http://rockitboy.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/a-chung-kuo-update-from-the-desk-of-mr-wingrove/

Its a tavesty that the guy hasn’t written 30 books by now and be famous the world over.

His comments on the Bob Newell website make really depressing reading for a fan… http://www.bobnewell.net/chungkuo/fallow.html

I just wonder if it isn’t all pie in the sky….can you see someone investing in re-issuing the books even as re-writes with it being a not especially successful sci-fi series? The original publishers want their backsides kicking though – the guy should be up there with modern day sci-fi greats like Peter F Hamilton.

Couple of questions:

So the rights have gone to Atlantic now – is that confirmed?

I was under the impression he had finished the prequel already – so why hasn’t that been released?

Why hasn’t he got his own website – they can be created for peanuts and he could update us himself and that way the fans have somewhere to go and find out about what he is up to!

Anyway – fingers crossed it comes out someday!

Why? Because SF, at is core, hews to the line that humanity can use its rational abilities (yes, as well as its compassionate sensibilities) to perceive and understand the universe. When its doing its job, SF is about the cause-and-effect rationality of science (er, hence science fiction) and yes I know that great reams of stuff marketed as science fiction is really science fantasy, which is sadly what Galactica devolved into in its final segment.

As for stories playing out in the same old tired ways, there aint nothing more tired and old than the ’starting anew’ narrative. Every society has had its anti-progress, anti-rational myth of shrugging off the burdens of flawed civilisation and starting anew, whether its in Eden or the frontier or whatever. Its much more demanding to confront the actual problems of living now, much more complex, yet perhaps more rewarding.
Peri mentioned that I brought my own piety to the show – heh, heh, well now. I would have to point out that the show I thought I was watching was one in which the motives and actions of the characters had a direct and crucial bearing on the future of the survivors. But in the context of the final truth of godlike meddling behind the curtain, human motivations and actions are diminished; the characters dwindle to pawns pushed this way and that. If gods and angels really are participants in the drama, then what else are the humans and cylons but toys for their amusement (and God and the angels are at no time challenged, nor are their motivations examined).

So, sorry, but I can’t come out with some that old ‘hey, your opinion is equally valid’ baloney.