A Dylan Update

by Dylan
(Illinois, Wisconsin)

I must confess, I'd never heard of Laumer, but now that I have, I'm glad of it- another author to add to travel the universe with. I have this site to thank for greatly increasing the number of writers in my collection!

I've been working on another tale- I find details and action flow easily from my keyboard, but sometimes the human side of things can get muddled. Which is funny, given my vocation as an actor.

I've also begun a side project with a friend, involving the new video game No Man's Sky. If you're unfamiliar, the game is set in a massive galaxy with 584 quintillion planets for the players to discover and even more alien lifeforms for them to encounter. Each player begins on a random planet, and the odds of two players ever encountering each other are slim to none. My friend and I have decided to keep "captain's logs", detailing our adventures as our heroes struggle to find each other in the infinite cosmos.

I mention No Man's Sky because it has a distinct OSS flair to it. For example, each star system I've visited has four or five life-bearing worlds around it. Jungle planets often have large dinosauroids on them, and ancient ruins can be found everywhere. I named one star Shelley, then named it's planets Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. Clarke, funny enough was barren apart from cacti-like organisms living near out-gassing chasams, and I found a large monolith-like ruin in a crater. And all of that randomly generated!

My girlfriend has begin reading War of the Worlds, and so far she says she enjoys it. I'll make a sci-fi fan out of her yet!

{comment from Zendexor: Good news about the girlfriend. She's the right sort, it seems! When she becomes sufficiently enthusiastic she could contribute to the site - all one big happy family.

Interesting that you should mention the No Man's Sky galaxy, as I am about to begin a series of diary comments on comparing planetary and interstellar subgenres. To coin a phrase - "watch that space". 584 quintillion planets sounds about adequate.

On the subject of Laumer: he suffered a sudden severe illness in 1971, I believe, and the quality of his work deteriorated after that. His great period was the sixties. (Despite this, The Glory Game, one of his good ones, is dated 1975.) My favourite Laumer novel is Knight of Delusions, and my second favourite is Galactic Odyssey, but there are many other greats - A Trace of Memory, Catastrophe Planet, Worlds of the Imperium, Assignment in Nowhere... A feast of wonder and adventure.

Great to hear you're working on another tale. Are we allowed to know the setting, or do we wait to be surprised?}

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Aug 16, 2016
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by: Dylan

I've got both Titan and Europa in the works, we'll see which I finish first. I'd like to make a colorful Solar System, as one might find in Leigh Brackett or C.L. Moore, but I also want the realism of a Heinlein. So I flip-flop, which does my stories no good, as you can imagine.

{Comment from Zendexor: Maybe Heinlein in Red Planet shows the seemingly impossible can be done: a Worn-Out Mars where one needs a space-helmet, yet a world which can match the best of Brackett for colour and personality. A squaring of the circle, as it were: romance and realism combined.}

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