One team of fan filmmakers is looking to continue the original Star Trek series' five-year mission, while another team wants to bring Joss Whedon's Fray to vampire-slaying life. Plus, the creator of Billy & Mandy has a new post-apocalyptic project in the works, and an upcoming anthology promises to bring military science fiction into the 21st century.
Photo from Lurk by Jason Boulanger.
War Stories: Modern Military Science Fiction
Andrew Liptak and Jaym Gates edit this new anthology that collects military science fiction stories written for the modern age, taking current perspectives on war and imagining how the military might look in the future:
War Stories isn't an anthology of bug hunts and unabashed jingoism. It's a look at the people ordered into impossible situations, asked to do the unthinkable, and those unable to escape from hell. It's stories of courage under fire, and about the difficulties in making decisions that we normally would never make. It's about what happens when the shooting stops, and before any trigger is ever pulled.
Contributors include Joe Haldeman, Mike Sizemore, Ken Liu, T.C. McCarthy, and more. For a $15 pledge, backers can nab an ebook of the anthology or the paperback edition for a $25 pledge.
Star Trek Continues Webseries
Star Trek Continues is an impressive, lovingly fan-made web series that aims to capture the look and feel of the original series. In the first episode, "Pilgrim of Eternity," actor Michael Forest reprised his role as Apollo, and the team is currently raising funds for three most episodes to continue Star Trek's five-year mission. They are offering various digital goodies at various levels, including script PDFs, wallpapers, and downloads of the series poster.
Dead Meat by Maxwell Atoms
The creator behind The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Maxwell Atoms is working on an R-rated post-apocalyptic web series about a guy and his mutant dog:
"Dead Meat" is the story of a lovable mutant dog (named "Dead Meat") who dreams of being just like his a-hole master, James "Heck" Heckler — the deadliest Mutant Hunter in the L.A. Wasteland. Unfortunately, in this world mutants are killed on sight, so Dead Meat must live a life of quiet isolation for the good of himself and his best friend.
After rescuing Heck, Dead Meat calls in a favor to spare the life of a dangerous mutant known as the Battle Priestess Suzuki Jackson. This single act of kindness undermines Heck's entire lifestyle, changes Dead Meat's world, and sets in motion a bizarre love triangle that threatens to destroy friendships. And maybe the world. Again.
Atoms plans to combine live actors, puppets, practical effects, and digital effects to create his crazy psychedelic wasteland. For a $30 pledge, he's offering a DVD of the webisodes with exclusive backer content, embroidered badges, and digital Dead Meat wallpapers. [via Cartoon Brew]
LURK: A Fray Fan Film
Joss Whedon's comic Fray places the mythos of Buffy the Vampire Slayer into the future, and a group of fans want to bring futuristic slayer Melaka Fray to the screen. The Lurk team—made up of working professionals and students at Loyola-Marymount University's film school—already has its fan film in production, but is raising money for stunts, visual effects, locations, and fake blood. For a $25 pledge, the team is offering digital downloads of the short film and the theme song, plus a "thank you" in the credits. [via The Mary Sue]
Gail Carriger's Crudrat: Full-Cast Audiobook
Gail Carriger is the author of the funny steampunk Parasol Protectorate series, but with Crudrat, she turns from Victorian-flavored comedy romance to Golden Age-inspired science fiction, and she's planning to debut it as a full-cast audiobook. Here's the pitch:
In the far future in a space-port the size of a city, Crudrats scrape out a meager living cleaning the great machines of the pollution generated by converting dark energy into usable power. Only children can safely traverse the cramped tunnels, filled with mechanical perils–grow too tall or too broad, and they’ll get caught in a fan and killed, or worse. Like rats, they scurry frenetically on their daily errands to clean the crud so their city can continue, only to face expulsion when they reach puberty.
Meet Maura. Orphan. Outcast. Crudrat. Grown too tall, alone in a city with no use for her, doomed to starve. With only her crud-eating murmel and an alien monster to help her, she must find a way to survive, or escape, before they catch her and blow what’s left of her life, and her companions, out into space.
For a $25 pledge, backers will get a download of the complete audiobook, plus downloadable wallpaper and a signed postcard of the cover art.
Fat Rabbit Farm: Mutated Bill's Sweet Revenge
Nicholas Doan writes and Patty Variboa and Jason Ponggadam illustrate this offbeat storybook about a fluffy bunny with a sweet tooth and a wide array of costumes, including a mech warrior suit. In this story, Babee bunny's sweet tooth may come back to bite her—literally—when a ice cream mutant seeks revenge. For a $15 pledge, the Fat Rabbit Farm team is offering a PDF of the book, plus four high-resolution screensavers.