Nick Sagan Online

Shrapnel

Sadly, I won't be attending Comic-Con this year, but my friend Mark Long of Zombie Studios will.  He'll be unveiling Shrapnel, a brand new graphic novel, the first in a "solar war" trilogy set on Venus, the Jovian moons, Mars and finally Earth itself.  Shrapnel was scripted by another friend of mine, the talented comic writer M. Zachary Sherman, with the story a collaboration between Mark, Zack and myself.  Radical Comics is publishing it, and you'll be able to find it in stores later this year.

Here's the plot:

Shrapnel focuses on a future where humanity has reached out and colonized the Solar System and a Solar Alliance governs the planets similarly to the way ancient Rome dominated over their territories.  Venus, the last free colony in the system, must do what it can to battle the domineering Marine forces of the Alliance in order to remain sovereign.  Unbeknownst to the Marines, or even the Colonists themselves, one of the Alliance’s greatest heroes has exiled herself on the lost planet, hoping to escape the life she once knew as a soldier.  Now, pulled back into the fold, she must teach the Colonists how to fight for their freedom, and come to terms with her own past.

Shrapnel is a fun project--I've been having a great time working with Mark and Zack.  And the art's looking very cool, featuring legendary visual futurist Syd Mead's amazing mecha designs.

July Interviews

If you've got XM Radio, you can catch me on The Bob Edwards Show next Friday, and it's a family affair as that interview is followed by a rare interview with my mother:

Friday, July 25, 2008 

'Whatever happened to my flying car?' and other questions about promised technologies are answered by Nick Sagan in the book, You Call This the Future? Nick is the son of the late astronomer Carl Sagan and our next guest, Linda Salzman-Sagan. She was the co-producer of the phonographic time capsule that was launched aboard the Voyager Spacecraft in 1977. The capsule has left the solar system and is drifting through space, waiting to be found by intelligent life forms. Salzman-Sagan talks about the sounds and images she selected to represent all of humanity.

Mom's recollections are a lot of fun, and if you're interested in how the Voyager team decided to represent our planet and civilization for potential extraterrestrials to discover, you should definitely check her out.

Two more interviews to report.  First, Gary Reynolds of Concept Sci-fi asked me ten questions, which I very much enjoyed answering.  You can catch that interview here.  And I did a phone interview for BBC Focus Magazine that will be in their next issue.  In the course of that one, I was asked who would win in a fight between Isaac Asimov and Isaac Newton.  Hard one to answer.  Does Asimov have robots at his disposal?  Can he make them break the First Law of Robotics?  Does Newton have complete mastery over the forces of gravity, or is he armed only with apples?