No what? It has been, according to Corey and Abraham, before they even premiered season 1. https://mobile.twitter.com/…

I'm waiting for someone to combine the "Martin won't finish the series because he can no longer write" theory with the "Martin never wrote them anyway" theory. You'd think those would be incompatible, but I believe in the power of the Internet! Then, we just need to find out who really wrote Daniel Abraham's novels.

Right. What Avasarala thought the Martians might be up to was a grab for Earth's resources in the Belt— stirring up OPA against Earth in hopes of bringing Ceres etc. into their own sphere of influence— or, just trying to wreck the place enough by "throwing rocks" that Earth could no longer be a colonial power. Not…

Huh? Niven's Belters don't have an organized resistance to Earth, there's nothing like the OPA in his books - they're mildly anti-government but that's just about not wanting to pay taxes to *their own* government.

Well I'm convinced, random Internet person who has a lot of experience!

Yeah, I reeeally couldn't understand the reviewer's response to that line, and if it'd been some random writer rather than Handlen I would've thought "Oh God, I'm not going to like reading these reviews, am I." But there is kind of a tendency among AV Club writers to fetishize subtlety, as if it's automatically a bad…

Niven did invent the word "Belter" as far as I know, but it was a pretty obvious concept based on the history of mining settlements in the US, and other writers have used the word since then. Claiming it's just his thing now would be like Karel Capek trying to claim ownership of "robot."

It's been renewed.

I'm not sure I'd call the Martians "militant environmentalists" based on Lopez's speech - more like people who have to survive on very limited resources, and are understandably resentful of people who were born on a hospitable planet and fucked it up. It's like if you're working three jobs to support your kids, and…

On a personal note, I was really happy to see that dance club get badly damaged: that is the Angel Orensanz Foundation on Norfolk St., which I used to live next door to, and they used to host wedding parties and dance parties and art openings and music video shoots till 3 a.m. on weeknights and it's probably the least…

There's an interesting take on 23rd century Scientology in the creepy Greg Bear novella Heads, which also made up my second-favorite fictionalized-so-please-don't-sue name for it: "Logology." (My first favorite is of course MindHead.)

Btw, as you may know, Hatch said in interviews that as far as he's concerned, Zarek is totally justified— at least, given Zarek's past experience and his limited point of view— in everything he does, and is just as principled as the other protagonists, up to and including his final acts. That's a good approach for an…

I get the impression that Hatch is an awfully nice guy, and didn't have the kind of desperate attachment to his past persona that Benedict did. His bitterness about the remake was understandable since he'd been trying for years (at some personal expense) to get a continuation of the original series going, but he got…

I wish we'd gotten more of Simon, but with just the little bit we get here and then briefly later on the series, the actor manages to make him distinctive enough that you can see how he rounds out the set of Cylon personality types. He's got a kind of calm, peaceful, but unbending quality that makes him equally…

Again, like I said, he always had serious character flaws and in the end he makes a pretty clear decision to embrace the dark side. I just don't think that means he really was "a straight-up villain" at heart for the entire series (if that's what the original comment meant). I think he was "another potential power…

"Turns out to be" isn't how I would put it. All through the series, he was a smart guy who fought for some important things and did people some good… and he also had a big streak of narcissism and vindictiveness, which Lee pretty accurately diagnosed in his very first episode. By the end, the latter won out. But by…

From Wikipedia:

The "machines" thing is so interesting - it starts out as an understandable response since, for everyone except Baltar, "Cylon" means "a big metal robot." Then as the series goes on it, it becomes pretty clear to everyone that even though the new Cylons have some unusual physical and mental extras, their bodies and…

I get the political ramifications, but he's trying to save their lives in that moment, and it's a good idea on those terms. They don't have any reason to think it wasn't Mars— lots of evidence says it was, it makes no sense for Earth to do it, and pirates aren't that well equipped (also pirates wouldn't have destroyed…

Lack of a blast wave isn't an issue if the nuke actually hits your ship, or goes off reasonably close by. Any matter that's heated that hot that fast, whether it's atmosphere or just part of your ship, will expand rapidly enough to blow you apart.