Preview: Beacon 23 Podcast

[00:00:00] Hey Lorehounds listeners, David here. And today we have a little bit of a special announcement. 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 Hugh Howey book. So if you were in the silo vertically or at the top or the bottom,

[00:00:30] you'll recognize that Hugh Howey was the guy who wrote the books for that series. And this is a new adaptation inspiration. We'll talk more about it. That's going to be on, I believe, NGM Plus streaming

[00:00:44] platform. That is correct. Yeah, which used to be epics in the US and lines gate abroad. Okay, cool. But yeah, I'm not sure at this point about which countries have international rights and the marketing department's not being very communicative. So we'll see where...

[00:01:02] See where it lands. Anyway, suffice to say you're going to be doing some coverage of this new show. We've seen some trailers. It looks pretty exciting. So why don't you first set up for us

[00:01:14] the book series by Hugh Howey? How many books has he written? It sounds like he's an ep prolific author. I mean, he's written around a dozen. Maybe they felt that. But yeah, this one's

[00:01:26] not a series. This is just a standalone book. And it liked the first two wall books. And like a lot of his books, it started out as five separate short stories that serialized and then

[00:01:40] were gathered together into a book. Very cool. And what's the premise of Beacon 23? The book itself. So it has a slightly more playful tone at first, but actually it asks some very mind-bending moral questions. We like those kinds of things over here at Warhounds.

[00:02:00] Charlie Problem on Steroid kinds of questions. Excellent. I love it. I think that the show is going to have some differences, but it seems to start in the same place where there is a guy who if it's the same as the book, he's a space war veteran

[00:02:14] and he's stationed at something called Beacon 23, which is it's kind of a lighthouse in the book. They like to repeat the NASA does not like it to be called a lighthouse. But it's there to help guide ships through an asteroid belt. Okay, got it. It's a navigational beacon.

[00:02:32] Right. One of the farthest reaches of space. So he's there all by himself to, you know, keep this thing running. And then a crash happens, maybe for different, it sounds like they're going to bury the lead in the show about why it happened.

[00:02:45] So I won't say anything more about that, but it leaves behind things, different things in the books. Stuff happens. Yeah, different things in the books. It seems like though, in the TV show, it leaves behind Lena Haiti.

[00:02:56] Who we love from Game of Thrones and many other projects. That's a big star name to get eyeballs on this show. Right. Very, you know, very Hugh Howie heroin, I think. Okay.

[00:03:07] But she seems to be not directly a character in the books. I think she's probably going to be a couple characters together. So is this is feeling more on the slider of inspiration versus adaptation? This feels more towards inspiration.

[00:03:22] I mean, I haven't seen any of the episodes yet, but from the trailer, it's yes, it seems more closer to inspiration than adaptation. I also know that Hugh Howie was less involved, but you know,

[00:03:32] I don't mind if it's different from the book as long as it's good, right? Right, exactly. And if it's hitting the beats, right? If it's asking some of the same questions 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 exposure and getting another show made. I mean, to have two shows optioned, you know, you can have options for days, but to actually hit the screen, that's a big deal.

[00:04:04] Yeah, that's true. Hitting the screen is a big deal. There's a third for his sand series, which is two books out of three out so far that might be turned into a TV show, 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 up? So this the first two episodes drop on November 12th on Sunday, and then it will be weekly after that for a total of eight episodes.

[00:04:32] Okay, so that's a nice little run there. Right. And there's already two seasons filmed. No way. That's great. Yeah. It was going to be on AMC, but then it ended up being picked up by MGM+. For whatever reasons.

[00:04:45] Oh yeah, whatever. This happened recently during all of the strike stuff. You know? Right. Okay. All right. Well, that's great that they've got two in the can because... I'm hoping that it's a contained two season story. It's actually quite a slight book. The book is only...

[00:05:01] It's less than 200 pages. Okay. But obviously, yeah, I think they're indeed taking that as and jumping off the point and just exploring questions about this sort of situation. Can you say anything about the moral questions that are at stake here or...?

[00:05:17] Well, I said Charlie Problem on steroids, so I think that's already saying too much. Is this... In the book though, my favorite part of the book is he has a series of odd encounters.

[00:05:29] And I hope that there's some of that kind of quirkiness that's kept in the show. But I'll accept if it's a different tone as long as it's consistent and works for itself. But I do appreciate about the book. It's different from the Silo series and then it has

[00:05:43] a bit more quirkiness to it. Very cool. So what are your coverage plans? How are you going to tackle this one? We're going to do a preview episode this week. And then we're going... Well, who's we? Oh, sorry, Luke and I on the public feed on Willshift Dust.

[00:05:58] And Luke is my co-host for the Silo. From Silo. Very cool. And then, yeah, we're going to... We're going to be also covering some 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 the beginning of December, episodes six and seven just before the holidays, and then the finale at the start of the new year.

[00:06:20] Okay, so they're going to be bundled up a little bit and makes it a little bit easier on life schedules when you've got life and jobs and you've got to edit things that gets a little crunchier sometimes.

[00:06:29] Yeah, we understand that not everyone who watch Silo is going to be able to watch this one. Of course, those who want to will be able to find it. But it's also where we want to continue with our Dune coverage at the same time too. So...

[00:06:43] And some other things. Yes, yes. You've got many things happening. And it's also on a slightly obscure streaming service. So not everybody is going to maybe want to sign up. You do either the free trial or you get your month and then suspend or cancel

[00:07:03] and binge it within a month calendar or something. But the service, this is the same one that has from and that has the new Winter King adaptation, okay, frankly I didn't love but I know a lot of other people did. Okay.

[00:07:16] And yeah, so it's really, it is up and coming. So I think more people are signing up for it, but I can imagine plenty of people using their trial to see this show. Right, especially if it's good. Fingers crossed. What did you think of the trailer?

[00:07:32] It got me really excited. It is a great kind of science fiction that I think is fun. It had a dark tone and it had mystery to it. It looked really good.

[00:07:48] It's hard to say with just a trailer because they're creating a reality for us within the trailer. But all of the things that I was looking for in terms of the actors, the sets,

[00:08:01] the sounds, the visuals, the setup for mystery, all of those boxes were being ticked for this trailer. So I was pretty excited. Now we know trailers are mirages sometimes but this trailer looked good and it got me really

[00:08:16] excited for it and I was like, oh damn, I gotta go. What is MGM plus? Where do I find it? But yeah, I think it's going to maybe scratch that itch and I think it's going to

[00:08:27] slot nicely in with that silo style things where it's not going to be an and or a game of Thrones but it's going to be right in underneath there and it's going to really scratch that itch that we want in between some of the bigger titles.

[00:08:43] So it'll be hopefully nutritious and interesting and something we can chew on without it being a huge spectacle event like House of the Dragon or something. The very least sweet space visuals. Yes, exactly. We do like that.

[00:08:59] Is it set in an expanse style universe where our physics is real? Is there any conceits like transporters or warp drives or what can you say without? No, I mean, that's not a spoiler. I'm not 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 different physiology than ours. Okay, so it posits life beyond the solar system exists. Right. And then yeah, and they can fast travel.

[00:09:33] He doesn't go that deep into how per se. Well, I mean, but some of the when there is science, it's hard, you know, hard science, which I wonder how much we'll carry over. Like for instance, he talks to NASA back in Houston through quantum entanglement. Very cool. Okay.

[00:09:49] So those are pluses for you. Right. It turns on that science nerd part. Yeah, so yeah, we'll see what it's like in the show, but it looks like the way that the beacon where he's staying and everything that looks like in my head. So I'm excited.

[00:10:06] I just hope that there's a certain animal character from the book. I hope that character shows up. Okay, we'll keep an eye out for it. So I guess people could probably just Google for the beacon 23 trailer and probably find it on YouTube or something like that.

[00:10:20] We could probably throw a link in the show notes. Yeah, we can throw a link in the show notes. And also also coming out this week is Abby and I broke down the book for the book club so we can put a link to that. Oh, okay.

[00:10:30] So tell me a little bit more about the Walshif desk book club. Yeah, so the current formulation as it stands right now, you sign up for the book club and then you are charged only when a new episode

[00:10:45] drops and excluding certain like I excluded the Halloween special on the Christmas special. Okay, cool. So we'll put a link to the book club in the show notes for this as well. And then on the Walshif dust main public podcast feed, you just go to your podcast app

[00:11:06] and plug in Walshif dust or you can go to our website, lorehounds.com and you can find the Walshif dust feed there. And then there's a little tool that can configure to help you get your podcast player all signed up for those.

[00:11:22] We can put that link in the show notes too, right? Yes, yes. All the links in the show notes. In the show notes. And on our 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, there's already been a fair bit of discussion there. So remind me when the first episode is going to drop. On November 12th on Sunday, there will be the first two episodes.

[00:11:48] Got it on the MGM plus and then you'll be right on at some point. On MGM plus too. All right, go to Walshif dust on either our website or find Alicia's feed on your podcast app. Subscribe all the silo stuff is there as well.

[00:12:04] So go check that out. And if you got any questions, give us a holler or jump on the Discord. And I think you can find Alicia there. Where else are you? Are you still on Dead Bird?

[00:12:13] I'm still on Dead Bird so you can find me on Twitter at AliciaCB and also on you can Blue Sky Instagram basically most of social media use the same name. Well, super excited for this new show. I'm going to be enjoying just going along for the ride.

[00:12:30] And excited to hear you and Luke breakdown this new sci-fi show. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks everyone. All right, thank you.