Preview: Beacon 23 Podcast

[00:00:00] Hey, Lorhounds listeners, David here. And today we have a little bit of a special announcement.

[00:00:08] John's not with me right now. He's got some stuff to do, but I have Alicia who is going to be, hello,

[00:00:14] who's going to be covering a new science fiction television show called Beacon 23. It's another

[00:00:22] Hugh Howie book. So if you were on the silo, if you were in the silo vertically or at the top

[00:00:29] or the bottom, you'll recognize that Hugh Howie was the guy who wrote the books for that series.

[00:00:36] And this is a new adaptation inspiration. We'll talk more about it. That's going to be on, I

[00:00:42] believe, NGM Plus streaming platform. That is correct. Yeah, which used to be

[00:00:47] Epics in the US and it used to be Lionsgate abroad. Okay, cool. But yeah, I'm not sure at this point

[00:00:54] about which countries have international rights and the marketing department's not being very

[00:00:59] communicative. So we'll see where it lands. Anyway, suffice to say you're going to be

[00:01:07] doing some coverage of this new show. We've seen some trailers. It looks pretty exciting.

[00:01:12] So why don't you first set up for us the book series by Hugh Howie? How many books has he written?

[00:01:18] It sounds like he's an epilephic author. I mean, he's written around a dozen. Maybe about that.

[00:01:25] But yeah, this one's not a series. This is just a standalone book. And it like the first

[00:01:31] two war books and like a lot of his books, it started out as five separate short stories

[00:01:38] that serialized and then were gathered together into a book. Very cool. And what's the premise of

[00:01:44] Beacon 23, the book itself? So it has a slightly more playful tone at first, but actually it asks some

[00:01:52] very, very mind bending moral questions, you know? We like those kinds of things over here at

[00:02:00] Charlie Problem on Steroid kinds of questions, you know? Excellent. I love it. I think that

[00:02:05] the show is going to have some differences, but it seems to start in the same place where there

[00:02:09] is a guy who if it's the same as the book, he's a space war veteran and he's stationed at something

[00:02:16] called Beacon 23, which is it's kind of a lighthouse in the book. They like to repeat

[00:02:22] the NASA does not like it to be called a lighthouse. But it's there to help guide ships

[00:02:27] through an asteroid belt. Okay, got it. It's a navigational beacon. Right. One of the far

[00:02:33] farthest reaches of space. So he's there all by himself to, you know, keep this thing running.

[00:02:38] And then a crash happens maybe for different, it sounds like they're going to bury the lead

[00:02:44] in the show about why it happened. So I won't say anything more about that, but it leaves behind

[00:02:48] things, different things in the book. Stuff happens. Yeah, different things in the books.

[00:02:53] It seems like though in the TV show, it leaves behind Lena Haiti. Who we love from Game of

[00:02:57] Thrones and many other projects. That's a big star name to get eyeballs on the show.

[00:03:03] Right, very, you know, very Hugh Howie heroin I think. Okay. But she seems to be not directly

[00:03:09] a character in the books. I think she's probably going to be a couple characters together.

[00:03:15] So is this is feeling more on the slider of inspiration versus adaptation? This feels more

[00:03:21] towards inspiration. I mean, I haven't seen any of the episodes yet, but from the trailer,

[00:03:26] yes, it seems more closer to inspiration than adaptation. I also know that Hugh Howie was less

[00:03:30] involved, but you know, I don't mind if it's different from the book as long as it's good, right?

[00:03:36] Right, exactly. And if it's hitting the beats, right? If it's asking some of the same questions

[00:03:42] and walking us through some of the same processes of how we get to

[00:03:47] some answers or how we examine that, that's all fine. But that Hugh Howie is getting more

[00:03:54] exposure and getting another show made. I mean, to have two shows

[00:03:58] optioned, you know, you could have options for days, but to actually hit the screen, that's a big

[00:04:03] deal. Yeah, that's true. Hitting the screen is a big deal. There's a third for his sand series,

[00:04:08] which is two books out of three out so far that might be turned into a TV show,

[00:04:13] but nothing that he's been able to announce yet. So.

[00:04:17] Well, yeah, an option sometimes there. Yeah. Funny thing. So when is this going to start

[00:04:22] up? So this the first two episodes drop on November 12th on Sunday, and then it will be

[00:04:29] weekly after that for a total of eight episodes. Eight episodes. Okay. So that's a nice little

[00:04:33] run there. Right. And there's already two seasons filmed. No way. That's great. Yeah.

[00:04:38] It was going to be on AMC, but then they it ended up being picked up by MGM plus.

[00:04:44] For whatever reasons. Whatever, you know, all this happened recently during all of the

[00:04:49] strike stuff, you know. Right. Okay. All right. Well, that's great that they've got two in the can

[00:04:54] because. I'm hoping that it's a contained two season story. You know, it's actually quite a

[00:04:59] slight book. The book is only, it's less than 200 pages. Okay. But obviously, yeah,

[00:05:04] they, I think they're indeed taking that as and jumping off point and just exploring

[00:05:09] questions about this sort of situation. Can you say anything about the moral questions that

[00:05:15] are at stake here or? Well, I said trolley problem on steroids. So I think that's already saying too much.

[00:05:22] Is this in the book though, like my favorite part of the book is he has a series of odd

[00:05:28] encounters and I hope that there's some of that kind of quirkiness that's kept in the show

[00:05:34] that's one, but I'll accept if it's a different tone as long as it's consistent in works for

[00:05:38] itself. But I do appreciate about the book. It's different from the silo series and then

[00:05:43] it has a bit more quirkiness to it. Very cool. So what are your coverage plans? How are you going

[00:05:47] to tackle this one? We're going to do a preview episode this week. And then we're going to

[00:05:53] who's week. Oh, sorry, Luke and I on the public feed on wool shift test. And Luke is my co-host

[00:06:00] for silo. Very cool. And then yeah, we're going to, we're going to be also covering some

[00:06:05] dune stuff in the meanwhile too. So we're not going to be doing weekly coverage of this one.

[00:06:10] We're going to do the first two episodes and then we're going to do episodes three through five in

[00:06:13] the beginning of December, episode six and seven just before the holidays and then the finale at

[00:06:18] the start of the new year. Okay. So they're going to be bundled up a little bit and makes it a

[00:06:22] little bit easier on life schedules when you've got life and jobs and you got to edit things.

[00:06:28] It gets a little crunchy sometimes. Yeah, we understand that not everyone who

[00:06:33] wants silo is going to be able to watch this one. Of course those who want to will

[00:06:37] be able to find it, but it's also where we want to continue with our dune coverage at the same time

[00:06:42] too. So and some other things. Yes, yes, you've got many, many things happening. And it's also on a

[00:06:50] slightly obscure streaming service. So not everybody's going to maybe want to sign up. You

[00:06:56] know, we'll do, you do the either the free trial or you get your, you know, month and then

[00:07:01] suspend or cancel and binge it within a month calendar or something.

[00:07:05] But the service, this is the same one that has from and that has the new winter king adaptation,

[00:07:12] which okay, frankly I didn't love, but I know a lot of other people did. Okay. And yeah, so it's

[00:07:18] really, it is up and coming. So I think more people are signing up for it. But I can imagine

[00:07:23] plenty of people using their trial to see this show. Right. Especially if it's good.

[00:07:29] Fingers crossed. What did you think of the trailer? It got me really excited. It is a great kind of

[00:07:37] science fiction that I think is fun. It had a dark tone and it had mystery to it.

[00:07:46] It looked really good. You know, it's hard to say with just a trailer because they're,

[00:07:51] they're creating a reality for us within the trailer. But all of the things that I was

[00:07:56] looking for in terms of the actors, the sets, the sounds, the visuals, the setup for mystery,

[00:08:05] all of those boxes were being ticked for this trailer. So I was pretty excited. Now we know

[00:08:11] trailers are, are mirages sometimes, but this trailer looked good and it got me really excited

[00:08:17] for it. And I was like, oh, damn, I gotta go. What is mgm plus? Where do I find it?

[00:08:22] But yeah, I think it's going to maybe scratch that itch. And I think it's gonna slot nicely in with

[00:08:28] that silo style things where it's not going to be an and or a game of thrones, but it's going to be

[00:08:36] right in underneath there. And it's going to really scratch that itch that we want, you know,

[00:08:42] in between some of the bigger titles. So it'll be hopefully nutritious and interesting and

[00:08:48] something we can chew on without it being like a huge, huge spectacle event like House of the Dragon

[00:08:53] or something. Yeah, at the very least, sweet space visuals. Yes, exactly. We do like that.

[00:08:59] Is it set in an expanse style universe where physics is, you know, our physics is real?

[00:09:06] Is there any conceits like transporters or warp drives or working you say without, you know,

[00:09:12] no, I mean, I don't that's not it's not a spoiler, spoiling anything. There are in the book at least

[00:09:19] we haven't seen any of this in the trailer, but in the book, there are other alien species that have

[00:09:24] different physiologies than ours. Okay, so it posits life, life beyond the solar system exists.

[00:09:29] Right. Okay. And then yeah, and they can fast travel. He doesn't go that deep into how per

[00:09:35] say, well, I mean, but some of the when there is science, it's, it's hard, you know, hard

[00:09:40] science, which I wonder how much we'll carry over. Like for instance, he talks to NASA back in Houston

[00:09:46] through quantum entanglement. Very cool. Okay. So that was a those are pluses for you.

[00:09:52] Turns on that science nerd part. Yeah. So yeah, we'll see what it's what it's like in the show,

[00:09:58] but it looks like the way that the beacon where he's staying and everything look that looks like

[00:10:03] in my head. So I'm excited. I just hope that there's a certain animal character from the book.

[00:10:09] I hope that character shows up. Okay, we'll keep an eye out for it. So I guess people could probably

[00:10:14] just Google for the beacon 23 trailer and probably find it on YouTube or something like that. We

[00:10:20] can probably throw a link in the show notes. Yeah, we can throw a link in the show notes.

[00:10:23] And also also coming out this week is Abby and I broke down the book for the book club so we

[00:10:29] can put a link to that. Oh, okay. So tell me a little bit more about the the Walshif desk

[00:10:33] book club. Yeah, so the the current formulation as it stands right now you sign up for the book

[00:10:39] club and then you are charged only when a new episode drops and excluding certain like I excluded

[00:10:48] the Halloween special on the right, right? Special. Okay, cool. So we'll put a link to the book

[00:10:54] club in the show notes for this as well. And then on the Walshif dust main public podcast feed,

[00:11:04] you just go to your podcast app and plug in Walshif dust or you can go to our website

[00:11:10] Lorhounds.com. And you can find the Walshif dust feed there and then there's a little tool

[00:11:18] that can configure to help you get your podcast player all signed up for those. We can put

[00:11:22] that link in the show notes too, right? Yes. Yes. All the links in the show notes and on our

[00:11:29] Discord we have a channel set up for beacon 23 all ready to go. So once it's things start,

[00:11:35] yeah, you can find the trailer there too. Okay, great. So you posted it there. Yeah,

[00:11:39] there's already been a fair bit of discussion there. So remind me when the first episode's

[00:11:44] going to drop on November 12th on Sunday, there will be the first two episodes got it

[00:11:48] on the MGM plus and then you'll be right on some point. All right, go to Walshif dust

[00:11:55] on either our website or find Alicia's feed on your podcast app, subscribe.

[00:12:00] All the silo stuff is there as well. So go check that out. And if you got any questions,

[00:12:07] give us a holler or jump on the Discord. And I think you can find Alicia there.

[00:12:11] Where else are you? Are you still on Dead Bird? I'm still on Dead Bird. So you can find me

[00:12:15] on Twitter at Alicia CB and also on you can blue sky Instagram, basically most of social media use

[00:12:22] the same name. Well, super excited for this new show. I'm going to be enjoying just going along

[00:12:29] for the ride. And excited to hear you and Luke breakdown this new sci fi show. Yeah,

[00:12:35] I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, everyone. Hey, thank you.