CHILDHOOD'S END and THE EXPANSE get airdates

SyFy has confirmed the airdates for its mini-series based on Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End and the ongoing series based on James S.A. Corey's Expanse novels.

"Say what you like about my mother, but never insult the hat."

Childhood's End will air across three successive nights: 14, 15 and 16 December. The Expanse will debut with two episodes airing on 14 and 15 December, with a new episode every subsequent Monday. The Expanse will consist of a ten-episode first season based primarily on the first novel in the series, Leviathan Wakes, whilst a second season has already been provisionally approved.

The Expanse has been delayed from its originally-mooted early 2015 transmission date, leading to suspicions of problems. However, the very positive reception to an early screening of the first episode at Comic-Con suggests that SyFy instead wanted to hold it back to air as a one-two punch alongside Childhood's End, making for the kind of "event" programming the channel has lacked ever since Battlestar Galactica went off the air half a decade ago. The network is already boasting that The Expanse is the most expensive show in their history and they have made a firm commitment to it and a whole host of other genre programming after years of being perceived as only being interested in cheap-and-cheerful disaster movies and firmly Earth-set dramas.

It remains to be seen how successful this move will be.

Trailer for CHILDHOOD'S END

SyFy have released a proper trailer for Childhood's End, their three-part mini-series based on Arthur C. Clarke's 1954 novel. It looks like the series will follow the approximate storyline from the novels, but will feature more characters and storylines to pad out the book's modest length.

The series will air in December 2015.

SyFy greenlights THE MAGICIANS TV series, dates THE EXPANSE and CHILDHOOD'S END

SyFy has greenlit a TV series based on Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy (The Magicians, The Magician King, The Magician's Land). The first season will consist of twelve episodes and will shoot in Vancouver in July, probably for a 2016 debut.

SyFy has also confirmed that its mini-series based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End will air in December. Surprisingly, they also confirmed that the first season of The Expanse, based on James S.A. Corey's novels, will also air in December. The Expanse started shooting in October 2014 and it was assumed would be a summer or early autumn launch. SyFy will either have to greenlight the second season before the first airs, or may envisage there being a long gap until 2017 until the second season can air. It's a slightly odd move for a show that looked ready and raring to go in the trailer released four months ago.

Charles Dance cast on SyFy's CHILDHOOD'S END adaptation

SyFy has cast British actor Charles Dance in a major role on its upcoming six-hour mini-series Childhood's End, based on Arthur C. Clarke's 1953 novel of the same name.

 
Charles Dance is best-known for his recent four-season stint as Tywin Lannister on HBO's Game of Thrones, although his acting career is extensive, incorporating roles on the BBC's Bleak House mini-series and in films like The Golden Child and Last Action Hero, amongst many, many others. Dance will be playing the role of Karellen, the spokesperson for the alien Overlords who arrive on Earth and create a utopian world even over the objections of those humans who don't want it. In the book Karellen's appearance is kept secret but it's unclear if the same device will be used in the TV series. If so this may be more of a vocal performance than anything else.

The series is still in pre-production for airing in 2015 or 2016. Although SyFy's rep in adapting classic SF novels is poor (Earthsea, Riverworld) to middling (Dune), this is a little more promising thanks to the presence of Matthew Graham (the original UK Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes) as the main writer.

RINGWORLD and CHILDHOOD'S END coming to TV

SyFy has announced that it is producing new mini-series based on the classic SF novels Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke and Ringworld by Larry Niven.

Ringworld is set eight centuries into the future and revolves around an expedition to a vast artificial ring in the space, so huge it extends completely around its star. It was an inspiration behind the titular structures of the Halo series of computer games (although, properly speaking, the Halo rings are much closer in size and function to one of Iain M. Bank's Culture Orbitals). The novel was published in 1970 and won the triple crown of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. The novel has three sequels (The Ringworld Engineers, The Ringworld Throne and Ringworld's Children), so presumably if it's a big hit SyFy can turn this into an ongoing franchise. The four-hour mini-series is being produced by MGM TV in conjunction with Universal Cable Productions. Michael Perry (co-creator of The River and writer of Paranormal Activity 2) is helming the adaptation.

Childhood's End was originally published in 1953 and, alongside 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama, is one of Clarke's best-known novels. Its iconic opening, which huge alien ships arriving at Earth and plunging the major cities into shadow, was later echoed by both the V mini-series in 1983 and the movie Independence Day in 1996. It is noted as one of Clarke's most speculative novels, featuring paranormal elements and talkative aliens, rather unlike his later books which were driven much more by hard science and completely unknowable alien intelligences. This mini-series will be helmed by Michael DeLuca (a producer on Seven, Boogie Nights and The Social Network).

Whilst sounding promising, it's hard to forget the complete pig's ear that SyFy made of both the Earthsea and Riverworld books, and the channel's seeming difficulty in actually making SF in the last few years. Alongside the the Blake's 7 reboot, this indicates that SyFy is at least focusing on the right ideas. It remains to be seen if they can follow through with them.

Wertzone Classics: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

Humanity is about to launch its first manned mission to another world. Finally, the human race is about to escape its cradle and take its first step towards the stars. But on the eve of the launch the skies over the Earth's major cities are blotted out by the appearance of huge, alien spacecraft. The Overlords have arrived, and nothing will ever be the same again.


Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most famous writers the science fiction field has ever produced, thanks to his work on the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and his role as a popular science commentator (he covered several of the Apollo moon landings for American television and had several successful TV series in the 1980s). Clarke's work is notable for its straightforwardness (he was never a great prose stylist) but also its scientific rigour. With a few exceptions, Clarke had little truck with what he considered to be some of the more fantastical concepts of SF (such as faster-than-light travel and artificial gravity) and did not use them in his work. In his view, the universe is vast, timeless and unknowable. Much of Clarke's work is notable for a certain melancholic optimism: the human race can be much more than it is now, but even so is unlikely to challenge the vastness of the universe.

Childhood's End was published in 1953 and was his fourth novel, although his first published in the United States, where it immediately established him as a major voice in the field. In many ways it is atypical Clarke. The aliens are comprehensible and easily relate to human beings, unlike the enigmatic entities of say 2001 or Rendezvous with Rama. At the same time, his normal scientific vigour is a little slacker than normal, as concepts such as telepathy and group consciousnesses are explored (Clarke had a passing fascination with the supernatural at the time, though later firmly rejected such notions). Clarke's influences are clear, with the presence of Olaf Stapledon particularly hard to ignore.


The novel is extremely concise, with my paperback copy clocking in at 160 pages. For its short page count, the novel is fairly epic. It is split into three sections, each with a distinct cast, focus and storyline (unsurprising, as the first section was originally a stand-alone short story). In the first, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has to oversee the painful transformation of humanity from bickering nation-states to a single world government. In the second, a family 'escape' the Overlords' utopia to live in an island commune free of their influence, only to discover the real reason for the Overlords' arrival on Earth. In the final section, a lone human who stowed away aboard an Overlord ship returns to Earth eighty years later (though only a few months later by his count, due to time dilation) to find a world vastly changed from the one he left. Clarke doesn't waste a word as he lets the story unfold inexorably, moving to a conclusion that looms somewhere between awe-inspiring and horrific.

As a novelist, Clarke was much more interested in ideas (thematic, scientific or both) than people. His characterisation was often variable, although Childhood's End is actually one of his better books in that regard. Its major protagonists (even the Overlords) are clearly defined and sympathetic. In terms of structure, Childhood's End is unusual in that the entire story is pre-ordained, and nothing any of the characters do can change what is happening. They - and the reader - can only witness it and make their own minds up about whether it is something that can be called 'good' or not, and I suspect many will fall on the 'not' end of the spectrum.

As a result Childhood's End can be viewed as a colossal tragedy. The book has a tremendous emotional charge as it poses a simple question: how would we face it if our way of existing ended tomorrow? Clarke's answer is surprisingly bleak but, one suspects, one that would be close to the truth.

The novel has aged in some respects. The first edition opened with the USA and USSR battling to land a man on the moon, since Apollo 11 was still sixteen years in the future at the time it was published. Clarke also makes a very dated joke where he discusses how the Overlords have to force the rulers of South Africa to treat all their citizens equally regardless of skin colour. The 'joke' is that by this time majority rule in South Africa has been restored, and it's the white population that's being mistreated. An amusing aside in 1953 actually feels rather cynical today, assuming as it does that the African population would be as racist and authoritarian as the white one was. However, another point about how the people of Israel bitterly resist being absorbed into the Overlords' hegemony and giving up the freedom they have spent centuries fighting for, is more resonant. There's also a recurring problem in Clarke's work where he underestimates the power of religion, and the sequences where the Overlords' arrival causes the downfall of all world religions in a matter of months are rather unconvincing.

In most respects, Childhood's End (****½) has not aged badly at all, and its central themes of parenthood and the futility of railing against the night - but the effort nevertheless being laudable - remain interesting. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.