Sally Malcolm, Stargate Novelist & Co-Founder, Fandemonium

David Read: Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 79 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Thanks so much for spending some of your Sunday with us. We have Sally Malcolm, Fandemonium founder and novelist, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis books. Before we bring Sally in, I would like to invite you to share this with a Stargate friend. If you liked Stargate and want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click the Like button, it really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help the show grow its audience. And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. This is key if you plan on watching live. And clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the DialtheGate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. As with most of our episodes this is another live show. Sally is joining us from the UK, as many of our viewers are, so now I appreciate her time shift. So what we’re going to do is I’m going to have a q&a with her. And then I’m going to invite everyone who’s watching on youtube.com/dialthegate to submit questions to our moderating team and they’re going to get those over to me. And so that’s how we roll with these episodes. Sally Malcolm, Fandemonium founder, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing?

Sally Malcolm: I’m doing really well. Thank you for having me. It’s really exciting to be here.

David Read: It’s a pleasure. I mean, we’ve been corresponding for 15 years now? More? It’s good to finally see your face. I think this is the first time. Were you ever at a GateCon? Any of the ones in Vancouver?

Sally Malcolm: I went to one in Vancouver.

David Read: Did we meet there? I’m trying to remember. It’s been so long.

Sally Malcolm: I’m trying to think which year it was.

David Read: Well, regardless, it’s really good to have you on. We’ve got an accumulation of you said more than 60 titles over the course of… When was the first one? When did Trial by Fire come out, Sabine’s book?

Sally Malcolm: That would have been 2004

David Read: Wow.

Sally Malcolm: I know. It’s funny because I had a similar conversation. I met with Carol at MGM who you probably know.

David Read: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, we did a Zoom just the other day. Same thing, we hadn’t actually sort of met face to face. So I guess this is one of the the silver linings of the whole pandemic situation is everyone’s got on to Zoom. So we met with her and we had the same conversation and we worked out that it was, well I know it was 18 years ago when we started because my son at the time was just a couple of months old and he just turned 18.

David Read: Wow. How time has flown. Has it it been a rewarding experience going through releasing all these books over the years and all this material and trying to keep it all on the straight and narrow in terms of Stargate canon and everything else?

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, it’s been quite the ride. I mean, I was a huge Stargate fan to start with obviously. So that’s really what it came out of, I was writing Stargate fanfiction. And just in a strange out of the blue moment, we came up with this idea of maybe we could do some books and over the last 18 years we’ve managed to, we’ve been to everything from GateCon, we went to Chicago, we’ve been to Baltimore and meeting fans, we’ve been to London Comic Con a couple of times. That’s what I love. I love doing that, I love going out talking to readers and they come up and like, “Yes, this book, I’ve been waiting for this.” That’s been just so much fun and people saying, “Thanks for keeping it going.” Because obviously, I think we were in season seven SG-1 when we began and so we kept going when after that finished, after Atlantis finished, after Universe finished, and we’re still here.

David Read: Still trucking along. I know. It’s like Darren and GateWorld, Darren made the comments, I can’t remember when it was, but regardless, he said, “Depending on your definition,” he said, “I’ve been working on Stargate longer than Brad and Rob.” Like that’s kind of funny and Sally I thing we are a part of that crew at this point.

Sally Malcolm: So, yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah, yeah.

David Read: So you guys, had you had publishing experience before this really took off? What do you think, what was the impetus that allowed MGM to take a chance on you.

Sally Malcolm: I just think it was one of those cases of cosmic good luck, to be honest. My husband is a journalist and at the time he was already a journalist. But neither of us had any book publishing experience. He was an editor, magazine editor. So he knew that side of the business. I remember it so vividly. I was sitting on the stairs at home with my son who was like, three months old. He was saying, “Why are there no Stargate novels?” You know there’s Star Trek novels. And we looked up and there had been a couple that had been released.

David Read: Of SG-1 there were, was it two, I think, the Morpheus Factor and something else.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, exactly. And that was it. That was all it was around that point,

David Read: Movie novels.

Sally Malcolm: And the novelizations of the movie. So we thought, well, I know a lot of fanfiction writers, and they’re really good. Let’s just give it a shot. So we composed a fax, this is how long ago it was, and faxed MGM. And this is what we found out online to do. We did look it up, and obviously the internet had existed. And we sent them a fax and to our complete shock the next day, the very next day, we got a message back saying, “Yeah, we’re interested come into our London office.” And at that point, they had an office in a place called Richmond upon Thames, which is close to where we live. And so I was at home the baby. So Tom went in and had a meeting with a guy there. And yeah, they said, “Sure, okay, we could do something, put together some figures and come back to us.” Which we did and initially started with just the UK rights. But we expanded that over the years to do more. So I don’t know what made them take the chance on us. And we were fans of the show, and no one else is doing I think so I guess it was just an amazing feat of luck.

David Read: I mean, it just goes to show that if you have a vision, and you have the wherewithal to see it through, because people have been getting in touch with me for years, and saying, “Can I have the contact info for so and so at MGM, I want to pitch something.” It’s like, “Don’t come this way.” I mean, you have to know, I mean, if you’re coming to me something’s wrong. So there’s just not everyone can pull off something like you guys have pulled off. There is a commitment to following through on something like this. It is an exhausting amount of work. I have pitched frankly, full disclosure, I have pitched to you a few years ago, and we went through how many iterations and it didn’t come about and that’s just how it is. Yeah, there’s a process at play, you have an expectation of a certain level of quality and a certain framework from which you have to work in because what’s interesting for you guys is not only do you have to follow 350 episodes of continuity, you have to follow your continuity, because your continuity in the novels is also completely internally consistent. Am I right?

Sally Malcolm: I think it is mostly, there certainly we have series of books where there’s obviously a continuity. I think because I’ve come from fanfiction, the world of fanfiction, which I love and I still love, where you have this creation, you have the original source material, the show or whatever the fandom is around. And then people can dip into that and they can say, “Well, what if this happens? What if that happens?” And I love that because you can be really creative. And that’s one of the things I love so much about fanfiction, we’re a bit more limited in that, because obviously we can’t change things irrevocably, except with one series of books, which we may get onto later. But so you have to sort of put your toys back as you found them. But so I haven’t been too strict. Where if an author’s come to me and said, “I’ve got this great idea, and I want to do this.” And I’m going, “Five years ago we had a book which might contradict that.” I’m a little bit, I kind of feel like, these are possible stories. If a kind of a vague, I think it’s my fanfic from background, which makes me think like that. I don’t want to have things which are completely contradictory. And because everything has to go back into the box at the end, there’s always going to be a level of continuity because they’ve all got to fit with the show. But so if, I don’t know, if two characters have a conversation in book A, I don’t always expect authors of book, Zed to have included a reference to that conversation, if you see what I mean, or that event, or that series of events. Although sometimes our writers do, because they’re also fans, and they’ve read the book.

David Read: They keep the internal continuity as well. I remember you introduced a British character in Trial by Fire and the first time that I noticed that I was reading book one of the Matter of Honor series, and they specifically referenced her and I was like this is good stuff. This is we are we are paying attention, or at least trying to, just as much as Brad and Rob and all the others behind the production did. Have you ever been in a situation where in after accepting some of this material you were like midway through and on some of the content and be like, “We have to tweak something, we have to reverse something, because we’ve missed this big chunk over here, or Stargate is doing this over here? Because it’s in production right now?”

Sally Malcolm: Well, the process is that we’ll have an outline. And then that outline has to be approved by MGM. So usually, that will get rid of anything too major. Especially when the show was in production that was much more important. And there were times, I can’t think of a specific example. But there were times where they said, “Don’t go there, because the show might touch on that topic or that subject.” Especially they couldn’t do anything set post season 10 of SG, or post the end of SG-1, whilst Atlantis was in production, just in case it somehow contradicted what happened in Atlantis. So, things like that we were constrained. I don’t think we’ve got fully through a novel where we’ve had to change a large element of the plot. Although we do get notes from MGM, which I send back to my authors. And sometimes they are required to change something, some elements sometimes just I don’t think Jack could say that line or I don’t think his character would behave in this way in this situation. It’s a bit too dark, sometimes we go a bit dark and MGM [inaudible]. Jack has a dark side.

David Read: Black ops side, there are levels of his persona where angels fear to tread. I mean, especially [inaudible]

Sally Malcolm: Yes, absolutely. What makes him such a compelling character. He’s very light on the outside and he will just keep it light, keep everything a joke, but you know that there’s a backstory.

David Read: Right, exactly. He’s SG-1’s Han Solo for sure. Under certain circumstances, this man can can be a killer.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, and I think he must have been

David Read: Absolutely that’s one of one of my favorite lines from him in season one with Cor-ai,” I have spent a number of years in service of my country, and I have been ordered to do some damn distasteful things.” And you just have to ask yourself, tell me more. Which, yeah, go ahead.

Sally Malcolm: That “tell me more” that is sort of the nub of fanfiction for me. Yeah, there’s a story that you could write and many people have, what happened, what happened in Berlin, what happened back in the other thing he’s done in the past where we know that’s sort of [inaudible]?

David Read: We saw that glimpse of East Germany in Gamekeeper in season two and I mean, that’s one piece of a whole larger operation. Not only do you run this thing, but you have written as well. What are some, before we get into stories, what have been some of your favorite characters to write for? And whose voices have you found personally difficult to write for the most and whose have come in loud and clear?

Sally Malcolm: Okay. Interesting question. I find Jack quite easy to write for I think. I guess he’s my favorite character so I enjoy writing Jack. Teal’c is hard to write, I’m not gonna lie, I think most people would agree, most authors would agree that Teal’c is probably the hardest to write.

David Read: He has the least to say, well, he talks the least, he has the least to say is not true.

Sally Malcolm: His internal monologue is actually very interesting. And sometimes I’ve found, he is a perfect character for a particular scene, you’re thinking about, hmm, whose point of view I’m going to write thisone from, and sometimes Teal’c is perfect because he doesn’t say much but it’s all going on in there and you can use him to reveal what the other characters are thinking. But his voice is quite difficult because he speaks, obviously, quite formally but you don’t want it to sound like a pastiche. So you have to try and keep it not to sort of “Indeed, O’Neill” every five minutes.

David Read: It would get old.

Sally Malcolm: We’re going to get it right. Daniel, I also find quite interesting to write because, of course, he’s the moral voice of the team. Soif you need a scene that you’re trying to put across some moral complexity then Daniel’s for one, and I’m probably in terms of personality, I’m probably most like, Daniel. I have a history background. I’m a bit not as educated because I don’t have two PhDs.

David Read: Twenty-two different languages. Yeah.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah. No, sadly, no other languages. So yeah, so I like Daniel. I like writing him, he can be really interesting and I find him quite easy to write as well from just, I think. because I sort of relate to him quite well. And yes, Sam, of course I love Sam as well, but I love them all. But maybe she might be one of my most tricky characters to write, I think, because she’s quite rule bound, and she’s quite…

David Read: Analytical?

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, she’s analytical and scientific, which I’m not. The technobabble is quite difficult, I’m sure when they write the script, they probably put something like, get some technobabble put in here, and they have someone who can provide it, but I have to make it up myself. So I find it quite hard.

David Read: Everything that comes out of her mouth is really on the straight and narrow. With Daniel it’s a passion, and with Jack it’s of chaos.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, controlled chaos.

David Read: Controlled chaos.

Sally Malcolm: If you let that control slip it would be bad news. So yeah, I like that [inaudible]

David Read: Have all of the books been written in third person? Or have any of them taken one of the character’s perspective through the entire thing?

Sally Malcolm: They’re all done… Just trying to think back and all 60, I’m pretty sure will be done, I would certainly the ones I’ve written will be multiple point of view, third person. Yeah. Yeah, not only necessarily the four main characters from SG-1 and Atlantis, are sometimes the bad guys and some original characters get their own point of view as well, which is quite fun. Yeah.

David Read: Well, I mean, the shows have always been about SG-1 and the SG-1 team and Sheppard, not Flanagan, Sheppard’s Atlantis team, and getting outside of that, especially with the villains or the enemies, or the adversaries to really play into their angle and their perspective. I mean, it is so much of what sci fi is about, let’s take a look at their enemy and get inside their heads and see why they’re thinking what they’re thinking. See a) what is revolting about them, but b) what is relatable about them as well. That’s a little tricky. That’s a little trickier. What are some of your favorites that you’ve written?

Sally Malcolm: That I’ve written?

David Read: And we should note, go to StargateNovels.com and follow along if you’d like.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, they’re all on there. They’re all on there. I guess the Apocalypse trilogy, which I wrote with my friend and writing partner, Laura, was really, that was a fun thing to write. We both vowed we were never gonna write time travel again, when we got to the end of it was a nightmare, keeping all the different time lines and threads straight. But the first book, we just had this idea of how it was going to end and I think some of our readers were like not too happy with seeing the first book, there was a bit of a cliffhanger. But I liked the plot of that, it was set on Earth [and] we even set it in Scotland, near where Laura lives, actually. So that was a lot of fun. I still get people coming up to me at conventions with the Matter of Honor books.

David Read: Yes. There’s continuity change there if you follow what happened at the end of the Matter of Time. Which is all I’ll say. So yes, you guys changed things a little bit.

Sally Malcolm: We wanted to give to the poor guys stuck on the planet, we wanted to give them a better ending.

David Read: Yeah, absolutely.

Sally Malcolm: It was too sad to leave them there but it was an interesting premise. And that, yeah, that was one of the books that really follows directly on from an episode title. And yeah, I still get people who love those books, and I wrote those a long time ago now. So it’s good that they’ve stood the test of time. I also really have my own ones ever and I was really like the novella Permafrost that I wrote, which is a kind of slight horror twist on Stargate, which is a 30,000 word, short novella. I enjoyed writing that one as well.

David Read: All right, and some of the highlights from other authors of the year, if you could narrow some of those down. I know, we can’t bring up everybody and everyone, that’s a huge amount of content. And I advise everyone to go and check out StargateNovels.com. But any of the ones that have really stood out to you over the years, really withstood the test of time.

Sally Malcolm: I mean, that’s the Legacy series, which we maybe we’ll discuss, with the continuation of Atlantis which was done by, three amazing authors writing as a team. That was fantastic. I loved all of those books. They were just a joy to edit, and absolutely brilliant, as we were talking earlier about going into the culture of the bad guys, they completely expanded on the Wraith culture to such an extent that that is in my head canon now. Everything they wrote about the Wraith and I would advise anyone who is an Atlantis fan to read those books because they’re fantastic. When we first started, the first author who I approached was a fan fiction writer, who’s stuff I loved, Sabine Bauer, and she wrote the first book Trial by Fire and a couple of others of the books. And she’s got really forensic knowledge of the show and her books are they are tight, they’re very plotty, she writes a great Jack O’Neill, really, really good. What I love about her stuff is she comes, and this is true of the Legacy authors as well, she comes at it from a fan’s perspective. So she was writing, there are writers who write, writers for hire, but Sabine is a writer of passion. She comes to it from that point of view. Susannah Sinard is another one who writes as a fan and you can tell from the writing, I’m sure that 100% convinced that you can tell when a fan has written a book who is a real fan, you can be a pro-writer and a fan. But you someone who’s written it from a perspective of love for the show.

David Read: Yeah, of reverence.

Sally Malcolm: Of reverence. Yeah, exactly. And just being delighted to be able to spend more time with these characters. That’s why people write fanfiction and that right from the beginning, from the name of our company, that is what we wanted to get into our books. We didn’t want that just to be, just put out there as a Stargate label on it and some will buy it. We came at it and we’ve continued to come at it from the point of view of fans who love the show who want to write stories for the show. And so all of my favorite books are written by people who are massive fans of the show. Geonn Cannon is another big fan of the show. We’re working on something new with him at the moment. So yeah, I do…

David Read: So go ahead. Sorry. Sorry,

Sally Malcolm: Carry on, carry on.

David Read: Thank you. I do want to ask it’s been almost a couple of years since the book has come out. And I wanted to preempt that question before the the fans bring it up. Can you give us can you give us an update on that? What’s going on there?

Sally Malcolm: Well, we are still ongoing. The pandemic has caused some, as it has been everything, some delays in all areas of the process and everyone involved. We’ve got two new books in development at the moment, which we’re hoping we’ll be able to get going soon. Obviously we’ve been busy with our own lives during this situation, as everyone is working. Yeah, I have a day job, which has been quite impacted by the pandemic. And Jim has also obviously had a lot going on so we’re the all these things are fed together to slow things up more than we would have liked. But we’ve got two books really close to being ready. As soon as they have more information about when we can get those out we will be banging the drum loudly. But yeah, so I’m afraid I can’t give you any like dates because we don’t know any yet. But as soon as we get everything sorted, we will be putting some more things out there. There are more things in the works.

David Read: Perfect. Yeah, Darren at GateWorld will be very happy to know and we can start reporting on more Stargate content because, if there’s ever been a time to hunker down and read, this has been it. So. Exactly. The Legacy series specifically. A lot of fans rightfully felt cut short by Atlantis ending the way that it did. The Wraith were left unresolved. I think that that was really the big thing that’s floating on out there is that we have the Ancients, perhaps greatest adversary, at least the greatest adversary in the Pegasus Galaxy are still left wreaking havoc on Pegasus worlds. And you guys took a direction. So tell us about the process that you went through to convince MGM to tell a post Atlantis story.

Sally Malcolm: Wow. Yeah,

David Read: Season five, post Atlantis season five stories.

Sally Malcolm: So Jo Graham came to me and said, she’d written a couple of books for us and she’s a fantastic writer, another fan fiction writer. And she came to me and she said, “I’ve got this idea. We’re thinking of doing as fanfiction, but I don’t know, it’d be amazing if you could get MGM to agree to do it.” And she sort of ran it past me this idea of a six book series, a virtual season six is how she pitched it to me. And I was like, “Yes, I want to do this.” So well, we went to MGM and we basically pitched it at them, the show was off the air, there was no risk that we were going to tread on any toes in terms of what was gonna happen next and by that point…

David Read: Had the plug on Stargate: Extinction had already been pulled at this point? I’m guessing.

Sally Malcolm: Yes, yeah.

David Read: Yes. That TV movie was not going to happen.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, so yeah, exactly. So, we just went to them and said we’ve got this great idea and they knew that the author’s were writing and to our surprise, they were like, “Okay, well, go for it.” So we did and it’s honestly just is an amazing series, I can’t believe what a great job, well I can because when you have Jo Graham, Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold, I mean the three of them, Melissa Scott, any science fiction fan will know an extremely well respected author in a room, right? And so is Jo Graham and so they write their own original fiction. So we were so blessed to have them working with us on the series, the Atlantis Legacy series and I think anyone who’s read it will agree that it’s just, it’s superb science fiction writing.

David Read: What’s the the mile up view, looking down on it premise of this to entice the Atlantis fans? Who were robbed of a season six?

Sally Malcolm: Right? Yeah, so season five ends with Atlantis in Harbor, San Francisco, then the Wraith taking control in the Pegasus Galaxy. And basically the Legacy series picks up Atlantis and sends it back to Pegasus, with the team on board, various political shenanigans allow that to happen. And on the way an incident happens which strands it in a different bit of the galaxy, not where they were intending to go. Not to spoil too much, but something happens to one of our favorite characters which changes them quite a lot. And really is the first time in one of the books where we’ve changed something from canon. And it was a pretty big step and we were pretty surprised that MGM allowed us to do it.

David Read: Talking about something that happens to Rodney?

Sally Malcolm: To Rodney, yeah, to Rodney. I don’t know whether to say it or not.

David Read: I mean, I have not read them and I know it, so it’s out there on the web.

Sally Malcolm: Okay, well, okay. So Rodney he gets turned into a Wraith for a period of time. Through his point of view, we learn about the Wraith. So he is in a high, he knows Guide, Todd as he is called in the Atlantis books, but of course the Wraith don’t call themselves that they have their own names for each other.

David Read: Yeah, you had to do something for the novels, you had to distinguish them somehow.

Sally Malcolm: Well, yes, exactly. And it’s not like they’re just going to call each other, you over there. Some kind of name and the authors came up with this idea that because they’re a telepathic race, they would consider themselves as sort of their names are kind of their personality or how they are. So Rodney is known as Quicksilver which I think is a great name for his brain how it works. So yeah, so we explore the Wraith culture through Rodney’s experience, he doesn’t realize that he’s human, he thinks he’s a Wraith for a time being and eventually the truth kind of comes out. Meanwhile, the rest of the team are off doing battle, there’s a new Wraith queen who is then a new enemy, but also potential avenue to peace with the Wraith.

David Read: Interesting.

Sally Malcolm: So it’s a six book arc that tells the whole story essentially of a season’s worth of story in six books. And then there is some other books that afterwards which bring in a couple of other storylines into novels and novella set in that universe, the Legacy universe which tie into it, but which are standalone books, so there’s a whole season, but it’s more than a season, there’s a whole world, the Legacy universe, which have been created. Yeah, and they’re just good. They’re just really good books.

David Read: And I understand your play with the the Vanir, the Pegasus Asgard as well.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, they crop up in two of the [Legacy] books and they come into it. And we bring back, we bring back some characters who met their demise in Atlantis, but bring them back.

David Read: Are you looking to continue this series?

Sally Malcolm: Well, I would be open…

David Read: Is a door open?

Sally Malcolm: Yes, I would be open to any new books in the Legacy series. That’s really up to the authors whether they have the time because, like I said, they both, Melissa and Jo, primary sort of authors around and Amy also writes with them. That they write their own stuff as well. They come to me and say, Melissa, or something, I think Melissa has got some other ideas that she has time she may be interested in doing. But at the moment, there’s nothing in the works. But I would love for anything. Yeah, I would, I would be very happy to do anything else in the Legacy universe.

David Read: I have something that I’m sure has been across your table before that you’ve answered. I am a huge Audible fan. And I spend 30 – 40 hours on the road every single week. I would very much love to be able to go through, I don’t have a tremendous amount of free time, some of the free time that I have I use to do this show and what little I have left to read. I don’t read nearly as, physically read nearly as much as I like to but audiobooks. I mean, there were audio dramas that were that were created by a separate company.

Sally Malcolm: Big Finish

David Read: Big Finish Audio Productions. But I think, some of, especially the Legacy series, I think would be fascinating to have adapted as an unabridged book, audio book.

Sally Malcolm: Well, I’m glad you asked that question. That is something we are looking at. Yes. Now there’s a couple of issues around that. The main one being audio it’s quite expensive.

David Read: This is true.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah. But we are, that’s definitely something that we’re looking at. We are and have discussed and are discussing with MGM. We very much hope that that’s going to be something that we’ll be able to do. And we will, yes, we want to do it. Audible is audio books are just massive at the moment, I listen to myself a lot. I love them. I always buy the Audible, the audio version of a book that I’ve read. So I read a book, if I love it, then I’ll listen to it on audio as well kind of like watching the movie.

David Read: Correct? It’s a whole different experience.

Sally Malcolm: Completely different. And yeah, so I really want to get into that. We’ve got, one of the things, I guess I can be honest here, right, one of the things which I think is going to be tricky, is finding a voice actor who is familiar with the show, so that they can do the character voices. So when you normally do an audio book, obviously, you have a book, and then the actor can interpret those characters that he or she chooses, in this case, you’re going to have to know how Teal’c sounds. You need to be able to do a, not an impersonation, but it’s got to sound like Jack or Daniel or whoever speaking. And that’s quite a detailed level of knowledge. So we would need an actor who could do that now. I can hear people going, “Oh, why don’t use one of the actors from the show.”

David Read: They are they are working actors.

Sally Malcolm: Yes. So yes. I think our pockets are not that deep, I’m afraid. I don’t even know. But I suspect [inaudible]

David Read: Well, as someone who loves them, all the best of luck on that. Because that is like, that is a big deal and like a lot with a lot of the Star Trek audiobooks, not the more recent ones. A lot of the more recent ones have not had the Star Trek characters, but the abridged ones definitely did have the Star Trek cast. And I’m just putting it out there. I have recorded amateur audiobooks before and I would be at your disposal.

Sally Malcolm: Well, thank you. That’s an interesting fact. We are audio newbies, but we’ve never published a book before we started this, so I’m not afraid that we wouldn’t figure it out.

David Read: Podcasts are a huge thing and we’re spending so much more time with our devices. So I think It would be a lucrative market to tap into.

Sally Malcolm: I think so. I think I suspect that there’s a whole load of fans who don’t read books, because like, in your case, they don’t have time to sit and read. I’ve noticed, I think our audience is probably mostly female. And I think we would hit more male readers through Audible. I often get fans, male fans come up to us at conventions and say, “Hey, have you got this on Audible, because I don’t really read, but I like to listen to Audible.”

David Read: Exactly. There’s something about like, like the YouTube audience. But for whatever reason skews male, and so does my mine despite the fact that the dedicated Stargate fan base if you go to a convention is predominantly female. So just one of those little quirks I think that you guys could really have a gold mine there.

Sally Malcolm: So yeah, definitely. So we’re really excited about that. We’ve just got to, we’ll need to invest the money and we’ll need to just work out the best way of doing it before. So I think what we might do is we might record a shorter book first, possibly one of the novellas just to test out our process. We have to get this approved by MGM. So we need to test that process out as well. Finding actors, just working it all out and we might go with a lower cost, the shorter book is cheaper. And once we’ve got that figured, then I would desperately love to do the Legacy series. I think that would be fantastic. But also some SG-1, keep the balance going. We just got to work out how it would work. But yeah, it’s definitely on our to do list.

David Read: Good. I’m very glad to hear this. I have a number of fan questions that have been submitted and I’d like to run them by you. Bernd Backhaus, “Is there an approval process with MGM and brand owners for each novel? If so, how does it work? How does that process go?”

Sally Malcolm: Okay, yes, so each novel is approved by MGM. And we get an outline from the author, which we agree with the author, then we send that to MGM.

David Read: You guys are the first filter in terms of what’s appropriate or not.

Sally Malcolm: Exactly, yeah. So we’ll talk to the author about their idea. And then we will ask, the outline is, we usually have a short outline, which is just maybe a page, which we send to MGM so they can pre-approve the general outline of the book, then we’ll get a long outline, which is about 4,000 words, ish, or 5,000 words, not exactly chapter by chapter, but it’s a detailed breakdown of all of the plot, what happens to all the characters at the end, it’s not like and then ” Den den da!” then you need to have the whole book worked out in outline form. Then that goes to MGM, and they approve that as well make sure there’s nothing they don’t like or any inconsistencies. So once that’s been approved, then the author is given the go ahead to write the book, then I will edit the first draft of the book. And we’ll go backwards and forwards until we’re happy with that. And then that whole book goes to MGM and then they will do a detailed another read through and they will come back with comments and my authors will tell you sometimes quite detailed comments. “No, you can’t do this don’t like this. Yes, this is good. Or I don’t understand this or this isn’t something I feel is appropriate to the show.” We’ve had to tone down the violence a couple of times in books.

David Read: Okay.

Sally Malcolm: That kind of thing.

David Read: To match the tonality of the series.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, which matches the show. They feel it’s not quite, it’s a bit too dark or bit too, yeah, whatever. So yeah, there’s another to and fro there, so those comments go back to the author who makes some changes, comes back to me I go through their changes, and then I reply to all of MGM’s comments, this is how we’ve addressed it and then to MGM and I certainly agree or disagree, and we keep going back and forwards until everybody’s happy and that’s when it goes out. And that can be a very lengthy process sometimes.

David Read: What’s been the average turnaround time for a book?

Sally Malcolm: Couldn’t say average because it has varied quite wildly but there are some which have taken probably more than a year to get approved. Yeah, and some which have gone much quicker. So it depends on the number of different things. What else is going on at MGM, what else we’ve got going, what’s going on with it because you’ve got an author can be busy he can’t get the changes back…

David Read: We’ve all got a day jobs.

Sally Malcolm: We’ve all got a day jobs. So it’s all been fitted in around our life. Yeah. So yeah. But hopefully less, then we would aim ideally for sort of three or four months but sometimes it’s longer unfortunately has been.

David Read: Claire Cowan, “Did you spend any time on set?”

Sally Malcolm: I did. This is really exciting right back at the beginning when we first started me and Sabine Bauer wrangled a trip to the set at Bridge Studio where they were filming Stargate and I can’t actually remember what episode it was. Yeah, it was…

David Read: Atlantis. SG-1. Both?

Sally Malcolm: SG-1. Yeah, yeah, it was SG-1. Yes, it was. Of course it was. Yes, it was great. So we had we had a meeting with some of the writers, we met Brad Wright and Robert Cooper and Joe Mallozzi in their office upstairs. I was nervous the whole time. That’s like my heart was going like this. And we had yes, they had some good conversations with them. Just asked him what we were doing. Then we went down to the set and watched them doing a bit of filming. Amanda Tapping came and talked to us She was lovely. Yeah. Michael Shanks came and talkef to us and he was really nice. Yeah, so we watched. Yeah, we just stood there in the back. Yeah.

David Read: It’s such a like, on one hand, it’s such a surreal experience. And on the other. There is a fourth wall that is broken forever at the time. It’s an interesting, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But there is something that you sacrifice once you see how the sausage is made?

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they were filming some scene and it was involving Daniel running down a corridor, firing a gun. We had to put like ear things in because it was quite loud. And but there was no sort of, there’s obviously no lasers and things like that. It was all about you’ve got to do it again, got to do it again kind of thing. There’s wires everywhere. And it’s quite small, cramped space this little corridor. But the really cool thing was we got to see the, we got to see the Atlantis set as well. And we got to see the SG-1 set, I got to sit behind Hammond’s desk, stand on the ramp to the Stargate, and all of that. It was amazing. Yeah, it was really, really fun. And we went into the Atlantis set. And I don’t think there was filming there at the time. But we saw the the gate room.

David Read: The Gatrium. Yeah.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah. The Atrium. Yeah. So it was like, it was so exciting. The whole time. I was so nervous that Richard Dean Anderson was gonna walk in and I thought, “Oh, God, if he walks in I’m just gonna blush so much.” But he didn’t. So I was quite mad, I was sort of disappointed and glad. Don’t think I would be able to keep my cool. But yeah, so we did and that was that was I mean, that was a long time ago. Must have been 2004. But it was before we put anything out, I think.

David Read: What a great experience.

Sally Malcolm: It was fantastic.

David Read: Lori Steinle & Goran Andonovski, “Love the Stargate books, any plans to write more?” So that the two books are in development? Right?

Sally Malcolm: Yes. So we’ve got two in development at the moment, one by Geonn Cannon, which is a really cool idea. It’s a novella, but how to explain this to you. It’s a story in which the team gets divided in two, two characters go one way, two characters go the other way and they both find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict on this planet.

David Read: SG-1 or Atlantis?

Sally Malcolm: It’s SG=1. So you have one side you’ve got Sam and Jack on the other team, Jack and Daniel on one side, Sam and Teal’c, I think it was that way around it. The first so you go into the story and you read it from Sam’s point of view. And then you get to the crisis point in the story. And then it starts again from Jack’s point of view. The idea is it’s a bit choose your own adventure. You can choose who’s you’re going to read first and then you read the other and then they come back together at the end.

David Read: So they’re reversible if you choose to. Wow.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, you could say so at the beginning, we haven’t formatted or anything yet, but at the beginning it’ll be something like choose which one.

David Read: Which one follow first.

Sally Malcolm: Who you want to follow first Jack or Sam, and you’ll get two different perspectives on the same story. So that’s quite fun. So that was…

David Read: That’s a great idea.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, it is great, that was Geonn Cannon’s ides. Yes, it worked out really well. I’m looking forward to getting that one out. And then we’ve got that, that’s a novella, and then we have a full length novel coming out by a new author to us. I won’t say too much about it, hasn’t all been approved yet. But it’s going to be picking up from the episode Watergate, and it’s going to explore Jack’s relationship with Maybourne and what happens to allow Jack to develop a more trusting relationship with Maybourne.

David Read: Yeah, after he became a Russian spy.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah. Exactly. So that’s another interesting story. So yeah, so those two are currently in production. And hopefully, yeah, as for me, personally, I have not got any plans at the moment to write anymore, but that’s because I’ve got quite a lot of other stuff that I’m writing because I do my own writing on the side, non-Stargate related. Plus I have a day job.

David Read: Right. Plus a kid, plus a family. Absolutely.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah. Yeah.

David Read: Dan 23, “Have you ever been told you got something?” I’m interested to hear your reaction to this because your filter is turned up so high. “Have you ever been told you got something wrong in the book, and it didn’t fit with show canon?” Or maybe they said that it didn’t, and you had to correct them?

Sally Malcolm: When you say told, I mean we may have had some comments and reviews and things. I don’t, obviously, don’t read all of the reviews, we’ve never had canon as an issue or anything like that we’ve needed to go back and change a book. Usually, it’s more of a point of view, or that I don’t think this would have happened or, I think we’re pretty good at catching anything that’s actually goes against canon. And the person at MGM who does our approvals, she’s watched all the episodes as well. So, I know also we use a lot of authors who are very immersed in the show. So I can’t recall any issue where someone who said, “This is completely wrong.” I don’t think we’ve made any big mistakes that it is no one’s brought it to my attention. Okay,

David Read: Have you ever taken a character like Ford who was on a Stargate team at some point before Atlantis or Colonel Young from Universe who is, I mean, these people were part of Stargate Command before their stories picked up and added them peripherally to one of the stories that we’re setting in earlier SG-1 seasons?

Sally Malcolm: I’m sure if we’ve added them earlier, someone might tell me that I’m mistaken. But we have certainly picked up some of those smaller characters who have delved into their backstory more, sort of within a book or use them as a more major.

David Read: I remember Diana Botsford had a real soft spot for SG-13’s Colonel Dixon. They pop in her stories, too.

Sally Malcolm: We’ve used Dixon in several books actually. He’s quite a popular character amongst our authors. We used him in the Apocalypse series. And I’m trying to think, which one it is, and there’s a whole book which is actually dedicated to him. I don’t remember which one it is.

David Read: It’s amazing those little characters that pop in for one or two episodes.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, just just kind of grab your…

David Read: Yeah, they’re kind of like static cling, you can’t get rid of them. There’s something about ’em.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, yeah. But I don’t think we inserted them earlier. Although it is the sort of thing that our authors do and I may just not be remembering. It’s quite a lot of books and quite a lot of years.

David Read: Well that’s it and you know what, we’ve got the the hive mind here in the comments also working if there’s anything that that stands out, I’m sure that they’ll let me know. I think asked and answered, but I’ll go ahead and bring it back up again. Austin [Au7stenThe7IsSilent], “Will any of the Stargate Atlantis books specifically the ones that take place after season five ever be on Audible?” There you go.

Sally Malcolm: It’s good to know there’s an interest, that’s one of the things to get to know there’ll be a market for them. So hopefully we’ll do a trial balloon and see how that goes. But yeah, that would definitely be one of my first choices. Once we start doing audio.

David Read: Jett Ison, “How do you submit an idea? Can you still submit ideas?”

Sally Malcolm: We kind of switch on and off with submissions. So at the moment we’re not taking any submissions, but we may open up again, once things get moving. When we do, we’ll usually advertise it and have a link on our website where there’s like writers guidance about what we’re looking for. And then we would be would ask for, as I described before, short outline and long outline. And just some information about previous writing experience or something like that. It’s quite time consuming when we do open up for submissions because it’s just the two of us so it takes quite a while to read through. But we found some great sources that one so we are keen to do it where as circumstances allow, but when we do we’ll tell people, maybe Tweet about it or put it up on Facebook and link to a page on our website where we can submit ideas.

David Read: Teresa Mc, “Were you ever inspired by any other Sci Fi series?”

Sally Malcolm: Yes, yeah. I started writing fanfiction for Voyager…

David Read: Ah, that poor lost ship in the Delta Quadrant.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, had a soft spot for that.

David Read: Who was your favorite to write for? Who was your favorite character?

Sally Malcolm: It was Tom Paris.

David Read: You liked Tom?

Sally Malcolm: I did. I don’t know why. I haven’t watched it for years. But I’m actually doing a big Star Trek rewatch with my son at the moment. We’ve done all the Next Generation. We want to do Deep Space 9. So eventually we’ll get back to Voyager. But yeah, I wrote Tom Paris. Yeah. And B’Elanna Torres. I was [inaudible].

David Read: I was big fan of those characters too.

Sally Malcolm: Oh, good. Yeah.

David Read: Absolutely. Tpete202, “Who’s your favorite villain that you’ve created?”

Sally Malcolm: Oh, the I’ve created? But I liked Ba’al. I wrote him as a sort of baddie in the Matter of Honor book. And I like that whole sort of psychodrama I guess with him and Jack. So I enjoyed writing him. I don’t think I’ve created an original bad guy. I would say Ba’al was probably my favorite one having written. Yeah.

David Read: So you were responsible for SG-1 Unleashed, right, that story?

Sally Malcolm: Yes.

David Read: So you took Sekhmet into a different direction.

Sally Malcolm: Yes,

David Read: I loved those first two episodes, and it is a crying shame that they are now inaccessible. I think that there’s something wrong about that. You know, I mean, keep them available so that people can play, I guess as as phones evolve, as this technology evolves, you can’t play them. But they were so cool. They were well done. And the voice acting and everything else was just great.

Sally Malcolm: I know it’s such a shame about that. I’d actually written the third episode as well before the plug was pulled on that series. And it was really fun. It was really fun to work on. And that it all kind of came together in the third episode.

David Read: Let me preempt you. ThatDudeRightThere wanted to know, “Can you reveal anything about what the story plan was for the third episode of Unleashed that never saw the light of day?” Because he says, “Anubis showing up was hinted at. That setup and teaser for episode three were great.”

Sally Malcolm: Okay, so let me try and remember Yes, now so the interesting thing here is that basically when they asked me to do the script for the Unleashed stories, that the idea was they wanted to create, they wanted to sort of do a kind of reset if you like, and they wanted to create, let’s put it that way, reboot the team in a way. So the idea was that the first three episodes we’re going to create this, it was going to end up with a kind of time travel situation whereby all of the Goa’ulds and everything had returned, and SG-1 went into a sort of alternate universe type thing, where you had SG-1 as they were, and a lot of the bad guys who, by this point in canon had been killed off, had been sort of revived. And that was going to be Anubis’ sort of plan with the device that he was trying to create. And so at the end of the third episode, you were going to have a situation where, I’m trying to remember correctly, SG-1 had sort of gone into this Unleashed universe where they were unleashed from sort of rules of Stargate Command, in a way, and all the bad guys had been sort of, I guess, returned by this device. Forgive me, because my memory of it is a bit shakey. But what happened that got canceled, but I really enjoyed the idea of that. And that forms the basis for what became the Apocalypse trilogy. So a lot of the ideas that would have come out in that third episode were put into that.

David Read: Understood. Okay, so that’s great. So even more reason to check out the Apocalypse trilogy then.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah. It’s not exactly but a lot of the elements are in there. Yeah, I really need to reread that script so I can answer questions.

David Read: Absolutely.

Sally Malcolm: It was quite awhile ago now.

David Read: Goran Andonovski. This is a fair point. “Have you have you considered putting out any SGU content?”

Sally Malcolm: Um, yeah, we get asked that but, every so often we get asked that. So we had the license to do SGU books for a while. And we put out the novelization of the pilot episode, but I struggled to find authors who wanted to write SGU. And then the series was canceled. We felt it just wasn’t worth the cost of the license. We weren’t going to make enough money from it to make it worth paying the license fee for it. So we dropped it from our license and…

David Read: You’ve done the license fee for SG-1 individually and for Atlantis individually, rather than getting a franchise license.

Sally Malcolm: That’s right. So we started with the SG-1 license and then we added the SGA license.

David Read: Got it. It comes down to numbers, it really does.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, and we get a few questions, we do get people saying would you do any SGU and we don’t get a huge number of people so it makes me wonder whether there’d be a market for it.

David Read: It’s fair. Jonas, “Which books should I read if I want to read a book that deals with Ancient lore, Ancient with a capital A?”

Sally Malcolm: Yes the Ancients, right. Let me just consult my list of books. Who is that, you have Ancients, Ancients. Okay. A good book by Melissa Scott called, Ourobouros, which deals with the Ancients. That’s an SG-1 book.

David Read: “When Daniel Jackson discovers the location of a lost Ancient laboratory he uncovers a powerful device, a prototype technology designed by Janus to supersede the Stargate network.”

Sally Malcolm: Yeah. She’s a fantastic author, so I would recommend anything by her but yes. And there was the Ancients, there was another Atlantis one. It’s quite an old one so I’m going back. Oh, well, now if you don’t mind a little sort of horror in your book, I would suggest Angelus by Peter Evans, Stargate Atlantis.

David Read: “When Colonel Ellis, Michael Beach’s character, encounters the Ancient Angelus in the borders of a Asuran space. The Atlantis team think their luck has changed but all is not what it seems and even Angelus does not know the truth of his identity.” Okay.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, that’s another good one. He’s another good writer.

David Read: So the Asurans are the Pegasus replicators. So Niam’s people and Charles Emerson Winchester, the third’s people.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, and also one more final recommendation is Exogenesis by, it’s another Atlantis book, Sonny Whitelaw and Elizabeth Christensen. Yeah, that’s another Ancient based book, Atlantis book.

David Read: Okay, “Carson Beckett disturbs the rest of two Ancients and the consequences are devastating.” Those Ancients man. They left so much behind, including some of themselves. They’re just fodder for story material.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, there’s a lot of it. They pop up every so often.

David Read: Absolutely. All right, Grigori One. “What do you think of there being a Stargate version of the Halo legends mini animated movies?”

Sally Malcolm: Oh, like an animated series?

David Read: I think that that’s what he’s getting at. Yeah,

Sally Malcolm: I’d be in favor of any new Stargate content. So the advantage of an animated series would obviously be that you can have Jack and Teal’c and Sam and Daniel, you don’t have to rely on the actors being unable to do it.

David Read: Did you see Stargate Infinity? Ever seen it?

Sally Malcolm: No I haven’t.

David Read: The pilot is worth watching. The quality unfortunately, was not all there in terms of like the animation. I think we’ve been spoiled by like Batman, the Animated Series and things like that over the years. So it’s definitely not there. But I recommend it to people who have young kids they’re trying to get at some point they’re going to grow up and start watching Stargate with their folks. I cannot recommend it enough for that because every episode has a, every episode’s a little morality tale like all the best of science fiction.

Sally Malcolm: So yeah, yeah.

David Read: Let me see. Lori says again, “Will Fandemonium at, are you planning on being at the next Stargate convention in Chicago if and when that happens? Saw Sally and a few authors there and it was awesome.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, we had such a good time in Chicago and we’ve been twice I think. Yes, we would. Well, we would love to go it would depend on obviously travel and, yeah, it’s coming from the UK it’s kind of expensive, but you do have family in the US so that kind of combined the trip makes it a little bit more affordable. So if and when that happens, yeah, we would love to go and we’d love to go to GateCon in Vancouver as well, then heavier cost applying.

David Read: Dan 23, “Have you ever brought a character from the show who was thought missing or dead back?”

Sally Malcolm: Yes, we have. I would refer you to, yeah, so these are a couple of books. The end of the Legacy series called Unascended and The Third Path. They bring back a character who died in, should I say who it is?

David Read: Well look at the cover art,I’ll let them go to the website and check it out.

Sally Malcolm: The cover art kind of gives it away. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. Yes, we did do that.

David Read: Yeah, there was for this particular character, I never thought that they got their proper comeuppance. So when I heard about this, I was very happy.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, yeah.

David Read: Eva, “Was it hard to write Sam and Jack scenes in terms of staying in character with the feelings which couldn’t be expressed but were there.” Were you a Sam and Jack shipper?

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, I’m a Sam and Jack shipper, so I had written a lot of fanfiction so I had quite a lot of experience of writing their feelings but of course in the books, it’s all subtext. So…

David Read: So correct, it’s beneath the surface. As it were.

Sally Malcolm: Exactly. Literally. So yeah, so I enjoyed writing that kind of stuff where you just can reveal it to those who want to see it in a word or sort of or a reference or something. And of course MGM asked us to keep us on the straight and narrow path. They’re not going to let anything slip through that they don’t think is consistent with the show.

David Read: Not unless you’re doing an alternate universe or something like that where you can run amok with alternates, so for sure. Sally, this has been fantastic. It’s been so good to catch up with you, seeing your face. I am really excited about the content that’s moving forward with SG four, with Brad’s next venture and for all the peripheral content that comes along with the continuing franchise. This thing is by no means dead it’s just hibernating and fans like you have helped to absolutely keep it alive so it really means a lot to me to have you on.

Sally Malcolm: Thank you for inviting me. It’s been really fun to talk about Stargate. Yeah,

David Read: Any other resources that we want to point out? I mean, obviously, Stargatenovels.com, we’ve been hitting that pretty good. So where to buy? Do you still sell hard copies? Or are you pretty, are you mostly ebook now?

Sally Malcolm: No, they’re all available in print and ebook.

David Read: They’re all available, okay.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, you should be able to order them from bookstores or go online from Amazon or other book providers, if you don’t [inaudible]

David Read: Correct me if I’m wrong, were’nt they like only available as like print to order at a certain point?

Sally Malcolm: Well, they are Print on Demand,

David Read: Print on Demand, that’s what it is.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, that technology has improved a great deal. So maybe, actually, they may not all be available Print on Demand at the moment, I’m not entirely… No, they are all available on Print on Demand.

David Read: And they’re on Kindle too, right?

Sally Malcolm: Kindle and Nook and all the other ebook providers. And yeah, so you should just be able to order. That technology has got so much better now that it’s allowed us to get everything available for print, when we were doing short run prints or paperback it was just the logistics were extremely difficult. So this has been a real benefit to us. And they look great. They look fantastic when they’re printed. So yeah.

David Read: Yeah, some of this technology has just come a long way. Like, especially like with T-shirts, Print on Demand as well. I mean, it’s really caught up with the rest of us. So that’s great to hear. I was wondering about that. All right. Well, I appreciate you again taking the time. And yeah, all the best to you and you know what? I’d love to have more of your authors on so please, let them know.

Sally Malcolm: I will. I will see if I can round up some and do a little panel or something.

David Read: I’d love to do that in the next month or two. Absolutely. So.

Sally Malcolm: Yeah, that’s great.

David Read: For sure. Well, you take care of yourself. I’m going to wrap up the show on this end, and I’ll be emailing you soon.

Sally Malcolm: Brilliant. Thanks. Great to talk with you. Thanks David.

David Read: Again, bye bye.

Sally Malcolm: Bye. Bye,

David Read: Sally Malcolm, Fandemonium. All right, we have a big day planned. In 45-minutes. Suanne Braun, also from the UK, is going to be joining us as well. So we’re going to get the show ready for her. Okay. Dial the Gate has sponsored with Big J Customs for the month of April to give you a chance to get your very own custom Pop figure. To enter to win these items you need to use a desktop or laptop computer and go to visit dialthegate.com. Scroll down to submit trivia questions. Your trivia may be used in a future episode of Dial the Gate, either for our monthly trivia night or for a special guest to ask me in a round of trivia. There are only three slots for trivia one easy one medium and one hard and only one needs to be filled in. But you’re more than welcome to submit up to three. The submission form does not currently work for mobile devices. Your trivia must be received before May the first and if you’re the lucky winner. I’ll be notifying you via your email to get your address. Please be sure to check out our partners website for more Stargate related merchandise at BigJCustomsart.com. So, if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to Like, Share and Subscribe. Thanks so much to my team, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys, Antony, Sommer, Linda “GateGabber” Furey, Jennifer Kirby, you guys make the show possible. We’re going to go ahead and get the show ready for Suanne in about 45-minutes here. In 40-minutes she’ll be back with us to discuss Hathor Hosts season two and to announce her guest list for the rest of the season. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. Thanks again to Sally for joining us. We’ll see you on the other side.