SF Fandom December 2014 News

Robert Mellette contacted us at the end of July and asked if we would be able to help promote a book he was publishing on December 8. We said we would be glad to. Unfortunately, time slipped by and we were unable to participate in the pre-release promotion campaign. However, SF-Fandom and its sister site have now published a two-part interview with Mellette.

Happenings on SF Fandom and Elsewhere

We’re in the process of interviewing Robert Mellette, who was known as Xenastaff to many fans of Xena: Warrior Princess. He has a book coming out in a few days. We have not yet decided whether to publish the interview on Xenite.Org or SF-Fandom.com but I will share an update here when we get things sorted out.

Legend of the Seeker Fans Asking Sam Raimi for a Movie

Sam Raimi

Fans of the hit television show Legend of the Seeker are still hopeful that a movie deal can be worked out. The show was cancelled in 2010 when the Tribune Company, forced into bankruptcy by a badly managed leveraged buyout, dropped its support for the syndicated show. Losing the Tribune stations cost Legend of the Seeker 1/3 of its American television market and the remaining 2/3 could not generate ratings high enough to keep the show in production. ABC Studios, which own the rights to the show (based on Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth novels), made a half-hearted attempt to find a network to pick up the show (they aimed for SyFy, which did a lousy job of testing the market).

An Old Friend Makes a BIG Update

Xenite.Org has been relatively quiet for the past few years because so much of the site was built on static HTML files that we have been unable to set aside time to add more content and redesign the existing themes. In 2011 we replaced the root domain’s content with a WordPress blog and launched a dedicated subdomain for Middle-earth and J.R.R. Tolkien articles. We now have nearly 800 articles, mostly original research answering questions from fans all around the world.

Tolkien Fans Taking to the High Seas with Convention Voyages

I’m trying to figure out what to call these group voyages. SeaCons, maybe, will probably take the pedestal but there are already several companies that have named themselves “SeaCon [something or other]” and I am sure they don’t want any more crowding in their namespace. I can only imagine what the trademark attorneys’ fees must be like in that little niche of industry.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Ideas for Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is coming up on May 11 and like many other people I have been trying to think about what I can do that isn’t quite the same thing I have always done. So I have been scouring the Web for unique ideas (there aren’t really any). I did, however, come across some less frequently shared ideas and that got me to thinking. What would you do for your mother if she was a hard-core, dedicated science fiction fan? My mother is not such a fan although she certainly enjoyed some of the bigger SF movies when they came out.