D.G. Valdron

So…  here’s what I’ve been doing lately.

LEXX Unauthorized, Season Two – From Here to the End of the Universe, edited and finalized, released March 31, about 90,000 words. I’ve started on LEXX Unauthorized, Season Three. But I think I’ll give that some time before releasing.

Then I wrote, rewrote, revised, adapted, extended, edited, revised some more, edited some more, designed covers, formatted no less than three collections of stories.  The Fall of Atlantis, What Devours Always Hungers and There Are No Doors in Dark Places.  Full disclosure, a lot of these stories were already written. But there were partial stories that I completed, there were revisions, there were a lot of stuff that amounted to compiling and writing from scratch.  So, a lot of legitimate work. Each was about 45,000 to 50,000 words.

Over in ‘Free Stuff’ I did a 15,000 word feature on STARLOST, The Rise and Fall of a Canadian Star Trek, I think it’s actually pretty good. I’m working on Starlost Reviews, and Starlost Universe.  Why?  I dunno. It’s definitely not commercial – it’s going to end in free stuff. But I think it’s interesting and worthwhile.  I’m not going to get rich, so why not do things that I enjoy and find valid.

So in writing related activities – two projects, look for Agents, and learn more about promotion and marketing. This blog is part of both those efforts.  Much more overtly the second.

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So, how’s the Coronaclypse been treating you?  For me, it’s been social distancing, seclusion, preclusion, and as the day job goes quiet, reading, watching television, and writing up a storm. Look, I’ve got a history of lung infections going back decades. So while I’m not worried, I am aware that this thing could kill me.  So, I’ve been trying to keep busy writing.

I thought I’d offer up a sneak peak at an upcoming project…  Axis of Andes

Essentially, it’s going to be a novel length alternate history, chronicling the third theatre of World War II, the great Andean Conflict which ended up touching almost every state in South America. In our history, South America largely sat out the war as neutrals. But that doesn’t tell the entire story.

Brazil was a pro-allied neutral sending thousands of volunteers to fight the Nazis in Europe. Argentina and Chile were pro-belligerent neutrals, spying for the Nazis and Japanese.  Argentina and Brazil maintained a cold war. Argentina and Paraguay ended up providing a home for Nazi war criminals. Through the 1930’s and into the 1940’s, the region seethed. There was the Colombia-Peru War (1932-33), the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay (1935-38), the Peru-Ecuador war (1941), a near conflict between Peru and Chile over Tacna and Arica. There were major Fascist parties and Fascist movements in almost every single South American country. There were social tensions, ethnic tensions, class conflicts.

South America was caught up in the economic and political transformations of the 20th century, it was a powderkeg that never quite blew. There were all sorts of events that could have kicked off an epic conflict, but never quite.

It’s a fascinating landscape to tell a story.

So, here’s a teaser….

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OPENING SCENE – DEEP SPACE – The LEXX is cruising through empty space. It turns, the Gigashadow looms in front of it. The LEXX cruises slowly past as the Gigashadow turns slowly, motionless. It’s not the Gigashadow, just another of the species, and its dead, scorch marks and gouges in its side. As the frame opens, there are other carcasses of dead insects, some dismembered, all of them visibly damaged. The LEXX passes among the dead leviathans, as it flies, small insectoid forms – things resembling stingers and moths, spiders, crabs, centipedes and beetles are visible, forms strange and exotic and all clearly dead. One of the drifting objects is a craft that is half viking longboat and half scorpion.

CUT TO – LEXX Bridge – Stan, Kai and Xev are looking up at the viewscreen, as the LEXX cruises through the insect graveyard. Stan is pensive.

STAN
This gives me the creeps. I think we need to get out of here.

The third LEXX script never actually got written. I had a story worked out, just never followed through.

So you’re probably wondering, why don’t I just upload the second script that I actually did, instead of just blathering away over something that never got done? And for that matter, why didn’t I?

I thought it might make for an interesting story in and of itself.

I started with the Insect Wars….

Let me back up a little for those who don’t know LEXX (and if you don’t, I’m not sure why you’re reading this), the backstory of LEXX, particularly the first two seasons, is that many many thousands of years ago, there were two space faring races. Humanity and the Insects. Unfortunately, the Universe was only big enough for one. The great conflict was called the Insect Wars and ended with the near extermination of the Insect race and the ascendancy of humanity, lead by the Brunnen G.

Unfortunately, a single insect survived, and was able to pass its ‘soul’ or ‘essence’ into a human host. This human/insect became the first Divine Shadow, created the Divine Order, and proceeded on a plan, over thousands of years, to wipe out the human race. That was always Paul Donovan’s backstory.

Details changed over time. Originally, the Divine Order’s homeworld, The Cluster was a giant graveyard/war memorial, and the Divine Order started off as grave keepers, which influenced their costumes/uniforms, their traditions and rituals and technology.

Later on, in Gigashadow and Mantrid that got retconned a bit, The Cluster was just the small world/big asteroid where the last Insect hid to wait for its victim, no war memorial, no monument, etc. Instead, just the dormant insect, being fed on human flesh and growing and growing for thousands of years, while His Shadow and the Divine Order conquered much of the Universe, waiting for the apocalyptic moment when it could burst out.

But we never really did find out much about the Insect Wars. There’s a suggestion in the first season that humanity won, in part by adopting the Insects own living technology and turning it against them. I think Donovan was going to write a novel, but eventually set it aside.

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Welcome to another one of my Blog Posts to promote or celebrate the official release of UNAUTHORIZED LEXX, From Here to the End of the Universe, Season Two, on March 31, 2020.  UNAUTHORIZED LEXX, Backstage at the Dark Zone, Season One, is already available as an ebook.

For the third season LEXX volume, there were only thirteen episodes, fifteen if you count the two versions of Rated: LEXX, and the production wasn’t nearly as chaotic or freewheeling as the first two series. So the book was going to be pretty sort. I decided to do biographies and character sketches of the key LEXX people.  This is a version of the Chapter I wrote for Lex Gigeroff.  I offer it up as a tribute to the man, no longer with us.

“On every television show, there’s one person who’s the heart, the emotional center. Every show has one, and it’s Brian, but Lex is right up there with him. He was the guy I really connected with when I was there. He was like a kid in a candy store. He was the one I got to give me a tour. He and Brian set the tone of the set.” Mark Asquith, who did the 2nd and 3rd season LEXX documentaries.

Lex Gigeroff was the sort of friendly hearty guy that’ll fix you with a merry twinkle in his eye, grin broadly, throw his arm around your shoulders as if you were his best friend, and tell you some long complicated but funny story as he reached down and felt around in your pockets looking for loose change.

He was just a fun guy.

And along with Brian Downey, he was the beating heart of the show.

This was the guy that gave his name to the show! And to Giggerotta! And the Gigashadow! Although he had only two solo writing credits, his shared credits with either or both Paul Donovan and Jeff Hirschfield, encompass roughly twenty-seven of the series episodes, and he’s credited as script editor for the entire fourth seasons episodes.

He appeared, in person and in voice through twenty roles in series, played the bound man and Divine Shadow in I Worship His Shadow, he played the musical Klaagyan in Eating Pattern, he played five roles in Lafftrack, appeared in His Shadow’s costume in Brigadoom, Doctor Rainbow in Tunnels, President Hufferton in Fluff Daddy, he has at least four voice roles in fourth series episodes. Often, he was the guy on set, fixing lines, solving problems, actively involved when Paul Donovan was doing producer stuff and Jeff Hirschfield was in Toronto.

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