STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS starts shooting

Production has begun on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the third live-action Star Trek series since the franchise relaunch in 2017.

The new series is set on an updated version of the original, Constitution-class USS Enterprise and charts its adventures under Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Lt. Commander Spock (Ethan Peck) and Number One (Rebecca Romijn) some ten years before the events of the original Star Trek series. Mount, Peck and Romijn all reprise their roles from the second season of Star Trek: Discovery.

The show has also added several new castmembers: Babs Olusanmokun (Black Mirror, The Night Of, Dune), Christina Chong (Black Mirror), Celia Rose Gooding (Jagged Little Pill), Jess Bush (Skinford: Chapter Two) and Melissa Navia (Billions).

The series is expected to debut in early 2022 on Paramount+ in the USA. No international broadcaster has been announced, but it is mostly likely to air on Amazon Prime in other territories.

RESIDENT EVIL reboot movie confirms release date

The Resident Evil reboot movie has confirmed its release date. The film will launch on 3 September this year.

The film is directed by Johannes Roberts and stars Kaya Scodelario as Claire Redfield, Robbie Amell as Chris Redfield, Hannah John-Kamen as Jill Valentine, Tom Hopper as Albert Wesker, Avan Jogia as Leon S. Kennedy and Neal McDonough as William Birkin. The film started shooting at the tail end of 2020 and sounds likes it's heading into the wrap-up phase.

The film is not related to the six-film series directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and starring Milla Jovovich. The new film promises to be more closely based on the video game franchise, particularly the first two games in the series.

Netflix has produced a CG-animated series called Infinite Darkness which is part of the video game canon, and should launch later in 2021 as a tie-in to the next video game, Resident Evil: Village. Netflix is also developing a live-action TV series not linked to any prior version of the mythos.

Of Honey and Wildfires by Sarah Chorn

The West is the home of shine, a substance which can power weapons and be used to do everything from preserving food to being used in medical treatment. The economy of the known world is starting to depend on shine. Ultra-rich businessman Matthew Esco has used mechanisms unknown to seal the shine fields away from rest of the world through the Boundary, through which he only controls access. He sends his son West to learn the ropes of business and prepare to take over from him, but Arlen is a very different sort of man. Meanwhile, a young girl named Cassandra grows up without her pa, a free spirit harbouring a personal grudge against the Esco family and determined to help liberate the Esco company's indentured workers.

Of Honey and Wildfires is the second novel from Sarah Chorn and is rather different to her first novel, Seraphina's Lament. Lament was a dark, bloody and grim book of collapsing empires and people with unusual powers rallying to a greater cause (for both good and ill). Of Honey and Wildfires is likewise a novel with epic ramifications across a continent, but it's also a much more personal story of acceptance, loss and struggle.

There is a tighter focus this time around, with the story dominated by the POVs of Arlen Esco and Cassandra (Cassandra's friend Ianthe gets some page-time as well), whose stories are linked although they do not know it. Cassandra's father, Chris, is a rebel trying to bring down the system and has been absent from most of her life due to the struggle, something they both regret. Early in the book Chris kidnaps Arlen, who is then made aware of the atrocities and sacrifices his father's company enacts in the name of profit.

There are exotic shine-powered weapons and displays of what appears to be magical power, but Of Honey and Wildfires is a novel much less interested in the typical trappings of fantasy than it is in character. Each character is explored in impressive depth over the course of modest page count (the book barely cracks 300 pages), stripped back to their soul with their motivations laid bare. It's a gradual process in some cases, with the non-linear storytelling (which moves between events in the present and many years ago) helping with the deconstruction of the protagonists.

That's not to say that worldbuilding and plot are neglected. Chorn carefully builds up the world and the rules of how it works through the story and characters, creating a vivid setting. I was particularly impressed at how naturally the plot - which seemed to be developing quite slowly with the page limit counting down - came together in the last few pages when it looked like quite a lot would be left hanging. The plot construction of the novel is highly impressive given its focus on the characters. It's also good to see another novel joining the still small but growing "Fantasy Western" subgenre.

Of Honey and Wildfires (*****) is a book about trauma and about how childhood decisions and absences shape lives and destinies and identities. It's a short, emotionally raw novel showcasing formidable writing talent, and after the promising (if slightly less polished) debut of Seraphina's Lament, it's baffling why the author hasn't been picked up by a major publisher yet. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Many Bethesda games join X-Box Game Pass

An anticipated following the completion of the recent acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft, a whole slew of Bethesda games have joined Microsoft's flagship X-Box Game Pass service. Despite the name, the service - best-described as a "Netflix for video games" - is available on PC and Android platforms as well the X-Box family of consoles.

The package of games joining the service contains both newer and older titles alike:

• Dishonored Definitive Edition
• Dishonored 2
• Doom (1993)
• Doom 2
• Doom 3
• Doom 64
• Doom Eternal
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• The Elder Scrolls Online
• The Evil Within
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Fallout 4
• Fallout 76
• Prey
• Rage 2
• Wolfenstein: The New Order
• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood

There are a few oddities: the original Doom and its sequels and even a port of the Nintendo 64 version are on the list, but not the 2016 reboot game, although its recent sequel Doom Eternal is present. The Evil Within 2 is also MIA, and the slightly older set of Wolfenstein games, along with Fallout 3 and the original Rage. The absence of these games seems to be down to compatibility issues (possibly the reason that New Vegas is console-only for the time being) or the fact they are licensed to other services. These games are likely to move to the service in the coming weeks and months.

Microsoft have also clarified that future Bethesda titles will likely debut on Game Pass-compatible platforms, but Microsoft will also try to cater for fans of the franchises on other platforms. This is a hint that games like The Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5 (the former is confirmed to be in development, the latter is not) may debut on PC and X-Box and will only make their way to PlayStation and Nintendo much later, if at all.

Production begins on RUSSIAN DOLL Season 2

Shooting has begun on the second season of time loop dramedy Russian Doll.

The first season of Russian Doll was a thoughtful exploration of life, death, vice and virtue that explored its time-looping premise through eight, tightly-paced episodes with plenty of curveballs and exploring interesting side-characters. The show ended on a surreal but easily final note, making it unclear where a second season would go. Even more oddly, it was confirmed that Russian Doll had been pitched to Netflix as a three-season project from the get-go.

The second season was greenlit shortly after the first season aired, but suffered numerous delays due to availability and scripting issues. Just as the show was cleared to begin filming, the COVID pandemic erupted and everything was put on hold.

Russian Doll managed to avoid the fate of many other Netflix shows which were cancelled due to raised COVID costs (the fate of GLOW, amongst several others) and shooting is finally underway on the second season, with Natasha Lyonne reprising her role as Nadia Vulvokov. A newcomer for the second season is Annie Murphy, fresh off her acclaimed stint as Alexis on Canadian comedy Schitt's Creek.

The second season of Russian Doll is likely to air in late 2021 or (probably more likely) early 2022 on Netflix.

Wertzone Classics: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Los Angeles, 2024. The United States is dying a slow death. Law and order is confined to isolated, walled-off communities and city centres. The suburbs are warzones of inequality and crime, subject to warlords and corporate exploitation. Police and ambulances won't leave protected areas without hefty fees. Rising sea levels are swamping coastal communities. One community on the outskirts of the city has become a haven of kindness and safety, a refuge founded by a preacher who wants to protect his family and neighbours. His daughter, Lauren Oya Olamina, a "sharer" who can feel other people's pain and suffering, making her empathetic to their needs. When their safe haven is no longer safe, the inhabitants have to consider a dangerous journey to try to escape.

Parable of the Sower was originally published in 1993 and has become a widely-acknowledged classic of science fiction. Inhabiting a similar space to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, it describes the collapse of the United States. Unlike that novel, the cause is not infertility, fascism or religious fundamentalism, but apparently simple overload. The country is no longer able to cope with the assaults on its foundations from multiple directions and it flounders and sinks, almost permitting a decline and an assault from within and without on its values. There are echoes of the fall of the Roman Empire here, with the idea of such a mighty superpower laid low not by a headline-leading single event, but the accumulation of lots of small issues over decades.

The novel's success is not in presenting this collapse - a quiet apocalypse - as a spectacle, but as background to the everyday life of its protagonist. Lauren is concerned about the big picture of how events are falling out and has a dream about how to confront it, but is more consumed by day-to-day life in her community. She and her friends can only go out in groups where some of them are armed, and maintaining supplies of food, water and essentials is difficult against a backdrop of seeming governmental indifference to the spreading chaos. The attention to detail is superb, with Butler painting Lauren's life as one under extreme pressure but under which life continues: she has boyfriends, she has friendships and she maintains her family relationships despite the dangers of the world around them.

Later in the book the story shifts to a road trip where parallels to post-apocalyptic stories like The Road and even The Walking Dead can be made, but all the more powerful here because there isn't a supernatural horror stalking the characters or some vague massive holocaust. Instead it's just people, people who have broken the world and other people wanting to put it back together and others who want to build something better, something new and enduring. Strangers are to be treated with caution, as some are dangerous and only want to rob or harm you; others are good people who just need a reason to show their good side.

Butler's prose is poetic and raw, capturing the mood and thoughts of a teenage girl frustrated by the world, one who uniquely understands its pain because she can feel it in the thoughts of other people. Her grasp of characterisation is strong, with each character painted vividly through Lauren's eyes, sometimes wrongly, with early impressions that a character might be trouble or a hero later shown to be the reverse of what is actually the case.

The book's strength might be its tone and suggestion that things might actually just fall apart due to pressure. There might not be an asteroid strike, or a nuclear war, or a global pandemic to bring things crashing down, it might just be that the collective will to make a society work fails. But there's also a line of hope running through the novel, a note of hope, that people can better than they sometimes are, and humanity is, for all its flaws, worthy of being saved.

Parable of the Sower (*****) is a rich and compelling novel from one of science fiction's master voices. It is available in the UK and USA now. A sequel, Parable of the Talents, was published in 1998.

Microsoft completes Zenimax/Bethesda acquisition

Microsoft have passed the last regulatory hurdles and, as of this morning, now own Zenimax Media and all its subsidiaries, namely the Bethesda Softworks family of video game developers. This includes Bethesda Game Studios itself and developers such as Arkane, Studios, id Software, MachineGames, Roundhouse Studios, Tango Gameworks and Zenimax Online.

This unites a significant number of video game titles under the Microsoft banner. The Zenimax/Bethesda portfolio includes franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, Prey and The Evil Within, as well as a slate of new titles being released over the next few years which may or may not launch larger franchises: Starfield, Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

Microsoft declared its intent to buy Bethesda in September, but the deal had to wait until regulatory approval had been given by the relevant authorities in both the United States and Europe before it could proceed.

The deal is worth $7.5 billion and is the second-largest video game acquisition in history (behind only Tencent's acquisition of Finnish mobile developer Supercell in 2016, for $8.6 billion). The deal expands Microsoft's portfolio of video game development studios to 23, representing a formidable concentration of creative firepower.

Microsoft's existing studios include 343 Industries (who handle the Halo franchise), the Coalition (Gears of War), Double Fine Productions, inXile Entertainment (Wasteland), Mojang Studios (Minecraft), Obsidian Entertainment (The Outer Worlds, Grounded, Avowed), Rare (Sea of Thieves), Playground Games (Fable), Turn 10 (Forza Motorsport), Undead Labs (State of Decay) and World's Edge (Age of Empires).

According to Microsoft, the acquisition is primarily designed to enhance and increase the appeal of their X-Box Game Pass service, a subscription service that gives gamers access to a large library of games for a nominal fee every month (essentially a Netflix for video games) via PC and X-Box consoles. This has left some Bethesda fans who game primarily on Sony's PlayStation platform concerned that future Bethesda games will not launch on their console. Microsoft have confirmed that Bethesda games they were exclusively contracted to Sony on console will still launch on that machine, including Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, but the fate of other Bethesda games will be decided on a game-by-game basis. In particular, PlayStation gamers fear that future games in the mega-popular Elder Scrolls and Fallout series will be X-Box-exclusive.

The first test of Microsoft's plans may appear sooner rather than later. According to rumour, Bethesda are planning to launch their new IP, Starfield, either this year or next, likely to be confirmed at the virtual E3 convention this year (or - hopefully - an in-person convention next year). Whether that game - an open-world RPG like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4 - will launch on PlayStation or not may represent a statement of intent over Microsoft's plans moving forwards. Previously Microsoft's highest-profile IP was Halo, but The Elder Scrolls and Fallout are even larger franchises and making them exclusive to the X-Box and PC platforms would give them formidable added value.

GRAND THEFT AUTO and RED DEAD REDEMPTION publishers planning a major release in late 2023

Slightly older news now, but Take Two Interactive's 2020 financials confirm that the company has earmarked a massive $90 million marketing spend for financial year 2023-24, indicating the company is planning a high-profile game release in that time period. The favourite money is on Grand Theft Auto VI, although there are several other possibilities.

Take Two Interactive own Rockstar Games, the developers of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises, as well as lower-key franchises like Max Payne, LA Noire, Bully, Midnight Club and Manhunt.

The jewel in the publisher's crown is the open-world action series Grand Theft Auto, which has clocked up over 320 million sales to become the biggest-selling video game series of all time developed in the West (running roughly neck-and-neck with Electronic Arts' FIFA series). Only Nintendo's Mario and Pokémon franchises have definitively sold more games, along with puzzle title Tetris in myriad different formats. Grand Theft Auto V (2013), the latest game in the series, has sold over 140 million copies by itself and last year alone sold over 20 million units, a startling number for a game in its eighth year on sale. In contrast, the biggest-selling game of 2020 appears to be Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which sold over 30 million copies in just over nine months. The biggest-selling open-world game was Cyberpunk 2077, which shifted over 13 million copies in just three weeks.

The long tail on GTAV, driven by its hugely popular multiplayer component, Grand Theft Auto Online, is extremely impressive, and also fortuitous, as the constant release of new content has helped sate demand for a sequel. Instead of directly working on a sequel to the game, Rockstar instead prioritised a game in another franchise, Red Dead Redemption 2, which was released in 2018 to critical acclaim. RDR2 has also enjoyed high sales, with current estimates of just under 40 million copies sold. Although work on a sixth GTA game likely began some time before RDR2 was completed, it was reportedly still only in an "early" state a year ago.

GTAV's marketing budget is estimated at around $50-70 million and somewhat more for RDR2, so a $90 million spend would not be unexpected for Take Two's biggest-ever franchise.

A release from one of Take Two's many other studios is unlikely to warrant that kind of spend. Hanger 13 is rumoured to be working on Mafia IV, also likely an open-world game set in a fictional city, but that series is relatively low-key compared to GTA. Firaxis Games are probably working on XCOM 3 and maybe Civilization VII, but those turn-based strategy games are unlikely to warrant this kind of expenditure. 

An outside possibility is BioShock, a popular first-person action game franchise from the publisher. BioShock 4 has been in development for two years at Cloud Chamber Games and, with the last game in the series released back in 2013, it might be that Take Two want a big marketing spend to let people know the game is coming out. However, with a sale base of around 34 million copies combined from three games, the series again would not warrant that kind of marketing spend.

An outside possibility is that Rockstar are preparing an ambitious remaster of one of their other games, with the original Red Dead Redemption being most likely; much of RDR1's map and assets were remade in the RDR2 iteration of the engine for the sequel, making the task of remounting the game in the new engine much simpler. In addition, RDR1's development was famously complicated and left the game code in a state that made updating or revamping it very difficult, and impossible to port to other formats. However, Rockstar are preparing a major remaster of GTAV for release this year with nothing like the same marketing spend, also making that unlikely.

If Rockstar are not planning to release Grand Theft Auto VI until financial year 2023-24, that puts even a trailer or announcement still a long way off. More news as it is revealed.

Paramount puts yet another STAR TREK movie into development

Paramount Pictures has put another Star Trek film script into development, the fourth in as many years, as the studio attempts to resurrect the movie franchise after a successful television relaunch.

A question Paramount have been struggling with is whether to continue the "Kelvin Timeline" of the J.J. Abrams-produced trilogy of Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016), or to take a different tack. Paramount's recent re-merger with CBS also grants them access to the characters and designs from the relaunched Star Trek television universe, and indeed the original shows as well.

A fourth film in the Kelvin Timeline, featuring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto etc reprising their roles, was developed for some time with S.J. Clarkson tapped to direct. The script reportedly involved time travel that would reunite Pine's younger Captain Kirk with his father, played by Chris Hemsworth. The project stalled due to budget problems and Pine and Hemsworth (who have both become much bigger stars in the meantime) being unwilling to accept a lower pay grade for appearing in the film. Reportedly some of these issues later eased, with Pine apparently willing to come back on board, but by that point momentum behind the project had died.

Meanwhile, Quentin Tarantino joined the party with a view to developing a more adult Star Trek film, later suggesting his idea was a feature-length take on the original series episode A Piece of the Action, in which the Enterprise crew visit a planet that has become a pastiche of human gangster films. Tarantino developed the idea for a year or two before deciding against directing in favour of producing. Paramount's interest in the project seemed to evaporate once Tarantino decided not to direct, although officially it remains on the backburner.

Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) then joined the bandwagon and apparently developed a new idea set in the Trek universe featuring an original cast of characters (after some initial confusion suggesting his script might involve Pine's crew). Hawley and Paramount agreed to develop the idea but it also seems to have lost momentum.

The new script is being developed by Kalinda Vazquez, a veteran of Star Trek: Discovery, Fear the Walking Dead, Runaways, Once Upon a Time and Prison Break. Vazquez was even named after an alien character who appeared in the original Star Trek episode By Any Other Name. Vazquez is currently developing a TV series based on Roger Zelazny's novel Roadmarks for HBO, with George R.R. Martin producing.

The new film's content is unknown, but apparently it is a brand new idea not related to any of the previous film scripts or ideas. It is unclear if the film would be set in the original "Prime Timeline" of the various TV series, or involve any of the characters from the shows Vazquez has worked on. However, it appears that J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot is producing, perhaps hinting at a return to Abrams' previous setting.

This is only a development deal and so far the film has not been formally greenlit. There is also no director attached at present.

The problems in getting a movie off the ground seem to stand in stark contrast with the success the franchise has had on television. Currently no less than five seasons of Star Trek are in simultaneous production, a record for the franchise: Season 1 of Prodigy, Season 2 of Lower Decks, Season 4 of Discovery, Season 2 of Picard and Season 1 of Strange New Worlds. Prodigy is due to launch this summer, whilst Season 2 of Lower Decks is due in late 2021. The other shows are expected to launch in 2022 (though there are some reports that Discovery's post-production is being accelerated to get it on air before the end of the year).

Cover art revealed for Steven Erikson's new MALAZAN novel, THE GOD IS NOT WILLING

The cover art has been revealed for The God is Not Willing, Steven Erikson's next novel in the world of his popular Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

The God is Not Willing is the first book in the Witness Trilogy, which picks up on dangling plot threads from the Malazan series. Specifically, it deals with the fate of the Teblor people of far northern Genabackis and the expected return of the infamous warrior Karsa Orlong (although Karsa himself is not expected to appear in the first volume).

This is the first Malazan novel by Erikson since Fall of Light in 2016, the second book in the Kharkanas Trilogy. Disappointing sales saw Erikson and his publishers agree to delay that trilogy whilst bringing forwards the Witness books, which they agreed were likely to be more commercially appealing. Since completing The God is Not Willing, Erikson has returned to work on Walk in Shadow, the concluding volume of the Kharkanas Trilogy.

The God is Not Willing is currently listed for publication on 1 July this year. Erikson's collaborator Ian Esslemont is also working on the fourth book in the Path to Ascendancy series, with the working title The Jhistal, with a tentative release date in November this year.