How Do You Like Your Sci-Fi?

I posed this question this question as the title of a blogpost the irst time on February 15, 2013. It's a topic that TV Tropes--unsurprisingly--has some thoughts on. This scale is a bit granular and more detailed (and perhaps a bit more judgey). Here's my sort of summary of the basics of both of these:

Hard: So, on one end we've got fairly plausible stuff that mostly extrapolates on current technology. This includes stuff like William Gibson's Sprawl series and the novels of Greg Egan (from the near future mystery Quarantine to the far future Diaspora). A game example is this category would be somethig like GURPS Transhuman Space.

Medium: Getting a little more fantastic, we arrive in the real of a lot of TV shows and computer games. One end of this pretty much only needs you to believe in FTL and artificial gravity but is otherwise pretty hard. The fewer impossible things you're asked to believe (and the better rationalized the ones you are asked to believe in are), the harder it is. Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean Le Flambeur trilogy falls here, on the harder end. The middle of this group adds in something like psionics (Traveller gets in here, and a lot of science fiction novels, like Dune and Hyperion). The softer end throws in a lot of too-human aliens and "pure energy" beings (Babylon 5, most Star Trek).

Soft: Here lies fantasy but with a science fiction veneer and context. Some Star Trek (the animated series, particularly) comes in here, and Farscape. This is also the domain of Star Wars. Simon R. Green's Deathstalker cycle turns up here, too.

Ultra-Soft: Some Star Wars tie-ins in other media come in here, as do things that include magic (or similar fantastic elements} mixed in with an otherwise soft sci-fi universe: This would include superhero sci-fi properties (the Legion of Super-Heroes and Guardians of the Galaxy) and comic book epic sci-fi (what might also be thought of as Heavy Metal sci-fi) like Dreadstar, The Incal, and The Metabarons. It's possible it stops beings science fiction on the mushiest end of this catgory and just becomes "fantasy."

So what consistency of sci-fi is your favorite--particularly in regard to rpgs?

Weird Revisited: After the Flood

In October of 2015, we had some historic rainfall and associated flooding in my neck of the woods. It inspired this post...

After a weekend of heavy rain and flooding in this neck of the woods, some uses of floods and their aftermaths in games is on my mind. There's what I've got:

The Lost City: Inundated coastal cities might become lost or at least legendary. Ys is a good example. There's typically a mystery here or at least potent magic. It might be a whole area to explore, or just a bit of weirdness in a campaign.

Looting the Depths: Jesse Bullington's The Folly of the World includes an attempted theft in town submerged by the Saint Elizabeth's Flood of 1421 (the 20th worst flood in history). "Moon fishing" is apparently the term for treasure hunting among the ruins of the towns flooded by China's Three Gorges Dam. Looting underwater would present special challenges for adventurers and a different array of monsters than the usual.

Something Strange Beneath the Surface: You already know about aquatic elves and aquatic trolls, but let's got deeper. In Swamp Thing #38, Alan Moore presents an aquatic mutation of vampires in the submerged town of Rosewood, Illinois. Any monster can have an aquatic variant but the key to making them non-mundane is having them by one-offs in unusual circumstances. The 2021 French horror film Deep House likewise has a supernatural horror continuing beneath the waters of a flooded town.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1981 (wk 1 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around  February 5, 1981.

New Teen Titans #7: Trigon dealt with (for now), Wolfman and Perez get the group back to trying to figure out if they can trust Raven as a part of their team. Meanwhile, the Fearsome Five infiltrate the Titans' Tower in an effort to rescue Psimon from where Trigon left him. The Titans break into their own base and take down the Fearsome Five. We also get Cyborg's origin revealed. All and all, this is a nice 80s style hero team versus villain team slugfest.  

Secrets of Haunted House #36: Mister E is hired by some kids who saw their dad doing a demon-summoning ritual. E goes to investigate and catches the man in the act--then helps him finish the ritual. It turns out demons summoned to two places at once get destroyed, and there was a coven across town trying to summon this demon, so the Harvard librarian took it upon himself to counter them. 

In the cover story by Wessler and Hampton, a man murders his rival for the affections of a young woman only to discover she's the sea hag in disguise as she drags him to his watery death. Ms. Charlie Seegar presents "Sister Sinister" with interesting art more reminiscent of some of the romance comics of the 70s by Bender and Malstedt. When a woman's sister is murdered, she finds a spell to turn herself into a werewolf, then prowls the night to get the killer to strike again, so she can have her revenge.

Superman #359: This story doesn't quite live up to its weird cover, though that scene does occur in the issue. When a fighter jet crashes mysteriously, Superman investigates and finds a desert town hidden by its inhabitants since they developed advanced telekinetic powers after contact with a device from the future. Superman is able to figure out the location of the invisible device using "trigonometry" and destroys it. In Star Trekian fashion, the increase power was affecting people's personalities, and they become much friendlier once it's destroyed.

The backup is by Rozakis and Swan and begins a chronicle of Clark's life once he leaves Smallville, but before he becomes Superman. In this installment, Clark decides to go to Metropolis after the theft of his slice of Smallville going away cake leads him to a kidnapped boy.

Superman Family #207: Why must Superman Family have so many pages? Harris/Thomas and Mortimer/Coletta have Supergirl dealing with the apparent return of Argo City, but in the end it's all a trick by Universo. The Legion makes a brief guest appearance. This story suggests Supergirl's super-vision is so good she can see the bodies rotating around the red sun of Krypton while standing on Earth.

The Mr. and Mrs. Superman story has Lois getting Clark's powers temporarily with predictable results. The Rozakis/Tuska Private Life of Clark Kent story is sort of amusing in that it has a guest appearance by Oliver Queen who at every turn seems to be trying to out Clark as Superman. In the end it's revealed that George Taylor, in an effort to out Queen as Green Arrow, spiked his coffee with a truth drug. Goofy, perhaps, but if you're going to have big anthology books stories like this that revel in the shared universe seem a good way to go. 

The Conway/Oksner Lois Lane story is sort of amusing too, but with less charm. Lois loses an award to another woman reporter she thinks is a lightweight bimbo, so she puts herself in ridiculous danger to prove she's the real investigative journalist.  In the Jimmy Olsen story by Conway and Delbo, Jimmy runs afoul of the IRS, but then has to clear his name as a suspect when the IRS agent is murdered.

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1: This issue is better than most of the Green Lantern issues since I started this. Maybe it's just that it seems more modern. Wein and Barr and Staton and McLaughlin, bring the entire Green Lantern Corps to Oa on an emergency call, which gives an excuse for Hal Jordan to fill in new GL Arisa on both his origin and the origin of the Corps, beginning with Krona's transgression. It turns out that's more than ancient history, because Krona has been freed from his prison by some mysterious master and is on the loose in the universe. The stakes get raised when the central power battery explodes. The Guardians disappear to seek out and confront Krona's master while the Corps--with only 24 hours of ring power energy each--vow to seek out and confront Krona.

Weird War Tales #99: Kanigher and Cockrum and Ordway bring back the War That Time Forgot with a B-52 crew dealing with all sorts of oversized dinos. In the end, the skipper is hauled off for his outrageous claims of dinosaurs and the crew deny any of it happened to avoid the same fate.  Kasdan and Estrada bring light to the perils of colonialism, as a cruel English governor in Bengal takes a wife who turns out to be Kali. In another story by Kashdan with art by Ditko, a K-9 soldier is reluctant to put down his dog after it's bitten by vicious guinea pigs from the biowarfare experiment. He finds the contagion can not only be passed to dogs, but to humans too. The final story by Barr and Amongo has the ghost of a Japanese pilot in WW2 saving his younger brother from dying in a kamikaze attack.

Wonder Woman #279: Conway and Delbo open this one in media res with an injured Wonder Woman staggering into the shop of voodoo practitioner, Mother Juju. Etta Candy appears to have been kidnapped by a demonic cult. Through the use of Juju's magic, Wonder Woman is able to track the cultists to a "government-funded think tank on Chesapeake Bay." She breaks in and finds Etta--in the hands of demonic creatures! This story almost feels like a throwback to a lot of Marvel stories of the 70s. It remains difficult to get a handle on just what Conway thinks Wonder Woman's powers are. Certainly he doesn't portray her as a real heavy hitter in terms of strength or invulnerability.

In the backup, Huntress is still on Gull Island dealing with the prison's takeover by the inmates. She challenges Lionmane to a one on one fight. This has some interesting parallels with the first fight between Batman and the mutant leader in The Dark Knight Returns.

The Howling Dark

Bedlam is one of the worst duties you can pull. Some guys think the Company's punishing them, but that would require them to take notice of us, wouldn't it?

Anyway, only the small ships go to Bedlam and they slow down toward the end so you spend longer in sleep than on a lot of runs. They have to do it that way, because Bedlam is all inside. You drop out into a big cavern. It's all caves and passages. If there's a surface or a single star in that whole reality, nobody has seen it.

The Company and other corporate partners are mining that rock. That part's not too bad. Gravity pulls you toward it, like somehow you were inside a rotating hab and it's all spin gravity, only it isn't spinning. It's weird, but no weirder than other places. What's bad about Bedlam, what drives the miners and support staff crazy, are the winds and the dark.

No sun, no stars. No light. Except for the lightning we put in, it's totally black. 

And those winds--they don't make any sense. Where are they coming from? Where do they go to? They come screaming through those big tunnels and its like a banshee behind you. You can't hear anything. Can't think even. People go deaf from it, true, but the ear protection helps with that part. There's something else, though. The tech guys say it's infrasound--sound so low you can't hear it with the ears. It gets in your head, though. Effects the brain. Causes paranoia, hallucinations. Drives people crazy.

At least they say it's infrasound that does it. I wonder. Ask anybody that's been there are they'll tell you the whole place is thick with, well, malice. I think that place hates us, and it's out to get us all.

Weird Revisited: Mystery House

This post first appeared almost 10 years ago, February 6, 2012...

It's most often found at the end of a stretch of dirt road, be it along a lonely bayou in the South, perched precariously on a ridge in the Smaragdines, or rising like a mirage out of the hardpan in the West. Those that seek it seldom find it without magic, but the lost are somehow drawn to it. However visitors arrive, few can forget the sprawling mansion known as the Mystery House.

One story says that Hulysses Mulciber, heir to the Mulciber Repeating Arms Company, was troubled by nightmares of a gaunt gunslinger riding ahead of an army of the ghosts who had died due to his family’s rifles. A medium told him that he should build a house designed to confuse and confound the spirits to escape the wrath of the Spectre of the Gun (as the medium named the gunslinger) and his vengeful army. Another less fanciful story holds he began the house as an elaborate gift to his wife who was angry over his philandering. Whatever the reason for its construction, records agree that building originally began in the Smaragdines.

The house even as conceived twisted and turned back on itself. It was almost a maze--and that was before it gained a life of its own. Hulysses didn’t live to see it; he died of blood poisoning following an accidental shooting in a hunting accident. The weapon that did the deed was, of course, one of his own company’s manufacture. His wife Ansonia, fervent believer in the reality of the grim Spectre, completed the project and paid numerous thaumaturgists (real and otherwise) to lay all sorts of protections on the house. And construction continued.

Whatever protection conferred to the house didn’t extend to Ansonia. She died of thirst, having gone mad and gotten lost in her own home. It was shortly after her death that the house disappeared from its original lot.

There are some stories of treasures in the house, mostly the mundane riches of the Mulcibers, but most who seek it do so out of curiosity. Most who find it, though, didn’t intend to. Those that have been there and survived report doors to nowhere, hallways that turn back on themselves, and rooms that shift. The stale air is filled with the low, arthritic creaks and groans of the house twisting and rearranging itself, and the distant sound of heavy footsteps--and jangling spurs.

A Roadside Picnic Discussion

A couple of weeks ago, Anne of DIY & Dragons and I had a conversation on science fiction novel Roadside Picnic and the ways it resembled and didn't resemble D&D. She posted that conversation over on her blog.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1981 (wk 1 pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! I'm a couple of days later than my usual Wednesday post, but I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  February 5, 1981. 

Batman #335: Wolfman's "Lazarus Affair" storyline comes to a close. Batman agrees to join Ra's to save the lives of his friends, but nobody believes it, including Ra's. He shows Batman the Lazarus Pit and explains who it brings immortality. Again, al Ghul asks him to join him, but Batman refuses and a fight breaks out. Al Ghul's hulkish goons bring Batman down, and Ra's sends him to be converted into one of those goons. Meanwhile, the other heroes and Talia break loose. They arrive in time to rescue Batman. Talia is shot by one of al Ghul's minions. She's placed in the Lazarus Pit. Once she's saved, Batman and the Demon's Head have their one-on-one combat, and the others (except Talia) leave them to it. Ultimately, al Ghul tumbles into the pit, but he comes out on fire and still looking to fight. Batman knocks him into the pit again. He and Talia escape in a helicopter as the island explodes behind them. Looks like Ra's stays dead until July of '82.

DC Comics Presents #33: It's Conway's turn to get script help from Roy Thomas. They team Superman up with Captain Marvel with Buckler/Giordano on art. Superman finds his powers and costumes switched with the Big Red Cheese. Both heroes have to go through their day coping with having different powers. Mxyzptlk is to blame, and in the end it's revealed that he's in cahoots with Mr. Mind. 

The "Whatever Happened to.." backup  features a Star Hawkins story by Tiefenbacher and Saviuk. Star solves a big case and retires with a large reward. He marries Stella Sterling, and Ilda marries Automan, who makes a guest appearance.

Flash #297: Bates gives us a weird story here, sort of made weirder, I think, by Infantino's art. Captain Cold has reformed and is fighting crime, but the Flash doesn't trust him. It turns out Cold's change is genuine; he reformed for his new actress girlfriend. When he discovers that girlfriend is using his outfit and gun to commit crimes for which he'll get blame, he goes for a murder/suicide thing--maybe. Somehow, he ties them both up (seems fishy to me) and hangs them inside rings of "cold fire" to quick freeze them for eternity. The Flash shows up and rescues them. In the B plot, Barry Allen's parents come to town. As his Dad is expounding on how "tough love" led them to ignore their widowed and grieving son's entreaties to visit until he had made peace with Iris's death, they get in a car accident and fall over a cliff. With his mother in a coma and likely to be hospitalized for a while, his Dad comes to leave with Barry. His father's thoughts reveal he's in Central City to "end the Flash" in "the most horrible demise imaginable." Now that's a cliffhanger!

The Firestorm backup has the hothead clashing with Multiplex, who is able to create duplicates. Interestingly (and unlike most duplication powers) Multiplex's duplicates get smaller if he creates a lot of them, so he also has kind of a shrinking power.

Ghosts #100: I hoped you liked the "Ghost Gladiator" from last issue, because that guy is all over this! All the stories feature him except the last one, and all the stories are written by Kashdan, with only the non-gladiator story drawn by Bright instead of Carillo. A archeologist is haunted by the gladiator in the ruins of Pompeii, but it turns out his assistant has promised the ghost release in return for the haunting. The archeologist frees the ghost and deals with the assistant. In WWII, the ghostly gladiator helps the Allies defeat Germans planning to destroy Pompeii's ruins. In the final gladiator story, the spirit saves the great-granddaughter of the archeologist in the first story when a thief threatens her while trying to steal Pompeiian artifacts from a museum.

In the last story, the leader of an outlawed democratic movement faces death in a caricature Middle Eastern country. First though, his hands are cut off. That night, the evil ruler is strangled to death by spectral hands. Probably just a coincidence.

G.I. Combat #229: The first Haunted Tank story has Jeb and crew trying to fulfill the wish of a dying Italian and his granddaughter that he be able to hear the bell of the Abbey on Mt. Cassino one last time before he dies. This involves driving into German occupied territory being bombed by the Allies. In the end, a dying German sniper falling from the bell tower gives the old man his wish. In the O.S.S. story by Kanigher and Cruz, an O.S.S. agent and a Norwegian woman, Ingrid, are sent to Norway to make contact with her brother, a resistance fighter named Lars, and together take out a German jet field. When the Germans are on to them at every turn, the agent believes Lars is a traitor, but it turns out Ingrid is. She dies with the destruction of the German air field. 

Kasdan and Barcasio tell a story from the perspective of a pair of binoculars. In Kashdan's second effort with Vicatan, a captain climbing up to a Nazi-occupied castle substitutes the corpse of a German soldier on his climbing line to make good his escape. In occupied France, the resistance kills the occupying troops with poisoned meat in a yarn by Allikas and Sangalang. The final ridiculous and possibly offensive Haunted Tank story has the crew encountering a shambling, malnourished group of men in hospital clothes--but they're willing to pick up guns and kill Nazis like anyone else. The crew gives them some candy and follows them to their destination: a psychiatric hospital.

Jonah Hex #48: An old friend from Hex's scout days shows up to request Hex help him deal with the Crow on his trail who want to kill him. Back in the day, Hex saved the man from torture by the Paiutes who had wrongly blamed him for the death of a young girl. It turns out that Hex is also acquainted with the Crow chief who reveals his friend isn't so innocent in this case and has committed murder. Faced with turning his friend over for torture, Hex instead shoots and kills him himself. 

In the backup, we've said good-bye to Scalphunter and hello to El Diablo, by Skimmer and Andru/DeZungia, who hasn't appeared since 1976. El Diablo's thing is that he's Lazarus Lane, who was nearly killed by a gang of thieves and left in a coma, but a Native American shaman, Wise Owl, revived him to a sort of sleepwalking Old West avenger, El Diablo. In this story, a robber follows El Diablo home and tries to make Wise Owl give "control" of Lazarus to him, but that doesn't work out so well in the end. Nothing special, but I like it better than Scalphunter.

Justice League of America #190: Conway's story opens with the uncontrolled Leaguers getting the grim message from an admiral that the government intends to destroy New York City to contain Starro. They go into action to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, Red Tornado, who has only been feigning Starro's control makes a break for it. As the League infiltrates the city and tries to keep Starro's forces from escaping, we find Flash and Zatanna are still in turmoil over their attraction, and Zatanna has the added issue of having some trouble with her spells. The little boy from the prologue last issue has accidentally discovered that the cold weakens Starro's control. The League uses this information to free their friends, and Firestorm and Green Lantern team-up to freeze Starro. Buckler's art is uneven here, which I blame on Smith's inks, but the Brian Bolland cover (only his 6th for DC) is great.