RIP Jennell Jaquays, D&D designer and artist and video game designer

Dungeons & Dragons designer and artist Jennell Jaquays has sadly passed away at the age of 67.

Born in Michigan in 1956, Jaquays attended Spring Arbor College in the late 1970s, where she become interested in the nascent roleplaying industry. Jaquays began playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1975, shortly after the game came out, and started a fanzine for the game, The Dungeoneer, alongside Mark Hendricks. The fanzine proved successful, and Jaquays began writing for the official TSR magazine, Dragon. She also began working for Judges Guild and freelancing for TSR, producing the officially-licensed D&D modules Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia, both of which became quite well-known in fan circles at the time. Dark Tower was the only none-TSR adventure included in Dungeon magazine's "Thirty Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time" list in 2004.

Jaquays expanded her remit to cover many of the popular roleplaying systems of the day, expanding from Dungeons & Dragons to work on Traveller and RuneQuest. In 1980 she was brought over to work at Coleco by Michael A. Stackpole (himself a wargaming and roleplaying legend for his work on BattleTech, as well as a Star Wars novelist), where she worked on home ports for popular arcade games like Donkey Kong.

Jaquays worked at id Software from 1997 to 2002, working on Quake II and Quake III: Arena as a level designer, before joining Ensemble Studios, where she worked on Age of Empires III and Halo Wars. After Ensemble collapsed in 2009, she moved to CCP to provide work for their game EVE Online. More recently she worked with her wife at Dragongirl Studios.

For Dungeons & Dragons, Jaquays is noted for her work on the classic Castle Greyhawk module for the World of Greyhawk setting, and for The Savage Frontier module for Forgotten Realms (large chunks of which were reprinted for The North: Guide to the Savage Frontier almost a decade later).

Jaquays co-won the 1989 Origins Gamer's Choice Award for Best Roleplaying Adventure. In 2017 she was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design. She was also active in the LGBTQ+ community, for which she was a strong voice in the gaming world.

A key worker in the field of both tabletop and video games, and with some impressive credits to her name which have been played and enjoyed by millions, she will be missed. She is survived by her wife and two children. She passed away earlier today from complications of Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Keanu Reeves and China Miéville to collaborate on new novel

Actor/icon Keanu Reeves is to co-write his first novel with British genre author China Miéville. The novel is called The Book of Elsewhere and is set in the BRZRKR universe co-created by Reeves for a comic series, which was published in 2021.

China Miéville is one of Britain's most acclaimed science fiction and fantasy authors. He began his career with King Rat in 1998 but made his name with Perdido Street Station (2000), the start of his loosely-connected Bas-Lag series (also comprising 2002's The Scar and 2004's Iron Council). His other works include the novels Un Lun Dun (2007), The City and The City (2009), Kraken (2011), Embassytown (2011), Railsea (2012) and the novellas The Tain (2002), This Census-Taker (2016) and The Last Days of New Paris (2016).

Miéville went on a hiatus from writing fiction to focus on academic work, writing October: The Story of the Russian Revolution (2017) and A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto (2022). The Book of Elsewhere will be his first published fiction in eight years and his first novel in twelve years. I don't think anyone would have bet money on his eagerly-awaited return to fiction being in the company of Keanu Reeves.

Reeves, obviously, is an acclaimed and iconic actor best-known for playing the titular character in the John Wick franchise (now at four films and a prequel TV show), Neo in the four Matrix movies and Johnny Silverhand in the video game Cyberpunk 2077 and its recent expansion, Phantom Liberty. BRZRKR is a 12-issue limited series focusing on an enigmatic warrior character called the Berzerker, who is immortal and fights his way across time. Reeves developed the title with Matt Kindt, with Ron Garney providing the artwork. 

The Book of Elsewhere will be published on 23 July this year. BRZRKR is also in development as a live-action Netflix project and an animated show.

RIP Bryan Ansell, WARHAMMER legend

News has sadly broken that veteran British game designer Bryan Ansell has passed away at the age of 68. Ansell was the co-founder of Citadel Miniatures and the boss of Games Workshop in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly the period when Warhammer 40,000 was launched. Ansell was a hands-on boss and worked on books and material for both the Warhammer fantasy and 40K universes.

Ansell was born in 1955 and became a key fan of science fiction, fantasy and wargaming at a young age. He sculpted his first miniature - a guardsman of Gondor - in 1966 after reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. A few years later he acquired a pyrogravure heat pen and set about converting Robin Hood figures produced by Airfix into hordes of orcs.

Ansell further developed his artistic skills as a teenager and began sculpting models for wargaming, earning him a job at Skytrex and then Conquest Miniatures. At Conquest he worked on the Age of Joman range. He was inspired to start his own company, Asgard Miniatures, in 1976, along with Paul Sulley and Steven Fitzwater. Whilst at Asgard he met and worked with Jes Goodwin, Nick Bibby, Tony Ackland and Rick Priestley. In 1978 Priestley and his friend Richard Halliwell created the wargame system Reaper for Tabletop Games, with a second edition following in 1981.

Ansell left Asgard in 1978 to found rival miniatures company Citadel Miniatures, with funding from British gaming company Games Workshop. Citadel Miniatures began churning out large numbers of generic figures for use with roleplaying games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons (to which Games Workshop held the exclusive European distribution rights). The company initially focused on fantasy figures but also branched out to science fiction, producing figures for the SF roleplaying game Traveller and then the TV series Doctor Who.

Bryan Ansell was notable for not just his sculpting skills but also his business acumen, and he noted that from the sales patterns that people were buying some of the more generic figures - orcs, dwarves, elves - in large numbers, enough for entire regiments. This suggested they were playing full-on wargames with the figures, not just the very small skirmishes allowed for by roleplaying games. The suggestion was made for Games Workshop to create their own wargame, drawing on their immense catalogue of figures rather than having to invent things from scratch. Based on their work on Reaper, Ansell brought in Priestley and Halliwell to design a new game that could make use of their existing range. The result was Warhammer, published in 1983 and an immediate success story. A second edition followed in 1984.

Ansell contributed creatively to the worldbuilding for Warhammer by working on the Chaos and Orc factions, and created the infamous Chaos Gods for the setting.

In 1983 Ansell founded Wargames Foundry as a spin-off company run by his father after his retirement.

Ansell instigated a buyout of Games Workshop in 1985 and an effective merging of Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures into a single company. Ansell oversaw a series of sustained growth for the company, first through the expansion of the Warhammer line and then the introduction of Warhammer 40,000 in 1987. Like Warhammer, the 40,000 line drew on GW's immense pre-existing SF figure line and even modifications of the fantasy line, sometimes literally taking orcs and removing their swords and bows in exchange for guns. As the line became hugely successful in its own right, bespoke models were introduced.

Ansell also redirected all Games Workshop offices and entities to be based in Nottingham. As the years passed, ex-GW employees would found their own companies nearby, leading to shared vendors and resources, creating an area known as the "Lead Belt," the centre of the British (and arguably European) warming miniatures scene.

Towards the end of his tenure Ansell saw the further expansion of the company, with the profile of their games raised by a strategic alliance with MB Games which resulted in the board games Hero Quest (1989) and Space Crusade (1990), as well as their first forays into video games. However, Ansell also directed the company to drop its work with other games and focus almost all of its creative efforts on the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 brands, with its associated White Dwarf magazine also becoming solely focused on the company's own games rather than the hobby at large. This move was criticised by some employees and some critics in the hobby at large.

Ansell left Games Workshop in 1991 to focus on his family and returning to his first love, of sculpting miniatures. He established Guernsey Foundry in 1991, transforming it into a new incarnation of Wargames Foundry in 2000. The new company specialised in historical figures with some SF elements. Bryan retired from the company in 2005, but mismanagement led to him returning in 2012. A new company, Casting Room, was set up to help ease the problems and bring in new models. A further company, Warmonger Miniatures, was set up in 2015 to sell exclusively fantasy figures.

Bryan Ansell was an integral part of the Games Workshop story, and his combination of creative and business inspirations led to the company's mass expansion in the 1980s and early 1990s, and the creation of Warhammer 40,000. He left an indelible mark on the British wargaming industry, and can be credited with transforming it, turning into a world-leader in the miniatures field. He will very much be missed.

Ciaphas Cain: The Emperor's Finest by Sandy Mitchell

Having narrowly escaped from an encounter with the feared necrons, Commissar Ciaphas Cain finds himself assigned as liaison to the Reclaimers Space Marine chapter, noted for their formidable weaponry, immense bravery and sometimes over-eager interest in technology. When rebel insurgents launch an uprising on Viridia against the local government, Cain fancies they are in for an easy campaign against an inferior foe. Of course, it's not long before genestealers abound, and Cain finds himself stuck with an overeager noble lady keen to ensnare him in political games, and a hellbound pursuit of a rogue hulk through deep space.

The misadventures of Ciaphas Cain are probably among the most purely entertaining in the Warhammer 40,000 canon. Whilst most books focus more on the "grim darkness" and "only war" bits of the setting, Sandy Mitchell's signature series instead tries to lighten things up, at least relatively. Commissar Cain believes himself to be blustering, cowardly and too eager to run at the first sign of trouble, but is constantly manoeuvred by fate into positions where he has no choice but to apparently-eagerly run to the front lines or into the most dangerous area possible, often surviving by the skin of his teeth and sometimes unexpectedly saving the day in such an outrageously public way. By this seventh novel in the series, things have gotten ludicrous enough that Cain is now getting full honour salutes from squads of Terminator Space Marines for his bravery (roughly akin to an angel saluting a particularly tenacious chimpanzee).

Of course, Cain's complaints about his cowardice and self-serving needs do seem to be contradicted by his actual proven ability to get tasks achieved and his impressive combat skills, and his constantly-present (via footnotes of varying degrees of bewilderment) editor-confessor, Inquisitor Amberly Vail, seems unsure about to what degree his "confession" is actual modesty, or even some psychological defence mechanism to rationalise a deeper-seated need to face death on a daily basis. This deep in the series it's a still a mystery (one I doubt will ever be solved), so it's probably best to move on and enjoy the ride.

The Emperor's Finest is, like most books in the series, fairly short but also packs a ton in. The book has three distinct sections, which less-disciplined authors might have tried to expand into a whole novel by themselves. The battle for Viridia is entertaining, with Cain acting as a liaison between the superhuman Space Marines and the ordinary human defenders, and getting into a Warhammer 40,000 meetcute (which means moderate flirting over the roaring exchange of bolter fire) with the governor's daughter, Mira. A slightly more interminable middle section follows as the Reclaimers try to track down the origin of the tyranid infestation, a space hulk cheerily named the Spawn of Damnation, whilst Cain tries to both win the respect of the Reclaimers and fend off Mira's attempts to lure him into political intrigue. The final section sees Cain, Jurgen (Cain's aide, think of the product of an unholy union of Baldrick and Gregor Clegane) and the Reclaimers let loose aboard the space hulk and finding things are far more complicated then they first imagined.

Mitchell delivers this with typical panache, with moments of humour and levity mixed in with above-competent action sequences and Vail's wry footnote interjections. However, the formula feels a tad off this time around. After a promising start, Mira never really develops into an interesting character and her storyline feels a bit rote. Cain's interactions with the Reclaimers and their crewmembers also hold a lot of promise but again are not fleshed out well: Cain's achievements in the book (from an outside POV) are highly impressive but I'm not sure he's done enough to earn the Reclaimers' overwhelming respect at the end. Cain is also at his best when in circumstances with lots of options for his natural self-serving tendencies to emerge and the reader to be left in doubt about his selfish/brave motivations. Here he spends a third of the book trapped on a space hulk with his back to the wall and no choice but to proceed to survive, which makes for a solidly tense adventure but doesn't service the character's best attributes.

Still, the book is short, to the point, has good action and some doses of light humour that the setting rather badly needs at time, so it's hard to complain too much. The Emperor's Finest (***½) delivers the required entertainment, but doesn't go above and beyond like the better books in the series. The novel is available now as part of the Ciaphas Cain: Saviour of the Imperium omnibus, along with its two succeeding novels and several short stories.

Ciaphas Cain Novel Timeline

919.M41 (40,919 CE): Fight or Flight (Novella #1). Cain meets Jurgen, deploys with the 12^th Valhallan Field Artillery to Desolatia IV.

924: Death or Glory (Book #4). Perlia campaign.

928: Echoes of the Tomb (Short Story): Adeptus Mechanicus mission, fights necrons.

928: The Emperor’s Finest (Book #7). Cain joins Reclaimer Space Marines, aids in Space Hulk retrieval mission.

931: For the Emperor (Book #1). Gravalax campaign, formation of the 597^th Valhallan Regiment.

932: Caves of Ice (Book #2): Simia Orichalcae campaign.

932: Duty Calls (Book #5): Periremunda campaign.

937: The Traitor’s Hand (Book #3): Adumbria campaign.

942: The Last Ditch (Book #8): Nusquam Fundumentibus campaign.

c. 951-954: Choose Your Enemies (Book #10): Ironfound campaign.

992: The Greater Good (Book #9): Siege of Quadravidia.

c. 993: Vainglorious (Book #11): Eucopia engagement.

999: Cain’s Last Stand (Book #6): Thirteenth Black Crusade. Chaos assault on Perlia, Cain comes out of retirement to lead defence.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham

Garreth Left is the heir to one of the merchant families of Kithamar, but their economic prospects have become dire. An alliance with a faction outside the city provides salvation, but at a price that Garreth is not willing to pay. Elaine ab-Deniya Nycis a Sal is a princess of the city, the daughter to the heir apparent to the throne. Moving into the palace for the first time, she uncovers mysterious secrets that she should - but cannot - let go. Elaine and Garreth's destines entwine with those of a city watch captain and the ruler of the city's criminal underground, and a tumultuous year continues to turn around the great city of Kithamar.

The Kithamar Trilogy is Daniel Abraham's latest fantasy work. The co-author of the Expanse space opera series and the solo author of the Long Price Quartet and the Dagger and the Coin series, Abraham has long been praised as an author of character-based fantasy with interesting, original worlds and forms of magic. This trilogy takes a new approach, with three books set in the same city at the same time but involving different characters, sort of a fantasy version of Krzysztof Kieslowski's classic Three Colours film trilogy. Each story more or less stands alone but reading the whole trilogy results in greater understanding of the epic events unfolding under the surface: each book has a piece of the puzzle that becomes clear when all three are read.

Balancing this metaplot with the needs of the book at hand can be tricky, and the first book in the triad, Age of Ash, did not always succeed in doing so. It remains an excellent book but there was a greater feeling that you didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. Blade of Dream is much more successful in crafting a compelling narrative on its own as well as working as part of a broader whole.

The story this time is perhaps a tad more traditional fantasy. Garreth is the young man unsure of his station and ambitions who rebels against the stifling destiny his family want to force on him. Elaine is the noblewoman likewise unsure of her station who has few friends she can trust, as opposed to those who want to take advantage of her station. They are thrust together by circumstances and find a new way forwards, through political intrigue, back-alley stabbings and full-on conflict between the city guard and a criminal organisation. Blade of Dream is literally a "higher" book than Age of Ash, taking place in the mercantile and royal districts whilst Age of Ash was more at home in the downmarket slums.

Blade of Dream certainly works as a far above-average example of a medieval (ish) city-set fantasy, but it's also a powerfully emotional book. Abraham delves into his characters' heads to craft very three-dimensional and interesting protagonists, and what drives and motivates them. I've occasionally mused that Abraham could be the closest author we have to becoming a natural heir of Guy Gavriel Kay, but that feeling is hugely intensified by this book. The traditional fantasy trappings could be dropped altogether and this would still work wonderfully as a character study. But those traditional fantasy trappings are here, and realised well with a compelling mystery and some fascinating worldbuilding.

Blade of Dream (****½) is an improvement on its forebear and marks this trilogy as Abraham's most mature and interesting work yet. The final novel in the trilogy, with the working title Judge of Worlds, is due out next year.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Amazon and Games Workshop sign agreement to develop WARHAMMER 40,000 projects for the screen

As reported a year ago, Amazon have announced a comprehensive alliance with British wargaming company Games Workshop. The deal will cover Games Workshop's popular Warhammer 40,000 science fantasy setting and will allow Amazon to develop multiple television and film projects based on WH40K games and novels, both live action and animated. Amazon have also confirmed that everybody's favourite geek-thespian, Henry Cavill, will play a key role in their projects as producer, creative overseer and actor in at least one of the properties.

Whilst previously Amazon and Games Workshop had merely entered into talks, those talks have now progressed to signed contracts.

Warhammer 40,000 is a multimedia science fiction/fantasy/horror franchise. Set almost 39,100 years in the future, the property depicts a time when humanity has successfully gone into space and colonised more than a million worlds scattered across our galaxy. Faster-than-light travel is only possible via the Warp, a chaotic realm wherein dwell the evil Chaos Gods. The influence of the Chaos Gods is felt on many worlds, with Chaos cults falling victim to their evil and undermining the Imperium of Mankind from within. Alien races such as the Orks, the Eldar, the Necrons, the Tyranids and the Tau also post threats of varying degrees to the Imperium. The Imperium itself is also not the best place to live, with millions of people dying every day in the service of the God-Emperor of Mankind, toiling in misery on mechanical Hive Worlds or dying in the service of the Imperium's vast armies and space fleets. Chief among the Imperium's defenders are the Space Marines, genetically-engineered super warriors in towering power armour.

The franchise began in 1987 as a tabletop wargame, which remains the biggest-selling property in the genre, but has since branched out to over 500 works of original fiction, including novels, comics, audio dramas, animated films and video games.

This isn't Hollywood's first rodeo in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium. Four years ago Games Workshop agreed to option out the Eisenhorn series of novels by Dan Abnett with a view to developing a TV series to be helmed by Man in the High Castle and X-Files producer Frank Spotnitz. It is believed that Spotnitz held discussions with Amazon, whom he worked with on High Castle, but the project did not move forwards at that time.

Eisenhorn remains a reasonable starting point for the franchise, with a cast consisting of mostly human characters with only occasional appearances by the Space Marines (the signature faction of the setting) and daemonic forces. This is an easier entry point versus the total gonzoid epic war insanity of something like The Horus Heresy series.

It is also possible Amazon might look to develop a series based on Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series, which features relatable characters belonging to the Imperium's regular human army, the Imperial Guard. However, both Amazon and Games Workshop may be keener for something that front-and-centres the Space Marines and other core factions like the Orks, Tyranids or Necrons.

Cavill is a noted Warhammer franchise fan. He's appeared in videos to discuss the lore and his love of painting Warhammer miniature figures, and spoken of his appreciation for several of the spin-off video games and novels. He has even corrected confused interviewers over the differences between the Warhammer and WarCraft universes.

Games Workshop, Amazon Studios and Vertigo Entertainment will collaborate on the first project, the details of which have yet to be revealed, with Cavill tapped to star and executive produce, as well as extending his advice over other projects in the franchise. Games Workshop and Cavill both appear to be keen for any adaptation to hew close to the source material and not deviate purposelessly away, which seemed to become a bone of contention between Cavill and Netflix over their work on The Witcher.

GW and Amazon have indicated they will spend the next year working on the details of the first adaptation, so it will likely still be several years before any project actually appears on-screen.

RIP James McCaffrey, the voice of Max Payne

News has sadly broken that actor James McCaffrey has passed away at the age of 65, following a battle with cancer.

Born in Albany, New York, McCaffrey began acting on-screen in the late 1980s and by the mid-1990s had started being cast in leading roles. He starred in TV shows including New York Undercover, Viper, Swift Justice and As the World Turns.

In 2001 he was cast as the voice of video game character Max Payne, in the video game of the same name from Remedy Entertainment. Payne was the narrator as well as the star, and had more dialogue than everyone else in the game put together. McCaffrey's world-weary delivery, influenced by every hard-bitten detective noir story ever written, was pitch-perfect and won him an immediate legion of fans.

McCaffrey returned to the role for Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003) and Max Payne 3 (2013), and also had a cameo in the disappointing Max Payne movie (2008).

James McCaffrey (left) with Sam Lake (lead writer at Remedy and the face of Max Payne in the original game) and Matthew Porretta (the voice of Alan Wake) in November 2022.

McCaffrey later starred in Rescue Me as Jimmy Keefe and became a perennial guest star on American television and a reliable supporting player in films.

Remedy Entertainment continued their association with McCaffrey by casting him as Alex Casey, a fictional detective clearly based on Payne (whom they couldn't use for copyright reasons) in Alan Wake (2010). He returned to Remedy to play Zachariah Trench in Control (2019). He returned as two distinct versions of Casey in Alan Wake II just this year, winning acclaim for his performance. It was assumed he would resume the world of Max Payne in Max Payne Remake, an upcoming remake of the first two games from Remedy.

McCaffrey's gravelly vocal performances across two franchises will go down as some of the all-time great video game performances, and he will be missed.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching is serious and studious for her age, and has little truck with myths and superstition. When her brother is kidnapped by an evil supernatural force from another universe and she is offered an alliance with the Nac Mac Feegle, a species of diminutive-but-psychotic warriors, this offends Tiffany's worldview. But pragmatism wins out, and she has to reluctantly embark on an adventure.

The Wee Free Men is the thirtieth Discworld novel, and when you're thirty books into any series you might be forgiven for resting on your laurels a bit, especially when the previous one, Night Watch, is often cited as the best thing you've ever written. For Sir Terry Pratchett, this was not an option. Having experimented with a Discworld book for younger audiences, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, he decided to start a whole new sub-series within the wider Discworld framework that would be aimed primarily at younger readers.

Pratchett being Pratchett, this meant relatively little changes or compromises to his usual vision. Some of the very occasional double entendre gags are gone, the book is somewhat shorter than usual, but beyond that Pratchett didn't really censor himself at all. If anything, this is a more thoughtful, contemplative Discworld book than the norm, with some enjoyable setpieces interrupted by Tiffany's internal musings on life and her ambitions.

Tiffany is smart, curious and sensible, not given to recklessness but also having a strong moral centre. She may be a quintessential Discworld protagonist, being often the only sane person in the room and constantly wondering why selfishness and hatred even exist. She is cut from the same competence cloth as Granny Weatherwax and Samuel Vimes, but lacks their experience and cynicism. She is a well-drawn protagonist who has to overcome problems presented by capable enemies, rather than because she's holding an idiot ball (something many other writers could learn from).

What is impressive about The Wee Free Men is how much of it is told from within Tiffany's head: the Nac Mac Feegle are not given to in-depth dialogue (although they have a few bon mots of wisdom) and many of the other characters are evil, monsters, stupid adults or even less-communicative children. Just about the only person Tiffany can have a decent 1:1 conversation with is a sentient toad. This means we get to lock into Tiffany's thought processes and motivations in a lot of depth, which is refreshing.

Taking part in a hitherto-unexplored part of the Disc with almost no recurring characters (not even Death, making this the first Discworld novel that he skips out on), at least until the last chapter, The Wee Free Men also makes a viable on-roading point for the entire series. Technically the main villain did (briefly) appear in Lords and Ladies, but that is really not alluded to in the book so is not hugely important.

The Wee Free Men (****½) sheds a lot of the extended subplots that had started padding out the Discworld books around this time and is focused and entertaining, with a small but well-drawn cast of characters. It's funny, but intermittently, with musings on growing up and responsibility. For the first in a new, YA (or outright children)-focused series, it's surprisingly contemplative and thoughtful, and all the richer for it.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

GOOD OMENS renewed for third and final season at Amazon

Amazon Prime Television have greenlit a third and final season of the Good Omens TV series, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and the late Sir Terry Pratchett.

The first season was released in 2019 and was a critical and commercial success, adapting the original 1990 novel. The second season was released in 2022 and saw Gaiman developing an original story based on some ideas he'd discussed with Terry over the decades. This third season will adapt a firmer idea that Pratchett and Gaiman had developed for a sequel novel but never gotten around to putting on paper.

Gaiman will once again serve as showrunner and executive producer, with production due to begin in Scotland in the coming months. David Tennant and Martin Sheen once again return to play the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale.

MURDERBOT DIARIES TV series greenlit at Apple+

Apple+ have greenlit a television adaptation of Martha Wells' science fiction book series, The Murderbot Diaries.

The series comprises seven works published to date: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry and System Collapse. Network Effect and System Collapse are (short) novels, the other works are novellas.

The series depicts the adventures and misadventures of "Murderbot," a former assassin droid which has broken free of its programming and achieved sentience and volition. The droid now wants to do nothing more than be left alone to enjoy binge-watching TV shows, but it constantly finds itself drawn into human misadventures, eventually building up a number of recurring allies and enemies.

Apple+ have taken the step of ordering the TV version to series immediately (apparently the groundwork was laid a year ago but delayed by the writers' and actors' strikes). Producers Chris and Paul Weitz are also serving as showrunners, writers and directors for the series, with David S. Goyer serving as producer. Goyer's involvement may have helped the project land at Apple, as he is the current showrunner and executive producer on Foundation for the same streamer.

Chris Weitz has previous genre adaptation form, having directed the film version of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass and was previously involved in an attempt to bring Scott Bakker's challenging Prince of Nothing trilogy to television. With his brother Paul, they worked on the American Pie movie series. Chris also co-wrote the Star Wars movie Rogue One.

Actor Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood, Succession) has already been cast in the lead role of Murderbot and production of the 10-episode first season is expected to begin in the next few months for a 2025 debut. It is unclear how many of the books will be adapted in the first season.