LEXX Unauthorized – Reviews

Generally, I get these books out, and then I don’t think about them too much. Nobody else does, so it evens out. But uploading the Latest LEXX Unauthorized, I was startled to discover that I got reviews. So, I thought I’d share them. Apologies to folks if I’m violating someone’s copyright. But really, I’m flattered, and frankly, it’s a lonely thing to be a writer. So here goes…

FROM AMAZON

LEXX UNAUTHORIZED, Volume 1

Abraham

Fun and interesting!

Reviewed in Canada on June 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

What a fun and interesting look behind the scenes of one of the greatest cult sci-fi series of all time. Well written and very informative, the book explores the nuts and bolts of the making of Lexx, as well as the personalities involved. What was most surprising to me was learning how important Lexx was to the Canadian television and film industries. A great book. Highly recommended!

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LEXX UNAUTHORIZED, Volume 1

Stephen Harding

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lexx gem and a must

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is so great for the original Lexxian’s who wanted to know more about the whole saga behind getting the programme launched. It’s already come in useful for my own book talks as a lot of luck is needed in the same arena’s. I really want more, especially with regard to stories about the cast, fun, games and the general madness of all those involved. There are still many of us around and hopefully many more who should be made more aware of this cult series x 4. Keep writing Valdron…… (An ex-Frodo from the Lexxbored days).

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LEXX UNAUTHORIZED, Volume 1

A. H. Carrigan

5.0 out of 5 stars What a joy!

Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

I adore the show Lexx. It is astounding to me that this wildly creative, ambitious, inconsistent, deeply funny, dark, surreal show ever got made. I know not everyone feels like I do. I know the show is not flawlessly polished; it is its own odd thing, and I love it. I have always been curious to know more about the people who created and worked on the show, and this book (as well as its sequel discussing the second season) delivers. There are a few places here and there where I wish the text had been looked over one more time to edit for clarity, but reading it, I am so swept up in the delight of hearing multifaceted tales about the making of the show that I really can’t care. It’s a feast. Watching Lexx again has been a great balm during this pandemic year, and this book made every episode richer and even more enjoyable. (Bonus: if you are interested in the history of film, this book develops a fascinating portrait of decades of a national film industry outside of the US.) D. G. Valdron, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can’t wait for there to be more.

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Abraham

More exciting insights into the greatest show ever made!

Reviewed in Canada on June 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

After reading volume 1 of D.G. Valdron’s backstage look at Lexx I just had to get the second. The writing is great, the interviews are interesting and insightful. Volume 2 covers the second season (the best season!). We learn why Zev becomes Xev, and Wist becomes Lyekka, and how traditional German folk songs became the score to a musical about Kai’s death and the end of the Brunnen G at the hands of His Shadow. Long laid plans, and slap dash scripts written on the fly, the story of the making of Lexx is an absolute must for any fan!

Helpful

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LEXX Unauthorized, Volume 2

Kindle Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read, highly recommended.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

There isnt much written on Lexx, so to find this Labour of love is a real find. The author has deep insights into the show, both its strengths and weaknesses, and has an enormous range of perspectives and reflections from the cast and crew. If you read this, you wont see Lexx in the same way, you will see it with so much more insight. I bought this on the day it was available following the first fantastic volume, and am eagerly awaiting the third.

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SMASHWORDS

GoblinBabe reviewed on Dec. 10, 2017

This is an in-depth look at the making of Lexx. For those who don’t know the show, it’s a Canadian/German sci-fi series with a cult following, in which a beautiful love slave, a cowardly security guard, a dead assassin and a sarcastic robot head get control of the Lexx (an enormous living spaceship genetically engineered from an insect) and find themselves in the Dark Zone – a universe of chaos and depravity. Often described as Star Trek’s evil twin, personally I tend to think of Lexx as Red Dwarf with sex and violence.
This first volume focusses on the four feature-length episodes which formed the first season, covering the challenges facing an independent production company trying to film an ambitious sci-fi series in two different countries, with a fraction of Star Trek’s budget – but with far more imagination.
Valdron seems to have spoken to everyone who was ever involved with the show, so there’s enough detail here to keep the most trivia-hungry fan happy for hours – it’s clearly a labour of love.
The book also covers Salter Street’s pre-Lexx projects, making it almost a mini-history of the development of the film and television industry in Nova Scotia.
I’ve been a Lexx fan for twenty years, but there was stuff in here even I didn’t know. I couldn’t put it down, and stayed up late into the night reading it – can’t wait for the next instalment…

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THIS ONE IS FROM JANIKA BANKS AT A BLOG CALLED LEXXPERIENCE.

November 20, 2017. The full review is three thousand enthusiastic words. I’m just posting a few snippets here… THANK YOU JANIKA. I WILL TREASURE THIS.

https://lexxperience.blogspot.com/2017/11/lexx-unauthorized-book-review.html

….Valdron’s Lexx book has my full attention, and I have no doubt that I just hit gold….

I’m liking Valdron’s writing style. He’s got great sentence structure and good command of language. A bit of back and forth in verb tense and a few typos that get missed by software checking might make translation a little wonky in a few places, but for the most part, this is a very good read.

….By the end of Chapter One I was on the edge of my seat, visually riding along. Valdron seems especially gifted at breathing life into the mundane background paperwork info, making it so human that I caught myself holding my breath as I read up to the green light. Every bit of this was worth waiting 15 years to read. And there’s more!

I was well into Chapter Four before I remembered I’m writing a review, very swept along, but this bit grabbed me by the collar and I need to share it- “The script for Gigashadow wasn’t approved until December 22, 1995, but the episode was shot in January, 1996. It seems insane…

Sorry, I’m so Lexxcitable. Back to Valdron’s book. …Entire paragraphs in this book would have been gilded in gold and translated and quoted lovingly across a world of fan sites two decades ago,….. Go. Buy. This. Book.

This is the kind of stuff I love eating for breakfast. One of the reasons Lexx delightfully intrigues me is exactly what Valdron is saying here, and if this book had been out years sooner, I can already tell you I’d have been satisfied enough not to feel the need to create a fan site to talk about this stuff myself.

…That Valdron is able to give us visual inspirations around the Salter Street region gives thinking about Lexx and the Dark Zone so much more depth. “Walking around Halifax or St. John you see homes and buildings that are centuries old, you see cities that are built in forced compromise with their geography. This forced compromise appears endlessly in LEXX’s interiors, and in the mechanical and biological design of the series.” Like Lexx says, “Ouch.” I wanna quote the entire Big Hard Bugs… section and I’m totally holding back.

… I am currently about halfway through the book. ,,,. He put an amazing amount of work into it and then had to work around publishing walls, so thank goodness the world is changing so fast and ebooks are everywhere now, right?

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That’s about it. Seven reviews. That’s not much in the scheme of things. Other writers get dozens and hundreds of reviews and up. Hell, Amazon won’t even take you seriously if you have less than twenty reviews. I think except for the Mermaid’s Tale, I don’t think I have twenty reviews worldwide for the other eleven books combined.

But then again, it’s for a show that’s been gone twenty years, that’s been buried in the bowels of corporate mergers and acquisitions, I suppose that’s not bad.

And yes, I’m putting this up on my Blogg just so maybe, possibly, somehow, I might sell a few more books. Maybe someone who hasn’t even heard of LEXX, but likes Cult TV will be inspired to take a chance. Maybe someone who saw the show might be inspired to learn a little more. Maybe someone who was a fan is willing to give it a shot.

But mostly, I’m grateful. I’ve carried these books on my back for twenty years. All the twists and the turns, the trips to Halifax and Toronto, the endless interviews, the research, poring through magazine articles, online interviews and chats, the ups and the downs, the missed opportunities and missteps, those awful moments when there’d be a publisher deciding to get involved and they’d go “Oh, we’ve already got some other writer in mind.” That breakneck frantic few months when I pounded out 300,000 words of a first draft, to hand it to Brian at Dragoncon (and ouch, he must have been appalled at a manuscript rife with typos and mispelled names), all the life stuff that happened in between, floods and relocations, hard drive crashes, career changes, marital breakdowns,. All that water under the bridge. It’s nice to finally be getting it done.

And it’s really nice to find people who appreciate it. So thank you Janika Banks, thank you GoblinBabe, thank you Abraham, A.H. Karrigan, Stephen Harding and Kindle Customer… Thank you.