Showrunner/Executive Producer/Writer - Dark Matter, Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, Universe, Oops I'm in Love with My Boss's Daughter, Amalgaverse.
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Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.1) - "The Rescue" #Amalgaverse
Captain’s Log – Stardate Unknown. We are approaching coordinates 188 mark 44 to take aboard and transport a man named Harven Zax. He’s a broker who has spent years selling secrets to anyone with the latinum for them, and by all accounts he has finally sold one too many. Three separate parties are hunting him, each for reasons of their own. Starfleet wants him delivered alive, and they’ve left the details to us.
The Enterprise drops out of warp. Onscreen you glimpse a black hole in the distance, two ships drifting toward it. The nearer one is your target, a luxury cruiser. The farther one, a mercenary shuttle, is smaller and has drifted deeper, slipping toward the point of no return.
Kirk hails the cruiser. A man who introduces himself as Harven Zax answers, rumpled and indignant that a man of his importance could die somewhere this shabby. He lays out the situation: his engines are dead, and the unmarked ship farther in belongs to a mercenary crew that came to snatch him and cut it too close. They’ll hit the event horizon well before he does, which he considers his one consolation.
Getting him off that ship is the problem. His cruiser is running an automated anti-abduction shroud, a defensive field built to stop exactly this kind of snatch. It switched on when the mercenaries closed in and locked in place when the power failed. The Enterprise can’t beam through it, and the black hole’s pull is too strong for a tractor beam to drag the cruiser clear.
The jumper can make the crossing and, if it comes to it, carry everyone back itself. But every minute spent alongside the cruiser drags it deeper into the gravity well, and a fully loaded jumper climbing back out is no sure thing.
Data proposes another way: “Captain, if we close to tractor range, I believe we can slow the cruiser’s descent. We will not be able to pull her free; the gravitational gradient is too steep. But if Mr. Scott holds the lock from engineering, I can assist Colonel Carter and Doctor McKay in bringing down the shroud from here. I should note that it will likely bring the Enterprise closer to the event horizon than I would recommend. Our margin for error would be four minutes and twelve seconds.”
Sheppard counters: “Or I just fly the jumper over and we find a way to switch that thing off by hand. If we can’t, we all pile in and ride home together. Getting there’s easy. Getting back’s the interesting part.”
Whose advice do you follow?
A. Risk the jumper and an away team. Board the cruiser and bring everyone back, shroud or no shroud.
B. Risk the Enterprise and use the tractor beam. Hold the cruiser while Data, Carter, and McKay try to crack the shroud from the Enterprise.
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!]
Captain’s Log – Stardate Unknown
Our first mission in this universe put a crew drawn from different realities to the test, and they acquitted themselves well, frankly better than I had any right to expect of people who were strangers to one another weeks ago. And we came away with more than we bargained for – a clue left by the entity we encountered on that derelict freighter, the signature of its own crossing into this reality. It is one small piece of a much larger pattern that may one day show us the way home. We intend to find the rest.
The hum of the warp core fades as the Enterprise-D drops out of warp, and Ops brings up the three contacts still outstanding from your arrival in this sector:
CONTACT ONE – A scrambled tight-beam transmission intercepted by the communications array, passing through this sector on an encrypted Ferengi commercial channel. Ops has partially decoded the manifest: a shadow auction for Artifact Omicron-8, provenance heavily redacted. Its appended energy signature matches no commercial technology on record. It reads, partially and imperfectly, like an illicit subspace weapon outlawed under the Khitomer Accords. (The Heist)
CONTACT TWO – Starfleet priority channel, addressed directly to Captain Kirk. Locate and extract Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, currently aboard a disabled Vespian cruiser at coordinates 188 mark 44, and deliver him to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse within sixty hours. He is wanted, arguably, dead or alive, by three different groups: the Romulans, the Orion Syndicate, and a Klingon Great House. (The Delivery)
CONTACT THREE – A lateral sensor sweep reports a complete absence of subspace comm traffic from Kirin Outpost Gamma-3, a Federation research installation on the Expanse’s rim. Gamma-3 has a crew of twenty-three and files automated status reports every four hours. The last confirmed report is seventy-five hours old. The station’s emergency beacon is not active. There is no debris field. Simply… silence. (The Fracture)
Three crises. One ship. No backup.
You must decide where we set course next.
What say you?
Choose!
And cue our Opening Theme…
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🔥
Michael gets honest about his feelings on the cancellation of the fourth Stargate series and what would have been his return to the franchise.
piped.video/82KeJmsBGCw
#SaveStargate
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RT @BaronDestructo: Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.1) - "The Rescue" #Amalgaverse
Captain’s Log – Stardate Unknown. We are approachi…
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Just completed season one of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
My thoughts...
Like most ambitious 20+ episode/season 90s SF shows, its debut season was an uneven mix. It was packed with intriguing concepts that weren't always fully realized, but clearly showed a series slowly finding its footing. Overall, a strong premise buoyed by memorable characters and strong performances - even if some episodes were occasionally hampered by flat direction, awkward staging, and alien guest costumes that bordered on comically camp. I really enjoyed the gritty political and cultural backdrop, though I was less enamored of the more esoteric elements, specifically the Bajoran spiritual mysticism.
Characters I loved: Garak, Odo and, surprisingly, Quark who I thought would be annoyingly goofy but really grew on me.
Characters I liked (and I expect I'll grow to love): Dax, Bashir, and O'Brien.
Characters that have me on the fence: Sisko is considered by many their favorite Trek commander/captain, but I find him exasperatingly humorless. Kira is constantly aggrieved and combative which grew tiresome after a while. But maybe I'll warm up to these two as the series progresses.
Characters that didn't do it for me: A few of the supporting players who felt fairly one-note - Jake, Keiko, Nog.
Favorite guest star: Tie between Brian Keith as the delightfully curmudgeonly Bajoran farmer Mullibok in "Progress", and Harris Yulin's tour-de-force performance as the tortured "Aamin Marritza".
Favorite episode: "Duet". 10/10 character work and dramatic pacing.
Least favorite episode: I was tempted to go with the silly, low-stakes "Move Along Home", but "The Storyteller" edges it out for giving us Bajoran lore AND an awkward sub-plot involving a smitten Jake and Nog.
All in all, a throughly enjoyable watch. There's a lived-in warmth to the station and its ensemble that makes it hard not to roll right into season 2. But...
I'm switching over to the first season of Babylon 5 now, and look forward to circling back to season 2 of DS9 once I'm done.
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Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.1) - "The Rescue" #Amalgaverse
Captain’s Log – Stardate Unknown. We are approaching coordinates 188 mark 44 to take aboard and transport a man named Harven Zax. He’s a broker who has spent years selling secrets to anyone with the latinum for them, and by all accounts he has finally sold one too many. Three separate parties are hunting him, each for reasons of their own. Starfleet wants him delivered alive, and they’ve left the details to us.
The Enterprise drops out of warp. Onscreen you glimpse a black hole in the distance, two ships drifting toward it. The nearer one is your target, a luxury cruiser. The farther one, a mercenary shuttle, is smaller and has drifted deeper, slipping toward the point of no return.
Kirk hails the cruiser. A man who introduces himself as Harven Zax answers, rumpled and indignant that a man of his importance could die somewhere this shabby. He lays out the situation: his engines are dead, and the unmarked ship farther in belongs to a mercenary crew that came to snatch him and cut it too close. They’ll hit the event horizon well before he does, which he considers his one consolation.
Getting him off that ship is the problem. His cruiser is running an automated anti-abduction shroud, a defensive field built to stop exactly this kind of snatch. It switched on when the mercenaries closed in and locked in place when the power failed. The Enterprise can’t beam through it, and the black hole’s pull is too strong for a tractor beam to drag the cruiser clear.
The jumper can make the crossing and, if it comes to it, carry everyone back itself. But every minute spent alongside the cruiser drags it deeper into the gravity well, and a fully loaded jumper climbing back out is no sure thing.
Data proposes another way: “Captain, if we close to tractor range, I believe we can slow the cruiser’s descent. We will not be able to pull her free; the gravitational gradient is too steep. But if Mr. Scott holds the lock from engineering, I can assist Colonel Carter and Doctor McKay in bringing down the shroud from here. I should note that it will likely bring the Enterprise closer to the event horizon than I would recommend. Our margin for error would be four minutes and twelve seconds.”
Sheppard counters: “Or I just fly the jumper over and we find a way to switch that thing off by hand. If we can’t, we all pile in and ride home together. Getting there’s easy. Getting back’s the interesting part.”
Whose advice do you follow?
A. Risk the jumper and an away team. Board the cruiser and bring everyone back, shroud or no shroud.
B. Risk the Enterprise and use the tractor beam. Hold the cruiser while Data, Carter, and McKay try to crack the shroud from the Enterprise.
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!]
Captain’s Log – Stardate Unknown
Our first mission in this universe put a crew drawn from different realities to the test, and they acquitted themselves well, frankly better than I had any right to expect of people who were strangers to one another weeks ago. And we came away with more than we bargained for – a clue left by the entity we encountered on that derelict freighter, the signature of its own crossing into this reality. It is one small piece of a much larger pattern that may one day show us the way home. We intend to find the rest.
The hum of the warp core fades as the Enterprise-D drops out of warp, and Ops brings up the three contacts still outstanding from your arrival in this sector:
CONTACT ONE – A scrambled tight-beam transmission intercepted by the communications array, passing through this sector on an encrypted Ferengi commercial channel. Ops has partially decoded the manifest: a shadow auction for Artifact Omicron-8, provenance heavily redacted. Its appended energy signature matches no commercial technology on record. It reads, partially and imperfectly, like an illicit subspace weapon outlawed under the Khitomer Accords. (The Heist)
CONTACT TWO – Starfleet priority channel, addressed directly to Captain Kirk. Locate and extract Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, currently aboard a disabled Vespian cruiser at coordinates 188 mark 44, and deliver him to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse within sixty hours. He is wanted, arguably, dead or alive, by three different groups: the Romulans, the Orion Syndicate, and a Klingon Great House. (The Delivery)
CONTACT THREE – A lateral sensor sweep reports a complete absence of subspace comm traffic from Kirin Outpost Gamma-3, a Federation research installation on the Expanse’s rim. Gamma-3 has a crew of twenty-three and files automated status reports every four hours. The last confirmed report is seventy-five hours old. The station’s emergency beacon is not active. There is no debris field. Simply… silence. (The Fracture)
Three crises. One ship. No backup.
You must decide where we set course next.
What say you?
Choose!
And cue our Opening Theme…
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40
251
5,238
Previously On Amalgaverse…
You and 19 others have been stranded in an amalgam universe of myriad SF realities. All 19 are sci-fi’s Best of the Best. And then there’s you, uniquely qualified given your encyclopedic knowledge garnered from your world where these characters, their technologies, and their stories are fiction, beloved t.v. shows you have watched time and again. Together, all 20 of you have set off on the Enterprise-D, tasked with finding a way home. On its first mission, the crew answered a distress call from a dead ship and found it was far from empty. Aboard, the away team awoke an android named Maia, discovered a “survivor” named Rhea who turned out to be something else entirely, and fought their way off as scavengers closed in. They came home to the Enterprise with two things: a new crewmember in Maia, and a fragment of the signature an entity left behind when it crossed into this reality. Colonel Carter believes it’s one piece of a much larger puzzle, and that the rest of it is still out there waiting.
For your second mission, you have elected to follow a Starfleet directive, traveling to pick up and transport Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse.
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Today, I’m recommending four essential works by Charles Eric Maine, a British author known for his psychologically tense, noir-tinged SF.
The Mind of Mr Soames (1961): John Soames awakens from a 30-year coma with the mind of an infant in the body of a grown man. His doctors attempt to educate and prepare him for life in society.
The Tide Went Out (1958): A journalist investigating government censorship of nuclear testing uncover a cover-up, just as the world’s oceans begin to disappear.
The Darkest of Nights (1962): A deadly virus originating in China causes a global pandemic, as governments and elites prioritize their own survival while leaving much of the population to fend for themselves.
Timeliner (1955): A scientist’s mind is propelled into the bodies of a succession of future men, crossing eras as he attempts to return home.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip José Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, Eleanor Arnason, and Bertram A. Chandler.
Today, I’m recommending four essential works by A. Bertram Chandler, a merchant-marine officer whose science fiction was grounded in the realities of shipboard life.
Giant Killer (1945): This ingenious story follows a colony of intelligent, mutated creatures living in the hidden spaces of a spaceship, locked in a war for survival against the mysterious Giants.
"The Cage” (1957): After their spaceship crash-lands on an alien world, its human survivors are captured by an advanced alien species and placed in a zoo. This thought-provoking short story explores the challenge of proving one’s intelligence to a species with radical different ideas of what constitutes real thought.
The Big Black Mark (1975): John Grimes,takes command of a starship crewed by misfits, only to face mutiny and a desperate struggle for survival. Inspired by the infamous mutiny aboard the Bounty, this novel showcases Chandler’s talent for blending nautical adventure with space opera.
The Rim of Space (1961): Chandler’s debut Rimworlds novel follows washed-up spacer Derek Calver, who joins the crew of the Lorn Lady to explore the remote worlds of the galactic frontier.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip José Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, and Eleanor Arnason.
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On This Day in Supervillain History
69 years ago, Duplicate Man debuted in World's Finest #106, staying one step ahead of both Superman and Batman by confusing them with his dupe - only to be hypnotized into giving himself up.
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Looks like this one will come down to the wire
Captain’s Log – Stardate Unknown
Our first mission in this universe put a crew drawn from different realities to the test, and they acquitted themselves well, frankly better than I had any right to expect of people who were strangers to one another weeks ago. And we came away with more than we bargained for – a clue left by the entity we encountered on that derelict freighter, the signature of its own crossing into this reality. It is one small piece of a much larger pattern that may one day show us the way home. We intend to find the rest.
The hum of the warp core fades as the Enterprise-D drops out of warp, and Ops brings up the three contacts still outstanding from your arrival in this sector:
CONTACT ONE – A scrambled tight-beam transmission intercepted by the communications array, passing through this sector on an encrypted Ferengi commercial channel. Ops has partially decoded the manifest: a shadow auction for Artifact Omicron-8, provenance heavily redacted. Its appended energy signature matches no commercial technology on record. It reads, partially and imperfectly, like an illicit subspace weapon outlawed under the Khitomer Accords. (The Heist)
CONTACT TWO – Starfleet priority channel, addressed directly to Captain Kirk. Locate and extract Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, currently aboard a disabled Vespian cruiser at coordinates 188 mark 44, and deliver him to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse within sixty hours. He is wanted, arguably, dead or alive, by three different groups: the Romulans, the Orion Syndicate, and a Klingon Great House. (The Delivery)
CONTACT THREE – A lateral sensor sweep reports a complete absence of subspace comm traffic from Kirin Outpost Gamma-3, a Federation research installation on the Expanse’s rim. Gamma-3 has a crew of twenty-three and files automated status reports every four hours. The last confirmed report is seventy-five hours old. The station’s emergency beacon is not active. There is no debris field. Simply… silence. (The Fracture)
Three crises. One ship. No backup.
You must decide where we set course next.
What say you?
Choose!
And cue our Opening Theme…
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Even though I've already watched the first three seasons, thinking of doing a Babylon 5 rewatch, alternating seasons with Deep Space 9.
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Captain’s Log – Stardate Unknown
Our first mission in this universe put a crew drawn from different realities to the test, and they acquitted themselves well, frankly better than I had any right to expect of people who were strangers to one another weeks ago. And we came away with more than we bargained for – a clue left by the entity we encountered on that derelict freighter, the signature of its own crossing into this reality. It is one small piece of a much larger pattern that may one day show us the way home. We intend to find the rest.
The hum of the warp core fades as the Enterprise-D drops out of warp, and Ops brings up the three contacts still outstanding from your arrival in this sector:
CONTACT ONE – A scrambled tight-beam transmission intercepted by the communications array, passing through this sector on an encrypted Ferengi commercial channel. Ops has partially decoded the manifest: a shadow auction for Artifact Omicron-8, provenance heavily redacted. Its appended energy signature matches no commercial technology on record. It reads, partially and imperfectly, like an illicit subspace weapon outlawed under the Khitomer Accords. (The Heist)
CONTACT TWO – Starfleet priority channel, addressed directly to Captain Kirk. Locate and extract Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, currently aboard a disabled Vespian cruiser at coordinates 188 mark 44, and deliver him to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse within sixty hours. He is wanted, arguably, dead or alive, by three different groups: the Romulans, the Orion Syndicate, and a Klingon Great House. (The Delivery)
CONTACT THREE – A lateral sensor sweep reports a complete absence of subspace comm traffic from Kirin Outpost Gamma-3, a Federation research installation on the Expanse’s rim. Gamma-3 has a crew of twenty-three and files automated status reports every four hours. The last confirmed report is seventy-five hours old. The station’s emergency beacon is not active. There is no debris field. Simply… silence. (The Fracture)
Three crises. One ship. No backup.
You must decide where we set course next.
What say you?
Choose!
And cue our Opening Theme…
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You and 19 others have been stranded in an amalgam universe of myriad SF realities. All 19 are sci-fi’s Best of the Best. And then there’s you, uniquely qualified given your encyclopedic knowledge garnered from your world where these characters, their technologies, and their stories are fiction, beloved t.v. shows you have watched time and again. Together, all 20 of you have set off on the Enterprise-D, tasked with finding a way home.
On its first mission, the crew answered a distress call from a dead ship and found it was far from empty. Aboard, the away team awoke an android named Maia, discovered a “survivor” named Rhea who turned out to be something else entirely, and fought their way off as scavengers closed in. They came home to the Enterprise with two things: a new crewmember in Maia, and a fragment of the signature an entity left behind when it crossed into this reality. Colonel Carter believes it’s one piece of a much larger puzzle, and that the rest of it is still out there waiting.
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Today, I’m recommending four essential works by A. Bertram Chandler, a merchant-marine officer whose science fiction was grounded in the realities of shipboard life.
Giant Killer (1945): This ingenious story follows a colony of intelligent, mutated creatures living in the hidden spaces of a spaceship, locked in a war for survival against the mysterious Giants.
"The Cage” (1957): After their spaceship crash-lands on an alien world, its human survivors are captured by an advanced alien species and placed in a zoo. This thought-provoking short story explores the challenge of proving one’s intelligence to a species with radical different ideas of what constitutes real thought.
The Big Black Mark (1975): John Grimes,takes command of a starship crewed by misfits, only to face mutiny and a desperate struggle for survival. Inspired by the infamous mutiny aboard the Bounty, this novel showcases Chandler’s talent for blending nautical adventure with space opera.
The Rim of Space (1961): Chandler’s debut Rimworlds novel follows washed-up spacer Derek Calver, who joins the crew of the Lorn Lady to explore the remote worlds of the galactic frontier.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip José Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, and Eleanor Arnason.
Today, I’m recommending four essential works by Eleanor Arnason, winner of the first James Tiptree Jr. Award.
A Woman of the Iron People (1991): An anthropological first-contact story in which a human expedition visits an alien world that enforces strict sex segregation.
Ring of Swords (1993): This novel follows the diplomatic negotiations between humanity and the Hwahath, a feline military species, in an effort to end an interstellar conflict.
Hwarwath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens (2016): This collection gathers Arnason’s tales purportedly written by Hwarwath authors after their encounter with humans.
The Potter of Bones (2002): A Hwarwath potter discovery of fossil remains leads her develop a new understanding of evolutionary theory.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip José Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, and Fred Hoyle.
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On This Day in Supervillain History
54 years ago, Batman #246 marked the debut of Ravek the Butcher who taunted Batman by orchestrating the murders of various Robin dummies before utterly failing at the real thing.
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"Thank you for all your hard work"
"There's a lot of good stuff here"
"We're still very big fans of this project"
"A lot of good stuff here"
"This a major step in the right direction"
- All bode ill
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Ready for your next mission?
Our second #Amalagaverse adventure kicks off tomorrow at 12:01 ET!
Make sure to follow and turn on notifications so you don't miss out.
FAQ below...
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THE #AMALGAVERSE
Next mission launches Monday, October 19th at 12:01 p.m. ET🚀
1. What is the Amalgaverse? The Amalgaverse is a shared sandbox of fictional SF universes that will serve as the setting for a series of missions that will play out as episodic adventures in the style of the beloved ship-based sci-fi shows of the 90's.
2. How will these missions play out? The missions will play out in the form of an online choose-your-own-adventure format with fan voting driving the narrative. YOU choose the missions. YOU select the away teams. YOU make the decisions that shape each adventure. For instance, initially you will be given four missions to choose from. Depending on which one you choose, you’ll be presented with a scenario – a damaged ship, a space station, a planet – and may be asked how you intend to get there. Maybe you like to fly in on the jumper. Maybe you’d rather try an EVA. Or perhaps you’d prefer to just directly beam aboard. Then, who is on your away team? Which corridor will you turn down? How will you react to the threat? And so on. Whatever course of action you choose will inform the next step.
3. In what capacity will I be making these decisions? Sometimes, you will be deciding as yourself, our 20th crew member. Sometimes, you will be deciding on behalf of any of your fellow crew members. Still other times, you will be deciding on behalf of the crew as a whole.
4. What happens if we make a decision that goes against the plot you had in mind? Each adventure has multiple paths and subplots. Your vote directs which one we follow. There is no single “correct” route, and mission success is NOT guaranteed.
5. I’m at work all day. Will I miss it? No. I’ll be updating every step of our adventure daily at 12:01 p.m. E.T. The fandom will have 24 hours to weigh in and decide on a course of action. Majority rules. Every update will be pinned at the top of my timeline. Just please be sure to turn on notifications so you don’t miss the most recent posts.
6. Can I jump in mid-mission, or do I have to wait for the next episode?" Jump in anytime. Every post contains a recap to get you up to speed immediately. You don’t need to have voted on day one to weigh in on day twelve.
7. Will you be using X’s polling feature to count votes? No, for two equally valid reasons. First, X won’t let me include both a visual AND a poll in a dedicated post, and the visual matters more to me. Second, I don’t want to just know HOW you vote, I want to know WHY you vote a certain way. Your overall reasoning will also factor into how your mission plays out.
8. Will you be offering a summary with each update? Yes. Every new installment will open with a short “story so far,” then a more detailed summary in the second part of that same post. Each installment will also quote-tweet the previous one, so you can walk the full chain if you want every beat.
9. How long will each adventure run? 3-4 weeks. They have been structured like a television episode – 5 acts, with roughly 5 beats (decision points) per act. Each mission should feel like you’re experiencing a classic sci-fi t.v. episode. Just like old times!
10. Will the choices we make carry forward into future missions? Yes. If you lose the F-302, the puddle jumper, or a crew member over the course of a mission, they will be lost for future missions. Your choices will have consequences.
11. How many missions have you designed? Since these missions will play out like episodes from those beloved ship-based sci-fi shows of the 90's, I've structured a similar rollout. Ten missions to start followed by a brief hiatus after which the back half ten episodes will unfold. 20 missions/episodes in total. That will be our first season. And depending on fan response, a second season could be in the cards.
12. Will you be offering a summary of each adventure once complete? Not at launch.
13. This seems like a lot of work. Why are you doing this? I'm tired of crafting stories (pitches, pilots scripts, series bibles) that never see the light of day, always subject to the whims of gormless executives. Science fiction is a tough sell. Far future sci-fi, tougher still. Far future ship-based sci-fi, toughest of all. But that's my jam. And I've missed it. So this allows me to do what I do best, exercise those creative muscles, and hopefully give SF fans something to look forward to with every mission. For entertainment purposes only of course.
14. But, characters aside, couldn't you just turn these stories into a script you can try selling or a book you could publish? Wouldn't that be more lucrative? Sure, in theory. But the odds of selling far-future, ship-based sci-fi right now are microscopic, and I’d rather actually make something people can experience today than stick another finished script in a digital drawer. As for a novel? That’s a massive solitary grind. This is fast, interactive, and fun.
15. Will there be guest stars throughout? I’m concentrating on this crew first. Guest appearances are possible later.
16. I get motion sick. Should I worry? No. The ship has inertial dampers. The ride will be smoother than a luxury liner.
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Today, I’m recommending four essential works by Eleanor Arnason, winner of the first James Tiptree Jr. Award.
A Woman of the Iron People (1991): An anthropological first-contact story in which a human expedition visits an alien world that enforces strict sex segregation.
Ring of Swords (1993): This novel follows the diplomatic negotiations between humanity and the Hwahath, a feline military species, in an effort to end an interstellar conflict.
Hwarwath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens (2016): This collection gathers Arnason’s tales purportedly written by Hwarwath authors after their encounter with humans.
The Potter of Bones (2002): A Hwarwath potter discovery of fossil remains leads her develop a new understanding of evolutionary theory.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip José Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, and Fred Hoyle.
Today, I’m recommending four essential works by Cambridge astrophysicist Fred Hoyle.
#ScienceFictionBooks
The Black Cloud (1957): Wildely regarded as Hoyle’s masterpiece, this novel follows a group of astrophysicists investigating a massive interstellar gas cloud that enters our solar system and threatens to block out the sun.
A is for Andromeda (1962): A radio astronomy outpost receives a message from the Andromeda Galaxy containing instructions to build an advanced computer. When the machine produces a living human-like being, the scientists must confront the possibility that the alien intelligence behind the message may have its own agenda. Based on the BBC radio serial conceived by Hoyle and scripted by John Elliot.
October the First Is Too Late (1966): Mysterious solar radiation accompanies a bizarre phenomenon in which different parts of the world exist in different time periods. Hoyle explores the nature of time, causality and human progress in this unconventional science fiction novel.
Ossian’s Ride (1959): A young Cambridge mathematician working for British intelligence investigates a secretive corporation in southwest Ireland whose closed industrial zone is producing extraordinary technologies.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip José Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, and Robert F. Young.
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