Following December's installment of this story--December's very long installment of this story--The Plant will be going back into hibernation so that I can continue work on Black House (the sequel to The Talisman, written in collaboration with Peter Straub). I also need to complete work on two new novels (the first, Dreamcatcher, will be available from Scribner's next March) and see if I can't get going on The Dark Tower again. And my agent insists I need to take a breather so that foreign translation and publication of The Plant--also in installments, also on the Net--can catch up with American publication. Yet don't despair. The last time The Plant furled its leaves, the story remained dormant for nineteen years. If it could survive that, I'm sure it can survive a year or two while I work on other projects.

King goes on to thank the "between 75 and 80 per cent: of people who paid for parts 1 through 3 by saying part 6 of will be available free of charge. Nevertheless, an apparent addendum to the initial announce may indicate that the hiatus may be more permanent:

Readers of The Plant should be aware that although I am stopping at the end of Part 6 because of other committments--most notably the job of finishing The Talisman sequel with Peter Straub--the pay-through rate has fallen off radically with Part 4. In fact, the numbers have dropped below 50%. Neither Marsha nor I can assign any particular reason for this precipitous drop off, it may be that people are stealing this particular installment simply because they know the story is going to stop anyway.

King made it clear when he began the serial that he would pull the plug if a large enough percentage of people failed to pay the $1 to $2 per episode fee. The story has been offered under a unique "pay-as-you-read" schedule, where payment for the first 8 chapters could be made after downloading on an honor system, with the remaining chapters (if any) to be free.

Interestingly, the first chapter of the story is no longer available for download from the site. This makes it impossible for potential new readers to start the story regardless of their willingness to pay for it.

Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within is based on the insanely popular interactive video game, but doesn't use the same storylines or characters. Set on Earth in 2065, the movie's plot surrounds a female scientist named Aki, who is one of the few human survivors following an invasion of phantom-like aliens that has killed most of the world's population. Like the games, the film spotlights the basic questions of life and death, good and evil, and the spirit of mankind.

Ming-Na (the voice of Mulan), Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, James Woods, Donald Sutherland, and Peri Gilpin are providing voice talent for the film, which is scheduled for a July 13, 2001, US release.

If you can't wait that long, the theatrical trailer can be viewed on the official Final Fantasy movie site. In addition, both a monthly and weekly "short" trailer featuring smaller snippets of the film are available, along with behind the scenes info.

Shyamalan also spoke of his first meeting with Stephen Spielberg. The director says, "I was physically sick that day with the flu. Unbelievably, for that hour of meeting Spielberg, my body said, 'I'll give you a little break.' I suddenly felt fine for that little window and then felt sick for weeks afterward."

In Unbreakable, Willis plays a stadium security guard who miraculously survives a calamitous train wreck. Willis co-stars with Samuel L. Jackson and reteams with Shyamalan, his director in The Sixth Sense. Unbreakable opened November 22, and has already raked in over $46 million. The Sixth Sense grossed over $293 million dollars in the USA, making it the number 10 highest grossing film of all time.

Willis was enthusiastic about Shyamalan's technique. "Night set out to do something amazing, and achieved it," Willis said. "There are always one or two shots that are done in one take, either hand-held or what have you ... very complicated and complex. And so there's generally only one or two of them in films. There are over 30 scenes in this movie that are done in one take. It's astounding."

Terms were not disclosed, but Variety previously reported that Paramount was seeking as much as $364 million for the three series, which comprise more than 500 hours of Star Trek. That would be a record for such a deal, Variety reported. TNN beat out contenders for the series that reportedly included The Sci-Fi Channel, TNT, Fox Family, Odyssey Channel and FX.

TNN will begin airing the first of 179 episodes of TNG in the fall of 2001, 176 episodes of DS9 in fall 2004 and 172 episodes of Voyager in late 2006, TNN announced. Voyager is completing its original run of new shows on UPN this season, its seventh.

Starting in 2001, TNN will also air 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, 1984's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and 1989's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

When I went in to play Gunn it seemed like they had an idea that he could become a regular character. But I knew when I did my first three episodes from last season that they were basically an audition, another audition to see how I worked with the cast, to see how the character worked on camera. So I really didn't take it too seriously until my first day of work on the second season. I didn't assume I'd be coming back until that day. The producers had given me the feeling I was going in the right direction, but I didn't know for sure. So I was surprised and happy when it happened.