The Star Kings

Howdy-do to all you Travelers Among the Stars! 

Welcome back to another fun-filled thrill-a-minute report here at Squadron HQ!  This time, we're talking about a rollicking space opera adventure that encapsulates the sort of entertainment we strive for here at TAS.  It has everything!  It has telepathy, time-travel, planet-hopping, imposter royalty, romance with a space princess, mutant blob monsters, a massive space war, and a weapon that could destroy the entire galaxy!

What is it?  It's "The Star Kings" by Edmond Hamilton! 

Edmond Hamilton was, of course, a popular, prolific pulp writer whose stories filled the pages of many a sci-fi and horror magazine.  Later, he moved on to write stories for comic books like Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern.  He wrote several space opera stories, including the Captain Future and Starwolf series.

John Gordon is a pilot who survived World War II and returned to his everyday life as an accountant, which he now finds very dull.  At night when he drifts off to sleep, he begins to hear a voice in his head.  It is Zarth Arn, a prince of the Mid-Galactic Empire calling from 200 centuries in the future.  He wants to study history first-hand by switching bodies with John Gordon, kinda like in Quantum Leap.

Gordon--craving adventure, excitement, and really wild things--jumps at this opportunity.  His consciousness is transported through Time And Space into the body of Zarth Arn in his Earth laboratory 200,000 years in the future.  Zarth Arn is not only a prince (second-son of the Imperial Emperor) but also a scientist.  Apparently, he does this mind-swap thing with various persons throughout history, and his trusted associate is present to help Gordon get oriented and updated with simple things like language.

But then Gordon gets pulled into a much more exciting adventure than he planned.  The laboratory where the mind transfer took place is attacked by a group of political dissidents; they are troops of "the Cloud," headquarters of the League of Dark Worlds.  They want to kidnap Zarth Arn, who--as a member of the royal family--knows the secret of the Empire's super-weapon.  They have come for John Gordon!

They conveniently kill the assistant guy, the only guy who knows that Gordon is NOT Prince Zarth Arn.  Then, by luck and happenstance, these troops are in turn conquered by a passing patrol of the Imperial navy, and Gordon is saved!  Sort of!  They insist on reporting the incident to Zarth's father--the Emperor!--who orders his son return home to the safety of the Imperial capital city of Throon!  They take Gordon away from the lab and the precious mind-swapping device!

From here on out, Gordon's sole objective is to return to Earth and bring the real Zarth Arn back to deal with his own problems.  But Gordon just keeps getting farther and farther from this goal as he is bombarded with one setback after another!  

He is accused of treason, framed for the assassination of the Emporer, kidnapped by agents of the Cloud, tortured with a mind-reading ray, crash lands on a planetoid filled with monsters, causes a mutiny, and pressured to use a secret weapon that-if used incorrectly-could destroy the entire galaxy!  Wow!

This is a nonstop thrill ride!  Like, no kidding, EVERY chapter ends with a little cliffhanger that makes you want to keep going!  It is a little episodic, and, as others on the internet have pointed out, it is corny and cheesy--but these are just plusses, in my opinion!  

I WILL be reading this again sometime!  I've read some other Edmond Hamilton stories, but this just makes me want to find some more!  So if you like super-cheesy, action-packed space operas, I highly recommend that you read "The Star Kings"!  You won't go wrong!

Apparently, there are more stories in this series, but I haven't found them...yet!  Have you read this one?  Or any Edmond Hamilton stories?  Drop a comment below to tell us what you read and what you thought about it!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

The Adventures of Bradley Brackett

Calling all Terrestrials And Spacefarers!

So, last time I rambled incoherently about Science Fantasy, which I don't think I managed to define very well.  Hey!  I never claimed to be Wikipedia!  The short version is that Science Fantasy is a Fantasy-type story that takes place in some sci-fi (or pseudo-sci-fi) environment.  Once upon a time, they used to be called Planetary Romance stories.  ...I don't know why.

Now, a Planetary Romance or Science Fantasy story that deals with broad, sprawling galactic kingdoms led by evil tyrants who need to be overthrown...these are called Space Operas.

I love Space Opera.  I've always loved Space Opera.  I'll admit that Star Wars probably started my love of Space Opera, but there's more to Space Opera than just Star Wars.  I love the old school, art deco aesthetic of the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials from the 30's.  I love a lot of really bad sci-fi movies that came out before and after Star Wars.  Not to mention some cheesy comic books, and a lot of classic sci-fi from writers like Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett.

So that brings me back around to writing.  Because as I've said before on this blog, the secret to writing is not to "Write What You Know", but instead to "Write What You Want To Read".  I like cheesy sci-fi fantasy space opera, and so I also write cheesy sci-fi fantasy space opera.

So I came up with Captain Bradley Brackett of the Galactic Patrol.  Bradley Brackett--named after Marion Zimmer Bradley and Leigh Brackett--is a space cop who patrols the Triddian Sector, newly liberated from the strangling grip of the abusive Nilboggi Empire.  Armed with his Zeta-Active Plasma (ZAP) ray gun and his multi-purpose Sonic Sword, he set out to bring the law and order of the Allied Worlds to this galactic frontier.  

The first Bradley Brackett story is called "Beneath Narsalia's Veil".  A dangerous criminal escapes the prison station and Brackett pursues the escapee onto the the prehistoric planet Narsalia.  The heavy and heavily-charged clouds of the planet prohibit communications, and Brackett must face prehistoric alien beasts and cro-magnon lifeforms during the pursuit of his escaped convict, and then still has to find a way to signal the orbiting prison station for a ride off the planet.  

It's good stuff, you should totally check it out.  And I'm not the only one who thought so, because that story was published in an online ezine called Raygun Revival.  Sadly, they have since ceased publishing.  Happily, it was NOT the end of Bradley Brackett's career.

Because another online ezine, Abandoned Towers, approached me about writing a monthly serial based on that short story.  So, the Triddian Sector expanded a little bit...  Bradley Brackett is a cop-on-the-beat, so I gave him a partner to ride with:  Sargent Matthew Ginsberg.  Hey, every hero needs a sidekick.  I am pleased to say that the serial ran for a little over two years with an installment every month, usually with a picture AND an audio version of each monthly episode.  The episodes were short and the story moved slowly but the action was fast.  Alas and alack...Abandoned Towers also ceased publication.

However, while writing the serial, I was inspired to write a novel-length adventure.  I reworked a few of my older ideas, added a few new inspirations, and came up with "The Alphanauts' Legacy".  This takes place sometime after the events in the serial, Brackett is now the head of a growing team of officers, including Sargent Velma Sorenson and Corporal Alvin Gish.  I had a vague idea of transitioning them into a sort of NCIS team or something.  

They're called in to deal with a group of Nilbog bandits, but the adventure quickly grows to include mercenaries, double-dealing merchants, galactic gangsters and a group of fanatical cultists all trying to gain access to a mysterious starship supposedly created by the very first race of beings to achieve space-travel:  the Alphanauts.

The Bradley Brackett series has been on hold for quite a while now, but I've taken to reworking and expanding the idea yet again.  I've incorporated my love of shared worlds, and am working to expand The Adventures of Bradley Brackett into Tales From the Triddian Sector.  

I plan on following the adventures of various groups of heroes, and seeing how their exploits affect one another and the galaxy as a whole.  

But that's a project for the future.  If you'd like to get an early taste of it right now, you can check out Beneath Narsalia's Veil and The Alphanauts' Legacy, both are available for the Kindle right now!

So if you like rip-roaring space adventure, you'll like Bradley Brackett!  Check him out!  I've got about a million other things I need to get done, so I'll talk at you again soon!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

A Poor Introduction to Science Fantasy

 Hailing all Travelers And Spacefarers!

This is The Adventure Site calling, do you copy?

In case you haven't realized yet, today we're going to talk about Science Fantasy!  

Why Science Fantasy?  Well, first of all, it's a long standing and beloved sub-genre of Science Fiction.  And second, well, it's my blog and i feel like talking about it, and those are good enough reasons for me!

So, what makes a Science Fantasy story different from a Science Fiction story?  Well, for starters, in Science Fiction there is an effort to make the science sound plausible.  It's based on real-world principles, and often speculates on future advancements based on current theories.  Contrariwise, Science Fantasy concentrates on the story, usually an adventure story, and the outlandish technology is not scientifically explained.  Basically, the way a High Fantasy story treats Magic, that's how a Science Fantasy story treats the Science.

Arguments can be made about just how far back Science Fantasy goes, but they certainly gained popularity in the Pulps.  As more of our own world was being mapped and recorded, leaving fewer places of mystery (and fewer places for the Monster to Be At), adventure writers moved their jungles to Venus, their deserts to Mars, and replaced their natives with weird aliens.  

But the stories were essentially the same:  daring men and women fought against overwhelming odds to save ancient relics, or some benevolent kingdom, or maybe just their own lives!  And all this with a weird exotic atmosphere akin to but at the same time different from the adventure stories that take place in the foreign countries of our own little planet.  

The main idea here is wild, exciting, two-fisted adventure!  And it wasn't just limited to magazines either.  You name a medium, and you can find some form of Science Fantasy.  Books, comic books, novels, movies (& movie serials), TV shows, cartoons, web comics!  I tell ya, it's everywhere!

There are other related terms, like Planetary Romance, Space Opera, and even Sword-and-Planet.  There is some overlap in these terms, but they each have specific differences.  Space Opera, for example, usually has its story set out in space, with adventures spanning several planets.  Sword-and-Planet, on the other hand, is usually about a person from our own Earth who is transported to another planet where they have adventures among the decaying remnants of some decadent space-kingdom.  It is, quite literally, a Sword-and-Sorcery adventure on another planet.

It seems to me that all of the biggest and most popular "Sci-Fi" franchises have some element of Fantasy to them.  Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Gallactica, Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...  All these and more can be classified as Science Fantasy.  But I'm sure that you all ready knew that.

Ok, you caught me!  I was really just building up to something else, but I ended up with a blog post all ready!  So, I guess I'll save it for now, and use it next time to build up on this foundation!  

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell