The Dresden Files. "I play his wife," Swanson said. "He's a very wealthy man, like super-rich, and I want him dead because I want his money. So I conspire with his lawyer. The two of us have fallen in love and want to kill him off and take all his money. And the way we do that is we poison him with puffer fish poisoning, like blowfish."

The poison doesn't kill outright, Swanson said. "What it does is it paralyzes your body for about three days, until your body basically expires. So he's dead, but he still can hear everything and see everything. His eyes are open. The police want to do an autopsy, although in his will he's requested not to be autopsied. ... They perform this autopsy on him while he's still alive, but they don't know it. And he ends up coming back and tries to kill me." Living Death is seeking a distributor. Swanson, meanwhile, stars in SCI FI Channel's upcoming original movie Black Hole, which premieres June 10 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingAndrews Not Lost In Grind

Naveen Andrews, one of the stars of ABC's hit series Lost, is joining the ensemble cast of the genre homage film Grind House for helmers Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, Variety reported.

The Weinstein Co.'s Dimension movie has Rodriguez and Tarantino each helming a 60-minute horror tale, with faux trailers and ads in between.

Andrews takes on the role of "a badass military scientist" in Rodriguez's part of the movie, an SF zombie movie called "Planet Terror," the trade paper reported. The cast includes Freddy Rodriguez, Rose McGowan and Josh Brolin.

Grind House is heading into production in Austin, Texas, this summer with an eye to an Easter 2007 release.Hellboy 2 Switches Studios?

Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro told fans in Burbank, Calif., that the proposed sequel is caught between studios as the project's deal with Sony has expired and Paramount is considering picking it up, IFmagazine.com reported. Sony distributed the first Hellboy, based on Mike Mignola's Dark Horse graphic novel series and produced by Revolution and Lawrence Gordon Productions.

"We're moving studios right now," del Toro said at the Fangoria convention over the weekend. "They don't have a deal with Sony anymore, and we are looking for financing for Hellboy 2. It's at Paramount right now."

Del Toro said the proposed sequel would be "bigger in scale, but not necessarily in budget. Abe Sapien [Doug Jones] has a much bigger part, and we're keeping closer to the mythology of the comics." Del Toro added that the film will feature "a song by Barry Manilow, and you'll have to find out about how that fits in. I know you are all saying, 'What the f--k is that?'"Mythopoeic Finalists Named

The Mythopoeic Society—a nonprofit international literary and educational organization for the study, discussion, and enjoyment of fantastic and mythic literature—announced the finalists for its various awards. The winners of this year's awards will be announced during Mythcon XXXVII, to be held Aug. 4-7 in Norman, Okla. A list of the finalists follows.

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, Metallic Love by Tanith Lee, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature: Valiant by Holly Black, Wizards at War by Diane Duane, By These Ten Bones by Clare B. Dunkle, The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies: Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth by Marjorie Burns; Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology by Verlyn Flieger; Smith of Wootton Major: Expanded Edition by J.R.R. Tolkien, Verlyn Flieger, ed.; The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull; The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies: The Meanings of "Beauty and the Beast" by Jerry Griswold, Readers in Wonderland: The Liberating Worlds of Fantasy Fiction from Dorothy to Harry Potter by Deborah O'Keefe, The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy by David R. Loy and Linda Goodhew, National Dreams: The Remaking of Fairy Tales in Nineteenth-Century England by Jennifer SchackerBlood Concludes Path Of Fate

Fantasy author Diana Pharaoh Francis, whose new novel Path of Blood concludes her Path of Fate series, told SCI FI Wire that the final volume lets protagonist Reisil finally come to terms with who she is and what she's become. "She's learned quite a lot about her power, but not enough," Francis said in an interview. "She's got to journey into another world in order to learn all that she needs to know. The book is about making that journey and making sacrifices to save others. It's also about the idea that even individuals can have enormous impact on the world."

Path of Fate is set in the fantasy country of Kodu Riik and details the adventures of Reisil, who was abandoned as a child and raised on the charity of her town, Francis said. "They paid for her training as a healer, and she feels a tremendous obligation to repay that debt and also a sense of belonging now that she has a way to contribute," she said. "But pretty quickly she's uprooted from her life and has to start making choices that have her doing things she never wanted to do."

Reisil gains a mystical bond with a goshawk who doesn't like her very much at first, Francis said. "I chose a goshawk as Reisil's bond animal (called ahalad-kaaslane) because a colleague of mine [Jack Kirkley] at the University of Montana Western does research on goshawks," she said. "He took me out to observe the fledglings learning to fly and answered all my questions."

That human-animal bond was one of the ideas that fueled the series' origins, Francis said. "[I had] the idea that Reisil could bond with a goshawk and be forced to be in the bird's head while she's flying, and [yet] be totally afraid of heights. I was intrigued with the personality of the bird (Saljane) because she'd know Reisil was afraid of heights and would take a certain amount of pleasure in tormenting her. Did I say their relationship did not start out well? It didn't."

When writing the series, Francis paid a lot of attention to the names given to things. "I wanted consistency among the language patterns of each country, so for Kodu Riik, I used words from an Estonian dictionary; for Patverseme, I used a Latvian dictionary; [and so on]," she said. "So most of the words have some meaning. [For instance,] Reisil means 'on a journey.' Saljane means 'secret.'"

Francis said it was a little painful leaving Kodu Riik behind once she finished Path of Blood. "But since I've been able to immerse [myself] in another story and characters, it's not been so bad," she said. "I'd actually like to write some short stories that follow the further exploits of some of the characters." The story Francis has been immersed in is her forthcoming Crosspointe Chronicles, the first of which, The Cipher, is due out from NAL/Roc in November 2007. "[It's] a novel of magic and intrigue," she said. —John Joseph AdamsGamers Bite Into Jaws

Majesco's new Jaws Unleashed, a free-roaming hunting video game based on the hit Universal Pictures film series, lets gamers play "Bruce," the most feared predator on earth. As the intelligent shark, gamers can capsize boats, tear divers apart piece by piece, crush jet skis, gnaw apart animals and more.

In Jaws Unleashed, Bruce (the nickname given to the mechanical shark in Steven Spielberg's first Jaws movie) is upset about the infiltration of humans into his home waters. The game includes 20 missions, such as rampaging through a Sea World-like theme park, destroying a pollution-causing chemical plant and battling an orca. There are also 32 side quests, all of which have three difficulty levels each.

Jaws Unleashed comes with a number of standard underwater and surface attacks, as well as air attacks, which means players can jump through the air to snag humans off of boats or plunge through docks. Besides Bruce's toothy mouth, the shark can use its tail like a whip and its nose as a ram and can grab victims covertly. The game also features unlockable supplementary advanced moves, such as dive-bomb splashes, corkscrew attacks and jumping "one-bite kills."

The game also features hidden collectibles, timed races and a number of challenges involving eating, destroying or stealth-killing hapless swimmers. As a bonus, the game is backed by John Williams' musical score from the original film. Jaws Unleashed is available now for Xbox, PlayStation 2 and PC. Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. —Casey LynchDurance Talks Butterfly 2

PHILADELPHIA—Erica Durance, who stars in the upcoming SF movie The Butterfly Effect 2, told fans here that she plays an entirely new character in the sequel to 2004's original movie, which starred Ashton Kutcher. "This one is a similar idea [to the original]," Durance said in a panel at the annual Wizard World Convention over the weekend. "Obviously, Ashton Kutcher is not in it. There are different characters."

Durance (TV's Smallville) plays Julie, the girlfriend of Nick, who is played by Eric Lively (Showtime's The L Word). Durance said that the film again deals with someone who is able to go back in time and change things. "It's trying to answer that age-old question that if we, as human beings, had the chance, would we do a better job the second time around?" she said. "Would we be able to fix things, and how much would it affect other people? I always thought that was an interesting question. So when they approached me with [the role], I said, 'Sure.'"

Durance said her character differs from her acerbic Lois Lane, the role she plays in Smallville. "[Julie] is an ever-supportive, loyal, in-love gal," Durance said. "I found myself a lot of times going, 'Did I do enough in that scene? Certainly there must be more?' Because I'm always waiting to say something sassy, and so I was stuck in that initial reaction. After I got used to it, I thought it was great fun. It was a good story using that whole psychological-thriller genre." The Butterfly Effect 2 will be released sometime in 2007. Swanson Tongue-Tied In Black

Kristy Swanson, star of SCI FI Channel's upcoming original movie Black Hole, told SCI FI Wire that the movie required her to run around, fly in helicopters and drive an SUV—but none of it was as difficult as the technobabble she had to utter. In the film, scientists and former colleagues Shannon (Swanson) and Eric (Judd Nelson) join forces to stop dual threats caused by an experiment run awry: a fast-expanding black hole and a creature that feeds on electricity, both of which threaten to decimate the world.

"It's like doing a medical show, you know what I mean?" Swanson said in an interview. "Having to memorize that kind of dialogue is very difficult. It's not the kind of language you speak normally every day. So it's much harder to remember it. Judd was very good at it, but me, I struggled with that a bit, and so did David Selby. He struggled as well with the technical jargon."

Swanson is perhaps best known for her role as the title character in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer feature film. Black Hole premieres June 10 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingWolf Wins Over Kids

Canadian horror author Edo van Belkom, whose young-adult novel Wolf Pack just won the 2006 Silver Birch Award, told SCI FI Wire that he considers the award special despite not being as well known as the Aurora, Hugo or Nebula. "Some 90,000 students voted for the Silver Birch, so you judge how significant an award it is when someone can win an Aurora with less than 100 votes and a Hugo or Nebula can be had with less than 1,000," van Belkom said in an e-mail interview.

The Silver Birch Award is part of the Ontario Library Association's "Forest of Reading" program, in which schoolchildren in grades 4-6 from all across Ontario vote for their favorite title from a list of 10 nominees in both fiction and nonfiction categories, according to a press release from the association. The students have to have read at least five of the nominated works, van Belkom said, although some students read all 10.

Van Belkom said he didn't think he would win, because he wasn't aware of the award, and the selection committee put it in an age category van Belkom considered younger than he would have liked. Additionally, he hasn't written as many young-adult novels as some of the other nominated authors, he said.

The author also received some additional good news on the day he won the Silver Birch: His follow-up to Wolf Pack, Lone Wolf, earned a 2006 Prix Aurora Award nomination, honoring Canadian books. (Wolf Pack won a 2005 Prix Aurora Award.)

"I'm ecstatic, of course, to see the second book in the series also receiving some recognition," van Belkom said. "There was a review in CM [Canadian Review of Materials] magazine, a publication for teachers and librarians, that said the second book was better than the first. I certainly didn't think that while I was writing it, but who am I to argue with a reviewer?"

While van Belkom awaits the results of the 2006 Aurora Award (voting ends June 26, and the honor will be presented during TT20 in Toronto July 7-9), he's finishing the third book in his series, Cry Wolf. It will be published in 2007. He also has plans for a fourth book in 2008, but isn't sure of the title, except that it will be two words, one of which will be "wolf." —Lee BarnathanSpectrobes Has Audio Element

Buena Vista Games' new Spectrobes, the upcoming action role-playing game, makes use of the Nintendo DS's unique stylus and microphone interface as key elements of the gameplay. Players take on the role of an Interplanetary Patrol Officer (IPO) who uncovers an alien plot against the solar system. The only hope against the alien invasion are creatures called Spectrobes, who have unfortunately become extinct and are now only fossils.

Spectrobes allows players to excavate, train and battle with nearly 500 unique monsters while using every interactive feature of the Nintendo DS, said Tim Fitzrandolph, a Buena Vista quality assurance representative. He said that the game was designed around the DS. "There's a bunch of features, like excavation, that are really cool because of the capability of the DS," Fitzrandolph said. "You have to find the Spectrobe fossils and 'wake' them up by 'uncovering them' with the stylus, but you have to be careful not to rub too hard, because you could damage the fossil."

Players can also blow over the screen to clear dust and debris away and speak into the microphone to wake the infant Spectrobes. The audio interface is a minigame in itself, which requires players to vary their tone and pitch and make just enough noise to wake up the babies. The game has two main sections: raising the Spectrobes in an RPG-styled format and taking the grown Spectrobes into real-time battles.

Once mature, each creature has special attack abilities and can be combined for a powerful combo attack. As the Spectrobes win, they continue to evolve into more and more powerful beings. There are a variety of battles throughout the game, as well as a big finishing battle that Fitzrandolph said should involve some "serious creatures."

Players will be able to take advantage of a number of multiplayer features, such as exchanging Spectrobes and items wirelessly with other players and downloading exclusive collectibles. Players can also battle against friends in one-on-one ad-hoc wireless tournaments. Spectrobes is slated for a release this holiday season exclusively for the Nintendo DS. —Casey LynchPine Mulls Postapocalypse

Chris Pine is in final negotiations to star in the untitled Pastor brothers postapocalyptic thriller being produced by This Is That and distributed by Paramount Vantage, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Paramount specialty label pre-emptively bought the film shortly after January's Sundance Film Festival, where Alex Pastor was awarded the jury prize for international short for The Natural Route (La Ruta Natural), which he wrote and directed.

The untitled film, which will be written and directed by Alex and David Pastor, revolves around four friends trying to escape a viral pandemic in the American West who discover that they are more dangerous to one another than any virus. Pine would play one of the friends.Roday Pens Skinwalkers

James Roday, an actor who stars in USA Network's upcoming series Psych, told SCI FI Wire that he's also co-written the upcoming werewolf feature film Skinwalkers, about a 12-year-old boy at the center of a battle between warring werewolf factions. "My best friend [Todd Harthan] and I met the other writer, James DeMonaco, while working on a television show back in '99, and we all hit it off," Roday said in a conference call interview while promoting Psych. "We took this idea to him and said, 'Do you want to write this with us?' He sort of took us under his wing and became our mentor, and together, over the course of about four years, we wrote what we set out to do, which was a sort of epic be-all-and-end-all of werewolf movies."

Skinwalkers has a cast of young genre actors that includes Jason Behr (The Grudge), Rhona Mitra (Hollow Man), Natassia Malthe (Elektra) and Sarah Carter (Final Destination 2). The film was directed by James Isaac, whose credits include The Horror Show and Jason X.

"It's finished," Roday said. "It's in the can. And it's coming out in December. We're really pumped. We're really pumped about it. It's kind of a return to, like, basic human interaction storytelling in a genre package, which I feel like we haven't had in a really long time."

Roday said that he expects Skinwalkers will be released with a hard R rating, rather than the PG-13 so many contemporary horror films aim at to reach the widest possible audience. "That's the plan," he said. "It's never completely in your control, but it was certainly written as a hard R, and it was shot as a hard R. So hopefully that's where it stays." Lionsgate has acquired domestic and international distribution rights to Skinwalkers and is eyeing a December theatrical release. Psych premieres on USA with a 90-minute episode on July 7. USA Network is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. —Ian SpellingCarey Switches Kushiel Heroes

A very busy SF author Jacqueline Carey—whose fourth Kushiel book, Kushiel's Scion, comes out June 12—told SCI FI Wire that this book begins a new trilogy featuring the character Imriel as narrator. He takes over for Phèdre, the heroine from the first three books. "For me, to keep the writing fresh and compelling in an ongoing series, characters need to grow and develop over time, and their stories need to explore different themes," Carey said in an e-mail interview. "I love Phèdre, ... but the dramatic arc of her story was finished at the end of Kushiel's Avatar, while Imriel's was just beginning."

Carey also contributed a story to a collection whose proceeds benefit tsunami relief. Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology: Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy, which came out last month, features stories from, among others, Larry Niven, Brian Aldiss and Esther M. Friesner. Carey's story is called "In the Matter of Fallen Angels," which she said deals with a community and connections. "[It] made it feel appropriate for the cause: citizens of the world coming together to help one another," she said.

Carey said the call for submissions went out a month after the 2004 tsunami wrought havoc in South Asia. Since then, Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, but Carey isn't aware of any similar project. "If there's a similar project for hurricane relief in the science fiction community, I wasn't approached to contribute to it, but I donated good old-fashioned cash to a number of organizations doing relief work," she said.

Carey also was a guest of honor at the recent Keycon in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada. "I have some excellent fans in Winnipeg, and I was happy to accept the invitation," she said. "Small conventions have limited funds, so it really is an honor to be one of the guests on whom they're spending a good portion of their budget. I took part in several panels, did a reading, a Q&A and a book signing. One fun thing they do at Keycon is ask their guests of honor is perform serving duties at the ice cream social on the first night. My favorite moment was probably the look of utter shock on the faces of a couple of young women who'd driven from Edmonton to attend the con because I was one of the guests. They were shocked to find me dishing out ice cream; I was shocked to find out that Edmonton was a 16-hour drive away!"

Carey continues to busy herself. She will be the guest of honor at two more conventions this year, although she said it's similar to "any businessperson being sponsored to make a presentation at an industry conference, except that the audience members may be dressed as fairies, vampires, aliens, wizards and barbarian warriors. It's fun. And there are always plenty of folks who've never heard of me to keep things in perspective." Carey's next book, Kushiel's Justice, is due out next year. —Lee BarnathanDark Comes To Light

After nearly four years of trial and error, Dark and Light—a new fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game—is seeing the light of day. The game went online last week with a continuous gaming world that can host up to 500,000 inhabitants playing on the same server at the same time. Stephane Quilichini, lead game designer of D 'n' L, told SCI FI Wire that players can expect "total freedom in playing [an] MMO." "At launch, players will have access to an enhanced combat system, a deep crafting system and more than 400,000 monsters present on the ground," she said. "There are also hundreds of villages all over the world and a dense and dynamic transport system to emphasize exploration, ... among other features."

The game's world of Ganareth has five realms: Dark, Light, Al Drifa, Ysatis and Agnar, with an open surface of roughly 11,200 square miles. That's 32 times as large as the area in Everquest, which covers about 350 square miles after nine expansion packs.

In addition to standard questing, the game has two ways characters can level up: socially, by focusing on politics or trading, or warring. The game's crafting system creates a world with a completely craft-based economy and is very deep. "All items were rated on a quality scale of 0 to 100," Quilichini added. "Only level 0 items would be available on NPC vendors. Making items also requires practice. To avoid flooding the economy with useless items, as many games do, D 'n' L [has] the concept of practice items, which are required components for making the real thing. Thus, the more pairs of practice gloves you make, the better chance you have of making a real pair of gloves."

The storyline of Dark and Light is based on a bible called the Ganaptheron, which describes the origins of the Dark and Light factions. It details the era of the gods' rule and how 14 immortals were called to restore peace and preserve harmony on Ganareth. Dark and Light is available now for the PC. —Casey LynchBRIEFLY NOTED

A teaser Web site has gone live for Michael Bay's upcoming Transformers movie, which counts down to the release of a teaser trailer.

Original 007 Sean Connery has been selected to receive the 34th American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, the highest honor for a career in film, which will be presented at a gala tribute in Los Angeles on June 8 and broadcast on USA Network June 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

China has ordered theaters to stop showing the controversial blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, but the official reason was not immediately clear, the Reuters news service reported; the government had been in dispute with the Vatican over its appointment of bishops without papal approval.

Screen Gems is angling for an Eastertime release of a feature film tentatively titled The Resurrection, the Bible story of Jesus Christ, beginning the day he died on the cross and ending about 40 days later with his ascension into heaven, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Movie City News has posted what it says is the casting notice for James Cameron's upcoming top-secret SF movie Project 880, with the first details about its story: "In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture."

IGN FilmForce reported a rumor that brothers Greg and Colin Strause may soon sign on to direct a proposed sequel to Alien vs. Predator for Fox.

Uwe Boll, director of the game-inspired vampire film BloodRayne, and his companies are suing Romar Entertainment on the grounds that it failed properly to promote and distribute the critically reviled movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

IGN Filmforce reported that Lionsgate has dropped plans for a live-action feature-film version of Marvel Comics' Black Widow, which was to have been directed by David Hayter.

June 6, 2006, or 6-6-6, happens to coincide with the number mentioned in the biblical Book of Revelation as the mark of the beast, interpreted by some as a sign of the coming apocalypse, and the date is being exploited by others commercially: The day marks the premiere of the film remake The Omen and the publication of Tim LaHaye's new Christian-themed Left Behind book and Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism, the Associated Press reported.

SCIFI.COM's SCI FI Pulse video feature will debut Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance, a 10-episode Web series filling the gap between seasons two and three and telling the story of the birth of the human resistance movement and its determined fight against the Cylon occupation.

IGN FilmForce, citing an anonymous source, reported a rumor that The Matrix creators Larry and Andy Wachowski may write and direct a proposed live-action feature-film version of the Japanese animated TV series Speed Racer for Joel Silver Pictures and Warner Brothers.