It's a common pet peeve among sci-fi fans: why do aliens always seem so undeniably human? Shouldn't a strange new consciousness from a far-away world seem more alien? And not just in looks - we've written about human-looking aliens before - but in motivations and behavior as well.

For instance, there's no reason to assume that an alien species would look like a human with a weird forehead. But there's also no reason to assume that aliens would have a human-like conception of property or of societal connection or even of self.

While what seems to be a majority of science fiction relies very heavily on making their aliens as behaviorally human as possible, there are a few aliens in the cannon that challenge our perceptions of aliens and what a true other might actually be like. Here are some examples of truly alien aliens (each include some spoilers).

Solaris

In one of the only common features between both film versions of Solaris and the original novel, one of the main objects of the story is to present a truly "other" alien. In Solaris, human scientists have stumbled upon a planet that seems to be covered in a living ocean. So, they attempt to communicate with it.

And the "ocean" communicates back in the only way it knows how: by conjuring up living manifestations of the deeply hidden tragedies and shames of the scientific crew. The films hint at what is the novel's focus: the sentient oceans are so alien from humanity that its attempts to communicate look more like torture. All three versions leave the audience with no clue as to what the sentient oceans actually want. And that's a lot more realistic than clear communication between two wildly different species.

The 456

The motivations of the 456 in Torchwood's Children of Earth miniseries are a lot clearer: they just want Earth's children for what appears to be a very gruesome narcotic-like use. But what makes the 456 so great an example of an alien species is that this use is never clear, and humanity is in no position to investigate the aliens.

It's another common misstep in alien stories: unlocking the biological or scientific secrets of the alien proves the necessary step to defeating them. In this story, the alien remains callously and disturbingly other throughout. It's like "To Serve Man" with a decidedly Lovecraftian twist.

The creature from Midnight

In the Dr. Who episode "Midnight," we see that in science fiction stories, you don't always need a malicious alien to find a villain. The alien in this case is certainly creepy, and its "voice stealing" method of communicating makes the viewer squirm, but in the end, the ones that we fear the most are not aliens, but other humans.

And that is what makes this, along with Children of Earth, such a great alien story: no matter what the extra-planetary life is, the much more frightening thing is the paranoia and fear-induced violence that this alien consciousness causes.

Rama

While Rama in Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series is actually a place, it reveals another misstep in most alien portrayals. When humans land on Rama and begin exploring, they are struck by how strange the place is. The "buildings" don't appear to actually be buildings, the "cities" are apparently uninhabited, and the sheer scope and engineering of the place betray a fundamental flaw in any human-assumption-based analysis of the place.

While this unknowable other concept gets shelved a bit in the sequels to Rendezvous with Rama, the first book ends as it might in reality: the craft moves on, and humanity is no wiser than before. Rama remains a foreign thing, even after all is supposedly "revealed."

(From this short film based on the book Rendezvous with Rama)

The Buggers and the Piggies

Finally, in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, and maybe more so in its sequel, Speaker for the Dead, we see two new alien races that eventually challenge humanity to tolerate and maybe even love something truly other. The buggers start the story as the frightening antagonist, but it's revealed that their acts of aggression were really attempts at communication. The piggies, on the other hand, seem wild and unpredictable at first, but their horrific acts were really ceremonies of great honor.

The reality of these books, though, is that, when all is said and done, the humans in these stories find the humanity in an inscrutable other. They prove to us that something menacing and indifferent and entirely alien can sometimes become almost human. And even if that means humanizing the aliens slightly, it's a feat that's far more impressive than getting us to sympathize with blue versions of ourselves.

It's a strange mix of new releases this week, as the industry seems to be slowing down for the holidays and yet still managing to release a few must-reads (including a strong contender for book of the year), but we'll get to them later.

Instead, let's start with the TV and movie tie-ins of the week: Battlestar Galactica: The Final Five collects the mini-series that told a possible backstory for everyone's favorite Cylons, and it's better than you might expect. Meanwhile, Star Trek Alien Spotlight: Cardassians fulfills a similar role for Deep Space Nine's ridge-headed badguys. It's clearly backstory week, because Marvel's Ender's Game: War of Gifts special issue also fills in some blanks. Thankfully, DC's Dante's Inferno video game tie-in is much more straight-forward in just adapting the game... that adapts the classic story. Boxes within boxes!

Over in the superhero school of thought, DC have their annual Holiday Special to warm the cockles of your heart, after which you'll be ready for the triple-X-Men-threat of Genext United (The future children of the X-Men unite!), X-Men/Spider-Man (The X-Men and Spider-Man team up during different parts of their history!) and Nation X (The X-Men have their own island! And... stuff... happens on it?). If all of that sounds too much, we'll direct you to the much-anticipated-by-us Spider-Man And Secret Wars, a new series that retells the classic story with far fewer dated references.

Elsewhere, Image have a new Tank Girl special, Tank Girl: Nuggets to offer up festivities for kangaroo lovers. There's also Pilot Season: Murderer, a one-shot that you — yes, you — could help make into an ongoing series about a man who is compelled to kill in order to keep living.

But as topical as that may sound, it doesn't come anywhere close to being book of the week. No, that honor belongs entirely to the first issue of Daytripper, a new series by Brazilian brothers Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon that is as beautifully written as it is illustrated (Visually, it's easily one of the best things you'll have seen this year); admittedly, it's not the most io9-friendly story — it's very grounded in real life, at least in the first issue — but, having seen the first two issues in preview, it's definitely something we'd recommend as one of the best things we've read in a long time.

As ever, the complete Diamond Distributors shipping list will tell you everything that's hitting stores tomorrow, and the Comic Shop Locator will tell you where to find said stores. We just hope that, by the time you get there, you'll be more in the mood for magical realism than killing people.

With the exception of Image Comics' Dead Space: Extraction special issue (tying in with the upcoming videogame from EA) and Harris' latest revival of Vampirella (Called, somewhat incorrectly, Vampirella: The Second Coming), Marvel Comics really owns the single issue market this week when it comes to new launches of interest.

From Marvel, there are the latest special issues in the ongoing Dark Reign storyline (Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus or Dark Reign: The List: The Avengers). And then there's the launch of Marvel's latest Orson Scott Card adaptation (Ender's Game: Command School). Or even the surprise launch of a new series starring the sidekick of an alternate Earth Captain America (Nomad: Girl Without A World).

Besides Marvel, there's not really that much else for superhero fans looking for a first issue this week (Okay, there is DC Comics' The Shield, which is gritty Captain America from an idea by J. Michael Straczynski... but still).

(Actually, if you're looking for something superhero-ish and none of the above sound promising, I'd direct your attention to the seventh issue of DC's Superman: World Of New Krypton, which begins its second half with what looks like the slow march to war between Earth and Superman's new adopted home planet, offering as much fun politicking as it does fisticuffs. But that's just me.)

In terms of collections, it's actually fairly evenly split: IDW has Astro Boy Movie Prequel: Underground, allowing you to catch up on your robot Pinocchio before next month's movie.

Meanwhile, DC's Gotham Central Vol. 2: Jokers and Madmen offers up easily the best Joker story in comics in the last decade alongside some other, equally good, stories about Batman's hometown police force.

Rebellion puts out Strontium Dog: Traitor To His Kind, which reboots the 2000AD franchise back into fine shape courtesy of the character's creators. (Short version: He's a time-traveling mutant bounty hunter in the far future. His partner is a Viking. Surely that's all you need to know.)

And Marvel again, may have grabbed the win with Marvel Superhero Team-Up, the disappointingly-renamed (It was originally Marvel Bromance) anthology of male bonding stories from the company's long and rich history. Mickey and Donald would be proud.

As ever, the complete list of comics reaching your local stores this week can be found here before you decide to purchase your picks at your local comic store. Look on the bright side: Such a light week this week just lets you save up for all the goodies still to come next week.

Where to start with this week's haul? Why not with the return of some classics?

Marvel is reissue some wonderful old-school SF in the Annihilation Classic collection (including the complete Rocket Racoon series!) Meanwhile, Dynamite finally collects the entirity of Garth Ennis' Dan Dare series (lost in limbo since Virgin Comics went under). And SLG Publishing releases Tron: Ghost In The Machine.

Also, Boom! puts out the first of this week's must-haves: The first issue of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the illustrated version of the Philip K. Dick novel that has to be seen to be believed (We'll have a review later today, but suffice to say it's unlike any other comic you've read). Also in the "adapted novel" category? Marvel's collections of Ender's Game: Battle School and Ender's Shadow: Battle School, both also released this week.

Staying in the classic end of the pool, Dark Horse revive Creepy as a new, quarterly anthology title this week, and it's well worth a look. So is the first issue of IDW's new monthly Doctor Who comic, which captures the feel of the television show better than any comic to date.

Potentially something that'll get overlooked this week, and really shouldn't, is Vertigo's specially-priced reissue of the first issue of the wonderful Fables, which should be picked up by any Fables fan. Why, you ask? Because it also contains a preview of Peter and Max, Bill Willingham's first Fables novel. Now you understand.

Those looking for superhero thrills, don't feel left out: Paul Tobin's enjoyable Dr. Doom and The Masters of Evil series gets a collection from Marvel. So do the first issues of Greg Pak's War Machine.

But the real fun comes from DC's end of the market. They're putting out the hardcover edition of Neil Gaiman's Batman: Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader (which I didn't love, but YMMV, as the kids say). They're also launching Blackest Night, their big summer event with the first issue of the main series as well as the first issue of the anthology Tales of The Corps to help you get up to speed with the main players. The dead will rise, they say, and we're waiting to see just which dead heroes are going to come back to cause trouble for Green Lantern and friends.

Dead superheroes, cosmic classics and even more can be found - as ever - on the complete list of releases from Diamond Distributors this week, and your local comic store remains the best place to buy them. Just remember to save some room in your collection for next week.

Last year we broke the news about director Wolfgang Peterson parting ways with the adaptation of Orson Scott Card's film adaptation for Ender's Game. Since then, there's been tons of speculation over whether the future war saga (about genius children working for the military) will goa head. Despite comments from Card in an LA Times interview this week regarding the film, one of the films producers insists that the project is not dead.

After telling the times that:

“[Card] was not interested in a ‘tough-hero action film’ and refuses to condescend to green-screen Hollywood. Card imagines a ‘film where the human relationships are absolutely essential — an honest presentation of the story.’”

It seemed as if all was lost. But we're bringing you news today that Ender's Game the movie, is not over. Producer Lynn Hendee insists that the "project is not dead."

So can we all breathe a giant collective sigh of relief, because I don't want to leave this Earth without seeing zero gravity battle simulator, especially with an awesomely precocious kid leading the troops.

The new novel, Ender In Exile isn't just a sequel to Card's classic novel, according to the author:

Actually, Ender in Exile replaces the final chapter of Ender's Game. The story as it was told in EG was exactly right in its tone and speed. It was denouement, winding down the story and setting up Speaker for the Dead. In fact, it was for that chapter that I rewrote the short story "Ender's Game" in novel form in the first place—so I could show Ender's first personal contact with the hive queen. But that's all that the novel Ender's Game required. Since then, I've grown older and came to feel the need for a new story—the story of the soldiers who survive the war yet could never come home... I finally realized that I wanted to explore Ender's post-war story in far more detail than was possible or appropriate in that last chapter of Ender's Game.

Of course, such rewriting also allows for more spin-off material - In the same interview with Sci Fi Wire, Card talks about the Ender comics, video games and movies that are on the way. Here's hoping that this kind of thing doesn't spread, however; I don't want to see George Lucas decide that Return Of The Jedi should really be three more movies about Vader's redemption.

Card On Ender sequels, film, games [Sci Fi Wire]

1. Mystery Ball - Firefly:

It gets boring in the dead of space, and if you had a giant cargo bay, you'd probably be playing some weird version of basketball in it too.

2. Boxing - Battlestar Galactica:

Okay, so by the end of the clip, it's unclear whether this is more about boxing or sex, but I'm happy either way.

3. Salute of the Jugger - The Blood of Heroes:

I would probably have been a much scarier field hockey opponent if my coach was Rutger Hauer.

4. Good old-fashioned dueling - Star Trek: The Original Series:

Yes, T'Pring was clearly not eager to marry either of these men, but can you blame her when Spock is so quick to slash open his captain's shirt to reveal the rippling flesh underneath?

5. Kung fu - The Matrix:

Even a computer nerd like Neo would download kung fu knowledge before, say, quantum mechanics or gas turbine propulsion. I guess that's fair.

6. Swimming - Gattaca:

We may have advanced far enough in society to genetically engineer people for specific tasks, but there's no point in moving beyond the vindictive deliciousness of sibling rivalry.

In literary sf, there's always the heart-pounding wargame of Ender's Game — Orson Scott Card gleefully turned sedentary videogame tropes into a festival of zero-g adrenaline. Larry Niven's The Hunting Park, part of his Man-Kzin Wars collection, explores the nature of human hunting. And editors Jack Dann and Gardner Dozios have made it easy for sci-fi sports fans with their anthology Future Sports, which features a sailing story from Arthur C. Clarke and a look at no-contact sumo wrestling by Howard Waldrop.

What's next for sci-fi sports? Well, I'm hoping for cheerleading to make an appearance; maybe we could see what Bring It On is like when you adapt it for an alien planet. And you should find a sport to play — in case, for example, we ever have to battle aliens for world domination with baseball.

Image from Wikipedia. Special thanks to tipsters Ellen, Idella, and Jana.

It's an especially heavy week of multimedia tie-in books — Dark Horse has two great collections for you to pick up, Serenity: Better Days and Star Wars Omnibus: Early Victories (which includes the comic version of Splinter Of The Mind's Eye, which is awesome in so many ways). Meanwhile, IDW goes for the coffee table audience with The Art of IDW's Transformers and the brokenhearted-thanks-to-the-Wachowski-Brothers audience with the first volume of Speed Racer: The Next Generation.

If you're missing Sci Fi's greatest show — No, not Eureka, although stay tuned for that comic in December — then Dynamite has the first issue of Battlestar Galactica: Ghosts, a new series that spins away from the cast that we know and love to provide its own brand of psychodrama. With the exception of the first issue of the beautiful must-have (previewed elsewhere on the site today) Ender's Game: Battle School, the most interesting tie-in book this week is probably The Ferryman, a new series about the ultimate black-ops operative, written by Entertainment Weekly's Marc Bernardin Marc Andreyko (thanks, Alex) from an idea by Joel Silver. As far as I know, it's not in the works as a movie or TV show... yet. But keep your eyes on this one.

In terms of original comic stories, there's a lot worth paying attention to this week — there's the third series of Marvel Zombies, which we've already written about. But if that doesn't float your boat, then the hardcover collection of Warren Ellis' superhero-political-drama Black Summer or DC's collection of 1950s and '60s monkey tales, DC Comics Goes Ape, represent two ends of the spectrum available to you from this week's releases.

(Marvel's Young Avengers Presents collection and first issue of Wolverine flashback storyline X-Men Original Sin fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, both both are worth leafing through, if nothing else).

But the gold star of original material this week is easily Annihiliation Classic, a hardcover collection of various space stories that led to Marvel's new intergalactic franchise that includes an issue of 1980s weirdness Rocket Raccoon featuring very early art by Mike Mignola. Everyone must see this, trust me.

If you need more than just Hellboy's daddy drawing spacebound raccoons, you can find a complete list of this week's new comic releases here, and then the the Comic Shop Locator Service will help you find your closest local store. Remember: TV may offer you moving pictures, but only comics can offer you Beatles-influenced mammals fighting aliens.

The five issue series, Ender's Game: Battle School, is adapted by New X-Men and X-Force writer Chris Yost and artist Pasqual Ferry, is only the first in a line adapting Card's famous novels; it'll be joined in December by the first issue of Ender's Shadow: Battle School by X-Men: Legacy, Lucifer and Hellblazer writer Mike Carey and artist Sebastian Fiumara. Keep watching the site for previews of that series, as well as interviews with Yost and Carey.

Orson Scott Card on Ender's Game: Battle School [Marvel.com]

Card is very happy with Marvel's version of the story... which is good, because that version will be the basis of every other medium's adaptation in the future:

I've been waiting a long time to see it come alive visually, and now I'm getting to see it getting done - better than anything that they'd come up with for the [long-delayed] movie - as a comic... Whatever Marvel [and artist Pasqual Ferry] does is how it's going to look in the movie and how it's going to look in the game... We're getting great material.

But beyond the visuals, what will the book read like?

When [comic scriptwriter] Chris Yost started writing the script, it was too faithful to the material. I begged them, please, no narration at all. Ever. I want no narration. I want it all in scenes, please, do what comics do. What he came back with was so powerful that it made me feel like I was reading the story for the first time. It came totally alive.

The Ender's Game series launches in October.

The categories in the chart should be pretty self-explanatory. But here's some explanation anyway:

We love our heroes to be super rich, and to have an excuse for self-pity. If your fabulously wealthy parents got killed in front of you when you're a kid, so much the better. (Seriously, a tragic past seems to be a crucial ingredient for many escapist heroes, because it lets you project all your own real-life pain onto your hero, even as you're imagining rising about that pain and becoming a mega-adventurer. )

And it makes us happy when our heroes have two or more devoted acolytes/sidekicks, who follow almost without question, and awesome gadgets. Superhuman powers means what it says. "Gets laid" doesn't just mean your hero hooked up one time.

"Marked for greatness" requires slightly more explanation. If your hero is the subject of a prophecy (like Starbuck), or is "the One" like Neo, then he/she is marked for greatness. Captain Kirk wasn't marked for greatness on the original Star Trek TV show, but we have a strong suspicion that the new Trek movie, by revisiting his origins, will show that he was marked for great things from the beginning.

"Not tied down" doesn't just mean being single: it means that you get to roam around having adventures. And at the end of an adventure, you jump in your spaceship and zoom off to the next adventure somewhere else. Captain Kirk wasn't tied down, but Captain Sisko was.

"Becomes a god or king" means your character ends up with a lot of people looking up to him/her. The Hulk, for example, is destined either to become a ruler, the Maestro, or the last survivor of Earth. Captain Kirk becomes an admiral, but more importantly he becomes a legend in his own time. The Doctor becomes the last of the Time Lords, and gets called a god a lot. Neo turns into the blind buddha Jesus monster, or something.

Having looked through a few thousand opening sentences at the bookstore and online - no exaggeration - I can generalize a bit. There are a lot of opening sentences that announce the start of a rollicking yarn, with an action sentence. Like this, from Dan Brown's Angels & Demons: "Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own." Boom! A guy's flesh is burning. It's exciting! A slight variation is the juxtaposition of the mundane activity with the exciting thing that interrupts it, sort of like, "I was hanging some kitchen shelves when the cyber-rhinoceros burst through my floor, tusks exploding with brilliant fire."

And then there are tons of opening sentences that are just quirky, or rambling, letting you know the author is settling in to tell a long, rumbly bulldozer of a story. And honestly, most of the opening sentences I looked at were either very business-like, or not very interesting. Or both.

Here are the ones which actually stuck with me and lodged in my brain a bit:

"'I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.'" - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Starting a story, let alone a novel, with a piece of dialog is a bold choice, and most of the time it's super cheesy. I really like this line, though, because it's so intriguing and it drops in a lot of info. How have they been watching through his eyes? Listening through his ears, and what's "the one"?

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." - William Gibson, Neuromancer. People always cite this as a great opening line, and it's easy to see why. It's such a vivid image.

"They set a slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair." - Count Zero by William Gibson. Okay, come on. This is just so fun. It's got the wacky jargon: "slamhound," "slotted," and the idea that it can be tied to random things like hair color and pheromones. And it's crackling with energy!

"The morning after he killed Eugene Shapiro, Andre Deschenes woke early." - Undertow by Elizabeth Bear. This is almost the mundane/exciting juxtaposition, but it's more than that, because the mundane comes after the exciting. And it makes you curious about Andre Deschenes and how he can sleep after killing a guy. And who Eugene Shapiro is. I was reading Undertow a while back, and this sentence sucked me in.

"Monday morning when I answered the door there were twenty-one new real estate agents there, all in horrible polyester gold jackets." - Rudy Rucker, The Hacker And The Ants, Version 2.0. Surreal - transreal, even - and garish and weird. And the fact that there are 21 real estate agents just makes it that much better.

"I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of the Bitchun Society, to learn ten languages; to compose three symphonies; to realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World; to see the death of the workplace and of work." - Cory Doctorow, Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom. I like a nice brisk opening. Again, the wacky jargon (the "Bitchun Society") and the weird longevity, and then the personal suddenly gives way to the larger picture, with the death of the workplace.

"He woke, and remembered dying." - Ken MacLeod, The Stone Canal. I don't really think I need to explain why this is a great opening. It's spare and intriguing. And no adjectives or adverbs. Yay!

"The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light years and eight centuries." - Vernor Vinge, A Deepness In The Sky. This is pretty close to being your standard brisk, action-packed opening. Except for the huge scope of it, coupled with the precision.

"Two glass panes with dirt between and little tunnels from cell to cell: when I was a kid I had an ant colony." - Samuel R. Delany, The Star Pit. It's almost a poem, and it zooms outwards in a lovely way, from the dirt tunnels to the ant colony. For a moment, you think it could be an alien zoo or something.

"The five small craft passed from shadow, emerging with the suddenness of coins thrown into sunlight." - Scott Westerfeld, The Risen Empire. This one, I was on the fence about. It's a little adjective-heavy, and it has the passive construction at the end. But I really liked the coins thrown into sunlight, it's a lovely image and it's about the last thing that comes to mind when you think about spaceships emerging from somewhere.

"At the end, the bottom, the very worst of it, with the world afire and hell's flamewinged angels calling him by name, Lee Crane blamed himself." - Theodore Sturgeon, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Again, it's got great energy, and even though it has my pet peeve - the random "it" occupying the space where a real world should be - it's got the Blakeian imagery, and then you absolutely have to know why Lee Crane blames himself.

"In the summer of his twelfth year - the summer the stars began to fall from the sky - the boy Isaac discovered that he could tell East from West with his eyes closed." - Axis, Robert Charles Wilson. It's got so much going on, what with the coming-of-age thing and the stars falling. But then you get that human-compass thing, which is intriguing and fascinating. And this is a nice, spare sentence, with no excess clutter. It's snappy!

"Today is the two-hundredth anniversary of the final extinction of my One True Love, as close as I can date it." - Saturn's Children, Charles Stross. It's like the start of a romance novel, except for the mention of 200 years and the word "extinction." They stick out like jagged little spurs, amidst the shmoopy "One True Love" jargon.

Oh, and I came across one opening sentence that stuck in my mind afterwards, but then I couldn't find it again. It was something like, "He did not often think about kidnapping his daughter and stealing the spaceship." But there was more to it than that. What am I thinking of?

Barbarella:
In 2007 Dino De Laurentiis was going to produce with Robert Rodriguez as the director. Rodriguez wanted his lady-love Rose McGowan to star as the sexy space cadet Barbarella. But Universal was not enjoying the casting move and didn't want to front the cash. Could McGowan pull off "sexy nubile blonde" as well as Jane Fonda? This April McGowan spilled that the project was still on (with her in the lead) and that a bunch of pre-production work (including set construction) had already been finished. Rodriguez just has to find a studio willing to put up the $82 million he needs.

Planet Terry:
A middle-aged scifi geek discovers he is actually an alien who has been placed on Earth as part of an intergalactic witness protection program. According to production sources it hasn't been canned yet and is still something that is in development, but couldn't say if director Brian Levant (Problem Child 2) was still attached to the project or not. The story was based on an online comic series by Rob Liefeld that has yet to premiere.

Ender's Game:
As we reported, director Wolfgang Peterson moved on to direct another Chartoff Production and Orson Scott Card is still at work crafting the adaptation of his novel into the screenplay (but the first draft is done). Filming has been pushed back to early 2009. Hurry up — I need to see my super-genius army made up of children battle it out in zero gravity. Oh, and death to all bugs.

Neuromancer:
Scripts for this film have been floating in space since 1999 but could never really find a director, Mel Gibson was once rumored to be attached to the project. In 2007 Peter Hoffman announced that he would be producing the adaptation of William Gibson's novel with a $70 million budget under director Joseph Kahn. Gibson was not pleased. In January of this year a rumor made the rounds that Hayden Christensen would be playing main character Case, but as of today no official announcement has been made. Don't you dare ruin our dark hacker Case, Hayden.

Fahrenheit 451:
Yet another scifi movie Mel Gibson tried to get his claws into. Gibson was rumored to direct the adaptation of Ray Bradbury's dystopian future novel, but now it's unclear on his position. A long list of celebrity men have been pursued for the role of Guy Montag, the book burning future fireman, including Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks (screenplay writer Frank Darabont recently stated that Hanks was no longer attached to the project.) Charlize Theron was another celeb attached to the project possibly as the free-thinking rebel Clarisse McClellan. Right now it has a release date of 2010 and no cast.

Rendezvous With Rama:
The idea to adapt the Arthur C. Clark novel has been kicked around since 2001, when Propaganda films were trying to give it wings. David Fincher (Zodiac) was announced as director this year. Morgan Freeman's production company, Revelations, owns the rights to the story and Freeman is slated as a cast member. But it's not clear yet if he will be one of the exploring spacemen checking out the sun-bound spaceship. But we hear that the draft is still getting tweaked by new writers, so it could be awhile before Rama sees the screen.

Diamond Age:
The Scifi channel announced in the beginning of 2007 a pairing with George Clooney's production company to create a scifi mini series based on Neil Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age: Or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. It was pitched as a 6-hour miniseries. Will we ever get to see the future of an overly conservative world, the future is uncertain.

With Reporting From Andrew Hudson

The sprawling saga that loses the thread is a more common problem in fantasy books than in science fiction — think the Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time, or Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books. But science fiction still has its own never-ending stories that really ought to end. Here are the biggest problems:

Changing the rules: When I first read To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer, I was incredibly excited by its story of an artificial planet where everybody who's ever lived comes back to life. Until I got to the end of the book and realized it was actually Book One in a long series, and none of my nagging questions about the resurrection planet, Riverworld, would be answered for another three or four books. I was even more annoyed when a friend of mine told me that Farmer changes the rules of Riverworld after the first book, to make it easier to keep spinning out tales. I think there my have been some book-throwing involved.

The heir apparent. As I mentioned, a reviewer coined the term "Herbert's Syndrome" in 1984, when Frank Herbert was still alive and had yet to publish his sixth Dune novel, Chapterhouse: Dune. The reviewer defined it as when "a large advance induces a good writer to extend a successful series beyond its natural span." You may have your own opinions about whether six Dune books were too many — but since Herbert's death, his son Frank and his collaborator Kevin J. Anderson have already written seven Dune books, with more on the way. Say it with me: "The cash must flow."

The neat trilogy that becomes a messy tetralogy, and more. The first two Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy books by Douglas Adams seemed pretty well-rounded, encompassing more or less the same arc as the original radio series and TV series. So I was a little nervous about the third book, Life, The Universe And Everything, but it was still a fun ride and seemed to move things forward. I was less thrilled by the fourth volume in what Adams called "the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's trilogy." So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, felt sort of anemic, as if Adams really didn't have any more ideas for the series, but he needed the Ningis. And then I think I read the fifth volume, but I have no memory of it whatsoever.

The need to explain the meaning of everything. Feminist science fiction blogger Liz Henry says this is where many series break down:

People write a series, and then they feel the need to finish it off and Explain it and they go all mystical and metaphysical. [They] try to solve every giant Burning Issue of Existence and good and evil, and why does the universe exist at all, and [the meaning of] utopia. So often, you get the underlying Manifesto or attempt to come up with a coherent philsopy of the author, but all too often, you sure wish they hadn't. By the time Herbert hits God Emperor of Dune, he has gone compeltely mad, trying to explain Everything, and there is no plot any more.

The random left turn. Isaac Asimov gave into fans' pressure, after a thirty-year gap, and started writing more Foundation novels again. And few would argue that Foundation's Edge or Foundation And Earth are in the same league as the original trilogy. One major problem: a slew of new characters, including one who's introduced right at the end of Foundation And Earth, who might have played a bigger role in a final Foundation book, had Asimov written one. But in the end, it just feels as though Asimov is floundering a bit, in the unnecessary sequels.

The miraculous save. In Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue series, there's a clan of women and children who become language experts, and learn a ton of alien languages so they can serve as translators. But over time, they create their own secret language that the men don't understand. Which is great, but then in the third book, suddenly the women discover that they can eat sounds. They can survive by ingesting noises — sort of like a plant's photosynthesis, except noisier.

The shrinking protagonist. Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books become less and less fun, as his roguish protagonist, Slippery Jim DiGriz, becomes more and more of a pussycat. But worse yet is when we get a new protagonist whose story cheapens our original hero, like Bean in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow.

To be fair, why shouldn't novels go on and on and on? It's what movies do, with their endless sequels. And TV series — who really thinks Smallville deserves an eighth season? On the other hand, the thing that makes novels superior to other media is the fact that they have a single author, who puts his/her stamp on them. When that one person runs out of ideas, the novels themselves start to deflate.

With TV, movies, comics and other media, as long as the corporate copyright-holder can find another Akiva Goldsman or Roberto Orci to spin out a new idea, you can have endless installments. In theory, no TV series ever needs to go stale, as long as the writers have the grace to leave when they run out of ideas. (Which almost never happens.) It's a bit harder with books though — and I like picking up a novel and discovering a new universe for the first time.

Aiguille Delaz from Gundam 0083. This strategic genius chose to pull out of the battle of A Baou Qu, the last stand of the One Year War. Instead, he massed his forces in a makeshift headquarters in the middle of a debris field, and prepared his masterplan. Operation Stardust involved having a pilot steal an experimental nuclear-armed Gundam warsuit. Delaz shows off the nuclear-armed warsuit, which proves the corruption of the Earth Federation, and then goads the Federation into showing off its strength in a set of space maneuvers that leave it vulnerable to the nuke — which destroys two-thirds of the fleet.

Ender Wiggin, from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series. Starting out as a laser-tag champion, he gets more and more badass until he becomes the greatest space strategist in history. He thinks he's just fighting a series of simulated battles, but he's actually giving orders to real Earth ships dispatched decades earlier — and he comes up with the crazy risk-taking strategy that destroys the "Bugger" homeworld and pretty much wipes out their species.

Kara Thrace aka Starbuck — You can talk about what a great leader Adama is, or how good Admiral Cain was at coming up with the craziest, most bat-shit strategies to confuse her enemies. But the craziest person on Battlestar Galactica is also the craftiest — just look at the plan Starbuck comes up with to distract the cylon basestars away from the resurrection ship using decoys. The basestars get distracted, and then Galactica and Pegasus take them on. And then Lee's stealth ship takes out that all-important get-out-of-death-free card for those cylons. Rawk!

John Christian Falkenberg, a CoDominium naval officer turned mercenary created by Jerry Pournelle for the CoDominium future history series. He's sort of a space tactician, even though most of the battles he fights are on the ground on various planets where the colonists are rising up. He's frequently facing superior numbers of better-armed insurgents, and has to use a mixture of blitzkrieg tactics and fighting dirty to pull out a victory.

Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Star Wars novels. The blue-skinned red-eyed Imperial Thrawn was already a chessmaster of space battle when the Empire fell in Return Of The Jedi. But after the Empire had collapsed in a rain of Ewok claws, Thrawn rebuilt a small fleet around his Imperial Star Destroyer and set about trying to retake the galaxy. He found a supply of clone troopers, recruited a rogue Jedi, and managed to control half the galaxy. He tricked the Jedi scum into thinking Coruscant was blockaded by totally imaginary space mines, and managed to assemble a formidable fleet out of almost nothing. His only downfall came from understimating the bun-clad head of Princess Leia. Also from Star Wars, there's Admiral Ackbar, who can recognize a trap when he sees one.

Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Trek is full of great tacticians, including a never-ending parade of admirals who only exist on video screens. But Sisko gets his hands dirty — sometimes literally — in planning all the big battles against the Dominion. His finest moment was probably planning Operation Return, the huge assault by 624 starships to retake Deep Space Nine. He had to convince one of those stuffed-shirt admirals that DS9 was a higher strategic priority than defending Earth, because DS9 controlled the wormhole, the key to the quandrant. Faced with a solid wall of Dominion and Cardassian ships, Sisko had to play a game of wits with Cardassian leader Gul Dukat, trying to trick the Cardassians into opening a hole in their lines. Dukat saw through Sisko's strategy and tried to set a counter-trap, but Sisko managed to use Dukat's trap to push through. Here's the fleet Sisko was commanding:

Donal Graeme from the Childe Cycle of novels by Gordon R. Dickson. He's an "intuitive superman" with a superb grasp of battle tactics. He's also a master of deception (notice a theme here?). In one campaign, he tricks the enemy into landing on a planet to engage a massive ground force — only to find that the ground force is an illusion. They're trapped on the planet, with Donal's forces threatening to bomb them from orbit unless they surrender.

Captain John Sheridan from Babylon 5. One of the most cunning fighters in the Earth-Minbari war, Sheridan took out the Minbari's biggest ship by mining asteroids with nuclear weapons. In "Endgame," he has to outwit General Lefcourt, his former mentor, who can anticipate all of his moves, including a diversionary ground assault on Mars. But Lefcourt fails to anticipate Sheridan's tactic of having telepaths disable all of Lefcourt's ships.

Just remember, you may think all these discussions about space battle tactics are purely academic, but some people out there are already thinking about how to kick ass in space for realz.

Note: this thread on the Bad Universe and Astronomy Today forums was really helpful in thinking about this post. Some really good stuff there, check it out.

Producer Lynn Hendee was mum on possible casting for the movie's lead role. "We all have our favorites, but it is crucial for the new director to weigh in on that." But she did reveal that author Card has finished a draft of the script and is "already working to make it even better." Hendee predicts that much of the film will be shot on a sound stage. "Ender's Game requires an extended pre-production due to the many visual effects." And by visual effects we hope they mean shooting the off-the-wall battle school zero gravity scenes. Who would you pick for child commander/war lord Ender?

We know for sure the first game will be based on one of the games that Ender plays during his training, but the company wants to turn this into a series, and eventually they're going to have to tell some sort of a story. Of course, in the book, the game is literally everything.

In the novel, Ender Wiggin is selected at the age of six to attend the Battle School, which the military uses with the hopes that they'll one day train a great military leader who will lead the fight against the "Buggers," an insect-like race that is at war with the humans. They do this by teaching via video games and simulations, and without spoiling things, those become extremely important. Games range from simulations computers, to what amounts to zero-gravity versions of Laser Tag.

Warners is developing the movie with Wolfgang Peterson at the helm, but they abandoned work on the game that usually accompanies every big scifi film these days. Does that mean they couldn't crack the idea and decided to leave it up to someone else? If you've read the book, you'd probably say yes.

Ender's Game In The Works [Sci Fi Wire]

• It's a formula. Any storytelling formula is going to be lame. Any. Of course, Campbell didn't think he was prescribing a formula. He thought he was describing the pattern that's inherent in all the great stories. But over time, lazy writers like George Lucas have used it as a checklist. It's just as boring as the video game where you have the level bosses and then you have the big boss at the end. Except in the "Journey," it's the guardians of adventure, followed by the "dragon," followed by the final battle.
• It discourages originality. By the same token, if you claim that every great story is really just the same great story with surface changes, you're encouraging people to plagiarize the hell out of old stories. Instead of championing stories that are different, like say, Firefly/Serenity or James Robinson's Starman, you're tempted to call a schlock-fest like the original Star Wars "mythic" because it's about a hero who's singled out.
• Why is one hero so special anyway? The hero doesn't just get the "call to adventure" because everyone's getting it. He gets it because he's the most important person alive, with the most special skillz or the biggest brain. Everybody who's not him sucks and should go away. It plays into people's fantasies that they're secretly amazing, without having to work for it. But for those of us who aren't Ender Wiggin or Luke Skywalker, it's just pointless. What about a hero who's the greatest because she decides not to put up with the shit that everybody else is putting up with? What about a group of people who decide to work together to change the crappy status quo?
• The "hero" is always a d00d. Why does the hero encounter the goddess halfway through? Because she's hawt and he's a guy. If the hero was a chick, would the goddess be a dude? Somehow we doubt it.
• It's cheesy as hell. Here are some choice New Age-y quotes from Campbell. Sample quote: "Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again." Woah, dude. I just felt my crystals vibrate a little. Campbell also appears to be the inventor of the phrase "follow your bliss."
• He shoehorned a lot of myths into his theory. Campbell himself writes, in Thousand Faces, that he's not interested in exploring the differences between myths, just the similarities. In other words, he looked for whatever similarities he could find and overlooked any differences as "variations" in his monomyth. He also ignored countries outside the Indo-European tradition, like East Asia and Africa.
• It confuses personal growth with solving problems. Sometimes in order to defeat a great evil, you have to learn an important personal lesson and grow as a person. But often, you don't. Oftentimes, defeating a great evil just requires fighting like hell and doing what has to be done, and there's no time to meet the goddess or touch your magic wand or any of that stuff. Campbell's monomyth is unrealistic and spreads the idea that war is therapy.