Obsidian Entertainment are working on three games

Obsidian Entertainment have confirmed that they currently have three titles at varying stages of development.

A screenshot from the forthcoming Tyranny.

First up is Tyranny, a roleplaying game that they are developing for Paradox, due for release later this year. This game is set in a world where the bad guys have already won and the dark lord is in control of the land.

Second is Pillars of Eternity II. The original Pillars of Eternity (which I really need to get back to) was a big success and made Obsidian a solid amount of profit. A sequel is a no-brainer. However, this is in a rather early stage of development and Obsidian are still considering going back to Kickstarter for the sequel.

Most intriguingly, they have also got a third game under development in secret. This third game is, specifically, being worked on by Tim Cain, the creator of Fallout and former head honcho at Troika, Troika being the company that worked on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines using the then-cutting edge 3D Source Engine. The new game is using the now-cutting edge 3D Unreal 4 Engine, and Obsidian's new partners-in-crime Paradox recently gained the Vampire licence when they, er, bought the entire company lock, stock and barrel. Fans are already running around screaming in hope that Obsidian and Paradox may be collaborating on a new Vampire game with some of the same team who made Bloodlines working on it. Paradox also recently bought the specific Bloodlines trademarks and rights, which would allow them to make a direct sequel or remake the first game. There is also the possibility that this new game might be related to Obsidian's recent partnership with Paizo Publishing to make video games based on the Pathfinder RPG system.

The Lost Reviews: Part 9 - Season 2, Episodes 13-20

Welcome to the Lost rewatch project. I am currently rewatching all 121 episodes of the TV series which aired for six seasons from 2004 to 2010. This is very much a rewatch thread, with the show watched with knowledge of what is to come in later seasons. If you've never watched Lost before, you definitely do not want to read this blog series.

Without further ado, let us continue after the jump.

 "There's a new sherrif in town."

First set pics from THE DARK TOWER movie

The first set pics have leaked from The Dark Tower, a movie based on Stephen King's eight-volume fantasy series. They depict Idris Elba in the lead role of Roland Deschain and various other crewmembers, locations and costumes.

The Dark Tower has just begun filming and is expected to be released in January 2017.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B)

The Excelsior (variant)-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-B), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2290-93. The ship was commissioned and launched in late 2293 under the command of Captain John Harrison. The Enterprise-B was lost in 2329, having served for thirty-six years, making it the second-longest-serving Enterprise after the Constitution-class version.

Class History

In the late 2260s and early 2270s Starfleet made the decision to radically overhaul its fleet of starships and outfit them with the latest technology. This led to the creation of more compact and efficient ships like the Miranda class and the refitting of the venerable Constitution class (in service since the early 2240s). The decision was also made to develop a new and very formidable heavy cruiser, a new flagship class for the fleet. This ship would be outfitted with weapons and defences that would dwarf older ships and would also be outfitted for long-term, deep-space exploration and scientific research.

There would also be another requirement for this ship: it would be the fastest ship in the fleet and the fastest in Federation history. Breakthroughs in warp science had led to the creation of the transwarp theory, which could propel a ship from a standing start to speeds surpassing Warp 9.9 in seconds and then sustain that speed safely and indefinitely. This would allow Federation starships to travel between systems in hours rather than days, between sectors in days rather than weeks and traverse known space in a couple of months rather than in two years or more. It would confer on the Federation a massive strategic advantage over potential enemies, and rapidly increase the speed of its  exploration of the galaxy.

So was born the "Great Experiment", the transwarp drive, and the need to design and build a new spaceframe capable of handling it. It was decided to draw on the highly successful primary/secondary hull arrangement of the Constitution class but in a vessel that was almost twice the size. By the late 2270s this design had been finalised and construction of the pathfinder/prototype ship of the class began in great secrecy. That ship was designated USS Excelsior, construction number NX-2000.

The Excelsior was completed in 2285 and transferred to Earth's new Spacedock facility to begin field tests on its transwarp drive under the auspices of Captain Styles. Captain of Engineering Montgomery Scott, respected for his two decades of service on the USS Enterprise, was transferred to Excelsior to help with the trials. However, Admiral James T. Kirk stole the Enterprise to undertake an unauthorised mission. Scott joined him, sabotaging the Excelsior's transwarp control computer so it could not pursue. This resulted in an unplanned system cascade failure that immobilised the entire ship. The Excelsior had to be towed back into Spacedock for repairs (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock).

"The Great Experiment", USS Excelsior (NCC-2000). Designed in the 2270s, built circa 2280-84 and completed in 2285. The ship was finally commissioned in the late 2280s and undertook its first long-term mission under Captain Hikaru Sulu in 2290-93.

No sooner was the ship operational again then the "whalesong" crisis of 2286 took place and the Excelsior was shut down and neutralised by an alien probe entering Earth orbit, along with the entire Spacedock and the USS Yorktown (soon to be renamed the Enterprise-A). Based on the subsequent disastrous performance of the Yorktown, it could be that the Excelsior was likewise adversely affected by the alien probe's passing and took some time to return to operational status (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

The Excelsior finally began its much-delayed transwarp test missions circa 2287, but by 2289 these trials had concluded unsuccessfully: the transwarp drive was a failure, unable to sustain the transwarp field for very long and unable to deliver the promised speeds. However, although the transwarp drive itself was proclaimed a failure, the ship's spaceframe design was considered excellent and performed even better than had been expected in non-transwarp-related areas. In 2289-90 Starfleet finally formally commissioned the starship, redesignating it NCC-2000 and refitted it with a standard warp drive system. Captain Hikaru Sulu, formerly of the Enterprise, was placed in command of the Excelsior for its first three-year mission cataloguing gaseous anomalies in star systems in the more distant regions of the Beta Quadrant. The Excelsior was returning to Federation territory via the Neutral Zone when the Klingon moon Praxis exploded. A subspace shockwave damaged the Excelsior, which alerted the Federation to the situation. Sulu continued to monitor subsequent events, such as the trial of Captain Kirk for the murder of Chancellor Gorkon, and brought the Excelsior to Khitomer to support the Enterprise. The two starships bracketed and destroyed the Klingon Bird of Prey commanded by the treacherous General Chang, helping to end the crisis (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

Starfleet also began building a series of new ships using the same spaceframe and design, now confirmed as the Excelsior-class. This class of starship would soon become the mainstay of Starfleet, with at least dozens and possibly hundreds of starships of this design being built over the next century. The Excelsior-class was still serving with honour and distinction during the Dominion War (2373-75) and ships of this class helped welcome the USS Voyager home after its seven-year exodus to the Delta Quadrant (2378). The Excelsior-class even outlasted the class that had been intended to replace it, the Ambassador, and construction of the ships only began to fall off with the introduction of the more versatile Galaxy class in the 2360s.

With the Excelsior-class entering full production circa 2290, the decision was also made to revamp and revise the design with a variant class which was even more powerful. The decision what to name the first ship of this variant was made when Starfleet - controversially - decided to retire the Constitution-class in 2293.

The USS Enterprise encounters the Nexus energy ribbon on its maiden voyage in 2293.

Operational History

Starfleet had planned to build a series of Excelsior-class starships since designing the ship in the late 2270s. However, it only enacted this plan once the spaceframe for the ship had been tested in the field. Construction of the first batch of ships began circa 2289/90, with at least one of these ships being of the new variant type. The variant type was equipped with additional impulse drives to deliver greater performances at sublight and had its hull design expanded to accommodate greater cargo and living space.

When it was announced that the Constitution-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) was being retired after seven years in service, it was decided that the first ship of the variant class would be named the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B. The Enterprise-B was formally commissioned and launched in late 2293, just a few months after the Enterprise-A was retired following the Battle of Khitomer. Captain John Harriman was placed in command for its maiden voyage. However, Starfleet decided to invite Captain James T. Kirk and two of his former crewmen, Captain Scott and Commander Chekov, on the mission. During this mission the Enterprise-B received a distress call from an El-Aurian ship trapped in an energy ribbon known as the Nexus. The Enterprise-B successfully executed a rescue mission, but suffered severe damage to the secondary hull in the process. During this mission it appeared that Captain James T. Kirk had been killed. However, classified documents later confirmed that Kirk had been drawn into the Nexus (which acted as the gateway to a parallel universe) itself. He escaped in 2371 and was finally killed battling an El-Aurian terrorist named Soran (Star Trek: Generations).

Despite this inauspicious start, the Enterprise-B went on to serve with great distinction and honour. The ship became one of the more decorated to bear the name Enterprise before its destruction in 2329, after thirty-six years in service. It only narrowly missed out on the record set by the Constitution-class Enterprise (NCC-1701), which served for forty years (2245-85).

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-B was a variant Excelsior-class starship, predominantly based on the pathfinder/prototype design of the USS Excelsior but differing in several key respects. The Enterprise-B was one of the first Federation starships designed with a separable saucer section which was designed to operate autonomously and then rejoin the rest of the ship later on. This required the addition of two impulse drives to the saucer to allow it to function by itself. The engineering hull was also modified to allow for more cargo and living space. This proved helpful as the Enterprise-B's very first mission was an evacuation one, and this space allowed more people to be placed on board.

This variant of the standard Excelsior design later fell out of favour, with only a few other starships (such as the USS Lakota) using the same design. The relative infrequency with which the variants needed to engage in saucer separations and the much greater cost/benefit ratio of the standard class saw the Federation switch back to using the original Excelsior design from the early 2300s onwards.

*The Enterprise-B was 511.25 metres (1,677 feet) long, 195.64 metres (642 feet) wide and 86.76 meters (285 feet) tall. The ship had about 30 decks. It had a crew of approximately 750 and employed 10 dual emitter phaser banks and 6 photon torpedo tubes, some of them aft-facing. This contrasted dramatically with the Constitution-class's more modest 6 dual emitter phasers and 2 forward-facing photon torpedo tubes. The Enterprise-B could sustain Warp 9 for considerably longer than its predecessor, with a cruising speed of Warp 7 (compared to Warp 5 for the previous ship).

* The sizing of the Excelsior class has been problematic ever since the original ship was designed in 1983, as the ILM effects crew did not actually decide on a scale for the ship. Aside from the general idea that it was a bigger ship than the Enterprise, no final size determination was made. This was complicated by the lack of details on the model to compare to set details (i.e. the Excelsior bridge was a simple dome with no roof window or other element to compare to the size of the actual bidge set) and the fact that the ship model was deliberately built to be smaller and easier to shoot than the massive and ungainly Enterprise studio model. The matter was address by scaling shots in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country showing the two ships next to each other, with the Excelsior dwarfing the Enterprise.

The matter was supposed to be settled by the publication of The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, which gave the figures above for the size of the Excelsior-class, apparently drawing on the CGI models built for Deep Space Nine's last two seasons. Although "official", these figures are not necessarily canon and contrasting figures of c. 450 metres (for length) and only 500 crewmembers are given in other sources.

The USS Excelsior confronting a Klingon K'Tinga-class battlecruiser in 2293.

Behind the Scenes
The decision to build a new, "super" Federation starship was made by producer Harve Bennett during the writing of Star Trek III: The Seach for Spock. The script called for the Excelsior, a ship larger and more powerful than the Enterprise, but coming from the same design family: a B-29 bomber compared to the original ship's B-17. David Carson and Nilo Rodis-Jamaro of Industrial Light and Magic were predominantly responsible for early designs of the ship, with Bill George finalising the design.

The idea was that the new ship would make the Enterprise feel antiquated, until Scotty turns the tables and sabotages the ship. However, many Star Trek fans liked the Excelsior - it was actually only the third Federation starship class to ever appear on screen after the Constitution and Miranda (a fourth, the Oberth, appeared only minutes later in Star Trek III) - and it went on to make brief appearances in Star Trek IV and V. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country the ship played a larger role as Sulu was promoted to Captain and placed in command of the ship. It also played a key role in Flashback, a third season episode of Star Trek: Voyager which was written to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise in 1996.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation began production in 1986 it was decided that the show would be set on an Enterprise a century removed from the NCC-1701-A introduced in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This eventually became the Galaxy-class NCC-1701-D. However, to show a sense of design continuity it was decided to have a wall display showing the intervening ships to bear the name. With the USS Excelsior proving to be a fan-favourite design, it was an easy decision to make the Enterprise-B a ship of that class. In addition to this, the writers decided to use the Excelsior model to represent other Federation starships in ST:TNG, including the USS Hood, USS Repulse and USS  Farragut. The idea was that the Excelsior-class was an experimental, cutting-edge design in the late 23rd Century but by the mid-24th had become a standard, even slightly outdated starship model.

It was originally assumed that the Enterprise-B and C would never appear on screen, but this changed in the third season ST:TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise, which depicted the Enterprise-C. When Ronald D. Moore was given the task of co-writing the movie Star Trek: Generations, which would see the original series crew handing over to The Next Generation team, he decided to depict the events in the past on the Enterprise-B. The Enterprise-B was a redress of the Excelsior model, adjusted with new impulse engines on the saucer and extensions to the secondary hull. These extensions were to both sell the ship as a variant design and also so one of them could be blown off in the Nexus without damaging the original model underneath. Unfortunately, after filming it was discovered that the adhesive used to fix the new parts in place could not be easily removed, so the extensions were left in place. This is why the USS Lakota in Deep Space Nine's fourth season is also a variant Excelsior-class of the same type as the Enterprise-B. This was the last time that the model was used, so when it was eventually auctioned off the model was still labelled as the Lakota.

For the Voyager episode Flashback in 1996, a new Excelsior model was needed. This model was built at half the size of the original, and was used in several scenes. Although smaller than the original, the model was deemed good enough to appear several times on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well. However, by the time that show entered its final two seasons it had transitioned to CGI. The smaller Excelsior model was used as the study and guide for these CGI versions, explaining why the Enterprise-B variant was no longer seen in the other series.

No formally canonical explanation has ever been given for the final fate of the Enterprise-B. However, several short stories and a couple of reference guides state that the ship was lost in 2329 after the crew contracted an unknown infection. The ship was presumably scuttled to prevent this infection from passing onto others. The Ambassador-class Enterprise-C was commissioned in 2332 to replace it. Although these dates have not been confirmed by any TV series or movie, every book, reference guide and new ship model released in the last few years has used these dates, making them the most consistent to be used.

Excerpt from Scott Bakker's THE GREAT ORDEAL

Scott Bakker has released an excerpt from The Great Ordeal, the third and penultimate volume of The Aspect-Emperor. Grimdark Magazine has the excerpt here.

The Great Ordeal will be released in the United States by Overlook Press on 5 July 2016. Orbit Books in the UK have not yet confirmed a release date, although there is a tentative listing of 29 September for the UK ebook edition, which may indicate the print release date. The final volume in the sequence, The Unholy Consult, is already complete and will be released some time in 2017.

Star Trek at 50: Building the Next Generation

In 1977 Star Trek nearly returned to television screens as Phase II, a series that would star both the original cast and a number of newer, younger characters who would, over a long period of time, take over the reigns of the franchise as a new generation of stars. In the event, the TV series was cancelled in favour of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Made with the heavy involvement of original Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, the film went drastically over-budget and attracted mixed reviews, although its commercial performance was reasonable. Roddenberry's involvement was scaled back and three sequels - The Wrath of Khan (1982), The Search for Spock (1984) and The Voyage Home (1986) - were both critically more successful and more profitable.

The original cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

However, as the movie series continued and became more successful, Paramount had to accept both wage hikes and production agreements to keep the original series stars on board. William Shatner returned for The Voyage Home only after a pay rise and an understanding was reached that he would direct the fifth movie (after his co-star Leonard Nimoy had directed the previous two films). With the actors also ageing and the appeal of visual effects-heavy SF movies featuring characters in their fifties and sixties questionable, the future of the franchise looked less certain.

The decision was made by Paramount to start work on a new Star Trek TV series, with early development work undertaken by writer/producer Greg Strangis. They decided that the new series would feature all-new characters and an all-new Enterprise, and be set considerably further in the future than the original show. Creating an entirely new Star Trek paradigm was considered risky without fan support, and to bring them on board Paramount decided to ask Leonard Nimoy to join in either a consulting role or a more hands-on producing capacity. However, Nimoy was busy with Star Trek IV and didn't want to dive straight from that film's post-production into a gruelling television schedule.

After some debate, Paramount decided to ask Gene Roddenberry to take the helm of the new series. After Roddenberry's handling of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, this raised alarms in some quarters but it was also noted that the first two seasons of the original Star Trek, made with Roddenberry's direct involvement, had been brought in at cost and were generally considered superior to the third season where he took a back seat. Much to their surprise, Roddenberry initially turned them down. He'd felt shut out of the production process on the second through fourth movies and was unhappy with what he felt was a move away from his original, utopian vision. Paramount wooed him back by granting him showrunner status. Paramount's own reservations about using Roddenberry were assuaged when Roddenberry himself requested that a Paramount executive be assigned to him as a co-producer to handle the day-to-day demands of production, freeing Roddenberry up to focus on the writing and casting. Paramount assigned Rick Berman, an up-and-coming producer noted for his strong negotiating skills and his cost-conscious production style, to the new project.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was formally announced on 10 October 1986 as a new, relatively big-budget TV production that would air directly in syndication. It would debut the following September, not giving Roddenberry and Berman much time to get production underway. They decided to assemble a team tapping into some of the talent from the original show, including writers D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold and producers Robert Justman and Eddie Milkis (who would leave towards the end of the first season). Designer Andrew Probert also joined from the film series, along with scenic artist Mike Okuda and production designer Rich Sternbach. Working from Roddenberry's ideas, Gerrold wrote a series bible drawing on inspiration from the original series and some of the follow-ups.

The Galaxy-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) is the ship used in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is the fifth ship to bear the name, following on from the Constitution-class ship used in the original series and the first three movies, a second Constitution-class ship used in the next three films and two further vessels of - at this time - unknown design.

The new series featured a number of ideas that had been developed for Phase II and The Motion Picture. Most notably, this included an empathic counsellor (Counsellor Troi, replacing Lt. Ilia) and a younger, more dynamic first officer who would command away teams (Commander Riker, replacing Commander Decker). Initially Roddenberry didn't want to use the Klingons at all, but was intrigued by one idea raised by Greg Strangis during the initial brainstorming phase. This idea was that Klingons and the Federation had made peace and were now allies. In the glasnost-driven era of the late 1980s, Roddenberry felt this was a fine notion and took it further by assigning a permanent Klingon character to the show, Lt. Worf. Roddenberry also didn't want to repeat himself with a Vulcan crewmember but was delighted by one idea that emerged from the brainstorming sessions: an android who wanted to be human and developed a kind of Pinocchio complex. Roddenberry himself developed the notion of the Federation as having evolved further into a utopian society since Kirk's day, with want and need eliminated and humanity's primary desire now being to evolve and enrich itself with knowledge and equality. Slightly paradoxically, however, he was also inspired by the character of Vasquez in the film Aliens (1986) into including a hot-headed, trigger-happy female security officer (who eventually became Lt. Yar).

The writing of scripts became problematic due to salary issues, with Roddenberry trying to impose less-than-union rates for some of the writers and even script editor D.C. Fontana. Relations between the two deteriorated, with Fontana recording conversations with Roddenberry and Roddenberry bringing his lawyer Leonard Maizlish to meetings. After co-writing the pilot and several draft scripts, Fontana left and Maizlish, despite having no official standing, became de facto script editor. David Gerrold hung around for longer, but after being called "disloyal" several times by Roddenberry also quit at the end of the first season. Writer-producer Maurice Hurley joined partway through Season 1 and his influence was credited with stabilising the chaotic writing room.

Design-wise, things went much more smoothly. In fact, Andrew Probert designed the brand new Enterprise by simply pulling out an unused concept from The Motion Picture which Roddenberry approved almost instantly. The new Enterprise was designed NCC-1701-7, but after "1701-A" was used for the second Enterprise in The Voyage Home this was changed to "1701-G" and then "1701-D", by which time it was also being described as a Galaxy-class starship. The designers came up with the idea for smooth, touch-control surfaces with no obvious buttons, and the control panels reconfiguring themselves for different modes or to the user's preference. They also developed the idea for ultrathin, tablet-like computer devices called PADDs, which designers from Apple would later cite as an influence on their thinking for the iPad.

Casting went somewhat smoothly, with a mixture of new faces (Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn), experienced-but-not-well-known hands (Patrick Stewart, Gates McFadden) and a couple of noted up-and-comers (LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton). Roddenberry initially opposed the casting of Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, not wanting to cast a "bald British guy" but with Berman highly in favour of the idea, which he thought would defy expectations. Stewart was called in to test for the Paramount execs in a wig, but was told to lose it for the series. The main cast was announced in May 1987.

The production of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was infamously chaotic, with Roddenberry often rewriting scripts to their detriment and his lawyer Leonard Maizlish meddling in almost every part of production. Patrick Stewart, unused to the rigours and intense schedule of American network television, was initially stuffy and disliked his co-stars' habit of joking around between takes. However, within a few episodes the ice had been broken and the cast began to meld together into a strong team.

Although the first season was mostly critically derided, late-season episodes such as the finale, The Neutral Zone, which reintroduced the Romulans and hinted at the existence of the Borg, were much better-received.

The chaos began to diminish towards the end of the season as Rick Berman informally made Maurice Hurley a sub-showrunner under his and Roddenberry's overall leadership and reduced Maizlish's involvement in the show. Hurley brought in some longer-form storylines, such as arranging the return of the Romulans and hinting at a much bigger threat lurking on the horizon, which he intended to be an insectoid species with highly advanced technology and a hive mind. This strengthened the writing direction of the series and led to the noted improvement in quality at the end of the first season. However, it also caused controversy amongst the cast when Hurley decided that Gates McFadden's character, Dr. Beverly Crusher, was too passive a character and moved to remove her at the end of the first season. This decision did not sit well with the rest of the cast, particularly Stewart. This also came after the resignation of Denise Crosby as Lt. Yar, who became the first regular Star Trek character in history to be killed off (in the episode Skin of Evil). Crosby later came to regret this decision.

Despite the chaos behind the scenes, Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in first-run syndication in the United States on 28 September 1987. It's first-run ratings were 15.7 million. When all re-runs were included, this increased to 27 million, making the show a colossal success. First-run ratings fell to about 8 million, but then returned to around 10-11 million by the end of the season. Because of the syndication model, Paramount recorded a 40% rate of return over the course of the first season, despite the show's very high (for the time) budget of $1.3 million per episode. This made renewal an easy decision.

Critically, the first season was mostly panned, although late-season episodes such as Heart of Glory (which focused on Klingons) and The Neutral Zone (the season finale, reintroducing the Romulans) were much more warmly received. Also, although many episodes were torn apart critically (most notably Justice and Code of Honour), the show received generally positive reviews for its design work and casting.

With a second season confirmed, Star Trek: The Next Generation was established as a hit series and everything was set for the show to go on to bigger and better things.

And then every scriptwriter in Hollywood went on strike.

Ebook sales fall, print rises in the UK

This week saw confirmation that, for the first time, ebook revenues in the UK have fallen and physical book revenues have risen in their stead. This has led to some media coverage questioning if we have reached "peak digital" in terms of ebook sales and if we will now see a steeper drop, or if a new status quo will emerge between the two formats.

Revenue sales last year of ebooks fell from £563 million to £554 million, whilst physical book sales rose from £2.74 billion to £2.76 billion. This came at the same time that Waterstones (the UK's biggest book chain) stopped selling Kindles and turned the shelf space back over to books, which it credited with a healthy 5% rise in sales. This also came at the same time that Amazon opened its first physical bookshop in the United States (to the bewilderment of some market analysts) and Sony dropped out of the e-reader market.

The reasons for the apparent switch may be topical: the explosion of adult colouring books in the past year may have accounted for a small part of the move. There is also the possibility that there has been an e-market shift away from traditionally-published novels to self-published titles, which cost far less. The UK market is particularly affected by an issue where e-books are charged 20% extra in VAT (sales tax) but paper books are not. Given that physical production costs of paper books are at around 13% of the cover price, this puts ebooks in the UK in the ludicrous position of being more expensive than paper books. The publishers have absorbed some of these costs to try to get ebooks out at prices approaching parity with the paper versions, but in many cases the difference is negligible.

Another cited reason has been that consumers seem increasingly reluctant to carry multiple digital devices around with them, and reading on a mobile phone does not offer as good an experience as a dedicated e-reader, as phones have smaller screens, shorter battery lives and no e-ink capability. This may also be linked to rising audiobook sales, which have doubled in the UK in the last five years (and rose 29% last year alone).

Whatever the reason, it appears that the occasionally-rumoured death of the physical book has been exaggerated, and the two formats look set to coexist peacefully for some time to come.

D&D movie gets director, still waiting for WHEEL OF TIME TV news

The new Dungeons and Dragons movie has a director. As reported last month, Goosebumps director Rob Letterman had been circling the project and has now sealed the deal, with an apparently impressive presentation to Warner Brothers which set out a vision for an entire shared universe of films. Although the current trend "cinematic universes" is causing groans in some quarters, D&D is uniquely suited for such treatment due to the game already extending across literally dozens of campaign worlds and even multiple universes, with approximately 500 novels and dozens of comics already set in the franchise, along with an animated series, animated movie and three previous (awful) live-action films.

The new D&D movie will be set in the Forgotten Realms world, specifically involving the Sword Coast city of Waterdeep and its Yawning Portal Inn. Not much more has been revealed, except that it sounds like this will be an original story not drawing on any of the dozens of bestselling novels set in the same universe. Warner Brothers and Hasbro want the movie in production yesterday so we may see the film in production before the end of the year for a potential 2018 release.

Meanwhile, there has been no further news about the Wheel of Time TV deal. The Robert Jordan Estate confirmed a few weeks ago that the legal difficulties between themselves and Red Eagle Entertainment had been cleared and that a TV company had picked up the television and full merchandising rights. Further rumours have since emerged indicating that the deal was for "eight figures" (so $10 million at least) and HBO were not involved. However, no further information has come to light. Apparently the formal announcement is now in the hands of the studio, and this may come imminently or several weeks further down the road. As usual, I will keep my ears to the ground on this one.

ABC cancel Marvel series AGENT CARTER and MOST WANTED

ABC have cancelled two superhero TV shows spinning off from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Agent Carter recently completed its second season on the channel and, despite excellent reviews, was widely expected to get the chop after disappointing viewing figures. However, star Hayley Atwell impressed the suits at ABC so has been cast in an upcoming new legal series, Conviction, that will air on the channel.

More surprising was the decision to cancel Most Wanted, a spin-off from Agents of SHIELD, before it even aired. The show would have starred Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird (Adrianne Palicki) and Lance Hunter (Nick Blood), having been forced to quit SHIELD (in the Agents third season episode Parting Shot) and set up as independent contractors. A pilot had been shot and aired to executives, and Marvel were keen to move forwards, having tried once before to get Most Wanted off the ground and having developed a solo Mockingbird TV series back in 2011 which didn't get to air.

The back-and-forth may be the result of internal tensions between ABC, Marvel and their mutual parent company Disney, not to mention the rumoured ongoing discontent at ABC with Agents of SHIELD's highly inconsistent ratings performance (in the third season ratings have dropped from 5 million to almost half that before hovering back up at around the 3.5 million range). It may be that Carter and Most Wanted were sacrificed to ensure that Agents of SHIELD was renewed for a fourth season, as it was in March.

The problems at ABC stand in stark contrast to the Marvel shows that have been developed and aired on Netflix, with both Daredevil and Jessica Jones attracting blanket critical acclaim and huge viewing figures (helped by Netflix being a global platform). A third series, Luke Cage, will air later this year, to be followed by Iron Fist and The Defenders next year, and The Punisher probably the year after. Some fans have expressed hope that Agent Carter may be resurrected in the future on Netflix, which is certainly possible but not on the cards at the moment.

The fate of the characters of Morse and Hunter is now uncertain, as the actors had to leave their regular gigs on Agents of SHIELD to film the pilot for Most Wanted. It is unknown if their characters will now be rejoining Agents of SHIELD next year.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)

The Constitution (refit)-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-A), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2283-86. The ship was originally supposed to be called the Yorktown, but was renamed Enterprise in honour of Captain James T. Kirk and his crew. The ship was launched in 2286 but was retired just seven years later in 2293, after the Praxis Crisis. It is the shortest-serving Federation starship to carry the name Enterprise and one of only two (so far) not to have been destroyed in the line of duty.

Operational History

The USS Yorktown was a Constitution-class starship, built in Earth orbit. Construction of the vessel was completed in 2286 and the ship was moved to the Spacedock station for final fitting and launch. However, the so-called "whalesong" crisis then erupted when an alien probe approached the planet and neutralised all Starfleet facilities in orbit, shutting them down. The crisis was averted thanks to the actions of the disgraced Admiral James T. Kirk and his crew, who had stolen the USS Enterprise (and subsequently lost it in battle with a Klingon Bird of Prey) earlier that year. Kirk's crew was exonerated and Kirk was given a two-grade demotion from Admiral to Captain, due to extenuating circumstances. The Yorktown was renamed Enterprise and given a registry chance to NCC-1701-A. The ship was launched shortly after Kirk was appointed commanding officer (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

The Enterprise-A suffered significant systems failures shortly after launch. It is possible that the ship suffered malfunctions as a result of the probe's activities, or the attempts to rush the ship's completion to meet the threat before the probe arrived. Whatever the cause, the problems were so immense that Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott had to oversee a thorough repair and upgrade of the whole ship. This was still in process when the Nimbus III hostage crisis erupted in 2287, forcing the Enterprise to go into a hostile situation without functioning transporters (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier).

In 2293 the Enterprise-A was assigned to escort Klingon Chancellor Gorkon to Earth to discuss a final peace deal between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. However, Gorkon was killed during this meeting and the blame put on Kirk's shoulders. Kirk's crewmates, aided by Captain Hikaru Sulu and the crew of the USS Excelsior, were able to exonerate Kirk and prevent a further peace conference on Khitomer from being attacked (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

The Enterprise-A was retired, with the new Excelsior-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) being launched several months later (Star Trek: Generations). The ultimate fate of the Enterprise-A is unknown, although some sources suggest it was retired and served as a museum ship in Earth orbit for some decades afterwards.

The USS Enterprise-A just before her official launching in 2286.

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-A was a Constitution-class starship which was superficially identical to the refit version of the original Enterprise. However, being built from scratch with newer technologies meant that the Enterprise-A had some technical advantages over the older ship, including a more advanced computer system. Unfortunately, being rushed into service during the whalesong crisis and suffering an unplanned total power failure meant that the ship took some considerable time to recover and get back into service.

The Enterprise-A was 305 metres (1,000 feet) in length, 145 metres (476 feet) in width and 76 metres (249 feet) in height. Its crew was estimated at around 430 (similar to the pre-refit Constitution-class). The ship consists of approximately 20 decks, with the main bridge making up Deck 1. The ship has a forward-facing dual photon torpedo launcher and at least six dual phaser banks for offence, and powerful energy shields for defence. Compared to the original Constitution-class, the refit model is slightly longer and wider. It has considerably larger cargo bays than the original vessel, and a new and far more advanced warp drive capable of driving the ship past Warp 9 for longer periods (although Warp 5 remained the preferred cruising speed).

Although still a spaceworthy and capable design, the Enterprise-A suffered severe damage in its engagements with the smaller Klingon Bird of Prey design: although more compact, the Bird-of-Prey was capable of outflying and the outgunning the Federation's Constitution-class. At the same time, the Federation was starting to see the benefits (after several false starts) of the Excelsior-class, which was considerably larger, faster, more powerful and more heavily armed than the Constitution whilst also being capable of greater scientific research. The Federation seems to have made a tactical decision circa 2293 to retire the Constitution-class altogether and split its fleet design between the large Excelsior-class, the more nimble and manoeuvrable Miranda-class and the dedicated Oberth-class science vessels (along with a score of variant designs). Although some Constitution-class ships remained in service, most of them were retired over the next few years. The retirement of the Enterprise-A was particularly surprising, given that the ship was only seven years into its lifespan.

The Enterprise-A suffers a hull breach during the Battle of Khitomer.

Behind the Scenes

Matt Jefferies, the designer of the original Enterprise, developed a newer and more modern look for the ship for the planned Star Trek: Phase II TV series. However, after Phase II was cancelled and turned into Star Trek: The Motion Picture with a much higher budget, Gene Roddenberry authorised a much more thorough update to the design. A team including Richard Taylor and Andrew Probert created the final version of the new Enterprise which was used in the movie. The Enterprise's change of shape and appearance was described as being the result of a refit of the original series vessel.

The final shooting model, packed with light systems, was considered to be very impressive and has been cited as the best-looking version of the Enterprise. Unfortunately it was also very heavy, cumbersome and unwieldy. The effects team found that setting up shots with the Enterprise model was time-consuming and extremely awkward. When producer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer suggested using that the model pull double-duty as both the Enterprise and Reliant for The Wrath of Khan, the effects team had a collective panic attack and persuaded them that they could build and shoot a whole new model far faster and more efficiently than the Enterprise. When the team were told that the Enterprise was going to be destroyed for The Search for Spock, they requested permission to smash the model to pieces with a hammer. They were turned down, and with some dismay were told to label the model as the Enterprise-A for the next three movies. The model last appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

After the Enterprise-A's first appearance in The Voyage Home, fans speculated how the Federation was able to build a new Enterprise so quickly. The easy answer was that the ship had actually just been renamed, with Yorktown eventually emerging as the commonly-given original ship name. However, fans were confused when the ship was retired just seven years later in The Undiscovered Country when her predecessor served for over 45 years. Various answers were suggested, including the one that the Yorktown had also been a refitted original Constitution-class starship and was also very old, although this does go against the implication of the ship being brand-new in The Final Frontier. Ultimately, it was concluded that the ship design had simply become outmoded and obsolete given the advent of the Excelsior-class.
 
The problems involved in shooting the refit/Enterprise-A model helped Andrew Probert when he developed the Enterprise-D for Star Trek: The Next Generation, although in the event the original Enterprise-D model was also deemed too large and unwieldy for easy shooting.