Some more important info: this movie is based on the AMAZING Vonda N. McIntyre novel The Moon and the Sun, which a) won the Nebula the year it came out (1997), and b) beat George R.R. Martinās Game of Thrones for the Nebula.
(Vonda McIntyre named Star Trekās Hikaru Sulu, and won basically all the awards, and wrote gorgeous feminist and queer & polyamorous science fiction - if you havenāt read Starfarers (and, oh, thereās a story about how/why she wrote that, which is hilarious) - it centers a healthy stable polycule as the main protagonists!)
If you havenāt read The Moon and the Sun, itās got mermaids, French history, a side plot about the Black slave Odelette/Haleed earning her freedom, historical romance (which, annoyingly, it looks like theyāve changed for the film? Marie-Josepheās love interest is, in the novel, in Vondaās own words, āvery different from the usual tall and hunky romance heroā (heās a ādwarf,ā to use the textās historical descriptor of him at Court)ā¦oh, and gay characters exist and areā¦somewhat sympathetic, if not happy, Iād sayā¦the whole novel is a lush and lavish exploration of desire and humanity and monstrosity and storytelling and loyalty and love, and what youād do for that love, and who youād be loyal to, if you had to choose.
I wrote a short paper on the novel in grad school, for a women of science fiction seminar, a few years back, and somehow Vonda heard about that and got in contact and asked if she could read it, and she was wonderfully excited that someone would write a paper on her novel, and also very pessimistic about the film ever coming out (Iād discussed that in a footnote). I have the copy with her comments somewhere - I gave it as a conference paper at a science fiction conference, but it was a little short for an actual article, so I never did anything else with it, but maybe I should dig it out again and see what I can doā¦
Iām so glad the movieās finally coming out - I think Vonda would be pleased. I hope itās beautiful.
(The Starfarers story as I heard it goes like this: Vonda was on a panel with several other authors, at an event; a fellow panelist, a Big Name Author, went on a rant about how there was no good science fiction television and everything was awful and Bad; but Vonda liked a lot of SF television and wrote, for instance, Star Trek tie-in novels! So she interrupted him and said, āoh, but you havenāt seen this one show, Starfarers, itās great but no oneās seen it, the network keeps messing up the schedule or canceling the air date, but itās got space explorations and genuinely alien first contact and explorations of gender and sex andā¦ā, on and on, describing this great show - and the show did not exist, because sheād made it up.
But then she really wanted to tell the story sheād made up, and she had all the characters, the ideas, everything sheād been spinning on the spot. So she wrote it as a novel. And then she wrote three sequels. And always called it her ābest sci-fi TV series.ā)
gummygunk
origamiaround
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
areudirty
discoholicmusic
dailybridgerton
