James L. Cambias's Blog, page 37

Random Encounters: Aboard the Orbital Elevator

The Orbital Elevator, stretching from an artificial island south of Singapore 36,000 kilometers up to geosynchronous orbit, is one of humanity's great engineering achievements. Capsules leave the ground terminal every two hours, and the whole journey up the long carbon-fiber cable takes two days.

Each capsule is a self-contained spaceship, with lounges at the top and bottom, a dining room amidships, and 64 little compartments on 8 decks. You never know who you're going to meet . . .

ENCOUNTERS ON THE ORBITAL ELEVATOR

Roll 1d20 if the characters are moving about the capsule interacting with others, 1d10 if they remain in their own compartment.

Roll Twice and Combine
Plot-advancing encounter: Someone or something related to the reason you're aboard this elevator in the first place.
Alien: It's from outside the Solar System, and it's heading home now. But it left one small bit of business unfinished down on Earth, and is looking for someone who can take care of it.
Flying Unicorn: An asteroid-mining tycoon returning to the Belt is taking along a genetically-engineered pet for her children. It's a 20-pound unicorn with wide feathery wings, silky rainbow fur, big dewy eyes, and a mean streak a mile wide. Now it's loose and must be caught, but every hair on its body is probably worth a year's salary if it's harmed.
Helpless Traveler: He's never been outside the atmosphere before and needs help with everything, and somehow he's decided that you're his personal lifeguard and instructor.
Hunter Drone: A mechanical spider the size of a housecat, equipped with advanced face and voice recognition and a built-in poison dart gun. It's hunting for you, either for something you did or something someone thinks you did. There may be more.
Retired Space Pirate: He's traveling incognito, of course, and for some reason he's taken a liking to you. Until the capsule reaches the station at geosynch, you've got a friend with plenty of cash, a lot of practical knowledge, and a well-used laser pistol in his boot.
Solar Storm! The capsule is bathed in radiation from a solar flare. Everyone takes refuge in the "storm shelter" compartments at the center of each deck ��� unless you're willing to risk radiation exposure to sneak around when nobody's watching.
Spy: A Martian agent who has been warned that the authorities are waiting for him (or her) up top, so he's picked you as the best person to impersonate.
Unscheduled Stop: The elevator slows to a halt, halfway between the Earth's surface and the orbital terminal. The PA system says it's a "routine safety stop" but someone's using the airlock. What's going on?  
Concession Stand: It's no bigger than a closet, and the plump purple-haired old lady who runs it takes up most of the room. But it's amazing what she's got for sale: spacesickness pills, first-aid kits, power packs, hull patching tape . . . whatever you need most, she's got it.
Coolant Leak: One compartment is full of droplets of flammable coolant. Any spark could turn the whole place into a bomb powerful enough to destroy the whole capsule.
Face at the Window: You just saw it out of the corner of your eye, and when you turned to look it was gone, but you could swear you saw someone outside the window ��� ten thousand miles above the atmosphere!
Hostile-Environment Section: This whole deck is configured to reproduce conditions deep in the atmosphere of Jupiter. A Jovian envoy is heading home, uncomfortably squeezed into a single deck of the elevator capsule and feeling irritable.
Mesmerizing Lecturer: She's talking about the spiritual implications of space travel, and she's secretly using psychic powers or advanced subliminal technology to make her talk absolutely hypnotic ��� so hypnotic that her assistant can move through the audience searching pockets and wallets without being noticed.
Party Suite: There's plenty of booze and expensive psychoactive substances, and a dozen young people with someone else's money.
Sealed Compartment: The door is not just locked, it's bolted shut and there's a sign reading "DANGER" in big unfriendly letters. What do you suppose is in there?
Tense Standoff: There are four people in one compartment, all pointing guns at each other. One of them is clutching a briefcase, another is holding a small computer memory stick in her free hand.
Terrorists: They're planning to sabotage the capsule and need to plant one of their demolition charges in your compartment.
Tracks/aftermath (reroll)

SITUATIONS ABOARD THE ORBITAL ELEVATOR

Roll 1d6 for each situation, then roll on the table above to figure out who is involved.

A desires B
A wants to capture B
A wants B dead
A wants to go somewhere
A wants to solve a mystery
A wants X

 

If you like stories about strange journeys, check out my ebooks Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!

Euthymus Contra El Zombi-Lobo Achaeanico!

Fans of Mexican B-movies are aware of the long-standing popularity of Luchador movies. These feature masked wrestling stars, but their opponents aren't other wrestlers, as one might expect. In film the Luchadores battle ghosts, spies, Frankenstein's monster, Aztec mummies, gangsters, mad scientists, aliens, monsters, and vampires. Sometimes all at once.

According to Wikipedia, the genre dates back to 1952, but Wikipedia is off by a couple of orders of magnitude.

In my copy of Georg Luck's Arcana Mundi, there's a snippet from Pausanius about the battle of the famous Sicilian-Greek athlete Euthymus of Locris, against the undead revenant of a murdered member of Odysseus's crew. Seems one of wily Odysseus's men tried to ravish one of the local girls in the Sicilian town of Temesa, and was stoned to death by the villagers for his effrontery. (Seriously, did Odysseus recruit the dumbest guys in Ithaca to go fight in Troy? Between raping maidens, slaughtering sacred cattle, and messing with magic items contrary to orders, those guys were an endless source of bother for their captain.)

Anyway. For a few centuries the dead man keeps coming out of his tomb in a wolf-like form and causing havoc, so the people of Temesa adopt the practice of making a sacrifice in the form of the most beautiful maiden of the village offered to be the Bride of the Monster.

Then Euthymus arrives on his way home from his triumph in the Olympic Games (circa 480 B.C.), and learns of this horrifying arrangement. He falls in love with the sacrificial girl and fights the undead wolf-ghost in a titanic display of Pankration fighting. Defeated, the dead man hurls himself into the sea, the curse is lifted, and Euthymus marries the fair maiden. 

Except for the fact that Euthymus didn't wear a glittery mask, this is precisely the plot of a Luchador movie, 2400 years early! One can imagine a whole cycle of Euthymus adventures, pitting the stalwart hero against a whole menagerie of Ancient Greek monsters. Shades of El Santo! Sadly, highfalutin' scholars like Pausanius didn't record those adventures. I commend the idea to anyone who wants to write them up, or use this as the premise for a Hellenistic-era roleplaying campaign.

 

If you like stories about people fighting strange beings, check out my ebooks Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!

    

 

 

Random Encounters: City of Supers

Almost every superhero has a home town. Whether it's Batman's Gotham City, Superman's Metropolis, or Marvel Comics's shared New York City, it's the place where the heroes live in their secret identities, where their non-super friends live, and the place which keeps getting attacked by villains.

ENCOUNTERS IN THE CITY OF SUPERS

Roll 1d20 if the heroes are patrolling or moving about the city, roll 1d10 if they are working in their Secret Identity jobs or hanging out at the Hall of Champions.

Roll Twice and Combine
Animals Gone Wild: There's been a breakout at the City Zoo, or the circus ��� or maybe all the pets in town have turned against their owners. Stop them, preferably without harming the creatures too much, and then figure out what happened.
Attack! A supervillain's minions attack nearby while the heroes are in their civilian identities. Can they get changed in time to stop the marauders?
Clue: One of the heroes stumbles across something connected to whatever Big Case the supers have been investigating.
Crossover Issue! A hero from another city has come to visit. He's probably tracking down some old foe here in Super City, and may wind up needing help from the local champions.
Invasion! An actual army is attacking the city. The hostiles may be coming from space, under the sea, through a dimensional portal, or piling out of buses. They're armed, they've got uniforms and face-concealing helmets, and they're trying to take over. Who's in command of this assault?
Monster! It's big, destructive, and not very bright, and it's rampaging through downtown right now. Who sent it, and why?
Strange Apparition: A ghost, or a mysterious winged humanoid, or an alien being just out of phase with reality is prowling the city. What does it want? What does it mean?
Supervillain: He's a charismatic genius with formidable powers, but this time he claims he just wants to talk. What nefarious scheme is he plotting?
Weird Weather! It's snowing in summer, or raining frogs, or maybe the smog has turned deadly. The heroes must deal with accidents, panicky citizens, and crooks taking advantage of the chaos, all while trying to end the phenomenon and find out who's responsible.
Ambush! One or more supervillains were waiting for you to show up. They've picked the site for maximum advantage, and strike without warning.
Creepy Abandoned Building: The perfect place for a hostage exchange, an ambush, or a madman's deathtrap.
Deathtrap! The hero stumbles into a fiendishly clever trap. Can he escape in time?
Distraction! You spot your love interest out walking with a rival, or your feeble aunt being rushed to the hospital. Your civilian life and your heroic career are in conflict!
Hazard: An accident has just released a flood of whatever your hero is vulnerable to. Will you place your own safety first, or wade in to help contain the menace, no matter the risk?
Lair: The hero has stumbled across the bad guy's hidden lair. It's full of mooks, gadgets, and maybe a couple of captives.
Low Dive Favored By The Criminal Element: Full of mooks and low-level villains. Known heroes get a hostile reception, but someone in disguise could learn a thing or two of interest.
Power Up! It's just what you need to regain your strength ��� a fresh set of fusion reactor fuel, or a place of mystic power, or a truck loaded with canned spinach. But can you reach it in time?
Weirdness: Something really bizarre. All the other heroes have become villains, or the Communists won the Cold War, or a supervillain claims to have reformed and is running for Mayor. What's going on?
Tracks/Aftermath (reroll)

SITUATIONS IN THE CITY OF SUPERS

Roll 1d6 to determine the situation, then roll on the table above to see who the parties involved are.

A desires B
A wants to capture B
A wants B dead
A wants to go somewhere
A wants to solve a mystery
A wants X

If you like adventures with crooks and monsters, buy my ebooks  Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!

 

Random Encounters: Decadent Venice

The Most Serene Republic of Venice was a major player in Mediterranean trade and politics for at least nine hundred years, but in the 17th century the city's power went into a terminal decline. It went from being a commerical and naval power to being a tourist destination. Foreigners came to enjoy the Carnival season, which gradually stretched to last half the year. The canals and narrow streets became a hive of carousing, intrigue, crime, espionage, and seduction. The party lasted almost two centuries, until Napoleon's army put an end to Venetian independence for good. But during the Baroque Era, you could meet almost anyone in Venice . . .

ENCOUNTERS IN DECADENT VENICE

Roll 1d20 when moving about the city or seeking encounters, or 1d10 if the characters are staying in one place.

Roll Twice and Combine.
Plot-Advancing Encounter: Someone or something related to whatever brought the heroes to Venice in the first place.
Assassins! 1d4 professional killers armed with long knives dipped in poison, hired by someone to get rid of the heroes. It's possible they've got the wrong target, but try telling them that.
Con Man: He's got an elaborate scheme tailored to some wealthy mark ��� possibly one of the player-characters. Details vary, but the schemes always promise a great reward but only if the victim can provide a lot of cash up front.
Flood! An extra-high tide and unfavorable winds have raised the water level. The piazzas and alleys are under a foot of water ��� as are the ground floors of most houses.
Historical Character: Hey, it's Casanova! Or John Law, or Mozart, or the castrato singer Farinelli. The player-characters can hobnob with someone famous (or someone who will be famous later), and possibly get involved in some secret adventure.
Secret Police: 1d4 agents of the secretive Supreme Tribunal, investigating the player-characters as possible foreign spies or criminals. (Someone slipped an anonymous tip into the lion's mouth.) They're armed with swords and wear creepy full-length cloaks and masks. Resistance is proof that you're guilty of something.
Thieves: 1d4 house-breakers, stealthily entering through an upstairs window and looking for cash or easily-portable items of value. They have knives but will fight only to get away. If there's some MacGuffin in the adventure, that's what they're looking for.
Vampire: She's found the one place in Europe where someone who never appears before sunset isn't unusual. Posing as one of Venice's high-class courtesans, she drains her lovers of both health and wealth. And now she's got her sights on one of the heroes.
Wealthy Traveler: An English "Milord," or a political exile from France, or maybe an exotic visitor from Russia or America. He (or she) has money to spare, but is woefully naive about how things work in Venice.
Abandoned Palazzo: It's a huge, grand house but nobody has lived there for decades. Nobody except the hideous octopus monster which oozes up out of the canal every night to prey on whoever it finds.
Ambush! Your enemies (or maybe just a gang of robbers) are waiting in a dark, narrow alley. There are 1d6 men in cloaks armed with swords. En garde!
Boat Under Bridge: If you're on the water you can swing up onto the roadway; if you're on foot you can drop down into someone's boat.
Crooked Gambling Salon: The dice are weighted, the cards are marked, the dealers use sleight of hand to give you a losing hand, and if you complain there's a huge bouncer ready to throw you into the canal.
Masked Roisterers: 2d6 drunken gentlemen and courtesans in Carnival attire. They're at the aggressively friendly stage, but may feel insulted if you don't want to join them.
Neighborhood Church: One of dozens in the city, and at the moment Mass is being celebrated. Anyone can enter, and not even the most hardened thug would dare disrupt the service.
Spies: The player-characters stumble across a secret meeting, as a foreign agent passes information to her handler. The spies could be from any of Europe's great powers ��� and they'll kill to preserve their secrets.
Sunk! Your boat has sprung a seam or collided with another gondola. Whatever the cause, everyone on board is going into the water.
Water Ghost: The phosphorescent corpse of a drowned woman appears in the waters of the canal, beckoning for you to follow.
Tracks/Aftermath: Reroll to see what you just missed.

SITUATIONS IN DECADENT VENICE

Roll 1d6 to determine what the situation is, then roll on the table above to see who the participants are.

A desires B
A wants to capture B
A wants B dead
A wants to go somewhere
A wants to solve a mystery
A wants X

 

If you like historical adventures and exotic locations, buy my ebooks  Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I saw The Last Jedi the weekend it came out, and I've been thinking about it and discussing it with my family (especially my son) sporadically since then. I'm not going to write a review; suffice to say that I give it a B and leave it at that. Nor am I going to reel off a long litany of plot holes and bad choices ��� there are hundreds of hard-working other nerds on the Internet who've been doing that for weeks.

Instead I want to ask a question, and in order to do that I must prepare the ground. The Last Jedi had some serious plot holes, mostly centering around the long chase sequence which occupies the middle third of the film and is notable for its lack of tension and the large number of "why didn't they . . . ?" questions it has spawned. Why didn't the Empire, or First Order, or whatever the guys in white armor are calling themselves these days, send ships ahead to ambush the fleeing Rebel, er, Resistance task force? Why couldn't a giant space battleship hit a fleeing cruiser when they seem to be only a mile apart? Why could small craft leave the cruiser, travel to distant planets, and return, yet the whole point of the cruiser fleeing was to reach someplace to call for help? There are others. Many others.

But my question isn't any of those. In fact it isn't about any of the specifics of The Last Jedi at all. It's about why nobody asked any of those questions before filming began. A big-budget "tentpole" movie like any of the Star Wars films is an immense undertaking. The number of people involved takes something like ten minutes just to scroll past on the screen during the end credits. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake ��� and literally billions of potential profit in the future.

I'm a science fiction writer, and my novels and short stories are five or six orders of magnitude smaller than a Star Wars film, at least in monetary terms. Yet I submit just about everything I write to the mighty Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop, so that eight or nine of my fellow SF professionals can work it over. Even if it's just a short story we spend a couple of hours tearing it apart, looking for flaws and suggesting improvements.

The people making the Star Wars movies don't seem to do that. As far back as Return of the Jedi one sensed that nobody was even trying to point out plot holes or bad ideas. When it was just George Lucas writing the prequel trilogy, one could possibly explain it as the creator's runaway ego and nobody having the authority to tell him to make changes. But now that Disney owns Lucasfilm, that shouldn't be an issue. And yet the problem remains.

I was once a tiny cog in the Star Wars apparatus. Back when West End Games had the Star Wars roleplaying game license, publishing Greg Costikyan's groundbreaking rules, I submitted several adventures to their house magazine, the Star Wars Adventure Journal. Even my pitches had to be accompanied by FIVE signed assignment-of-copyright documents, surrendering those ideas to Lucasfilm forever. One of my published adventures even made it into "canon" ��� a planet I created turned up in one of my son's Clone Wars comic books, which gave me a few days of Awesome Dad status when I pointed it out.

The odd thing about the Star Wars universe is how much of the worldbuilding and "continuity" are left to the tiny cog people ��� game designers, licensed fiction writers, toymakers, and the like. When one of the movies makes some lunatic assertion (example: "the Galactic Republic has no army") it's up to the cogs to come up with some way to explain it (answer: "the Republic was like the U.N. and relied entirely on member worlds for military forces"). The cogs are going to be working overtime to explain some of the issues in The Last Jedi.

And that leads to my question: how is this possible? How can a huge, successful company like Disney manage one of the most valuable "media properties" which has ever existed in such a slapdash way? For the price of about one minute of CGI special effects they could hire the entire membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America to "workshop" the script, long before a single nail gets hammered by a set-builder or a single concept artist puts pencil to paper. They could have a salaried "chief nerd" position dedicated to tracking continuity and maintaining the "bible" of the Star Wars universe. This has been done before: Peter Jackson hired Tolkein consultants for his Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and set designer Mark Okuda was the unofficial "Trexpert" for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

What's depressing is that it all ultimately comes down to respect. Respect for the material and respect for the audience ��� and the attitude toward the material directly reflects the attitude toward the audience. The viewers have shown they love that material and want more; contempt for one is contempt for both. The audience respects the material. The tiny cogs respect the material. The hundreds of people buried in the credits at the end of the film respect the material. Why can't the people whose names are at the top show the same respect? And why does Disney hire people who don't respect the Star Wars universe to oversee it?

 

For some stories which I really respect, buy my ebooks  Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!

Counting Down

Once again, it's time to link to the greatest Christmas Web site ever. I refer, of course, to the NORAD Santa Tracker. As I write this, their countdown stands at 6 hours and 41 minutes. The tracking begins at 6:00 a.m. GMT, which is when the sun is setting in New Zealand and the Pacific, and the right jolly old elf takes off.

The site has more big-business sponsors than it used to, but the underlying sweetness still shines through. One night a year the men and women of NORAD take time off from guarding against the threat of sudden war to keep the world informed of the location of Santa Claus. (Of course, someone's still on watch, even on Christmas eve.)

Random Encounters: The Bar Outside Area 51

It's a tumbledown roadhouse on a desert highway, no cute signs, no come-ons for tourists. Inside it's shabby but comfortable. The customers are mostly crewcut types with sunglasses. But the photos on the walls include shots that can't be anywhere in the Solar System. This is the bar where the people who Know The Secrets go to hang out after work.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE BAR OUTSIDE AREA 51

(As always: roll d20 when you're moving around the bar, d10 if you're seated for a long period.)

Roll Twice and Combine
Plot-advancing encounter: Someone or something related to whatever has brought the player-characters to a remote highway in Nevada.
Alien: It's a spindly, huge-eyed "Grey" alien in a tacky tourist cap and Hawaiian shirt, drinking strawberry daiquiris and trying to pick up humans for some "examinations." In conflict it uses its telepathic blast power.
Artie: The resident bore, skinny and intense. He's full of secret conspiracy theories, all of them guaranteed wrong. In actuality he's trying to find out what you know and who your masters are. He packs a small revolver in a leg holster, which everyone can see because he wears shorts.
Bob, the dog: He's part Golden Retriever, part everything else, and thanks to a mutation his IQ is about twice what yours is. He is curious about people, especially if they smell interesting. Other dogs are in awe of Bob.
"Doctor G": He's a con man selling "genuine alien artifacts," typically for 1d100 times 10 dollars (no checks), though he's more than willing to haggle (and loves to swap merchandise). Roll 1d100 for what he's selling. 1-50: useless junk, 51-80: military salvage worth a tenth of what he's charging, 81-90: actual secret Air Force or NSA cutting-edge tech, 91-95: inert alien machinery or metal, 96-00: actual working alien tech. Note that Dr. G's descriptions of what items do often have nothing to do with what they actually do.
Men In Black: (Actually they hire women, too.) 1d6 government agents in black suits and dark sunglasses, armed with automatic pistols and one ray gun. They're very suspicious of strangers.
Poltergeist: It's been haunting the place for years ��� a disembodied psychic presence which uses telekinesis to play puerile practical jokes on customers.
Power Failure: The lights and air conditioning go off for 1d6 minutes. That might provide cover to do something . . .
The Thing Under The Table: It's a shapeless purple blob, 1d100 lbs. in size, which glows faintly when it's eating. The staff have tried everything to kill it, but even the tiniest scrap of purple goo eventually regenerates. It tries to swallow anything smaller than it is.
Abandoned newspaper: It's yesterday's Las Vegas Sun, except that every news story begins with praise of the Pharaoh Nyarlathotep, who reigns over America from his palace in Baltimore. All the news is strange (except the sports results, which are exactly the same as in any other newspaper). The waitress says a trucker left it.
Angie: She's a lovely runaway looking for a ride, and if you look into her violet eyes you'll have to use all your willpower to resist falling in love with her. When you're alone she reverts to her true form, a large insect with a paralyzing sting who wants to lay eggs in your abdomen.
Bikers: 2d6 members of the Los Chupacabras motorcycle gang. They're tough, tattooed, and have alien implants giving each of them a different low-level special power. They all have knives and half have pistols, and they don't want to be bothered by anyone.
Bulletin Board: Mostly cards for local businesses, but there is a tattered flyer offering "Good pay for risky work" with a single tear-off phone number remaining at the bottom of the page.
Graffiti Table: The surface of this table is covered with names, jokes, numbers, and crude little pictures, drawn or carved by generations of diners. Reading it all gives anyone a bonus to knowledge of conspiracies or the secret history of the world.
Haunted Jukebox: It has a large selection of vintage rock-n'-roll and country songs, but whatever song you pick will influence what happens to you in the next 24 hours.
Mister H.: An incredibly old and frail-looking man, he insists on eating with new, still-wrapped utensils, and always has steak and green peas. He knows a lot about secret aerospace projects and old Hollywood secrets, and tips the waitress with a new hundred-dollar bill.
Party Room: Right now it's hosting 2d6 Reptilian aliens in human disguise, drinking ridiculous "tropical" cocktails and dining on plates of live rabbits. Anyone who isn't on the bar staff is assumed to be the "special main course" they're waiting for.
Polybius Game: A beat-up old coin-operated video game which implants a hypnotic command in anyone who plays it for more than 10 minutes.
Tracks/aftermath: Reroll to see what you find traces of.

SITUATIONS IN THE BAR OUTSIDE AREA 51

(Roll 1d6 to determine the situation, then roll on the table above to identify who is involved.)

A desires B
A wants to capture B
A wants B dead
A wants to go somewhere
A wants to solve a mystery
A wants X

For more tales of aliens and shady characters, buy my ebooks:  Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!

Pulp Trek!

I've noticed that discussions of Star Trek ��� especially as it enters its second half-century ��� focus on its "cerebral" nature, and how it addressed social problems and moral dilemmas related to real-world politics. That may well be true, but I think there's an even more important component of Star Trek's DNA which goes unrecognized.

I refer, of course, to pulp science fiction.

"Pulp?" you say. "I thought Star Wars was the heir to the pulp tradition, while Star Trek embodied science fiction's more cerebral side!"

Not so.

But let's define some terms. What do we mean by pulp science fiction, anyway? Obviously, stuff published in the pulps, mostly before World War II. A good description comes from this Web site (www.vintagelibrary.com): "Bigger-than-life heroes, pretty girls, exotic places, strange and mysterious villains all stalked the pages of the many issues available to the general public on the magazine stands."

Or, to put it more simply: stuff like what Doc Smith wrote.

So let's actually take a look at Star Trek ��� the original Star Trek, which ran from 1966 to 1969 on NBC. I can't summarize the whole series here, but let's look at the first twenty episodes, when the show had a real budget. In order, they are:

"The Man Trap" ��� shapeshifting alien salt vampire pretends to be Dr. McCoy's old girlfriend and starts killing the crew of the Enterprise. The creature is the last of its kind, but can't restrain its predatory instincts. Except for the shapeshifting, this is very similar to A.E. Van Vogt's "Black Destroyer," a classic pulp story.

"Charlie X" ��� kid orphaned on a distant world has been given godlike powers by super-advanced aliens. When he boards the Enterprise there's no one to restrain him, and his absolute power begins to corrupt him. This one is not really pulpy, because Charlie isn't defeated by a clever scientific superweapon or a good right cross to the jaw.

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" ��� an Enterprise crewman's psychic abilities are awakened by an accident, and, just like last week, his absolute power begins to corrupt him. This one is pulp because the evil supermind guy is defeated by a combination of a battle with a heroic supermind and a blast from a nifty-looking ray gun rifle.

"The Naked Time" ��� a virus makes everyone on the Enterprise drunk. Also: handwavium time travel. This one is pure pulp.

"The Enemy Within" ��� transporter accident splits Kirk into Good and Evil versions. This might have been a pulp story except that I suspect most editors would have asked how the hell it's supposed to work.

"Mudd's Women" ��� shady character trafficks women to space miners using a drug to make them more desireable. This is exactly the sort of racket the Lensmen would have been smashing. Full pulp.

"What Are Little Girls Made Of" ��� archaeologists on a remote planet, led by Nurse Chapel's old boyfriend find a way to make robot duplicates of people. This is straight out of Doc Savage.

"Miri" ��� a planet just like Earth was ravaged by a plague which kills only adults. This one, I admit, isn't a pulp story at all.

"Dagger of the Mind" ��� the Enterprise visits a planet where a power-mad scientist has turned a mental-therapy system into a sinister mind-control device. The villain is thwarted by a scrappy dame. Full pulp!

"The Corbomite Maneuver" ��� the Enterprise encounters an overwhelmingly powerful alien ship, overcomes it via clever ruses, and discovers it was all just a test. I'd say this is less like Pulp era science fiction and more like a story from the 1950s Campbell age.

"The Menagerie, parts 1 and 2" ��� two-parter recycling the original pilot episode about the Enterprise encountering a world of superminds with powers of illusion. This one is pure pulp ��� a fight with giant space Cossacks, green-skinned dancing girls, an ancient world of decadent superminds, and Captain Pike triumphs via steely will, cleverness, and the help of not one but two scrappy dames.

"The Conscience of the King" ��� the Enterprise transports an acting troupe which may contain Hitler. Not pulp. Arguably not even science fiction, as you could tell the same story aboard a steamer in the 1950s.

"Balance of Terror" ��� a really swell destroyer-vs.-submarine story in space. Not especially pulp, either.

"Shore Leave" ��� the crew visit a planet where things they imagine start coming to life. They discover it's an ancient alien amusement park which can read minds. I can imagine this one as a pulp-era story, probably played for comedy with an irascible captain getting more and more furious with his crew's "crazy" reports from the planet.

"The Galileo Seven" ��� A shuttle is down on a world with big furry hostile natives, and Spock has to come up with a clever improvisation to get the crew rescued. This isn't a pulp story, it's almost a perfect Campbell-era science-problem story.

"The Squire of Gothos" ��� the Enterprise encounters a whimsical godlike being who messes with the crew until his parents show up. Not really pulp.

"Arena" ��� based on an actual science fiction story by Fredric Brown, written in 1944. Neither the Brown story nor the Trek episode is especially pulpy, despite the premise of two warriors fighting to determine the outcome of a war between their civilizations. Brown's story is actually a science-puzzle story, while the Trek story tops that with a "take a third option" resolution.

"Tomorrow is Yesterday" ��� a straightforward time travel story about the Enterprise visiting 1960s Earth by accident, and the crew's efforts to avoid causing any paradoxes until they get home again. Not particularly pulpy.

"Court Martial" ��� a legal drama and/or murder mystery episode, hinging on the first depiction of computer "hacking" I'm aware of. Not pulp.

So, of the first twenty Star Trek episodes, we've got ten pulpy episodes. A solid 50 percent pulp. Not bad for 1966, a generation after the wartime paper shortages killed off the pulp magazines.

Now, let's contrast Star Trek's first season with that year's written SF: the 1967 Hugo nominees. There were 23 nominees for Best Novel, Best Novelette, and Best Short Story that year, including The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein; Babel-17, by Samuel R. Delany; Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes; "The Last Castle," by Jack Vance; and "Neutron Star," by Larry Niven. A really great year to be reading science fiction.

Of those 23 stories and novels, I have read or could find summaries of 21. Only 2 (The Witches of Karres, by James H. Schmitz and "The Last Castle," by Jack Vance) could be seen as pulpish in tone. The rest are Campbellian or New Wave, or unclassifiables like the works of Thomas Burnett Swann.

So the pulp content of written SF in 1966 was about 10 percent. In other words, Star Trek was five times more pulpy than the stories being published in science fiction magazines and books at the same time.

I point this out because there's a curious idea going around that stories (or films, or TV episodes) cannot have the fun of pulp science fiction without sacrificing the rigor of Campbellian hard SF or the greater attention to character which came with the New Wave.

A stool needs at least three legs to stand. Science fiction stories, in whatever medium, need all three of those elements. Without scientific rigor they're not science fiction. Without pulp's tradition of romance and adventure, they're not interesting. And without attention to character, nobody cares enough to finish the story.

So instead of drawing ever-smaller boundaries around what's real and proper SF, let's follow Gene Roddenberry's model and draw a really big circle, encompassing adventure, science, and literary quality. Then we can go where no man has gone before.  

 

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Random Encounters: The Cloud Island

Cloud Island is a mile-wide mass of solid cloud, shaped rather like an egg. It was settled long ago and is currently ruled by a Cloud Giant sorcerer. The island serves as a free port and marketplace for ships and creatures that sail the sky or venture through the ether.

ENCOUNTERS ON THE CLOUD ISLAND

(Roll 1d20 if the characters are moving about the island, 1d10 if they are stationary.)

Roll Twice and Combine
Plot-advancing encounter: The adventurers meet someone or something connected with whatever reason has brought them to the Cloud Island.
Fungi From Yuggoth: 1d4 aliens like winged crustaceans, with the frost of interplanetary space still thawing on their wings. They are armed with ray-projectors and have come to trade for rare minerals, human brains, and arcane secrets.
Gremlins: 1d4 gremlins have decided to bedevil the player characters with sabotage and mischief.
Invisible Stalker: This unseen horror was conjured up by a wizard to assassinate a particular person, but the magician's instructions were unclear and he died soon after. The Stalker remains bound by the dead wizard's spells, has long ago become completely insane. It stalks the island, selecting victims according to some mysterious criteria.
Mischievous Sylphs: 1d6 air elementals who mean no serious harm but delight in annoying and taunting "groundlings."
Pterosaur Pirates: 1d8 goblins with trained Pterosaur mounts, armed with crossbows and grappling-hooks. They normally raid towns and ships on the surface, but if nobody's looking they might snatch something here on the cloud island.
Sky Dwarves: A group of 1d6 Sky Dwarves, who live within cloud islands and build sky ships which seldom touch the ground. They are lawful merchant sky sailors, armed with shortswords. They may have exotic items to trade.
Storm! The island has floated into a storm system, and gets pelted with hail and lashed by 100-mph winds for 1d4 hours.
Winged Apes: 1d6 semi-intelligent creatures like chimpanzees with huge bat wings. They lair in caves on the underside of the island, and fly up to snatch food and loot. They are armed with spears and crude swords.
Electric Spider: A giant spider with an electricity-generating organ has spun its web across the path. Anyone touching the web gets a powerful shock and must resist paralysis.
Ether Tower: Within this enchanted tower there is no air, no gravity, no warmth. It is home to visiting space-dwellers who find it comfortable.
Giant Eagles: 1d4 great golden eagles have nested here on the cloud island. They protect their nests fiercely but have a tremendous amount of knowledge to share about the world and the sky.
Ki-Rin: A noble aerial unicorn of East Asian legend, this semi-divine beast will help those in danger.
Lightning Deposit: A section of the island 100 yards across has developed a powerful electrical charge. Anyone entering gets hit by 1d4 lightning bolts per round.
Lightning-Peddler: A grizzled old sky-sailor selling jars of lightning, sealed bags of wind, and bottles of distilled aurorae from a small handcart. Note that if the cart overturns his wares might spill . . .
Novice Thief: A young lad who got up to the island somehow and is determined to slay its giant ruler.
Ruined Observatory: Savants built this tower to study the sky and the atmosphere, but their group dissolved and the building is abandoned. It may hold valuable information, and possibly dangerous items.
Yeth Hounds: 1d4 demonic hounds of the Wild Hunt, living as feral scavengers on the Cloud Island. If they catch you alone, you're prey.
Tracks/aftermath (reroll to see what you find traces of)

SITUATIONS ON THE CLOUD ISLAND

(Roll 1d6 to determine the situation, then roll on the table above to identify the people or creatures involved.)

A desires B
A wants to capture B
A wants B dead
A wants to go somewhere
A wants to solve a mystery
A wants X

For more tales of places beyond the sky or weird islands, buy my ebooks:  Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!

 

Retro-Review: The 8th Annual of Year's Best SF (Part 4)

We're on the final stretch now in our read-through of Judith Merril's 8th Annual of the Year's Best SF, covering stories published in 1962.

The 26th story in the collection is Zenna Henderson's "Subcommittee," about the budding friendship between a human child and a young alien while the adults are conducting a tense peace conference. Yes, a mutually genocidal war ends because of the Power of Friendship. But it's well-told ��� and bonus points for actually taking place beyond the Solar System. Three stars.

Next is "The Piebald Hippogriff," by Karen Anderson, a very slight fantasy ��� really more sketch than story ��� but it's very charming and sweet. The best comparison I can think of is if Ray Bradbury wrote a story set in a Lord Dunsany world. Four stars.

"Home From the Shore," by Gordon Dickson, is a fitting capstone for the fiction content of the book. It's part of Dickson's novel The Space Swimmers. The story focuses on a conflict between the ocean-dwelling Sea People and the suspicious government of the land-dwelling humans. Even after re-reading I can't quite tell if Dickson's ocean-dwellers are genetically engineered for their environment or if he thinks they would evolve new traits in only three or four generations, but that's a minor quibble. The story itself is melancholy, with strong echoes of Kipling. Four stars.

We're not quite done. The book also has a wrapup of short science fiction in 1962 by Judith Merril which is mostly taken up with her score-settling with Time Magazine's critic over a review of the previous Year's Best collection. The Time critic had the same problem with the 7th Annual that I have with the 8th, apparently: not enough actual science fiction in it.

And finally there's an essay by Anthony Boucher about science fiction novels of 1962 ��� and it certainly was a good year, if only because it saw the publication of The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper, and Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

The average score for the stories is just over three stars, so that will suffice for the whole book.

As I mentioned above, my own opinion of The 8th Annual of the Year's Best SF is rather like that of the Time reviewer Ms. Merril spends so much time taking to task. There are 28 stories in this book. Eleven of them are explicitly fantasies, and another three borderline cases (they wear science fiction hats, but are fantasies or parables). That's half the book.

There's also the fact that these stories were written in a year after Kennedy set the goal of landing a man on the Moon, the year of the first communication satellite, two Vostok and three Mercury missions, with Soyuz and Gemini space craft under construction. And yet in this book only seven stories actually involve space travel ��� and three of those are the allegedly whimsical Martian essays by Reynold, Pohl, and Russell. The rest are resolutely Earthbound.

I can't escape the suspicion that Ms. Merril was trying to show that science fiction wasn't "gee whiz outer space kid stuff" anymore. Hence the focus on stories from slick markets (The Saturday Evening Post, Playboy, the New York Times) instead of the grubby confines of the genre magazines. That also explains the emphasis on political parables and fantasies; college English teachers love that stuff.

Here are some stories from 1962 which didn't make it into the Year's Best:

"The Dragon Masters," by Jack Vance (Hugo winner)

"When You Care, When You Love," by Theodore Sturgeon (Hugo nominee)

"The Ballad of Lost C'Mell," by Cordwainer Smith

"The Shining Ones," by Arthur C. Clarke

"Passion Play," by Roger Zelazny

All of them are science fiction, and all of them are better than anything in this collection.

 

For more high-quality SF, buy my ebooks:  Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!