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RIP Michelle Trachtenberg

The surprising news has broken of the passing of Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Michelle Trachtenberg, at the far-too-young age of 39.

Born in New York City in 1985, Trachtenberg started her acting career at just the age of three, appearing in commercials. She played Nona Mecklenberg on the Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete & Pete in 1994-96, and Lily Montgomery on the soap opera All My Children. She made her breakthrough in the successful movies Harriet the Spy (1996) and Inspector Gadget (1999). She picked up additional notable roles in the film EuroTrip (2004) and Mysterious Skin (2004) as well as recurring roles on Six Feet Under and Gossip Girl.

Trachtenberg's most notable genre role was playing Dawn Summers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She joined the show in the first episode of its fifth season in 2000 and remained on the show until its conclusion in 2003. Dawn is introduced as the sister of protagonist Buffy Summers, which is interesting because Buffy is repeatedly noted to be an only child in the first four seasons and Dawn is not mentioned, nor appears. The mystery of where Dawn came from, and why Buffy and her friends act as if she's been around all along, becomes a major plot point for the series. Trachtenberg's arrival on the show was controversial with fans, but after the storyline played out, she had a warmer reception from the fanbase. Trachtenberg noted making the show was hard work and she clashed with showrunner Joss Whedon; according to several actors' claims, his bullying behaviour meant he was not allowed to be alone with Trachtenberg on set, something he later disputed. Trachtenberg credited other actors with having her back, especially Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy).

Tragically, Trachtenberg's passing comes a few weeks after it was confirmed a new iteration of Buffy was in development with Gellar attached, leading to speculation that Trachtenberg might be able to reprise her role as Dawn.

During her later years, Trachtenberg mostly switched to guest roles on TV shows, as well as appearing in the Gossip Girl revival in 2022-23. Trachtenberg also experienced health complications, undergoing a liver transplant in 2024.

Trachtenberg was a gifted actress at a young age, and made her role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer work under difficult circumstances. She passed away at far too young an age, and will be missed.

SKYBLIVION developers re-commit to 2025 release

The developers of fan mega-mod Skyblivion, which seeks to update venerable fantasy RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) to modern-ish standards, have re-committed to releasing the game in 2025, as they originally promised two years ago. The project is almost feature-complete, with developers and testers now able to run through entire quests, as they have demonstrated in a new video.

The original idea behind the project was to remake Oblivion in the upgraded Creation Engine of its successor, Skyrim (2011). However, the project stalled after several years and was relaunched before the pandemic under new management. The title is somewhat misleading, as the game now features improvements from later versions of the engine and features from other modders, including better 4K textures and enhanced lighting. The mod is also not a straightforward remake, as it redesigns and enhances some areas of the games, for example replacing the identikit caves with different designs based on their descriptions (i.e. mines and random caverns no longer look identical) and making the infamously tiny forts larger and more imposing. The city of Leyawiin, which was massively scaled back in development, has been returned to its original, imposing design straddling a major river with a drawbridge to allow ships to pass.

The creators have kept in touch with Bethesda during development to confirm what they can and can't do: they've kept the original soundtrack and even added to it with new material, but have had to re-record all dialogue for legal reasons (presumably the need not to pay Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart lots of money again). This will probably be a boon, as Oblivion infamously had a tiny voice cast, and it wasn't uncommon to stumble across three people with the exact same voice talking to one another, which was weird.

Playing the mod will require the player owns copies of both Oblivion and Skyrim. As noted before, the plan is to release the mod before the end of 2025 via Steam, GoG and Nexus Mods. A console version is currently impossible due to the massive size of the new files (which outsizes the limits Bethesda put in place for console modding).

In 2023 it was rumoured that Bethesda were considering their own remaster of Oblivion, which sounds like an exercise in futility compared to the scale of Skyblivion. It'll be interesting to see if that project is actually something that's happening.

Warner Brothers shuts down iconic studio Monolith Productions

Iconic American video game development studio Monolith Productions is shutting down after thirty-one years in the business, producing classic video games including SHOGO: Mobile Armor Division, No One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R. and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Parent company Warner Brothers made the decision to shutter the company due to financial uncertainty and a series of recent misfires from other studios.

Monolith was founded in October 1994 with a view to making first-person and third-person action games using a propriety 3D engine, LithTech (which, remarkably, powered all of their games from first to last, with heavy development and iteration). The engine had been developed for use by Microsoft as a possible inhouse 3D engine, but Microsoft eventually rejected it.

Monolith made a splash with their first game, Blood (1997), a very solid first-person shooter. They followed that up with a direct sequel, but also a different game called Shogo: Mobile Armor Division (both 1998). This game featured the player as the pilot of a large-sized mech, with different-scaled levels depending on if you were piloting the mech or engaging in direct combat inside buildings as the pilot. It was basically Titanfall long before Titanfall was actually a thing.

Monolith launched their third major game series with The Operative: No One Lives Forever (2000), a first-person shooter with a female protagonist, a spy setting and a colourful, comedic tone, all of which were very unusual for a time. The game warranted a sequel, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s War (2002), but repeated attempts to launch a third game were thwarted, although a spin-off, Contract J.A.C.K., was released in 2003.

Monolith also developed tie-in works for other IP, including Aliens versus Predator 2 (2001), Tron 2.0 (2003) and The Matrix Online (2005), a co-production with Sony.

In 2004 the company was acquired by Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment (later Warner Brothers Games), giving them access to the various Warner Brothers-owned IP. Despite this, their first two games out of the game under the new owners were actually new IP: F.E.A.R. and Condemned: Criminal Origins (both 2005), both quite successful and resulting in sequels, with Condemned 2 launching in 2008 and F.E.A.R. 2 in 2009 (other developers worked on expansions and F.E.A.R. 3, released in 2011). F.E.A.R. was particularly feted for its graphical developments, physics, real-world locations and its mix of first-person action and South Korean-influenced horror.

After these, the company switched to working on WB IP, first on the downloadable-only multiplayer games Gotham City and Guardians of Middle-earth (both 2012), and then the Lord of the Rings licence. This resulted in the incredibly well-received and well-reviewed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (2014), which was famed for its Nemesis System, where enemies would remember you for defeating them and develop grudges, becoming more powerful and returning for revenge. Warner Brothers were so impressed by this system they copyrighted it, but only used it again in the sequel, Middle-earth: Shadow of War (2017).

With the second game concluding the story, Warner Brothers decided to move the developers onto working on a Wonder Woman game, which was announced in 2021. Bloomberg had recently reported that the Wonder Woman game's development had been held up by unspecified development issues, spooking Warner Brothers who had been battered by a series of indifferent or poorly-performing video games based on their DC IP, with both Gotham Knights (2022) and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024) underperforming.

Monolith being shuttered is a massive shame. An inventive, interesting developer, their hit ratio was frankly ridiculous, with the Blood, No One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R. and Middle-earth: Shadow franchises all being extremely well-regarded. But under Warner Brothers' recent management, its questionable if they could have reached those creative heights again.

Akiva Goldsman developing three Irwin Allen reboots for television

Akiva Goldsman (Fringe, Star Trek) is developing a new TV project based on three classic Irwin Allen TV shows. New iterations of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants are being worked on.

Goldsman and producers Jon Jashni and Derek Thielges are developing the three shows for Legendary Television, with a view to creating an Allen-based "expanded universe," with the three shows either co-existing in the same universe or being merged into one project (somehow).

Irwin Allen (1916-91) was a prolific writer and producer in both film and television. He is best-known to the general audience for producing the hit disaster movies The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974), and creating and running the hit TV show Lost in Space (1965-68). Lost in Space is not part of the current deal as it was remade by Netflix in 2018-21, who retain certain rights.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-68, 110 episodes) was a development of a stand-alone movie, released in 1961; the film's sets and VFX models were retained for use in the film. The TV show is set on board the advanced submarine Seaview as it explores the oceans, undertaking scientific research, rescue operations and, occasionally, military missions. As was often the case with Allen's projects, the show started off grounded and (relatively) realistic, but became more unhinged as it proceeded, bringing in aliens and time travel. seaQuest DSV (1993-96) was something of a spiritual successor to this show.

The Time Tunnel (1966-67, 30 episodes) saw two scientists build an experimental "time tunnel" and then become lost in time after its inadvertent activation. The two scientists took part in many of the major events of history, guided by a team back at base who served as their "man in the van" group. The show only lasted one season. Intriguingly, Allen planned something of an evolution in the premise, with the scientists eventually being rescued, followed by the show deliberately sending them on missions into the past and future for different purposes. The later Quantum Leap seems to have taken some moderate inspiration from this earlier show.

Land of the Giants (1968-70, 51 episodes) was arguably Allen's most outlandish premise, with a passenger aircraft being dragged through a "dimension lock" and crashing. The crew find themselves at the mercy of "Giants," humanoids who are twelve times larger than themselves. Rather than having been shrunk through some mechanism, they quickly confirm they are on another planet and the Giants are aliens. The show saw the humans trying to return home without allowing the Giants to follow them and invade Earth, sometimes helped by sympathetic Giants. The show had no resolution, as it was cancelled at the end of the second season with little warning. Notably, the show did introduce a time travel element towards its end, creating the intriguing notion of the entire show being a time loop.

It'll be interesting to see what ideas they have in mind for these projects. The Irwin Allen shows were very entertaining, in a cheesy and somewhat repetitive way (understandable given the lack of time and budget), but had a lot of potential.

Amazon resurrects CULTURE TV project, based on the Iain M. Banks novels

Amazon have decided to have a second go at adapting the Culture series of science fiction novels by the late Scottish author Iain M. Banks.

Amazon previously put an adaptation into development in 2018, with Jeff Bezos himself - a huge fan of the series - ordering work to begin. Dennis Kelly (Utopia) was in charge, with a guaranteed season order apparently in the works if the scripts were good. However, the project appeared to stall and was then cancelled in 2020, after the Banks Estate themselves withdrew from negotiations. Speculation at the time was that Banks, an avowed socialist, may have not been keen on working with the ultimate capitalist enterprise, and perhaps the Estate belatedly realised that. However, other reports suggested a more obvious explanation: Amazon was adapting The Expanse at the time and may have not had the appetite for airing two space opera shows simultaneously, even if they are remarkably different in tone and setting.

Apparently, with The Expanse concluded for now, the earlier project may be back on. This time Amazon has teamed with Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown) and Chloé Zhao (Nomadland, Eternals) to develop a new take on the idea. Yu will showrun whilst Zhao will executive produce and may direct; Zhao is also developing the Buffy the Vampire Slayer legacy sequel show with Sarah Michelle Gellar.

As with the previous project, this adaptation will begin by adapting Consider Phlebas (1987), the first-published novel in the series. The other books may follow. Consider Phlebas sees the Culture, a post-scarcity utopian society, and the expansionist Idiran Empire clashing for control of a Culture Mind, an ultra-advanced AI, that has taken refuge on a forbidden planet. The protagonist is Horza, a shapeshifting mercenary working for the Idirans. In a 1995 magazine interview, Banks said (possibly joking) that he'd have cast Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role himself.

The Culture is something of an anthology project, with each novel and story having its own setting, cast of characters and storyline, with only passing references to the other stories, with sometimes centuries and thousands of light-years separating the different stories. Banks published ten Culture books in total, each with a very different tone: Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, The State of the Art, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata. This means that Amazon would not necessarily have to adapt each book in rapid turn, and could choose what order to approach the project in.

Banks wrote mainstream fiction under the name "Iain Banks" and science fiction under the name "Iain M. Banks" (a conceit which became a running gag in the Simon Pegg and Edgar wright movie Hot Fuzz), publishing twenty-eight books in total between 1984 and his untimely death from cancer in 2013.

RIP Viktor Antonov

News has sadly broken that Viktor Antonov, the artist and visual designer on video games such as Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, has passed away at the far-too-young age of 52.

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1972, Antonov got his start in the video game business as an artist. He worked on Redneck Rampage (1997) and its various mission packs, followed by a Quake II expansion and Kingpin: Life of Crime (1999), with its gritty, crumbling tenement locations. He started working with Valve whilst Half-Life 2 (2004) was in development and quickly became the game's art director. He spent a lot of time looking at locations in his native Bulgaria, as well as other Eastern European countries, to serve as reference points for the game's sprawling City 17, the neighbouring settlement of Ravenholm and more. Half-Life 2's recent 20th anniversary saw Antonov interviewed about his work on the game.

Antonov was feted for the incredible world design of Half-Life 2 and was hired by Arkane Studios to work on the city of Dunwall for Dishonored (2012). Antonov again knocked it out of the park, creating a realistic, immersive steampunk city of crumbling buildings and diesel-punk-ish brutalism. Antonov then moved into consultancy work, advising on the visual design of Fallout 4 (2015), Dishonored 2 (2016), DOOM (2016) and Prey (2017). He returned to full-time art direction with "Project DG," a game for Eschatology Entertainment, a company he himself had co-founded in 2022.

Visual and graphic design is a key component of video games, but most games are made by art teams and committees. Antonov was unusual in putting his unique touch on a game's environments that was immediately recognisable as his own. Anyone playing Half-Life 2 or its expansions, or Dishonored or its sequel, knows immediately they are in an "Antonovian" landscape. Hopefully he did enough work on "Project DG" that we'll be able to spend at least some more time with one of his worlds.

A great artist who specialised in creating worlds that fused the fantastical and the realistic, he will be missed.

Netflix and Wizards of the Coast put FORGOTTEN REALMS live-action show into development

Netflix and Wizards of the Coast have joined forces to put a Dungeons & Dragons TV project into development, tentatively called The Forgotten Realms. The show will be set in the D&D game's most popular world, the recent setting for hit video game Baldur's Gate III and the well-received movie Honor Among Thieves.

Shawn Levy, the producer of Stranger Things and director of movies including Date Night, Night at the Museum and Deadpool & Wolverine, will executive produce the show via his existing deal with Netflix, and will likely direct several episodes. Drew Crevello will write and showrun. Crevello previously worked at Fox on the X-Men franchise and the first two Deadpool movies, and co-wrote and produced the mini-series WeCrashed.

There have been multiple attempts to get a Dungeons & Dragons multimedia franchise off the ground in recent years. Baldur's Gate III has been the biggest success, selling over 20 million copies since its August 2023 release and becoming one of the highest-rated video games of the last decade, if not more (PC Gamer US gave the game its highest rating in over twenty years). Honor Among Thieves landed with impressive critical scores and rave audience reviews, but moderate box office; the film failed to recoup its costs at the box office, but a long tail on physical media and streaming has helped in the longer term. At various times, Hasbro and Wizards have looked at developing projects in both the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance worlds. Paramount+ was the logical destination for the project after the studio's collaboration on Honor Among Thieves, but the service's increasingly shaky performance led Hasbro to reconsider and start putting out feelers with Netflix.

Discussions with Netflix have been underway for some time, and at one point it was rumoured they were considering an adaptation of the Baldur's Gate video game trilogy. However, that idea seems to have cooled. The current proposal seems to be for an original story following new characters, with the door left open for popular franchise characters from the roleplaying source material, video games and novels to make an appearance.

The Forgotten Realms world was created by Canadian writer Ed Greenwood in the late 1960s as a setting for his own stories (the city of Baldur's Gate first appeared in a tale written to amuse his father in 1967). In 1978 he started playing Dungeons & Dragons and adapted the world for his home campaign. He started contributing articles to Dragon Magazine and quickly started referencing the world, its heroes, villains and iconic locations. In 1986 TSR decided to adopt a new "standard" fantasy setting to replace Greyhawk and Dragonlance, and agreed to purchase the Forgotten Realms from Greenwood.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting appeared in print for the first time as a boxed set in 1987. New editions of the campaign setting core product appeared in 1993, 2001, 2008 and 2015, with two new campaign books planned for later this year. More than 250 other sourcebooks, adventures, board games, boxed sets and gaming materials have also been released. Forgotten Realms is notable as the only D&D campaign setting to remain continuously in print since its first launch, and to have new products for it launched almost every year since its first release.

A range of novels simultaneously launched, with R.A. Salvatore's The Crystal Shard (1988) rapidly attracting huge sales for his iconic hero, the renegade dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden. More than 35 million Drizzt books have since been sold, and the Forgotten Realms novel line has reportedly sold almost 100 million copies. Greenwood himself became a bestselling author with his novels about the iconic wizard Elminster the Sage, with other bestselling authors in the setting including Troy Denning, Doug Niles, Jeff Grubb & Kate Novak, Paul Kemp, James Lowder, Elaine Cunningham and Erin Evans.

The first Forgotten Realms video games were released in 1988 from Strategic Simulations Inc., and were followed by a large number of successful titles. The most notable early success was the Eye of the Beholder trilogy from Westwood Games. In 1998 the Canadian company BioWare teamed up with Black Isle and Interplay to release Baldur's Gate. The game was an immediate smash hit, and was followed by Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn in 2000 and Neverwinter Nights in 2002. Black Isle themselves developed Icewind Dale (2000) and Icewind Dale II (2002), also set in the Realms and using the same engine as Baldur's Gate. After Interplay's collapse, Obsidian Entertainment (made up of Black Isle veterans) released Neverwinter Nights II in 2006. The online roleplaying game Neverwinter was released in 2013, followed by Sword Coast Legends in 2015. Baldur's Gate III, developed by Larian Studios and released in August 2023, is easily the biggest and most successful video game in the setting to date.

This new project is only in development for the time being, with a pilot written. It remains to be seen if Netflix chooses to move forward with a series order.

RIP Chris Moore

Esteemed British science fiction artist Chris Moore has sadly passed away at the age of 77. Moore is best-known for his memorable covers for Gollancz books, including for their SF Masterworks line, and his frequent art for the likes of Alastair Reynolds and William Gibson.

Picking a single representative piece of art for Chris Moore is impossible, but his cover for Steven Erikson's debut novel Gardens of the Moon was very striking.

Moore was born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire in 1947. He was educated at Mexborough Grammar School and Doncaster Art School. In 1972 he joined forces with Michael Morris to form Moore Morris Ltd., and worked on graphic design and cover art for book, magazine and record covers, operating out of Covent Garden in London. The partnership dissolved in 1980, when Moore moved out of the capital. During his time there he'd created cover art for artists including Rod Stewart, Journey, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo, Pentangle and Rick Wakeman.

Moore's artwork for the SF Masterworks edition of The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.

In 1974, art director Peter Bennet suggested that Moore start creating covers for science fiction novels, a genre Moore had little interest in or knowledge of (outside of seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey). But Moore agreed and was soon producing art for new books and reprints alike of Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Anne McCaffrey, Clifford D. Simak and Arthur C. Clarke. Heading into the 1980s, he also become a preferred cover artist for mainstream authors including Jeffrey Archer, Jackie Collins and Wilbur Smith.

Moore's minimalist cover for Alastair Reynolds' debut novel Revelation Space helped make the novel a huge success.

In 1989 Moore was sought out to produce concept art for Stanley Kubrick's A.I., but Kubrick took against Moore's agent and tried to go around him to employ Moore directly, which Moore felt was unethical so passed on the opportunity.

Moore's cover for a 1980s reprint of Philip K. Dicks' Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, drawing on the movie version Blade Runner for inspiration.

A full list of Moore's iconic artwork is impossible to write with any kind of conciseness, but his 1980s and 1990s artwork for Philip K. Dick reprints and Arthur C. Clarke were particularly memorable, along with his work on the SF Masterworks series in the 2000s. He was particularly closely linked with Alastair Reynolds, with his moody, minimalist designs of spaceships and asteroids backdropped against planets giving the Reynolds books an immediately recognisable design.

Chris Moore passed away at home on 7 February. A very fine artist with a great eye for SF visions, he will be missed.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The planet Gora has no reason to exist other than just having the fortune to exist in close proximity to five wormhole terminuses. The planet has become a place for travellers to rest briefly before moving on. But a freak satellite cascade crisis stops all ship departures. The crews of three ships are forced to take refuge in one another's company, for good and ill.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is the fourth and apparently concluding book in Becky Chambers' Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series, following on from The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit and Record of a Spaceborn Few (Chambers has a superb facility with book names, it has to be said). This isn't a series in the traditional sense with continuing characters and narrative elements, more something like Iain Banks' The Culture with a shared setting and occasional references to the events of other books but each volume can be enjoyed fully as a stand-alone.

Like the other books in the series, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is a very relaxed novel. There is personal jeopardy but it is brief and limited. The book's primary interest is more about how people - in this case examples of multiple different alien species - interact and work together in the face of adversity. It's something of a space disaster novel, where the disaster is very brief and isn't going to kill anyone after a short period, but its consequences take days to play out during which our protagonists have to figure out how to endure.

Basically, this is science fiction mashed with the structure of John Hughes' The Breakfast Club, and it works really well. We get to know the three alien visitors, the owner of the space hotel they have to stay in and her son, and none of the characters are human, which is surprisingly rare in science fiction. Each one of the four species the characters belong to gets a lot of development in terms of their personal characterisation and also worldbuilding related to their different species, and how this limits their interactions. One of the species relies on colour cues to determine the other person's mood and intents, whilst another can only leave their ship in an environment suit. Being space travellers - wayfarers - means they have some natural curiosity about other species, but sometimes find it hard to deal with those with a very different worldview to their own, informed by a totally different biology and history.

If the book has a theme, it's probably the rotest of the Star Trek rote: to understand one another's differences and find ways of getting along. It feels like a well-explored idea, but also a universal and constant one, and one it never hurts to revisit. Especially here with the circumstances well set-up to facilitate that story.

Chambers always walks a tightrope between her books being chill and enjoyable, and boring, and Record of a Spaceborn Few started tilting alarmingly towards the latter. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (****) tilts back towards the former. For those who need action, intrigue and lasers in their space opera, steer clear. For those who are more interested in worldbuilding and character dynamics, this is a fine and enjoyable slice of lived-in science fiction. The novel is available now.

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