David McCloskey

So this connection of sort of desert, Middle East location and sci-fi, there's some grounding there from a film standpoint.

Yeah.

And Chambers tells Mendez that he actually has come across a script he'd been pitched months earlier.

And it is a script based on Roger Zelazny's 1967 Hugo-winning science fiction novel, Lord of Light.

Now, the Hugos are the premier annual literary awards for sci-fi and fantasy, so the novel's

big deal in the science fiction world.

And a producer named Barry Geller had bought the rights and put together a serious attempt to actually get this novel adapted for the screen.

Jack Kirby, who's a Marvel Comics legend, he was the co-creator and illustrator of Captain America and the Fantastic Four, he'd been hired to do the concept art for this adaptation of Lord of Light.

Barry Geller, the producer who bought the rights, had even envisioned a theme park based on the film in Aurora, Colorado, which is going to be called Science Fiction Land.

He's getting a little bit ahead of himself, thinking of the theme park.

I always, you know, Gordon, when I'm starting a novel, I always start with the theme park.

What?

What's the theme park?

Damascus Station, the theme park.

I start with a theme park and then the story just kind of gets built around it.

And there's concept art of what the theme park would look like.

And Barry Geller, when he was asked why it wasn't built, said it gives a whole bunch of reasons that he's basically like, it was going to cost a half billion dollars.

It was just going to, it was insane.

It had like levitating trains on magnets and stuff.

You can find them.