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Only open if you have read OMEGA and ALPHA. I am trying out the spolier instruction ‘Forum Etiquette’ posting – hope it works…
[spoiler]I’ve got a niggle with OMEGA/ALPHA. If you’ve read both books I’d like to know what you think.
On page 48 of OMEGA Victor says
[i]“That planet. That’s New Leiram. It’s a nice planet, John. If all this weren’t happening, you might be considering it for a new home.”[/i]
It would seem that Victor feels the Alphans could find a home on New Leiram.
From reading [u]SURVIVAL[/u], [u]OMEGA [/u]and [u]ALPHA[/u] we know that the Leiram people and the Alphans are able to live together. They have even fought together and made huge sacrifices to help save the universe.
We know they are compatible. Mention of them being ‘distant cousins’.
Victor has lived for several years with the Leiram people and had a Leiram ‘partner’ and Eroca has now come to live on Alpha and I am assuming will develop her relationship with Carter.
With Susurra now gone and the Leiram people on their own surely it would have made sense to unite both groups and build a new life together on New Leiram.
Why does JK not initiate operation Exodus and move everyone to New Leiram? Is this not the planet they have been waiting to find for years? Why then, at the end of ALPHA, is the possibility not raised as an issue? It’s not even discussed at a command conference. Why?
Personally, I don’t think I really want them to find a new planet. I can’t imagine them ever leaving Alpha because it would end the adventure and I am assuming that Powys are intending the Alphan ‘journey’ to continue and see the Moonbase as the best way in which to allow new stories to develop.
[b]BUT[/b]…Unless I’ve missed something, we need some sort of explanation as to why they chose to stay on Alpha and didn’t ‘grab the opportunity’ to make a new home on New Leiram.
Procyonstar
[/spoiler][spoiler]Good point – maybe they just didn’t have time to mount an exodus. They really wouldn’t have needed anything, though, since the planet was up and running. They had to get on with things and unfold space so Adantia could move on, though. [/spoiler]
-Pat.
[spoiler]You’re right of course, [i]time [b]was not[/b] on their side[/i]
[b][b]BUT[/b][/b]… after waiting and planning for just such an opportunity you’d think that [b]surely[/b] there would have been some sort of talk about Exodus. No-one even voiced the possibility! I just can’t imagine that Exodus would’nt have been discussed and if, as we assume -[i] time was the determining factor[/i] – at least there should have been some reference to this! Wouldn’t you think? [/spoiler]
This question about the origin of character names might be considered a SPOILER due to some of its content:
[spoiler]Okay Powys, here’s another question.
I’m interested in some of the character names as I continue (slowly due to my schedule) reading OMEGA with it’s intriguing depth.
Do all or most of the character and alien species names have a meaning?
For example, Eroca is like “erotica” and seems to symbolize an aspect of the character first introduced in SURVIVAL. Susurra is “whisper” in Spanish. The name may reflect the quiet intelligence of this being.
Here’s my biggest discovery but I’m sure you can’t say anything about this one:
The Leiran people are represented by a name which is “Ariel” spelled backwards (!) Was this intended as indicative of the origin of these people? Only the Powys authors know. Or maybe it’s just coincidence.
And it just occurs to me that someone identified Ariel as the planet on the cover of the Forsaken. Hummm. Maybe I’m the last person to notice all this. It makes me more curious how everything will come together …
[/spoiler]Okay, let’s see if my memory is still working.
Eroca. Eroca originally named something else, or she was first Eroca, then something else, then Eroca again. I forget was the other name was. I’d have to look it up. I didn’t come up with the name, but I think it might be closer to Eroica than to Erotica, actually.
Susurra was the name I’d originally had in mind for Pyxidea in John Kenneth Muir’s The Forsaken. I imagined the Cryptodira music/encryption to be something like a great murmuring choir. It came from the Spanish verb “susurrar”. I never told John about the word while he was writing the book–I didn’t want to rob him of the fun of naming a new planet.
Later when I was editing Survival, I told John about Susurra and my unspoken idea. John came up with the idea to name the Leiran ship Susurra as a means of highlighting its individuality and sentience. Brian Ball agreed heartily.
Leira. I think I’ve already answered this one in a different thread. The Leira come from the planet Leiram. Leiram spelled backwords is Mariel. In the early 80s, a number of refugees and prisoners were released from Cuba from the port of Mariel. A number of these were boatlifted to the U.S. (some directly into U.S. prisons). I named the alien race in Survival after the “Mariel” refugees.
Another [spoiler]Did the Powys cabal specifically make a point of JK’s middle name being emphasized in BfA, so we would all be reminded of it, and assume Robert Koenig was named after him for 150+ pages in [u]Alpha[/u]?[/spoiler] question about names. Really – don’t read it until you finish Omega. It’ll ruin one of the WHAT?!?!? bits towards the end.
-Pat.
[SPOILER]
OK, I finished reading Omega / Alpha.
Sad to say, this was my least favourite of Powys’s novels. By the time the second volume arrived I had done my homework and managed to get up to speed with the backstory but I still found this story too convoluted for my tastes.
I think it’s trying to be a Lord of the Rings (or Star Trek : Destiny 😉 ) sized epic but for me, the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to continuity actually reduces the book to the level of “fan fiction” as it just feels like a fan trying to cram everything they ever liked about the show into one book.
There are some great ideas in there. For example the offspring of the Alphans coming into conflict with their parents would have made the basis for a terrific episode or novel. As just one sub-plot in a novel which has a ton of other things going on it just didn’t leave room do the idea justice. To have these “future” Alphans and the “alternate Earth” Alphans in the same novel felt like overkill.
I know Powys are looking to emulate the style of the Doctor Who New Adventures by presenting stories which could never have been done on TV. For me the difference in approach is that the New Adventures had ambitions to cross over into a more mainstream (non media tie in reading) sci fi audience. Here Powys seemed to be aiming soley at a small but highly dedicated bunch of Space : 1999 fans.
For future novels my preference would be for well written, standalone sci-fi novels which take the Alphan characters forward into new and fresh adventures rather than harking back to stories from the past.
To end on a more positive note, I thought Latham characterised Koenig, Carter and Bergman particularly well and it’s an unexpected delight to have Bergman back in the series again. 🙂
[/SPOILER]
On names…
[spoiler]Since Omega and Alpha were written before I’d read Born for Adversity, safe bet to say this one was just luck of the draw. We did know that canon reflects Koenig’s middle name as Robert, so people wouldn’t be expecting a switch on that. But I think you could make an argument that Koenig’s concerns about names could just be post-traumatic stress making him a little paranoid — that’s one for readers to decide for themselves.
Adantia, by the way, is an interesting name. Sometimes when I pick names, they just come out of the air (Adantia was originally Adentia — I liked the “Arra with Teeth” sense but backed away from it). Now that I look at the name, I can see my subconscious at play. As a child, I had two “surrogate” grandmothers (had real ones, but these two were much bigger influences on me) — Aunt Ada and Aunt Edna — not my intent, but I can see it now. Much as the hero of Eternity Unleashed is Talian’s sister — I thought the name Milsa just sounded cool — now, years later, I can giggle at how my brain works — my twin sister’s name is Lisa![/spoiler]
There may be mild SPOILERS here:
[spoiler]I’m enjoying the sheer scale of the OMEGA adventure, and how well it integrates concepts and events from the episodes. If this could only have happened on screen!
The book makes me a very active participant; I’m constantly trying to predict what will happen next.
The episode “War Games” was about Alphans and aliens in conflict; and also about the real 20th century threat of nuclear war and holocaust. (Recall the purposeful use of stock footage of a nuclear explosion rather than an explosive special effect that could have been created by Brian Johnson.)
On some level OMEGA also seems to comment about real world social complexities, conflicts and survival.
It’s a great story but also, in a number of ways, it is also good literature.
[/spoiler]
Thank you Spacefan. If what you say is true, then we have succeeded.
On another note:
Way back in 2000, in New York, I gave a presentation alongside John Kenneth Muir and William Latham talking about the possibiliity of doing Space: 1999 novels. There was a guy who used to write for Starlog there too. I don’t really remember who else (if anybody) sat on the panel. There was a small crowd in attendance, 15-20 people. I handed out a mission statement about what Powys hoped to do. That was before we got the license.
So was anyone HERE in attendance THERE? And does anybody still have that handout? It would be interesting to see if we accomplished the goals stated in that document.
JKM and WL, feel free to chime in if you find a free moment.
Mateo
I was at the convention but somehow missed this panel. You brought up one of my questions for Powys: how and when did this whole venture get started? For example, how did you get the license to make it official? How did you meet Bill Latham and enlist his writing talent? Was MM2000 the first time you had met?
I had discovered John Muir’s insightful and scholarly book, “Exploring Space:1999”, which analyzes the show from the point of view of camerawork, lighting, and artful directing. I then met him at Breakaway and MM2000 where he gave several lectures using clips from the show to illustrate.
It was there that I learned Muir is a life long fan of the show, and that some of his insight comes from having attended film school. At that point I had no idea he also wrote fiction, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that he was the author of THE FORSAKEN.
Ah…was this the session held on Friday? I remember one where Martin Willey was there, but because we hadn’t introduced ourselves, nobody knew it was him until he had expounded on something technical for several minutes… :laugh:
I was only there that one day – if this is right the session, I’ll go dig through my boxes of things to see if I kept the handout. (My Main Mission: 2000 coffee mug still serves nicely as a pencil holder next to my monitor 🙂 )
-Pat.
Mysterious unknown forces gave us the same three letters in our last names — which put us in the same homeroom in high school! See the Author’s Note at the end of Eternity Unbound for more information…
Just a few quick answers:
Powys was started in May 1999. Our first published book was Mary’s Monster by William Latham. We were at the Breakaway Con in L.A. (I was) in September 1999–some of you may have bought copies!
Johnny Byrne and I had been emailing and calling each other for a year prior, though we me at Breakaway. I also met John Kenneth Muir at the L.A. convention as well. The plan to publish new 1999 books was already hatched. In fact, sales of Mary’s Monster went to making it happen.
We submitted a licensing proposal in 2000.
At Main Mission 2000 John, Bill, Martin and I gave a presentation on our plans. Johnny was at the convention as well, as was Christopher Penfold. I talked with Johnny and Chris briefly about our plans. I also met Barry Morse there. I asked him if we could name the character Yendys after his wife (who was ill at the time). He agreed. Later, he’d contribute a foreword to the book (Survival).
Johnny Byrne went to their offices personally to encourage them. Eventually the license changed hands was then controlled by Carlton. Carlton’s licensing agency in the U.S. contacted us (one month after the convention) and told us they had been instructed to set up a deal with Powys–just when we’d given up hope!
The first three novels published were Resurrection by William Latham, followed by The Forsaken by John Kenneth Muir, followed by Survival by Brian Ball. As you know, Johnny contributed a foreword to Resurrection and gave us his blessing.
Years later, Christopher Penfold agreed to book end William Lathams next two Powys novels, Omega and Alpha. Omega was dedicated to Johnny Byrne. Full Circle.
Mateo
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