Investigating Battlestar Galactica: Flesh, Spirit, and Steel

Of all recent television science fiction series, the reimagined Battlestar Galactica is the most highly praised and consistently inventive and intelligent. Where the original show was a straightforward space opera, the new one is rich, strange and above all unpredictable. This book explores the new Battlestar Galactica from beginning to end, covering all of the show's principal themes, from the depiction of sexuality in an era of artificial people and downloaded memories to what it means to be a member of a military organization when the stakes are not victory or defeat but survival. Like all the best shows about the future or the past -- we are never sure when all this is supposed to be happening -- Battlestar Galactica is a series about the present; chapters here cover its depiction of the post-9/11 world and such issues as abortion and worker's rights. This definitive book on the full new Battlestar Galactica also includes an interview with Jane Espenson, co-executive producer of the show's last seasons and writer/director of the Battlestar Galactica prequel film The Plan .