Decided to flip the order of the serials, so just finished part 3 of PTB (yes, you actually don't have to wait six weeks for the next chapter -- I know you're shocked ) In this episode:

* We meet the "Who Am I?" winner
* We answer the age-old question, "What happens when Nynrah Ghosts have too much time on their hands?"
* We go inside the red star for the first time, and while we don't come out knowing just what the heck is going on there yet, it sure SOUNDS disturbing
* We get the return of some folks that neither you nor I EVER thought we would see EVER again (and special thanks to Biosector01.com for refreshing my memory about them) (and no, it's not the Makuta, relax )

And in chapter 4: More red star, somebody hits the right switch and regrets it ... or is the wrong switch?, and there are some people who get very frustrated by long lines ... murderously frustrated, in fact. Oh, and what does all this have to do with the murders of Karzahni and Tren Krom? And will Kopaka and Pohatu get the chance to find out?

Alexandria Marie Farshtey, 8 lbs 2 ozs, born September 4th, 2010.

Just to update you on the new serial -- the first chapter is done, and Bink will be posting it as soon as he can (he is traveling for work, so it may be later this week). This chapter features three new Toa -- Psionics, Lightning, and Iron -- and a new villain.

The name of the Toa in stasis is Varian.

Just so everyone knows, I have the approved name list now and will be releasing the name of the stasis Toa (which people have been asking for) by end of the day on Monday.

Got my copy of Papercutz GN #8 in the mail today. I must say, the art is gorgeous, especially on the first story -- really captures that creepy, claustrophobic feel I was going for. At first, I thought they might have overdone the snowstorm, as it makes things kind of hard to see at times .. then I realized that worked, because it IS hard to see in a snowstorm and that is part of what makes the baterra's sudden appearances and disappearances so effective.

Overall, a great job by Christian Zanier.

Thought this was an interesting to my earlier blog entry regarding the inevitable revelation of plot secrets and what it does to the sense of "mystery and wonder" -- it's from a NY Times review of a new TV show:

"... “The Prisoner,” shown on CBS from 1968 to 1969, is one of the most legendary television thrillers, partly because it wrapped after one 17-episode season. Most recently “Lost” on ABC kept core fans going for an improbable six seasons, but it also shed most of its intrigue long before it ended. ...The “Twin Peaks” axiom applies here as well: a show can ride only so far by suggesting, however cleverly, that things are not as they seem. Soon the creators must start revealing what really is going on."

In response to about a zillion PMs:

GRAND PRIZE
Elizabeth Schroeder

FIRST PRIZES
Alexander King
Zachary Benson
Robert Ryser, Jr.
David Ozawa

I was looking through a topic on 2001-2003 vs. later years, and Lewathetoa made an excellent point about the appeal of the early years being the spectacle of advanced beings on a primitive island, and how much of that was lost in 2004 when we got to Metru Nui. I felt it worth reprinting my response to him here, as it is a very interesting topic from a literary point of view:

"What made 2001 work was the incongruity of advanced technological beings living on a tropical island with no tech at all, because that made no sense. The problem for us was, at some point you had to make it make sense, and once you did, you had to go high tech and the incongruity was lost. What you are saying completely makes sense -- I simply don't see a way around it beyond simply never explaining anything. And I wonder how many years BZP would have tolerated that before they started to think we didn't know how the Toa and Matoran got there.

I have probably brought this up before, but it comes back to Stephen King's 12-foot cockroach theory. King says you can write an entire story about something scratching at a door, and terrify your reader as they imagine what it might be. Once you open the door and reveal it's a 12-foot cockroach, everybody screams ... and then ten seconds later, they're saying, "Well, at least it's not a 20-foot cockroach." Once you open the door, you inevitably lose the audience's sense of wonder. But you HAVE to do it or the story is a cheat. Even films where they purposely leave ambiguity -- was it a ghost or was the woman just crazy? -- leave a lot of unsatisfied viewers because people expect the story to explain itself. This is why King's endings are uniformly lousy, because he knows it really doesn't matter what's behind the door, it will never be as scary as what the reader imagined. To put it another way, there's sizzle and there's steak -- the sizzle will hook the reader (see 2001), but at some point, you have to produce the steak (2004 and onward) or you have no story ... you just have a story hook."

A number of people have asked recently about the old Legends of Mata Nui computer game from 2001 that never got released, so I thought I would share what info I have on this here:

* The game, as most of you know, was cancelled before release due to its not being up to our quality standards and so not fitting into our marketing plan.

* I know at least one BIONICLE fan spoke to our Legal dept. about getting a copy of the game. My understanding is that Legal's position is that we are not releasing any part of the game to the public, and since we own the copyright, anyone outside LEGO who did have a copy of the game would not be able to share it either. However ...

* I also spoke to the one person I know here who did get a copy in 2001, prior to cancellation. He says all that was available on the LEGO servers at that time were random sound files -- nothing even remotely like a playable game. What this means, I don't know -- it's possible that, since the game was being developed by an outside developer, and not finished yet, we did not have the main files here. If we did, my guess is they were scrapped long ago, but that is just a guess.

Regardless, since it was not something LEGO considered to be high enough quality, for obvious reasons there is no interest in having it see the light of day. And even if we did, I honestly don't know that there would be anything for us to release.