Prime Time Replay:
Steve Perry on his latest novel
Leonard Nimoy's Primortals: Target Earth
MsgId: *emedia(4)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:04:12 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
Good evening, and welcome to E-Media! Tonight's guest is author Steve Perry, who'll be discussing his latest work, "Leonard Nimoy's Primortals: Target Earth". We've got competition from "Stephen King's The Shining", but it's not that strong :-)!First: You're also the author of the bestselling "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire". How did you jump from George Lucas to Leonard Nimoy? Did you get to meet either or both men during the books' creations?
MsgId: *emedia(6)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:09:33 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Marty Greenberg called on the Nimoy project, and I don't think Star Wars hurt there. I didn't meet George when I went to the ranch, but I did work with Leonard on Primortals. Leonard is a very nice man, plus he has a good story sense.
MsgId: *emedia(9)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:12:35 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
If you can explain who Marty Greenberg is ... ? And how many acres George has on that ranch!
MsgId: *emedia(11)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:13:26 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Ah, Marty. The world's premiere anthologist. He does a lot of work for BIG Entertainment, who, among other things, publish the Primortals comics.It's a big ranch. Amazing.
MsgId: *emedia(13)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:16:23 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
How long did it take you to write "Target Earth"? How did you go about fleshing out Nimoy's lines? Are you a huge Isaac Asimov fan, too?
MsgId: *emedia(14)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:19:47 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
The actual writing took about three months, after getting the outline approved by concerned parties. It is mostly introductory, because Warner planned for more books to follow. And since I grew up reading the stuff, I am a fan of Asimov's. I used to write for his magazine years ago, we exchanged a few letters.Some of what worked in the comics didn't play so well in the novel, so I had to alter the story somewhat.
MsgId: *emedia(16)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:25:49 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
What are some things that had to change from the comics into this novel? I read the novel, but didn't know about the comics. But there are elements of "Target Earth" that remind me of H.P. Lovecraft and his "Cthulhu mythos" writing--especially since the "aliens" have actually lived on Earth, before humans.
MsgId: *emedia(18)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:31:05 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Well, comics are about visuals. Something can look good but not make a lot of sense. And some of the research I did on SETI led me to believe that the military would certainly be paying attention to such things, but there wasn't a military presence in the comics until much later in the story. Plus there were some viewpoint characters we needed for a novel not in the comics, which are more camera-view. I didn't think about Lovecraft, but you're right. Asimov and Nimoy kicked this idea around for a long time, of the dinosaurs coming home. When George Scithers was editing ASIMOV's in the early eighties, he once pitched the idea to his writers. I think Barry Longyear did a piece with dinosaurs coming back to Earth on starships.
MsgId: *emedia(24)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:36:40 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
Then there's CETI. Where does the name "Zeerus" come from? Why, in particular, dinosaurs, as opposed to a completely new alien life form?
MsgId: *emedia(26)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:39:15 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Um. I think the idea of sentient dinosaurs has come to a lot of writers. Dinos are always popular, and why create a new alien when you have creatures that are pretty much alien to look at right here? A few million years out of phase, but if you can fix that, which Primortals does, it's pretty neat stuff.Zeerus came from the comic book writers. I dunno what the origin per se is.
MsgId: *emedia(28)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:43:33 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
The most interesting character to me is the youth, Jake. What I like most is that through him, you provide an outline of modern sci-fi TV and film, and how much of it we have now, and how people who otherwise don't like sci-fi certainly are watching it--the "X-Files", for example.
MsgId: *emedia(29)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:46:06 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Sure. A lot of "mainstream" stuff is science fiction or fantasy in a disguise. And since a lot of it plays to paranoia, like, say, oh, X-Files or Millennium, and we looove conspiracies, it finds a big audience. And with a kid, you can always do the stranger in a strange land kind of thing. Although Jake is pretty adept for an eleven-year-old.
MsgId: *emedia(31)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:52:36 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
What is your favorite character in "Target Earth"? Which was Nimoy's? What were some elements from the comics that you wished you could have expanded or kept for "Target Earth"?
MsgId: *emedia(32)
Date: Mon Apr 28 21:57:43 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Hmm. My favorite character was probably the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Larry Hightower. Here's a science fiction fan who is responsible for protecting Earth against possible alien aggression and he doesn't much like it. I think Leonard liked Jess -- Stewart's girlfriend -- for her hard-headed attitude. I can't really say there was anything else in the comics I'd have kept, because what got dropped was my idea. I'd have probably thrown out more of it to make the novel more "real." I mean, Zeerus looks an awful lot like a movie alien in a rubber suit . . .
MsgId: *emedia(34)
Date: Mon Apr 28 22:02:35 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
There's one question I wanted to ask about "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire". Will it become a film? Then, there's a question concerning "Leonard Nimoy's Primortals": When is the follow-up due?
MsgId: *emedia(36)
Date: Mon Apr 28 22:07:28 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Shadows -- SOTE -- can't be made into a film unless CGI stuff gets a lot better. It takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, so all the actors would have to drop twenty years to reprise their roles. It could be done in animation, but George doesn't seem interested in doing so at the moment. As to the next book in the Primortals series, I'm not sure. I'm not set to write another one, and I don't really know who they have in mind for it, or when the delivery date is.
MsgId: *emedia(37)
Date: Mon Apr 28 22:09:40 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
Thank you for coming online tonight, Steve! Again, Steve Perry is the author of "Leonard Nimoy's Primortals: Target Earth" and is the bestselling author of "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire". "Target Earth" is available from Warner Books nationwide.
MsgId: *emedia(38)
Date: Mon Apr 28 22:10:20 PDT 1997
From: Steve Perry At: 206.163.124.208
Thanks for having me.
MsgId: *emedia(39)
Date: Mon Apr 28 22:12:35 PDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 205.186.166.204
Next week's guest is Pen Densham, producer/co-creator of "The New Poltergeist" and "Outer Limits", to kick off May. See you next Monday!
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