New B5 Book Coming Soon!!!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

visit amazon.com and you will find a page for Babylon 5: The Shadow Within, a NEW B5 BOOK by Jeanne Cavelos, and the caption "A Thrilling Prequel to the Passing of the Technomages". the cover art features Anna Sheridan, John Sheridan, and a Shadow, kinda cool actually. i know ive been away for awhile and probably misssed the release announcement, what does everybody know about this?

 

[Kribu]

It's not actually a new book. It's the reissue of The Shadow Within, book # 7 of the "numbered" Dell books.

DelRey is going to reissue all the 9 early B5 books originally issued by Dell and they started with two of the most popular and hardest-to-find books - The Shadow Within (makes sense as it ties in with the Technomage trilogy, the latest of the trilogies) and To Dream in the City of Sorrows (or whatever that title was, I can never remember it!) which should be out some time next year.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

damn, and i thought we had something really new to hold us over until the next attempt at reviving the B5 universe on television. damn, damn, damn. i am interested also in the question that jms recently posted on jmsnews.com

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

thank you, Kribu, for stopping me from really making a fool of myself, "i am humbled".

does anyone know if we are getting any new b5 anytime soon.

 

[Kribu]

No problem. If they mentioned it as a new B5 book, then no wonder you didn't know. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

As for something new - there's the B5 quotes book coming out next year (hm, don't remember the exact date now but I think JMS mentioned it was going to coincide with the 10th anniversary of B5), and last I heard JMS was set to work on a B5-themed "graphic novel". So there are those to look forward to, which is still better than nothing.

 

[KoshN]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by Godkiller: </font color>
damn, and i thought we had something really new to hold us over until the next attempt at reviving the B5 universe on television.

[/quote]

/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

Yeah, right, like we're that lucky.

/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

Hooo, good one.

 

[Shaal Mayan]

The B5 universe is dead in the water right now unlike Trek .

 

[Rid]

Yes that shows that quality does not matter in scifi!
/forums/images/icons/frown.gif

 

[KoshN]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by Rid: </font color>
Yes that shows that quality does not matter in scifi! /forums/images/icons/frown.gif


[/quote]

...or anywhere else! /forums/images/icons/frown.gif /forums/images/icons/rolleyes.gif /forums/images/icons/frown.gif


From a post on rec.arts.tv

See below in <font color="orange"> bold</font color>.

**************************************************
Idol curiosities: I hate it
Questionable talent. Exploitative format. It's one of several shows making
this the ''Summer of Stupid.''
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic St. Petersburg Times

AT A GLANCE: American Idol: The Search for a Superstar airs its finale over two nights, at 9 tonight and over two hours beginning at 8 p.m. Wednesday, on WTVT-Ch. 13.
Why do I hate American Idol?

Not just because it's a glorified karaoke contest -- a gussied-up, lip-synching carnival that passes off children who can warble an Elton John tune as artists worthy of a recording contract.

And not just because it has plumbed new depths of product placement commercialism, treating viewers to sappy Coca-Cola Moments while sticking large cups with the soda giant's logo in front of the show's panel of "judges" -- just in case you missed the subtle shots of contestants guzzling the soft drink weeks before.

No, my revulsion springs from the realization that this talent show is the embodiment of what has gone wrong with network TV's summertime programming in recent years. Executives cynically chase young eyeballs with exploitative spectacles that slowly erode the quality of broadcast television.

"Singing is the one talent everybody thinks they have," chuckled Fox's head of alternative programing, Mike Darnell -- the man who brought you Temptation Island and Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? -- when I met him in California months ago. "And people know a lot of people who think they can sing but really can't. Most television is taking an old genre and making it new. We just took a talent show and brought new life to it."

But the formula Darnell copied from the British hit Pop Idol is willfully, horribly disingenuous, hyping inexperienced vocalists who can barely sing other people's songs in a contrived contest where, oddly, the most talented competitor isn't chosen.

That title probably should have gone to Tamyra Gray, who was eliminated two weeks ago after receiving the fewest votes, because either computer nerd "power dialers" logged mountains of votes for others through the Internet or the viewing audience was blithely unsympathetic. (Her lack of surprise, quick willingness to defend the results and equally rapid announcement of a management deal with the show's producers left this professional couch potato wondering if it wasn't staged to add a last-minute twist).

The two finalists left this week, charismatic mop-top Justin Guarini and boring-yet-skilled-vocalist Kelly Clarkson, have survived a field of 30 contestants picked for the show via auditions and helped spawn an American Idol concert tour (a Tampa stop is scheduled Oct. 23), a possible movie, a 2003 edition for Fox and at least two records -- one from the winner and Gray's.

And then there's the three judges. (Can you call somebody a judge if he doesn't even pick the competition's winner?) At this point in the game, they're a useless formality, passing on empty praise to finalists who have emerged as the true stars of the show.

Even acerbic Brit judge Simon Cowell -- an import from Pop Idol who told one aspiring songstress to demand a refund from her vocal teacher -- has sheathed his fangs in recent weeks, perhaps because his bald-faced barbs were quickly eclipsing every other part of the show.

For proof of Cowell's toothless status, note that he allowed finalist Nikki McKibbin last week to sing an entire Stevie Nicks tune -- constantly on the verge of dropping out of key, as usual -- with no insult forthcoming. It felt uncomfortably like choking down a box of Cracker Jack with no prize at the end.

Randy "name dropper" Jackson can't get through an evaluation without citing some star he's worked with. (Curiously, he never mentions the days when he had a flattop haircut, wore parachute pants and played bass in Journey. Really). And it's probably been said before, but the idea of Paula Abdul judging someone else's singing is kind of like Phyllis Diller handing out hairstyling tips; check out the reed-thin vocals on Abdul's '80s hit Straight Up for verification.

Who knows why Fox thought it needed two hosts for this travesty, but Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman simply prove that hiring two twits to read cue cards gives you twice the banality in half the time.

But all this is mostly annoyance. Where American Idol crosses into truly harmful territory is in its structure.

Like all summertime reality shows, Idol is painfully focused on young audiences, which means two things: drastically simplified content and shocking, often degrading twists.

If American Idol feels like a demonically oversized version of your high school variety show tryouts, then CBS' Big Brother recalls your first year in the college dorms with a roommate you couldn't stand, and NBC's Meet My Folks channels the first time you had to meet a date's judgmental parents.

For young viewers, it's a slate of summer shows that echo the emerging rhythms of their lives. But for those of us who have been around the block a time or two, it can feel like cruising down a road you've walked many times before.

Already, critics are calling the past few months of programming the "Summer of Stupid" for the way boneheaded fare Idol, Dog Eat Dog, Fear Factor, The Rerun Show, The Anna Nicole Show and Meet My Folks has outrated classy, though conventional, documentary shows ICU, State vs. and Houston Medical (all found, sadly enough, on fourth-place ABC, which isn't likely to repeat its mistake next year).

Network honchos love shows such as American Idol and Dog Eat Dog for a different reason: They help hype the fall season.

Any network's first line of promotion is its airwaves. So when young, movie-going, record-buying, Gatorade-guzzling viewers are glued to Justin Guarini's stirring rendition of Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, they also get a heaping dose of promos for Fox's Fast and the Furious ripoff, Fastlane, and Angel-Buffy creator Joss Whedon's vanity sci-fi project, Firefly (don't laugh: NBC entertainment chief Jeff Zucker's success hyping of last fall's shows during Fear Factor and Spy TV sealed his success).

I have no illusions about how horribly unhip this makes me look. <font color="orange"> In Hollywood, success is the best defense, and American Idol's white-hot ratings (more than 16-million viewers for one show last week) have made it the darling of the TV industry, regardless of its content.</font color>

But it's a critic's gig to defend quality and condemn empty hype, even when that hype comes attractively packaged. So as American Idol cruises to its show-stopping finale this week, consider yourself warned: Like a chocolate-covered ant, this show hides its awful qualities beneath a sticky-sweet coating.

Once you bite down and enjoy, you have only yourself to blame for the consequences.
**************************************************

 

[FlarnChef]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
The B5 universe is dead in the water right now unlike Trek .


[/quote]

As long we are here, the B5 Universe is not dead......it may be considered to be in suspended animation though! Faith Manages /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

 

[RW7427]

Been there, read that. /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif

Actually, this book is quite good. I have all nine of the numbered novels, and this one along with book 9 "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" rank among my favorites. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[Mike G]

This is the cover picture.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

It is told that this publication adds some (admittedly very small)
parts which the previous one did not include.

 

[Shaal Mayan]

I guess we will find out soon enough about the small additions.Has anyone preordered the book yet?

 

[hypatia]

This thing about "adding a bit more" is really making me sick. /forums/images/icons/mad.gif

Buy the tape (DVD) or wait for the director's cut? /forums/images/icons/rolleyes.gif

Buy a second copy of a book to find it is perhaps 3 lines longer? /forums/images/icons/rolleyes.gif

I don't know about any of you, but this is a marketing trick that just annoys me.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

If I had the book, I probably wouldn't.
Given that I don't, I will probably acquire it.

 

[ElScorcho]

If you don't feel like preordering any of the "new" books, check out ebay. They're all going for about a buck apiece. Grnated, they won't have the added paragraphs and spiffier covers.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The new edition of The Shadow Within is hardly a "director's cut", nor is rereleasing it a cynical marketing ploy. The book has been out of print since Dell books lost the B5 license and Del Rey is doing fans a favor by reissuing it. The "added material" thing has been blown way out of proportion, by the way. Nothing in the body of the novel is affected. I think there was something on the acknowledgements page that was omitted due to an editorial error, and maybe a name misspelled here or there. Can't be more specific because this information comes from a private e-mail and I don't have permission to publicly quote from it. But no one who already owns the book should feel compelled to buy the new version. I will because I'd like a "reading" copy in addition to the Dell paperback that Jeanne Cavelos autographed for me, much as I bought a copy of the X-Men film to go with the freebie I got autographed by Stan Lee and Bryan Singer at Fox a couple of years ago.

As for reissues of DVDs - the studios have gotten much better about this. New Line, with The Fellowship of the Ring, is giving fans a choice. Since when is this a bad thing? They announced, right from the beginning, that folks could buy the original theatrical version with extras, a more extensive version with even more extras and an extended cut of the film, or a super deluxe edition with the same disc contents at the second release, plus (I think) a booklet, film cel, and soundtrack CD. Three different price points, three different packages, two different versions of the film. People can pick and choose among them as they like.

And many films are revisited as special editions because of popular demand. Fox, in the early days of DVD, released a number of "barebones" films with non-anamorphic transfers and few extras. These included some of their hottest titles like Speed and the Die Hard films. When Peter Staddon took over Fox Home Entertainment and reformed the DVD division, he was deluged with requests for new releases of these films. Obviously any new release would have to offer something the previous version didn't, so Speed and the original Die Hard were released as part of Fox's "Five Star Collection" of groundbreaking films, while the other two Die Hards got 2-disc "standard" special editions.

The earlier habit of releasing a film then releasing a previously unannounced special edition has mostly been dropped by the studios. Today when a studio feels pressured to get a DVD out at the same time the movie goes to rental on VHS (and they increasingly do) they'll announce that a special edition (which takes longer to assemble) is coming on the day they announce the first release. I think this is fair.

MGM released The Princess Bride on DVD - simply porting the existing laser disc transfer over to the smaller disc - because folks were clamoring for it. They did this despite knowing (and announcing) that they would release a special edition the following year. (They had to wait because Rob Reiner was shooting another film and wouldn't have time to work on the DVD for at least 8 months.) I bought the original release, because I love the film, and I watched it several times in the year before the SE came out. Then I bought that too. I didn't feel ripped off. I made my choice based on the information that MGM gave me.

Conversely, I didn't buy the VHS or LD releases of B5, because the show was in daily reruns and I preferred to wait for the DVD release I was sure would come someday.

Regards,

Joe

 

[hypatia]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Nothing in the body of the novel is affected.

[/quote]
I was getting the impression that there would be new material in the body of the work itself. An added intro. or something is certainly no big deal.

What really pissed me off was Star Wars. I could see well ahead of time what he was up to. And I think a lot of his add-ons are cheap and seem kind of hollow to me. But the man knows how to make money.

Lord of the Rings: somehow I seem to know a lot of students who didn't know there would be 2 versions released. Not everyone researches a video purchase, some just see it and buy it in the store. If they advertised more widely that there are two versions, and perhaps stocked them together, then I'd say fine: let fans have a choice.

Personally, that would be fine with me. I could look at the vid, read about it, and decide right there which version I wanted.

 

[KoshN]

OK, I finally got permission to post this. It lists the differences between Dell's "The Shadow Within" (B5 Book#7) and Del Rey's printing of "The Shadow Within."


From Jeanne Cavelos (July 30, 2002):

KoshN,

Hi. Nice hearing from you. Gee, that rumor sounds very
tantalizing. Unfortunately, the changes being made between the
Dell edition and the Del Rey edition are extremely minor. There
were four things that I asked Del Rey to change from Dell's first
printing of THE SHADOW WITHIN, and they agreed to all four.

First, I asked them to change the first page of the book (p. i)
from an excerpt (which gives away part of the plot) to a page of
review quotes. I think review quotes (if they're available and
if they're good) are more helpful in selling a book than an
excerpt. The book received many really strong reviews, so I
asked Dell to make this change in their later printings, but they
refused, since it costs extra to make changes.

Second, I asked Del Rey to correct the T. S. Eliot quote (on p.
1), which I'd screwed up in the Dell first printing. Later Dell
printings had this corrected.

Third, I asked them to correct a small error on p. 20, where I
mentioned Donne's name before Anna Sheridan (the point-of-view
character) learns Donne's name. This error probably arose as I
revised the manuscript before turning it in to Dell. It was
pointed out to me by a reader, and I've been waiting for an
opportunity to fix it ever since.

Fourth, my bio was supposed to be included in the Dell edition
and it never was, so I asked Del Rey to add that.

Those are all the changes I requested. The Del Rey edition will
have a new cover, of course. They sent me a copy a few weeks ago
and it looks really cool. I'll try to get that up on my website
within the next month.

Best,

Jeanne
jcavelos@sff.net
www.sff.net/people/jcavelos

----- Original Message -----
From: KoshN
To: Jeanne Cavelos <jcavelos@mindspring.com>
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 8:40 PM
Subject: Regarding the Del Rey publication of "The Shadow Within"


> Regarding the Del Rey publication of "The Shadow Within," can
you comment on
> the following?
>
> > 2) That Jeanne Cavelos had told Del Rey that some sort of
editorial
> > screw-up had led to something being left out of the original
edition of
> > "The Shadow Within" and that Del Rey is working from the
original
> > manuscript to restore whatever it was.
>
> KoshN