The Doctor Boards The Next Generation’s Enterprise This Week In Science Fiction
It's a crossover for the ages – all of them!
This article is more than 2 years old
Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation2 #1
IDW Comics, on shelves Wednesday
It’s a crossover for the ages – all of them! (That was a time-travel pun.) IDW comics puts its Star Trek and Doctor Who licenses to good use by giving us an adventure that pairs Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor with the Next Generation crew of the NCC-1701-D U.S.S. Enterprise. Unfortunately for all involved, they won’t have time to swap amusing paradox stories in Ten-Forward, because the Borg and the Cybermen have decided to team up and kill all humans (and all the other squishy races, presumably). The Assimiliation2 miniseries is penned by Tony Lee and Scott and David Tipton, and while it kicks off with the modern Doctor and the TNG crew, covers for upcoming issues hint that the series will make pit stops across the history of both franchises. While this mash-up is one sure to have some slavering and some fuming, hopefully Assimilation2 will prove to be lots of fun for fans of both franchises. If you want an early look-see at some of the pages from the first issue, check out Wired’s preview right here.
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (NBC, 11:34/10:34c)
Erstwhile Iron Man and all-around charming sonnovabitch Robert Downey Jr. stops by to be funnier off the cuff than most actors are scripted.
Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files (Syfy, 9/8c) – “Glowing Gargoyle/Phantom Feline”
Josh Gates of Syfy’s often hilarious and dubiously named Destination Truth stops in to help the F or F’ers investigate a U.K. sighting of a, well, a glowing gargoyle.
“Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Plagues of Night” by David R. George III
The first of a two-part novel series centering around the so-called “Typhon Pact,” an alliance of races who just don’t like Starfleet one bit, including the Romulans and the Tholians. Still reeling from a Borg invasion that killed billions, now Starfleet and its Klingon allies may be faced with an all-out war against the Typhon Pact races.
“Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived” by Paul S. Kemp
Set 3,500 years before the events of the Star Wars films, in the time explored by Bioware’s MMORPG The Old Republic, Kemp’s new novel centers on the confrontation between Sith Lord Darth Malgus and the vengeful padawan of a Jedi he cut down during the sacking of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. (You can see Malgus lay the smackdown on the aforementioned Jedi right here.)
“Toxicity” by Andy Remic
Via BarnesAndNoble.com:
Welcome to Manna — the utopian galaxy where all races exist in harmony. Ruled by Shamans, perfect alien machines, Manna is a place of wisdom, technology and art. On the edge of the galaxy, away from romantic holiday cruises, hides TOX1C, a reprocessing planet run by The Company and dealing with all Manna’s waste — heavy metals, tox chems, nuclear sludge; there’s no poison The Company will not “recycle.”
Jenni Xi, ECO Terrorist, is fighting a cleanup war against The Company. When a sabotage goes horribly wrong, she learns the future of the planet — and it’s far worse than she ever dreamed…
Svoolzard Koolimax, poet, swashbuckler, bon viveur, is Guest of Honour on a Masters Cruise when a violent attack leaves his Cruiser crashed in NukePuke.
Horace is a torture model Anarchy Android, known simply as The Dentist. Horace works for The Company. Soon, he will meet Jenni and Svool — and the fate of Manna will change forever…
“Weird Space: The Devil’s Nebula” by Eric Brown
Via Amazon:
Best-selling author Eric Brown has created a brand new shared world for Abaddon Books: Weird Space. This thrilling space-opera series will begin with the release of The Devil’s Nebula. Brown will introduce readers to the human smugglers, veterans and ne’erdowells who are part of the Expansion — and their uneasy neighbors, the Vetch Empire. When an evil race threatens not only the Expansion, but the Vetch too — an evil from another dimension which infests humans and Vetch alike and bends individuals to do their hideous bidding, only cooperation between them means the difference between a chance of survival and no chance at all.
“Year’s Best Science Fiction 17,” edited by David G. Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer
This installment of the annual collection includes short fiction by Elizabeth Bear, Gregory Benford, Neil Gaiman, Michael Swanwick, and more.
Mass Effect: Homeworlds #2 (Dark Horse Comics)
Each issue of Homeworlds focuses on one of the Normandy’s crewmembers from Mass Effect 3. This week fan-favorite Tali’Zora vas Normandy is in the spotlight in a story from ME3 writer Patrick Weekes:
On a mission to end her people’s generations-long exile, Tali uncovers the treachery of a central Mass Effect figure and finds herself hunted by assassins. Fleeing to the Citadel for help, she instead encounters disgust and discrimination in the most “civilized” place in the galaxy!
Star Trek #9 (IDW Publishing)
The ongoing series set in continuity after J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek continues its mix of new stories and adaptations of TOS episodes. This week the comic adapts “The Return of the Archons” as the Enterprise crew searches for a lost Starfleet ship.
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (NBC, 11:34/10:34c)
Jay completes his Avengers sandwich by offering his couch up to Scarlett Johansson. Can you blame him?
Touch (Fox, 8/7c) – “Gyre, Parts 1 & 2)
The show’s two-part season finale finds Martin still involved in a custody battle over his son, while the Aster Corporation’s interest in Jake increases.
Piranha 3DD (In theaters)
2010’s Piranha looked terrible but proved to be surprisingly fun by embracing its own terrible nature and running with it. Piranha 3DD looks to take that attitude to a new, previously undreamt-of level by relocating the flesh-eating prehistoric fish from a spring-break lake to a newly opened water park.
Longmire (A&E, 10/9c) – “Pilot”
What does a modern-day Western in the vein of FX’s Justified have to do with science fiction? Well, it co-stars she-who-was-Starbuck, Battlestar Galactica actress Katee Sackhoff, as a deputy of crusty Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor).
MythBusters (Discovery, 9/8) – “Bubble Pack Plunge”
This one’s definitely the “don’t try this at home” column: Adam and Jamie test the myth that a person wrapped in bubble-wrap could survive being tossed off a building.
