Musings of a Babylon Lurker

How I entered into the world of “Babylon 5″

Thursday, November 6th, 2008 | Babylon 5, film and tv, scifi | No Comments

By Internet standards I will probably be regarded as old. I remember seeing Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001, a Space Odyssey” when it came in the cinemas in the late 1960′s, and, of course the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. I was allowed to stay up the night to see the first footsteps on the moon (some time around 2 AM local time). No internet, no NASA TV, just some blurred live black-and-white pictures on the telly.

My interest in scifi and space exploration had obviously started some time before, along with an interest in UFO’s and “X-Files” like stuff.

Fast forward to 1989 (yes – the year the Berlin Wall came tumbling down) I moved from Denmark to The Netherlands to work there.

At work, in the early 90′s we formed a group of “Star Trek” fans coming together watching a few episodes in an evening. We had come one evening to watch some “Deep Space 9″, and after that it turned out that one from the group had brought the “Babylon 5″ pilot episode “The Gathering”.

I have to say that I did not like the pilot, thinking that it would not lead anywhere. How wrong I was … but I still consider the pilot under par, compared to what followed.

When the local TV started showing B5 I took another look, and lo and behold – that I found *much* better than the pilot.some season one episodes had the quality I was expecting from Trek, but soon the thing changed … this was not single episode stories – well. some of them were – but a longer story.

I was hooked.

I followed the 5 year arc to its end – sometimes at odd times of the day (or night), and soon found myself seeking out the VHS tapes.

After having watched the story several times I still get a thrill seeing it again. It has grown to be my all time favourite scifi story on TV – and there are many good ones out there.

I soon looked into more information about B5, on the net, books etc. – and got myself a few B5 goodies. But more about this later. Yes – I have all 15 volumes of J. Michael Straczynski’s (JMS) script books for all the B5 episodes he wrote. I still need to work myself though the about 7000 pages, but in time I will come though them, and as the completist in me told me, I got the “Other Voices” 3 volumes with episodes written by other writers, as well as the “Chronology” book and the quote’s book. There is enough reading for a while.

Tags: Babylon 5

Podcasts about Scifi etc that I have been listening to

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Babylon 5, podcast, scifi | No Comments

Babylon Podcast : (no surprise) about Babylon 5, weekly

Slice of Scifi : all about Scifi/Fantasy, mainly in media – news – interviews – (film/TV/Web etc) on the same feed they have a voice mail feedback show weekly

Dragon Page : All about Scifi/Fantasy books – reading – writing – interviews etc. weekly, most weeks two shows

Scifi Talk : Interviews with Scifi/Fantasy creators etc (no special schedule that I have seen, but often more than once a week

DWO Whocast : all Doctor Who related news – interviews etc, weekly (mostly)

Dr Who Podshock : All doctor Who related – sometimes very long, no particular schedule that I can see

The Sonic Newsdriver : Doctor Who news, several times per week if news is coming in.

In some hours the raw and unedited Babylon Podcast recording for next week’s show will be ‘cast on a live feed. Unfortunately, because of the time zone differences I cannot listen every week, because for me it starts at 3 AM.

But (for me) tomorrow morning I will probably be there – it’s fun – and at times hilarious.

The feed can be found at :

http://stream.farpointmedia.net:8000/listen.pls (USA)
http://w2k.myftp.org:8000/FPM.m3u (Europe)
(or http://w2k.myftp.org:9000/listen.pls as an option for non-Icecast users)

Tags: Scifi podcasts

Planets detected around Epsilon Eridani

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 | Babylon 5, astronomy, science, scifi, space | No Comments

This is exciting for me as  a science fiction fan and as someone interested in space science in general.

Epsilon Eridani is a star a bit smaller than our own Sun – and quite young – only 800 million years old, located about 10.5 light years away.  Recently the Spitzer Telescope has detected a double asteroid belt around the star. The inner belt is located at a distance similar to the asteroid belt in our own solar system. Furthermore what looks like a cometary ring similar to the Kuyper Belt and indications of a planet at a distance similar to Jupiter’s. The Epsilon Eridani system looks more and more like our own solar system.

For more information take a look at these websites :

From the Spitzer Telescope site

From Discover Magazine

In the 1960′s I remember the scientific programs on the radio talking about SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) and mentioning this star as a likely candidate. At the time the young age of the system was not known, but it gave rise to the use of many science fiction writers using it as a home for intelligence.

In “Star Trek” the Mr. Spock’s home world Vulcan is located in the Epsilon Eridani system. and in “Babylon 5″ the space station is in orbit around a planet in the same system.

Of course the star is featured in many other science fiction stories, too many to mention here.

Interesting stuff…

Tags: seti

Eastercon/Orbital2008 impressions

Saturday, March 29th, 2008 | Babylon 5, Orbital2008, cons, scifi | 2 Comments

Here come my entries made to my LiveJournal directly from the Eastercon/Orbital2008 – covering the first 3 days.

Friday:

Arrived safe and sound at the Eastercon in London.

Friday meeting up with a lot of new people.

Having a Babylon 5 Ranger pin helps finding other B5 fans – or they spot me …

In the morning a nice discussion about the future of the Star Trek franchise. In the end we agree that tere is indeed a future for Star Trek (no real surprise there)

Being in London, which con will be without Doctor Who in its programme? Friday had a discusion about Russel T. Davies : Fanboy let loose ?

Of course he is both a fan and the one who revived the Doctor Who as a series.

Sunday Babylon 5 is on the programme , “The Lost Tales will be on the programme – my only regret it that it is at the same time as the Neil Gaiman as Guest of Honour. difficult choice. Well , I want to meet some B5 fans here , so I guess “The LOst Tales”it will be.

Just hope to Get to have my “Day of the Dead” script book signed by Neil Gaiman.

Saturday:

Morning panel : “Doctor Who – Trickstergod ?”
Paul Cornell , writer of the double episode of the new Doctor Who : “Human Nature/Family of Blood”

Paul Cornell is a very lively panelist , lots of fun to see/hear. the discussion touched on a similarity with the Doctor and the Shadows from Babylon 5 – both being a sort of “Agents of Chaos” – quite a thought.

Lots of people reacting to the Ranger Pin , so had lots of B5 talks. Sunday “The Lost Tales” will be shown in the video room, I will be there and hopefully get some more good B5 talk.

Got some pictures – will come later – of Ranger Hilary in a very well made costume.

How about a B5 Ranger meeting a Klingon – good fun (got a pic of that as well).

In the afternoon a good panel discussion of “Religion in SF” , always a subject to generate a good discussion.

Had the “Day of the Dead” script signe by Neil Gaiman . Asked him about his position on a collection of non JMS B5 scripts , his reply sounded positive to me.

Sunday morning now – so writing this directly from the con.

This afternoon a programme point not foreseen : A tribute to Arthur C. Clarke – Have to be there.

Sunday:

Essentially no people came to watch “The Lost Tales today , so I went to the Neil Gaiman Guest of Honour performance with the author reading a bit of his work , and questions from the floor. I was slightly surprised by the reply to the question of “free circulation” of his works. He apparently has no personal objection to that as such , since it gives more people the opportunity to read his works . You could see it as free advertising. On the other hand , some of the works, like audio books are not his own property , so he can not just say :”go ahead”.

A hastily panel discussion has been organised in the response to the death of Arthur C. Clarke’s influence in science, space exploration and science fiction. He was one reason for me – and many of the panelists/audience – to get into science fiction, as well as igniting the interest for space travel and science.

I have always had an interest in astronomy, and I could not resist going to a video presentation playing the two editions of BBC and Patrick Moore’s program “The Sky at Night”.
I have always found that he possessed an enthusiasm for the subject, and a very good sense for making the complicated scientific more understandable to the general public.

Of course – lots of talks to other fans – meeting people … very enjoyable.

Babylon Podcast – "The Lost Tales"

Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 | Babylon 5, film and tv, podcast | 1 Comment

The Babylon Podcast is having a Party in the month of August.

Due to the release of the first direct-to-DVD “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (TLT) the whole month is dedicated to TLT. Starting on 8. August there was an interview with Bruce Boxleitner who played President Sheridan in the second episode of the DVD.

Following later will be interviews with Tracy Scoggins who played Colonel Lochley in the first episode – and Peter Woodward as the technomage Galen in the second episode.

Who knows – maybe we will get more insider interviews from the TLT cast and crew.

Books to read, DVDs to get

Thursday, July 26th, 2007 | Babylon 5, film and tv, scifi | 3 Comments

Just got the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” book and have started reading. Travelling a bit, so not that much time to finish it, but what I have read so far is promising.

In my book “queue” I also have some Babylon 5 books , the three trilogies :
Centauri
Technomage
Psi Core
and a few single books like “To Dream in the City of Sorrows”

Next on my list is getting the new “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (TLT) on DVD. The official release in the US is 31 July , in Europe (Region 2) it is some time in September – I do not like the “regionalisation” of DVDs , spoilers are all over the place as soon as the DVD is release in just one place. This tempts many people to download the films (etc), even if they will buy the film in any case. I will buy it, but the delay is *very* annoying.

It looks like “The Babylon Podcast” will make August this year a “TLT” month, so spoilers are almost inevitable.

Edit (14 August) :The Babylon Podcast is indeed making August the month of “The Lost Tales” Last Wednesday they had an interview with Bruce Boxleitner (President Sheridan), and interviews with Tracy Scoggins (Colonel Lochley) and Peter Woodward (Techmomage Galen)

The SciFi Smackdown Podcast

Saturday, June 30th, 2007 | Babylon 5, film and tv, podcast, scifi | No Comments

A podcast with people having fun comparing similar aspects of different Science Fiction stories.

Their very first episode had a match between the Battlestar Galactica and the Enterprise. Follow the debate about differences, advantages and disadvantages of the two flagships.

Each episode is followed by a voicemail show or two with listener feedback of the match.

Episode 2: Captain America vs Batman

Episode 3: Heroes vs. X-men This time with another approach: The smackdown is played out as a role playing game match, playing over a few podcasts.Very Entertaining.

Episode 4: second part of the Heroes vs. X-men

Episode 5: X-wings (from StarWars) vs Starfuries (from Babylon 5). This time with a guest participant known from the Babylon Podcast – since they wanted a knowledgeable representative for the Starfuries. Yet another approach : The “combattants” are to make a sales pitch for their respective fighter. Their guest made quite a pitch for the Starfuries.

Link : Scifi Smackdown Podcast

Babylon Podcast fan fiction

Thursday, June 21st, 2007 | Babylon 5, podcast, scifi | 2 Comments

It looks like the Babylon Podcast voice mails are being dominated by a piece of fan fiction (or two) Some contributors send in pieces of talks , like captain’s log or whatever , creating a story within the podcast.

If you know the series well, you will appreciate the humor of these voice mails.

If you are a Babylon 5 fan , listen to the podcast , or better to the live feed. In my opinion it is well worth it.

The Babylon Podcast

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 | Babylon 5, film and tv, podcast, scifi | No Comments

The Babylon Podcast is a podcast dedicated to the TV series “Babylon 5″ created by Joe Michael Straczynski (also known as JMS).

In this the hosts Summer Brooks and Tim Callender (two dedicated fans) and Jeffrey Willerth (producer on the series) deal with news about the series, have interviews with people relating to the series – cast, crew, authors etc as well as (in many of the podcasts) deal with a specific episode of the series, a section of the podcast dubbed “Deep Geeking”, where the episode is analyzed, and they talk about what worked for them or not etc., and finally a voice mail section.

I have been following the podcast since September last year, when I got started in a big way listening to podcasts, and was very happy to find this one. Having some time at hand, I spent two weeks listening to the preceding 42 (one hour long) podcasts in order to get up to date.

They also record live every Wednesday evening at 18 pm Phoenix Arizona time, rather inconvenient for Western Europeans (3 am), but sometimes well worth it.
Simultaneously they have an IRC chat running, so live feed listeners can comment live. Find all info about the live feed on their website (link : Listen Live). The live feed is , of course unedited so if you join in, you get bloopers, banter and all – can be very entertaining.

Their latest show #69, released last week, was a little different : Members of the chatroom were invited to call in and contribute – they had 3 contributions, and I participated in the second section.

Today I (re)watched the final episode of Babylon 5, Season 2, “The Fall of Night” . the subject of this Wednesday’s “Deep Geeking”.

Link : Babylon Podcast