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Kickstarting Cosmic Fantasy: The Chronicles of Future Earth RPG

Kickstarting Cosmic Fantasy: The Chronicles of Future Earth RPG

The Chronicles of Future Earth

In the last centuries of the Fifth Cycliad, a great malaise began to descend on the lands of humankind. The civilizations of the Earth, which for aeons had seemed on the verge of slumber, now finally began to rot from within. From the edges of the world, the ever-present enemies drew close, their hungry claws poised to tear apart the delicate flesh of a fruit a hundred millennia in the ripening. And all around, a cry arose for Heroes, to stand against the dying of the light, and save the world from the sins of its past.

Are you a fan of Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique? Of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun? M. John Harrison’s The Pastel City? Do you yearn for a roleplaying game that exudes the vibe of Bruce Pennington’s gorgeous artwork? Then look no further — The Chronicles of Future Earth is here.

On Friday 28 September, Mindjammer Press launched its new Kickstarter for The Chronicles of Future Earth — Cosmic Fantasy Roleplaying in the Post-Historical Age. I’m Sarah Newton, the author of the game, which in some ways is the fantasy counterpart to my transhuman science-fiction roleplaying game Mindjammer. We funded the project in a little under 9 hours, and have been unlocking stretch goals since; as of this moment (Friday 5 October), we’ve raised just under £20,000 (appx $27,000), and have unlocked a Player Character Folio and GM adventure to add to the “Chronicler Pack” which forms the core of our offering: a gorgeous full-colour hardback rulebook, a GM screen, dice, tokens, and an A2 map of the “Springtide Civilization” — the world of the earth of the far, far future where the game takes place.

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Walk a Mile in My Paws: The Valley of Creation by Edmond Hamilton

Walk a Mile in My Paws: The Valley of Creation by Edmond Hamilton

valley-of-creation-edmond-hamilton-lodestone-coverWhat I’ve learned from my still inadequate reading of pulp science-fiction legend Edmond Hamilton is his mastery of pushing his stories in expected directions but in unexpected ways. I’ve developed enough of a sense of how Hamilton viewed his characters and his attitude toward humanity that I can anticipate the direction he’ll flip a tale in the middle — but I’ll never anticipate how he’ll do it. Almost every time, he exceeds expectations by taking the most daring path, both for his narrative and his prose.

The 1948 novel The Valley of Creation follows a theme the author explored in his cliché-battering short story “A Conquest of Two Worlds” (Wonder Stories, 1932), where a human turns against the colonial tyranny of his own race to side with oppressed aliens. Hamilton often used a cynical, bleak approach in his short fiction, turning to a lighter adventure mode for his novels. The Valley of Creation falls into this pattern. It challenges readers with a protagonist who discovers he’s on the wrong side of a conflict — the side of racial supremacists — and switches allegiance. But it’s done as a science-fantasy adventure with the zip expected of the pulps and a heavy dose of A. Merritt’s “Lost World of Super Science!” explorations.

The Valley of Creation was published in Startling Stories for the July 1948 issue, sharing a table of contents with stories from Jack Vance and Henry Kuttner. Lancer published the paperback version in 1964, a time when the paperback market was mining for the gold spread throughout the pulp era that might otherwise have flaked away with the rough paper. Hamilton did revisions for the ‘64 version, updating the timeline so its protagonist, mercenary Eric Nelson, is a veteran of the Korean War.

At the opening of the novel, Nelson is in the position of many characters from noir movies and books of the late ‘40 and ‘50s: a disaffected military man who’s seen too much and has now lost his way. Nelson and his four mercenary partners are stranded in Central Asia at the end of their tether after their Chinese warlord employer is killed. They then receive a strange offer from a man named Shan Kar — he’ll pay them in platinum if they come to his valley of L’Lan and fight “the enemy of his people.”

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Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon – Part Eleven, “Kang the Cruel” / “The Skymen”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon – Part Eleven, “Kang the Cruel” / “The Skymen”

p101745754-3p30920910-3“Kang the Cruel” was the twenty-third installment of the Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between February 11 and May 20, 1945, “Kang the Cruel” was the first strip without the story input of creator Alex Raymond. It was illustrated by Austin Briggs, who had succeeded Raymond as the strip’s artist the previous year, and was scripted by Don Moore.

The story gets off to a strong start with Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov returning to Mingo City unaware that Prince Barin has been deposed and a usurper sits on the throne. The usurper is Kang the Cruel, the son of Ming the Merciless. This is a strong concept in the classic tradition. The only disappointment is that Austin Briggs’ artwork pales in comparison with Alex Raymond.

Zarkov’s rocketship is shot down by an air patrol led by Kagi, Kang’s lieutenant. Firefighters rush to the crash site as Kang has given orders the Earthmen are to be taken alive. Flash is spirited away by Darin, a freedom fighter who has infiltrated Kang’s air patrol. The new emperor proves he is as cruel a despot as his father, ordering the firefighter who allowed Darin to escape to be flayed, sprayed with ice, and then placed in steam until he dies.

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Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, “The Menace of Mysta” / “Home”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, “The Menace of Mysta” / “Home”

flash_gordonflash20gordon_briggs149911171“The Menace of Mysta” was the tenth installment of Austin Briggs’ daily Flash Gordon comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between March 27 and April 25, 1944, “The Menace of Mysta” is a very brief episode that starts off with Flash and Dale and their nameless Elvin guide crossing Lost Lake when they pass through a patch of fog and become embroiled in a spider web. A giant spider rises from the lake to attack them. Flash dispatches the creature easily enough and the trio soon comes ashore on a strange beach where they quickly find themselves among the invisible kingdom of Queen Mysta.

Mysta’s kingdom appears to function magically with visibility and seemingly inter-dimensional passage under the beautiful but mysterious Queen’s control. Dale and their Elvin guide are taken captive. Flash passes through the invisible portal into the kingdom and eventually fights his way into Mysta’s castle. Once Mysta determines that Flash poses no real threat, but is an honorable man fighting for Dale’s freedom, she pulls aside a curtain to unveil the scientific genius that allows her kingdom to operate on what seems to be magical principles. The genius is none other than Dr. Zarkov.

Readers were doubtless as flummoxed as Flash and Dale at this revelation and no sooner are they reunited with their old friend then he is bustling them off into a rocket ship on a secret mission he refuses to tell them anything about, which leads this curious and very brief penultimate adventure into the final storyline of Austin Briggs’ daily strip.

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Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Two – “Freeland”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Two – “Freeland”

9665211flash-gordon-volume-2“Freeland” was the second installment of Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon daily comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between February 24 and August 21, 1941, “Freeland” was the second story in the daily companion to Alex Raymond’s celebrated Sunday strip. It is the second of two Briggs strips available in a reprint collection from Kitchen Sink Press.

“Freeland” gets underway with the ship bearing our motley crew making its way toward the Promised Land free from Ming. Flash and Dale set out in a rocketship to scout for a safe harbor and encounter a hostile tribe of what appear to be Native Americans.

Once more, Austin Briggs demonstrates his version of Mongo is more attuned to contemporary American experience or American history than the prehistoric or Medieval Europe model chosen by Alex Raymond. Briggs may also be borrowing a page from Edgar Rice Burroughs (one of Raymond’s primary inspirations) in transplanting Native Americans to another world.

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Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part One – “Princess Lita”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part One – “Princess Lita”

61dtd4z0g4l_sl500_aa300_966525“Princess Lita” was the first installment of Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon daily comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between May 27, 1940 and February 22, 1941, “Princess Lita” was the story that launched the daily companion to Alex Raymond’s celebrated Sunday strip. It is one of two Briggs strips available in a reprint collection from Kitchen Sink Press. We shall examine the second strip in next week’s column.

The most rewarding part of delving into Austin Briggs’ first two Flash Gordon storylines has been the discovery that the sloppiness of the first few Austin Briggs’ Sunday strips printed a few years after the daily debuted were likely more the result of the artist being overworked than they were an adequate representation of Briggs’ work on the property. “Princess Lita” shows the artist in full command of the material drawing the characters as well as their creator, albeit without the benefit of the Sunday page to showcase the exotic flora and fauna of Mongo to full advantage. The transition from Sunday continuities to a daily strip is jarring at first and the smoothness of Don Moore’s scripting and Alex Raymond’s plotting is sorely missed, but Briggs does an admirable job of staying true to the source material.

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