What Does God Need With A Jefferson Starship?

I feel I should slightly explain here. See, my parents bought two acres with a house and a barn and pasturage and went “We’re farmers now!” They had absolutely no idea what they were doing. And at a certain point along that journey my mom got her hands on a horse. Technically she was half pony half horse so she was this weird middle size.

Fancy belonged to a friend of hers and he showed her how to saddle Fancy. And that was it. That was all we knew about this horse. So my mom brings her home and saddles her and we decide to go for a ride on this new creature in our lives. But Fancy, being the savvy bitch she was, was far too canny for our dumb asses.

Her maiden ride went to my older brother and ended rather abruptly when the saddle slid completely sideways and my brother toppled off her, miraculously unharmed but unwilling to ever try again. This made me like Fancy somewhat, because I hated my brother.

Those familiar with horse trickery would have caught her ruse but Fancy had deliberately held her breath to make the saddle seem tight enough. But in stride she let the breath out, the saddle loosened, and my brother came toppling down. She planned that fuckup.

I was a bit more game, being a dedicated horse girl. I wanted to succeed where my loathsome brother had failed. Keep in mind: none of us had ever ridden. We had no idea what we were doing, and in the only defense I’ll ever make of that hoofed demon it was probably not pleasant to have a human flopping on her back like a sack of potatoes. But I paraded around in a circle until she scraped my leg against a fence post. I lasted longer than my brother but had to admit riding an animal radiating malice at you is not comfortable.

We didn’t really ride Fancy much after that. She was a decorative aspect to the fields. Sometimes I’d sit on her bare back while she was eating. Every so often she’d buck me off for assuming familiarity with her.

But Fany's coup de grâce took several months. Most of the pasturage had electric fence running along it to keep the livestock from testing the fences or getting a taste for freedom. My parents were constantly moving fence posts and reallocating land to different purposes which is how one of the major gates ended up with electric fence running over top. During a move the wire got left up from the last border and now it was strung over what should have been an open passage.

I was taking a ride on Fancy, living in a fantasy that I had any idea what I was doing. My mom was out working in the yard, and as she passed through she left the gate open, forgetting the wire hazard. You know who didn't forget?

Fancy.

She beelined for the open gate and I realized a second too late what her plan was. I hauled back on the reins with all my strength but she powered through, charging at the wire. If I'd caught on sooner I could have tipped forward and probably cleared it.

It was roughly chest height. But she was too savvy, keeping a slow pace right up until the passage, and I didn't have time to react. The thought of getting electrocuted sent me down into a terrified backward limbo, desperately trying to flatten myself along her back.

Her assassination almost worked. But instead of beheading me the wire caught under my chin, pressing back into my neck like a garrote. The only good news was that the wire wasn't live, but I was still in terrible danger. I squealed and wiggled and managed to twist my neck enough that the wire scraped over my face instead of pressing deeper. Once we were through Fancy stopped and turned to regard me, disappointed that her murder had failed. My neck was bleeding but my head remained attached.

My mother was absolutely terrified and I was pretty shaken myself. We unsaddled Fancy for the last time, as full on attempts on my life were a bit more than I was willing to bear for the sake of pretending to be a fantasy hero on an epic journey. My neck still has a faint scar from her homicidal tendencies.

Fancy got to remain a decorative horse for many years after that, free of our attempts to ride her. Her last torment was when my mother decided to try to breed her to achieve an animal that was less interested in murder.

I love this girl. She’s amazing at everything but can’t say no to anybody. She went to Florida to learn english and accidentally wandered into assassin training. This is missing the punchline though.

You know, queries about this come in every now and then. So—because this response from last year is pretty detailed, and I think will answer all your questions—I'm just gonna paste it in here. 🙂

...About my work on Transformers G1: Developmentally speaking it’s kind of a complicated story, so bear with me here while I set the scene.

In 1985 I was a pretty busy gal. The Door Into Shadow had just published. Deep Wizardry had gone to press for publication in Delacorte’s fall-‘85 schedule. My first computer game, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative, launched (in the Rainbow Room on top of 30 Rock…) in the summer of '85. I was then scripting my first comics work for DC (the “Double Blind” two-parter and “The Last Word”). And after taking a brief breathing space from four or five years’ worth of animation work across a number of shows (scroll down here for details), I’d just turned in an episode of My Little Pony.

In memory all this work tends to get tangled together somewhat (which is probably no surprise). One thread that shows persistently through the tangle, though, is how much time I was spending in New York at a time when I was living in Philadelphia.

A surprising amount of that has to do with the research surrounding Deep Wizardry, which required specialized materials not readily available anywhere else. Because I had a contract for that book, in early 1984 I applied for (and was granted) access to the Frederick Lewis Allen Memorial Room at the main branch of the New York Public Library. As a result, for the guts of a year I was “up in town” at least every other week or so, sometimes for two or three days at a time—taking notes from the Woods Hole oceanographic resources there, drawing copies of them (like this one) when xerography wasn’t available or when otherwise necessary, and—when there was time—writing.

But on those stay-overs my evenings were my own, and fortunately there were some really nice people to meet up with, every so often. Back when 666 5th Avenue (now 660) was DC Comics’ home, a lot of the writing and editorial talent had a habit of heading down to street level and around the corner on Friday nights, to meet up and relax at the bar in a local steakhouse on the W. 52nd Street side (long gone now, alas). That’s almost certainly where I first met Len Wein—most likely introduced to him by my editor on the Trek comics at DC, Bob Greenberger—and we quickly got to be friends. Each of us was interested in the writing (and kinds of writing) the other was doing, so we had lots to chat about.

Now during this period I’d recently finished work on that My Little Pony script. A production company called Sunbow was then handling the screen side of the property, along with shows based on various other IPs. To this day I can’t remember who it was over there who said to me, “So listen, now that you’re done with that, we’ve got some slots unfilled on another show—would you be interested in doing a Transformers?” My answer was naturally “Sure, why not?”*

So shortly I was talking story, in a general way, with my new story editor over there, Steve Gerber. The thought of doing something a bit personal, and getting into some of the characters’ heads a bit, was as usual on my mind. The idea of getting Galvatron some psychiatric care had already crossed my mind at that point… though I had on first impulse pushed that (for the time being) onto the back burner due to possibly being a little too “on the nose.”

At some point pretty early on in this process, though, a different idea hit me. Len was plainly perfectly cut out for animation storytelling (as other comics writers have also been: but the fit had rarely seemed quite so perfect, to me at least). And he’d have a party with this, I thought. Why not invite him along for the ride and let him get a feel for how it’s done?

So I said to him (as Tom Swale had once said to me years back), "Hey, you wanna write a cartoon?" And to my great pleasure Len promptly said “Yes!” And having cleared this team-up with Steve Gerber, we dove in as co-writers.

Collaboration can sometimes be a rocky road, but I’ve always been lucky in mine, and that lucky streak held true with Len. I have rarely had a co-writer who right out of the starting gate was more willing to stretch hard to get things right, and one who was more effortlessly funny… even when the humor turned dark (as it repeatedly did in this episode). He unquestionably brought things to that script that I wouldn’t have thought to try, or would have been nervous about my ability to pull off, solo.

…So after a couple/few weeks we turned “Webworld” in, the checks cleared, and we both went on to other things... while remaining good friends all the while: and it was @petermorwood's and my great pleasure to have Len as a houseguest here. The two of them got along famously, another case of senses of humor meshing perfectly. ...But that episode keeps coming up as many people’s favorite… and I can’t say that I mind a bit. 😊 (If you want to look at it, the whole episode’s online: just follow the link.)

BTW, because people do ask “Why does Len’s name appear first on the credits screen?”, the answer’s simple: Because I insisted. He was the newbie here, after all. I thought it only right that the junior partner in this medium should be put in pride of place on that credit, his very first time out (and if you scroll right down to the bottom of his IMDb page, you'll find it there, the very first entry). ...Noting here that I've routinely done the same with Peter, for anyone who’s been watching. Collaborator of thirty-plus years he may have been, but he’s still always been newer at this than I am. 😏

In any case, I wear the joint credit with Len with great pride. It’s an honor to be associated with someone who went on to become—entirely separate from his already-stellar career in comics—one of the strongest and most prolific animation writers of the last few decades.

…So that’s how it happened. (And as for the story, which pops up here and there, of how Bob G. and I dragged Len out of that restaurant one night and made him buy his first computer [an early Macintosh]: that’s true too.) 😅

It's so good

For those who haven't watched it...go watch it....Tubi has the whole show for free and you don't even have to sign up if you don't want to, you can just go on their site and watch and enjoy it....

But for those who want a plot synopsis, it's literally a story where the Decepticons are getting more and more frustrated with the fact that Galvatron is whacked out of his gourd and frequently attacks them as often as he does the Autobots....and insist that Cyclonus take him to Space Therapy

But also... "prev", as we say around here:

#what the fuck #diane duane is on tumblr?! #diane duane whom i knew also wrote star trek books #?! #her?!!! #HERE?! #diane duane #diane duane?!

Yeah, here. Been here since 2008.

And have done some things besides Star Trek. Like these...

...and these...

...and assorted other stuff.

...The novels are here. You can also view the shorter fiction, the comics, and the other film and TV media separately.

...I try to stay busy. 😏

When I realized (partly from reader feedback) that I had been working from bad data on this book, I rewrote much of it.

This may be the best of the links that will assist you in assessing what I did: