Stargate Universe: John Scalzi has been hired as creative consultant

Looks like they're actually getting a real, honest-to-gosh writer to work on Stargate Universe. They've hired a book author John Scalzi as a creative consultant. See below snippet from his blog.

January 14 2009

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/01/14/one-of-my-big-announcements-for-
january/

excerpt:

The reason I'm in Vancouver, aside from having dinner at Fuel last night with Joseph Mallozzi, can now be revealed: I have a new gig as Creative Consultant for the upcoming Stargate: Universe television series. I've been talking to the SGU folks about it informally for some time and flew out to meet the producers and writers, and talk about the ideas and directions of the new series. I also got the tour of the sets, which are still under construction, and which look pretty damn nifty so far. It all went very well, and I liked what they were doing with the show and the people involved, and equally importantly they seemed to like me too. So I was happy to say yes when they invited me onboard.

REST AT LINK ABOVE

His official site: http://scalzi.com/
His books: http://www.scalzi.com/books/
A YouTube interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZN6GA4JsOs
Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scalzi

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I've never read this guy's work, let alone heard of him (I avoid any book reviews on Mallozzi's blog as he gives away too much). I read mostly non-fiction books as theyr'e fascinating, and probably far too much Stargate Atlantis fan fiction, but there is good stuff out there so I read it! :) Too bad they couldn't have gotten some consultants in on SGA; might have avoided "Identity" then ;)

I see Scalzi's books are in my local library, so I'll go down and grab one when there's less snow and ice out there.

Rest in Peace

Wow, today was a bad day for a couple of folks.

Patrick McGoohan, known to millions for his PRISONER series, or SECRET AGENT MAN, died today at age 80 after a short illness. I'll always remember him as the brusque Scottish animal doctor in THOMASINA, one of the best flicks ever to come out of Disney, which I adored watching cuz it had Siamese cats in it, but wow, I just through McGoohan was the cat's meow (I was a kid, and that was the term) ;) Anyway, very sad to hear that.

And Ricardo Montalban passed away at age 88. Most folks will probably know him best for FANTASY ISLAND, but I'll always remember "Fine Corinthian leather!" in some car ad he did, but I also remember seeing him in lots of older movies. That is, when they showed older movies. Now I gotta watch Turner Classic Movies to see 'em.

Sigh...

New York Comic Con

Ah, it would be nice to see some Stargate presence at the NY Comic Con....

However, Milo Ventimiglia, from HEROES, will be there! As will the cast of Fox's FRINGE! Too bad neither show really interests me, but I may check out their panels if I can find out where the rooms are this year ;) And J. Michael Straczynski from Babylon 5 will be there, too. However Seth Green will be there and I saw five minutes of ROBOT CHICKEN and laughed myself silly.

Unfortunately, Diamond Select Toys has again pushed back the release date for the series 3 Stargate Atlantis action figures until mid-February. Darn! Did I whine about this already? Hmm... anyway, was hoping to pick up a spare Ronon so I could beat one up in action figure theater.

Anywhere, there is a great blog that posts stuff on the con at http://www.mediumatlarge.net. Regrettably, it's where I found this video that is either really cute or makes you want to confess your bank account number if forced to watch repeatedly ;)

Rachel Luttrell web site update

http://www.rachelluttrell.com/note.asp

Rachel Luttrell updated her site on January 12th, and here is a snippet:

I am looking forward to the new year. I hope that it is a wonderful one for all of us.

My husband and I are planning on posting a series of short films on my site, hopefully beginning this month. I hope that you will enjoy them as much as we will enjoy writing and filming them.

Glad to see she'll be doing that as so much stuff from Canada simply never airs down here (despite the fact how much of our dreck we import up there) ;)  Hmm, if only she could do a Flashpoint...