Tag Archives: space opera

A Deal on the Space Pirates’ Legacy

The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you don’t have to wait for me to highlight it, just visit https://www.hadrosaur.com/bookstore.php and click on the book you’re interested in. On its page is a link to Smashwords if its available there. The coupon codes for these discounts are automatically applied at checkout. One of the things I love about Smashwords is that they provide ebooks in all popular formats and they’re DRM free, so you can download them to your favorite device.

I have a special treat for you this year. Since the space pirates’ legacy series is now complete, I’m offering every book in the series for just 99 cents! That means you can get the whole series for about the price of one book at regular price! That’s definitely a steal worthy of space pirates!

Firebrandt’s Legacy

In Firebrandt’s Legacy, Ellison Firebrandt fights the good fight for Earth. Under a letter of marque, he raids the ships of Earth’s opponents, slowing down their progress and ability to compete with the home system. On the planet Epsilon Indi 2, he rescues a woman named Suki Mori from a drug lord, only to find she isn’t so happy about living a pirate’s life. However, when the captain finds a new engine that will make him the most successful pirate of all, Suki is the only one who can make it work. Now Firebrandt must find a way to keep his crew fed and his ship supplied while relying on a woman who barely trusts him and while every government in the galaxy hunts him to get the engine back!

Midwest Book Review says, “A grand space opera filled with high adventure from cover to cover, Firebrandt’s Legacy is highly recommended.”

Get the book for 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/916916

The Pirates of Sufiro

The Pirates of Sufiro is the story of a planet and its people—of Ellison Firebrandt the pirate captain living in exile; of Espedie Raton, a man from the streets of Earth looking to make a fresh start for himself and his wife on a new world; of Peter Stone, the geologist who discovers a fortune and will do anything to keep it; and of the lawman, Edmund Ray Swan who travels to Sufiro seeking the quiet life but finds a dark secret. It is the story of privateers, farmers, miners, entrepreneurs, and soldiers—all caught up in dramatic events and violent conflicts that will shape the destiny of our galaxy.

Jane Lindskold, author of the Firekeeper saga says, “In The Pirates of Sufiro Firebrandt faces challenges that press even his courageous heart and clever mind to the limit, as well as testing the loyalty of those he loves and trusts most deeply. This dynamic generational saga provides enough twists and turns to satisfy the most devoted space opera fan.”

Get the book for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1031018

Children of the Old Stars

In Children of the Old Stars, an implacable alien intelligence called the Cluster has arrived in the galaxy and dissects almost every star ship it encounters. Grandson of an infamous space pirate, Commander John Mark Ellis is disgraced and booted out of the space service when he fails to save a merchant ship from the Cluster. Even so, Ellis believes he holds the key to communicating with the invader. His mother, Suki Firebrandt Ellis, is a historian who believes the galaxy’s leaders are withholding information about the Cluster. Clyde McClintlock believes the Cluster is God incarnate and provides the path to salvation. G’Liat is an alien warrior who hopes to protect his people from the Cluster. All together, they set out to stop the Cluster’s reign of destruction.

S. Derrickson Moore of the Las Cruces Sun-News says, “Children of the Old Stars presents an engrossing vision of the future…David Lee Summers has created a fascinating, imaginative, and very entertaining cast of characters and worlds.”

Get the third book of the Space Pirates’ Legacy series for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1079569

Heirs of the New Earth

In Heirs of the New Earth, the Earth itself has gone silent. John Mark Ellis and the crew of the Sanson are sent to investigate. When they arrive, they find vast alien machines known as Clusters in orbit. Fearing the worst, they land and discover that the once overcrowded, polluted Earth has become a paradise of sorts. The problem is over half the population is dead or missing and the planet’s leaders don’t seem to care. As Ellis works to unravel the mystery, sudden gravitational shifts from the galaxy’s center indicate something even worse is in the offing. Can Ellis save the galaxy from the heirs of the new Earth?

Author, editor, and publisher Mark Anthony Brennan says, “This is a well-crafted and thoughtful piece of science fiction. Highly recommended.”

Get the final book in the Space Pirates’ Legacy for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1132231

Expedition Vega

This past week, I finished reading the second story arc in J-Novel Club’s translation of the Perry Rhodan NEO series. This arc of eight novellas was presented under the collective title, Expedition Vega. When the first arc, Vision Terrania, ended, astronaut Perry Rhodan, who had been to the moon and made first contact with aliens, had established his city Terrania in the Gobi Desert, and had won over the Chinese General Bai Jun who had laid siege to the city. What’s more they had rescued alien Crest de Zoltral from the hands of the Americans. However, the Americans still held technology from Crest’s race, the Arkonides. Expedition Vega opens as Perry Rhodan leads an expedition to recover that technology, so it doesn’t stay in the hands of just one government.

Perry Rhodan NEO: Expedition Vega

Once this recovery mission comes to a conclusion, Perry Rhodan’s people detect a distress signal from the star Vega. Even though Terrania still faces many challenges, Rhodan decides he can’t ignore the signal and puts together a team, which includes Crest’s adopted daughter, the Arkonide Commander Thora, to investigate. Rhodan and his team arrive at Vega and discover a race of reptillian creatures called the Topsidans have taken it upon themselves to conquer the system. The natives of Vega are blue-skinned human-like creatures known as the Ferron. Perry Rhodan and his team are attacked and soon find themselves separated and fighting desperately just to stay alive.

Soon after Perry Rhodan and his team leave the Earth, another alien species turns up. These are the Fantan, who collect anything and everything that happens to grab their interest. It can be something as mundane as a porta-potty to something as crucial as a major bridge or a rescue vehicle. It can even be people. Reginald Bull and Eric Manoli, two of the astronauts who went to the moon with Rhodan and met the Arkonides, are soon collected along with two young mutants. This group eventually teams up with the alien mutant mouse-beaver known as Gucky and begin to plot a way to escape the Fantan

As all of this is going on, humans have learned that Arkonides visited Earth in the distant past and there’s an ancient Arkonide base and ship under the ocean. The humans on Earth hope to use this ancient technology to find a way to get rid of the Fantan who are proving far more than a mere nuisance.

Through the course of these eight novellas, these very disparate plot lines play out and eventually find their way to a common solution. There were many great moments in the series. I enjoyed how Perry kept trying to find a way not only to survive being stranded in the Vega system, but kept looking for ways to bring peace to the system again. One of my favorite moments in this arc was when Reginald, Eric, and Gucky put on the musical The Pirates of Penzance as a way to distract the Fantan and try to escape. Another fun moment came in the novella “A Step Into the Future” by Bernd Perplies, when he introduces a reporter named Dayton Ward, a name strongly associated with Simon and Schuster’s Star Trek novels in the United States.

As it turns out Bernd Perplies has translated several English-language Star Trek novels into German and was a co-author of the Star Trek: Prometheus novels. I wrote to Dayton Ward and asked if he and Perplies knew each other and Ward confirmed they had, in fact, corresponded. I know Dayton because we were co-editors on our own book of exciting space tales called Maximum Velocity. If you’re a fan of exciting space adventure like Germany’s Perry Rhodan series, I suspect you’d enjoy our short story collection. You’ll find stories by people like Mike Resnick, Irene Radford, and C.J. Henderson. There are even stories by Dayton and me. You can pick up a copy at https://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Velocity-Full-Throttle-Space-Tales/dp/1614755299/

I’m sorry to say, I don’t see any forthcoming volumes of Perry Rhodan NEO listed on J-Novel Club’s website. I’m hoping they’re just taking a brief hiatus, otherwise, I’ll have to dust off my German skills to continue into the next 26 story arcs!

El Paso Comic Con 2022

This weekend, April 22-24, I will be a participant and a vendor at El Paso Comic Con. This year, El Paso Comic Con is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Featured guests at the convention include William Shatner, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, and anime voice actors Mike McFarland, Monica Rial, and Austin Tindle. Comic book artists Renee Witterstaetter, Michael Golden and Sam de la Rosa will also be on hand. The convention will be held at the El Paso Convention Center in downtown El Paso, Texas. You can get all the details at https://www.elpasocomiccon.com

I will be exhibiting the books I’ve written, edited, or have stories in at booth A15 in the exhibitor hall. Author Tamsin Silver will be joining me at my booth. I have two new books I was proud to edit and publish since last fall’s El Paso Comic Con. One is The Way-Out Wild West by Lyn McConchie. The other is Hybrid: Forced Vengeance by Greg Ballan. I also have the new editions of my first three Clockwork Legion novels Owl Dance, Lightning Wolves, and The Brazen Shark. Of course, since this is a comic con, I will have plenty of copies of my comic Guinevere and the Stranger on hand. I’m always happy to sign books you buy from me.

Tamsin and I will also be presenting some panels discussing our writing experiences at the convention. It’s possible we’ll add some other attending authors to our panel lineup as well. Here’s our schedule:

Saturday, April 23

1:00-1:45pm in the El Paso Panel Room. Researching Your Fiction. Fiction is making stuff up, but it still involves knowledge of the tools the characters use, the settings they visit, and the types of people they’ll meet in those settings. Tamsin and I will discuss how to do the research that makes your fiction feel realistic to readers.

3:00-3:45pm in the El Paso Panel Room. Getting to Know the Characters in Your Head. Tamsin and I will discuss how to breathe life into characters you’re writing no matter how far from your own experience they may be.

Sunday, April 24

4:00-4:45pm in the El Paso Panel Room. From Weird Westerns to Space Opera. Tamsin and I talk about their experience writing westerns, horror, science fiction and fantasy and how they’re the same and different.

Battle for the Sol

Back in November, I mentioned that my wife had purchased all six issues of Cross-Cult Comics’ Perry Rhodan series for me in digital format. I read and discussed the first three issues almost right away, but then between the holidays and editorial deadlines, I had to delay reading the final three issues. Here’s the link to my first post: Perry Rhodan Comics

I finally had a chance to read the second three-issue arc, entitled “Battle for the Sol.” I suspect the pun is deliberate, since Germans would pronounce “Sol” the same way English-speakers pronounce “soul.” In this case the Sol is one of the long-distance space ships Perry Rhodan uses over the course of his immortal existence to explore the universe. One cool element of this second story arc is that the covers were designed to connect to one another, a fact I hadn’t realized until I assembled the image for this post.

Connecting covers for Perry Rhodan: Battle for the Sol

The second arc of the Perry Rhodan comic series takes up where the first arc left off. Perry Rhodan and the crew of the Sol have agreed to delay the search for their home galaxy so they help the insect-like Skra’Bji settle a new planet. However, the resettlement proves more time consuming than many people had expected and some members of the crew want to resume the search for the Milky Way Galaxy immediately without continuing to help the Skra’Bji. This is exacerbated when the Skra’Bji find the corpse of an ancient enemy, the Herayan, on the new world. For some reason the Skra’Bji begin to panic at the news of this corpse. One member of Rhodan’s crew decides to put an end to the Skra’Bji’s problems once and for all and plans to zap the Herayan corpse with a ray gun. Turns out that’s a big mistake. The energy from the ray gun revitalizes the enemy and it eventually makes it to the Sol, where it begins to rampage through the ship.

To make matters worse Rhodan along with Tr’Frel, the leader of the Skra’Bji, learn that a breach in the fabric of space will allow even more Herayans to invade the Umal Galaxy where the Skra’Bji live. Rhodan is sent on a quest for the sigil that will seal the breach which will allow the Herayan into the galaxy. In the meantime, Rhodan’s companions Gucky, Belayn, and Tolot must deal with the Herayan who have already invaded the ship. They succeed and learn that the Herayans remember all the galaxies they’ve been to and their brain patterns effectively contain a “map” that will point them back home. This strengthens the resolve of those who want to abandon the Skra’Bji to their fate and a “Humanity First” movement is formed and plots to take over the Sol from Perry Rhodan and his close companions.

Like the first story arc, the second was written by Kai Hirdt, illustrated by Marco Castiello, and colored by Michael Atiyeh. I liked the way the story explored the challenges of deciding whether to prioritize helping those who are “alien” or your own family and friends, especially when both groups are in need. Another thing I liked was that by sending Perry Rhodan and Tr’Frel off in their own quest, it allowed some of the secondary characters to shine. In fact, the second issue put the spotlight on Belayn Parcer who believes in helping the Skra’Bji and her struggle with a woman named Micaela who speaks for the Humanity First movement. Overall, the first two issues of this second story arc did a great job of allowing the artwork to tell the story. The third issue was a little exposition-heavy. Given the number of plot threads that needed to be wrapped up at the end of issue 2, this would have been hard to avoid without expanding into a fourth issue.

Also, like the first story arc, the second set of Perry Rhodan comics are only available in German. Once again, it was a nice opportunity for me to practice reading the German language and to learn more about one of the longest-running science fiction literary series. If you don’t speak German, but would like to explore the universe of Perry Rhodan, many of the early novels from the 1960s and 70s were translated into English and are widely available in used bookstores. Otherwise, the publisher J-Novel Club is translating the updated Perry Rhodan Neo series and releasing new volumes about every six weeks. I’ve been reading these as well and enjoying them a great deal.

If you enjoy my posts, please take a moment to learn about my novels at http://www.davidleesummers.com or consider supporting me on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/davidleesummers so that I can maintain an ad-free experience here at the Web Journal and get a behind-the-scenes look at my creative process.

Stamp Collecting

One thing astronomers do is attempt to classify the objects they see by common properties. For example, stars that display similar chemical fingerprints in their spectra will be assigned a certain spectral type. Galaxies can be grouped by shape such as spiral, barred spiral, elliptical, and my favorite, irregular. Here’s a chart from NASA showing the numbers of exoplanets discovered as grouped by size of planet.

Back in my college days, we called this “stamp collecting.” It’s a somewhat derogatory term because it’s not necessarily the most exciting work in astronomy and its significance can be somewhat misleading. A great example is the whole “is Pluto a planet” debate which was sparked by classifying Pluto a dwarf planet. To my mind a “dwarf planet” is just a type of planet. After all, we orbit a dwarf star! (A G2V yellow dwarf main sequence star if you want more of the taxonomy.)

That said, this process of stamp collecting does serve an important purpose. By seeing how many of what types of objects are out in the universe, it helps us understand how the universe evolved. It helps us see patterns that show us how particular objects might have changed. For example, when I mentioned that the sun is a G2V main sequence star, that not only tells me what it is, but gives me some idea where the star is in its life cycle.

We do stamp collecting in the writing world as well. We classify books broadly by subject: science fiction, horror, romance, adventure, etc. We often take these individual classifications down even finer. A science fiction book can be described as hard science fiction, space opera, military science fiction and more. Like stamp collecting in astronomy, this can be an important process. It helps readers find what they want to read. However, it can also get overblown.

It’s become a reality in the publishing industry that an author’s name is a sort of brand, and authors often get classified right along with their books. Mary Smith writes military science fiction while John Jones writes space opera. Some writers even go so far as to pick different pseudonyms each time they explore not just a new genre, but a new subgenre.

I’ve been thinking about this lately in terms of my own writing career. For most of the last decade, I’ve been very focused on my Clockwork Legion steampunk novels. Now, I’m turning my focus more to my Space Pirates’ Legacy series. To my mind, the two series actually have a lot in common. There’s a real space cowboy vibe in the Space Pirates series that echoes the retrofuturism of the steampunk. Of course, this does cause some people to ask if I’ve finished the Clockwork Legion series or won’t do more steampunk. The answer to both is absolutely not. I think I have many more steampunk stories to tell and many of those will feature Ramon, Fatemeh, Larissa, and the rest of the gang. However, I also like telling stories about Captain Firebrandt, Roberts, and Manuel Raton.

For what it’s worth, I classify myself as a writer of fantastic tales with a retrofuturistic vibe. That captures my steampunk, my space cowboys, and even my vampires, especially when I write stories set in a historical context.

If you’re in Tucson, I hope you’ll join me tomorrow, Sunday, February 10 at 3:30pm at Antigone Books for the Tucson Steampunk Society’s book club meeting where I’ve been invited to discuss my fourth Clockwork Legion novel, Owl Riders, which recently was a top-ten finisher in the Predators and Editors Reader’s Poll for best steampunk novel of 2018. Copies of the novel are available at Antigone and if you let us know you haven’t read it yet, we’ll try not to give away too many spoilers. Antigone Books is located at 411 N. 4th Avenue in Tucson. If you can’t make it, the book club posts videos of the meeting that will be shared on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TucsonSteampunkSociety/

Commodore John Grimes

I remember going to the public library when I was in elementary school and discovering that many of the people who wrote Star Trek episodes also had novels on the science fiction shelves. I discovered many great writers that way including Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, and Norman Spinrad. At one point in high school, a friend asked me if I read any science fiction written by people who didn’t write for Star Trek. I admitted there weren’t many. A few days later he gave me a book by A. Bertram Chandler. It was really two books, an Ace Double that combined Chandler’s novels The Road to the Rim and The Hard Way Up. Both were science fiction stories featuring Chandler’s hero, John Grimes.

Bertram Chandler was born in England and worked as a sailor aboard merchant ships. When World War II broke out, he joined the British Navy. During the war, he was stationed for a time in New York, where he met editor John W. Campbell Jr. of Astounding Stories Magazine. Campbell encouraged Chandler to write science fiction stories for him. After the war, Chandler immigrated to Australia and served in the merchant navy.

Chandler’s science fiction, especially the stories featuring John Grimes, are strongly influenced by his own life experiences. The upshot is that John Grimes is very reminiscent of C.S. Forrester’s famous hero Horatio Hornblower, except that the stories are set in the distant future instead of being set during the Napoleonic wars. Of course, another character I’d heard described as a Hornblower in space was none other than Star Trek’s Captain Kirk. As such, it’s perhaps no surprise that I found the John Grimes stories appealing.

That said, there was a big difference Kirk and Grimes. Captain Kirk rarely made a bad decision. Every now and then a red shirted security officer would die and he would mourn for a moment on screen before solving the mystery or defeating the villain. Grimes sometimes screwed up. Sometimes he did the right thing and people took advantage of him. Grimes often did things that had life-altering consequences. He started out as an officer for Earth, got booted out of the service, became a privateer, and ultimately made a new life out to galaxy’s rim. This less-than-perfect hero appealed to me and I liked the people he met in his adventures.

I took a lot of lessons from Chandler’s John Grimes stories when I sat down to write space opera. I created a world that wasn’t too perfect for my characters to inhabit. I created a captain with a moral compass, but who could be pushed into extreme action by his circumstances. I saw a universe where most of the wealthy moved to other worlds leaving Earth somewhat destitute, relying on privateers to fight for economic superiority. This is the world of Captain Ellison Firebrandt and his ship, the Legacy. The first novel I wrote featuring Captain Firebrandt was The Pirates of Sufiro. However, a little over a decade after publishing that first novel, I started exploring the character before he was stranded on the planet Sufiro. As time marched on, Firebrandt’s Legacy was born.

With all of this background, you can imagine that I was thrilled when Robert E. Vardeman, who wrote one of my favorite Star Trek novels, The Klingon Gambit, said, “Commodore John Grimes move over. Captain Ellison Firebrandt is coming at ftl to take away your claim to best space opera. Firebrandt’s Legacy by David Lee Summers combines explosive space battles with political intrigue, conniving alien races and the human need to love and belong and serve. The Firebrandt universe is complex and wrapped up in astronomy with careful thought about human expansion and out of this world cosmic science. Join the privateer and his crew on their journey of adventure.”

If you want to take Bob’s advice, you can pre-order Firebrandt’s Legacy right now! The ebook will be released on Monday, January 28. The print edition should appear about the same time. Here are the places where you can pre-order the book:

End Game and New Beginnings

I’m currently working on the final chapters of my collection Firebrandt’s Legacy. This book collects space pirate stories that have appeared in numerous anthologies over the years alongside several new stories. The whole collection is an arc of related stories, so the book may be read as an episodic novel. I’ve been sharing the new and revised stories with my Patreon subscribers since September 2017.

Based on my current outline, I have about three stories to go to bring events up to the beginning of my novel The Pirates of Sufiro and to bring the collection up to the length I want. I will release the first story of the final three to my Patreon subscribers on Thursday, July 26.

My approach to Patreon has been pretty simple. I only have one tier and it only costs $1.00 per month to subscribe. Of course, patrons are welcome to pay more per month if they feel sufficiently moved by my work to support me at a higher level. My first goal is to use this money to pay the costs associated with publishing Firebrandt’s Legacy. My second goal is to print new editions of the other related books including The Pirates of Sufiro, Children of the Old Stars, and Heirs of the New Earth. Patreon support has already helped me publish the new edition of The Solar Sea, which is a prequel to my Space Pirates’ Legacy series that tells the story of how humans became a space faring society. I shared a free download of the ebook with all my Patreon subscribers. Patreon support also helps support this blog and helps support my travel to conventions where I give both writing and science presentations.

For the duration of Firebrandt’s Legacy, I have been posting at least one new or revised story to the site per month along with a “Behind the Scenes” look at where the story first appeared (if it had been previously published) and what influenced me to write the story. Of course, I plan to share a free download of the complete ebook to all my Patreon subscribers when it’s complete.

Now that I’m about to finish Firebrandt’s Legacy, I’m thinking about the best way to share my progress revising The Pirates of Sufiro for a new edition. I expect that I’ll be heavily revising this novel for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that this was my very first novel and I’ve learned a lot since I first published it. I’ve also received a lot of feedback on the novel over the years and plan to take those comments into account. Sharing “reedited chapters” may not sound like much value to anyone who has already read the book and people may wonder why they should subscribe instead of just buying a cheap used copy of the book.

My current plan is that when I start The Pirates of Sufiro, instead of doing the “Behind the Scenes” segments, I’ll share the chapter as it appeared in the most recent edition, perhaps along with some notes about the inspirations and the origins of the ideas. I’ll wait a couple of weeks, then present the revised chapter, so people can see what I’m doing with this edit. In both cases, I’m delighted for people to comment on what I’m doing as the project progresses.

To prepare for this transition, I’ve recorded a brief intro video and posted it to my Patreon site. Also, I have made two of the Firebrandt’s Legacy stories/chapters available for anyone to read whether or not they’re a patron. They’re the first chapter, “For a Job Well Done”, and Chapter Twelve, “Calamari Rodeo.” I encourage you to drop over to the site, watch the intro video and read the two free stories. If you like these characters, please sign on as a patron. My Patreon site is: http://www.patreon.com/davidleesummers

One last thing before signing off. Speaking of used copies of The Pirates of Sufiro, Children of the Old Stars, and Heirs of the New Earth, Hadrosaur Productions is running an auction at eBay for the last complete set of the LBF/Hadrosaur editions of the Old Star Saga in their stock. Drop by and place a bid at eBay!

Valerian and Laureline

While learning more about the movie The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec directed by Luc Besson and the comic of the same name by Jacques Tardi, I stumbled across another French comic which was recently adapted by Besson. The comic is Valérian and Laureline written by Pierre Christin and illustrated by Jean-Claude Mézières. The movie, called Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, completely slipped under my radar. Because I love a good space opera, I immediately set out to see the movie and read some issues of the comic.

The comic started its run in November 1967. To put it in context, the original Star Trek was still on the air in the United States and Patrick Troughton was playing the title character of Doctor Who in England. It’s pure pulp action Sci Fi, reminding me most of Buck Rogers with a touch of Flash Gordon thrown in for good measure. The artwork, particularly in the first two installments, looks like it’s inspired by Mad Magazine and there is a definite satirical edge to the stories. The characters of Valérian and Laureline also remind me a little of Jamie and Zoe, the Doctor’s traveling companions at the time, but with some of their personality traits mixed up. Laureline, like Jamie McCrimmon, is from the past and doesn’t always want to follow the rules. Valérian, like Zoe, thinks highly of himself, and seems to need rescuing from time to time. I’m not convinced these similarities are deliberate. I suspect there’s an element of the zeitgeist of the period in these passing resemblances.

Fans of Valérian and Laureline are also fast to point out many similarities between the French comic and Star Wars which would come out a decade later. I gather George Lucas has acknowledged the French comic’s influence on the look of his world.

Jumping ahead to the movie, I thought Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was a gem. It captured the spirit of the comic very well and I thought presented a dandy and cohesive story with some cool science fictional ideas that made valid commentary on what can happen when indigenous peoples find themselves caught between two civilizations at war. Valerian and Laureline themselves are introduced during a special ops mission at a market that exists in a different dimension from our own. I loved the way that concept was portrayed on screen.

I enjoyed the performances of Dane DeHaan as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline. They’re not your usual Hollywood romantic couple. In fact, they seemed just a little uncomfortable with this whole romance thing, but it worked for me because that’s the way romance often works in real life. It’s figuring out how you each work, and not having the writer put phrases in your mouth that the other party has to be a moron to misunderstand and pout about until they make up. The film also features a truly outstanding performance by Rihanna as an alien called Bubble. I also loved the cameos by Ethan Hawke and Rutger Hauer.

As a bonus, I’ve discovered that about ten years ago, Valerian and Laureline was turned into a French-Japanese co-produced anime. From what I’ve seen so far, the anime’s story diverges from the comic’s, but it still looks fun. I definitely need to watch a few more episodes.

Of course, I’m a sucker for a good space opera. If you want to see my serialized space opera story, please drop by my Patreon site. You can read the first story of my Firebrandt’s Legacy for free. If you pledge just one dollar, you can read nine more stories right now. If you remain a patron, you’ll get each new story as its released. Stop by and check out Firebrandt’s Legacy at: https://www.patreon.com/davidleesummers

The Orville

Last week, I watched the first season of Seth MacFarlane’s new series, The Orville, with my daughter who’s home from college. Marketed as a science fiction comedy in the vein of Galaxy Quest, I find that the show is, in many ways, a true successor to Star Trek.

The premise of the show is that Captain Ed Mercer, played by MacFarlane, has just been given command of a mid-size exploratory vessel. To his chagrin, his ex-wife Kelly Grayson played by Adrianne Palicki serves as his first officer. Other members of the crew include Lt. Commander Bortus, the Klingon-like second officer from the Planet Moclan, Lt. Alara Kitan, the hyper-strong but young security chief from the planet Xelaya, and Lt. Gordon Malloy, Ed’s wisecracking friend who serves as the ship’s helmsman.

The first couple of episodes focused more on the humor, but as the show progressed it became decidedly more like classic Star Trek exploring themes of gender, religion, and the role of social media in society. It’s even taken on some interesting science fictional ideas such as what exploring other dimensions would mean, our interactions with life forms both more advanced and more primitive, and time travel.

Overall, the show’s exploration of science fiction themes works. This is perhaps no surprise since there’s a strong overlap of production staff not only with some of the Star Trek series, but with Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos. Although the show keeps its humor low-key, it’s still an integral part of the presentation. It keeps the show light and avoids it taking itself too seriously. That said, my most serious complaint about the show is that its humor is tied very strongly to 21st century pop-culture references. In a show set in the 24th century that is pretty decent at its science fiction, it feels a little jarring. It’s as though me and all my friends were experts in the 1600s and only read books and watched plays from that era. Okay, as an avowed Steampunk there is, perhaps, some feeling of truth in this portrayal, but I think you get what I mean!

I find I don’t always agree with the positions Seth MacFarlane and the producers present in the show, but that’s fine. He presents them in a thoughtful way that doesn’t put me off, which allows me to evaluate my own positions. In fact, he doesn’t always give us easy answers at the end of an episode or imply that what the crew did was the best choice. In this way, The Orville really does what science fiction does best: help us look at our own time with a critical eye.

As it turns out, I don’t have cable. I gave it up as an unneeded luxury back in 2001. I decided to buy the first season of The Orville on iTunes after watching those episodes that were available for free on Fox’s website. I will note that I still haven’t watched Star Trek: Discovery. Here’s the key difference: Fox allowed me to sample some episodes for free (albeit with commercials), and then gave me a means to subscribe to the series for a reasonable cost. CBS All Access, where Discovery runs will only allow me to subscribe to the channel and won’t even let me sample the series without a subscription that includes a whole lot of content I really don’t want. That’s why I gave up cable back in 2001!

I’m currently on Patreon raising funds for my collection of space pirate stories, Firebrandt’s Legacy. Like The Orville, I endeavor to mix some light-hearted humor with good science fiction to provide an entertaining mix. You can read the first story in the collection with absolutely no commitment right here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-one-for-14391922. If you like what you read, you can subscribe for any amount you like at: https://www.patreon.com/davidleesummers. In exchange for your patronage, you get to see each story in the collection as it’s written or reedited. I share behind the scenes information about the stories, and I’ll give you a “thank you” in the finished book.

What’s Opera, Harlock?

Like many Americans of my age, my education in opera came from the wonderful 1957 Bugs Bunny short, “What’s Opera, Doc?” In the short, Bugs and Elmer Fudd satirize pieces from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen among other operas.

It turns out, Bugs and Elmer aren’t the only characters from animation to take on Wagner’s Ring Cycle. In 1999, Leiji Matsumoto made an adaptation of Das Rheingold featuring Captain Harlock and the crew of the Arcadia called Harlock Saga. In this case, they don’t sing, but act out a loose, science fictional adaptation of the opera. I gather Matsumoto took the idea further in print and there are manga adaptations of Die Walküre and Siegfried as well as Der Rheingold.

In a way, bringing a character like Harlock into an opera closes a loop of sorts. Of course, Captain Harlock is a classic “space opera” character. So, what does “space opera” have to do with plain ol’ opera? To answer that, one has to go back to the original genre opera—the “horse opera.” The term “horse opera” goes all the way back to wild west shows of the nineteenth century. In that case, there’s a good chance that the term was a reference to the big spectacle that those shows represented.

By the time we get to the early twentieth century, the term “horse opera” began to be applied to movies we’d just call Westerns today. In fact, early Western star William Hart was called “the Caruso of the horse opera” in 1917. The term then migrated to western stories broadcast on the radio. When romance stories started on the radio, many sponsored by soap companies, they picked up the moniker “soap opera.” The term “space opera” started being applied to science fiction stories soon after that.

Today, when we speak of space opera, we tend to think of science fiction stories told on a grand scale, featuring larger-than-life characters, engaging in epic quests. In that sense, space opera is much the same kind of spectacle as, well, opera.

Lest one speak poorly of cartoons, I’ll note that “What’s Opera, Doc” and Harlock Saga have inspired my wife and I to finally watch Der Ring des Niberlungen. It’s definitely big and epic like a space opera. It’s also got its share of illicit romance, not unlike a soap opera. Of course, there’s the great music. Hours and hours of it. Der Ring des Niberlungen runs to some fifteen hours.

While I’m on the subject of space opera, today marks the relaunch of my space opera saga, now christened “The Space Pirates’ Legacy.” Click on the button below to visit my Patreon page and see the awesome cover Laura Givens created for the first book in the series, Firebrandt’s Legacy. If you become a Patron (and you can do so for just $1 a month), you’ll be able to read the book’s first story today. It first appeared in the collection Space Pirates, but I’ve given it a thorough edit to better line up with later stories in the book. My goal is that patrons will get to read at least one new story a month. If I get enough patrons, I’ll make sure they all get a copy of the complete book upon release. Click the button and get all the details right now.