OMG - Mainlined Classic Traveller!
- Thread starter Mithras
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beowulf2044
SOC-12
Reverse Effect
Looking the other way around, I've always held a suspicion that there is at least one set of little black books in Lois McMaster Bujold's closet. Her Vorkosigan series always strikes me as Traveller-esque.
Looking the other way around, I've always held a suspicion that there is at least one set of little black books in Lois McMaster Bujold's closet. Her Vorkosigan series always strikes me as Traveller-esque.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Agreed... and as for the E-book thingy...
Dead Trees forever!!!
Dead Trees forever!!!
Feels more MegaTraveller like to me... attributes matter a lot more than CT tends to imply.
I had just finished reading Space Viking by Piper when the LBBs were first printed in 77....they have been lurking on the edge of my non-OTU game ever since.
Used to have Fuzzy's, but those gave way to the Flandry books, everything Vance, Pournelle, and the Sten series. My whole game is a mish mash of all that. Oh, and for a while cyberpunk was very popular. Organlegging ala' Niven is still in there.
I guess dang near everything I read gets its own world eventually.
Used to have Fuzzy's, but those gave way to the Flandry books, everything Vance, Pournelle, and the Sten series. My whole game is a mish mash of all that. Oh, and for a while cyberpunk was very popular. Organlegging ala' Niven is still in there.
I guess dang near everything I read gets its own world eventually.
beowulf2044
SOC-12
I'm currently re-reading A. Betram Chandler's John Grimes series. Great old stuff with more than a touch of the weird to it.
Uller Uprising (1952) ISBN 0-441-84292-5
was pretty good.
I didn't care for Cosmic Computer, but I never finished it.
Space Viking I've read several times, and is easily my favorite.
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Two excellent sources of endless CT potential:
Poul Anderson's Flandry series and the Poleosotechnic League series!
The League came first and follows the growth of the Empire when it was young and daring merchant adventurers were scouting the stars for exotic new worlds and new civilizations to get rich off of. The motto of the Solar Spice & Liquor Company was "All the Traffic Can Bear", and Nick van Rijn was a classic merchant prince. The fat guy rolled up as an example character in CT is a blatant copy.
The Flandry series takes place in the same Empire long after it has become decadent and corrupt. Flandry is an agent for Terra who tries to hold off the coming Long Night for at least his own lifetime, but he has a good heart in spite of his best efforts to the contrary. Great alien races, realistic and detailed worlds, and a wide variety of examples of how the nobles conduct themselves in such a time.
Both series' are part of the same future history and overlap in character lineages (Flandry's line crosses van Rijn's in an interesting way), and how the aliens first encountered as primitives in the first stories begin to rapidly overtake and rival the Empire in the second.
Must reads for every referee who wants to know how to blend pulp fiction with realistic sci-fi and still have it make sense and be fun.
Poul Anderson's Flandry series and the Poleosotechnic League series!
The League came first and follows the growth of the Empire when it was young and daring merchant adventurers were scouting the stars for exotic new worlds and new civilizations to get rich off of. The motto of the Solar Spice & Liquor Company was "All the Traffic Can Bear", and Nick van Rijn was a classic merchant prince. The fat guy rolled up as an example character in CT is a blatant copy.
The Flandry series takes place in the same Empire long after it has become decadent and corrupt. Flandry is an agent for Terra who tries to hold off the coming Long Night for at least his own lifetime, but he has a good heart in spite of his best efforts to the contrary. Great alien races, realistic and detailed worlds, and a wide variety of examples of how the nobles conduct themselves in such a time.
Both series' are part of the same future history and overlap in character lineages (Flandry's line crosses van Rijn's in an interesting way), and how the aliens first encountered as primitives in the first stories begin to rapidly overtake and rival the Empire in the second.
Must reads for every referee who wants to know how to blend pulp fiction with realistic sci-fi and still have it make sense and be fun.
Which book or stories do Flandry and van Rijn meet ?
One of A Bertram Chandler's Grimes series has Flandry appearing in it.
>
In "The People of the Wind" Flandry's ancestor Phillip Rochfort was romantically involved with van Rijn's descendant, Tabitha Falkayn. She in turn was also descended from van Rijn's protege and star merchan adventurer David Falkayn.
This is just one of the intricate links between the two larger future histories that make both series' so fascinating and fun. In "Game of Empire" Flandry's illegitimate daughter DIana takes over his efforts to try to stave off the Long Night, but it's really too late by then and the neobarbarians are already howling in the ruins of the Terran Empire while the noble class attends parties.
This is just one of the intricate links between the two larger future histories that make both series' so fascinating and fun. In "Game of Empire" Flandry's illegitimate daughter DIana takes over his efforts to try to stave off the Long Night, but it's really too late by then and the neobarbarians are already howling in the ruins of the Terran Empire while the noble class attends parties.
beowulf2044
SOC-12
Flandry and Van Rijn are seperated by a century or two, historically speaking. In the Flandry novel 'White King's War' (also published under a name I can't recall at the moment) Flandry discovers an old base of operations left behind during the days of Van Rijn's Polesotechnic League. If I remember correctly, the 'tech level' of the League era was a bit higher than during Flandry's Empire. Now I'll have to go and re-read everything to remember why that was the case.
Anderson wrote a couple of essays on that subject and said the reason for the decline was that the Terran Empire's days as a vital and energetic society had gradually given way to decadence. He modelled the Empire on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
The Empire's rival and eventual successor, the Mersians (who were ironically saved from extinction by David Falkayn's efforts for the League in the van Rijn era) were more like the men of van Rijn's day. They were modelled more along the lines of the Sassanid Persians - masculine virtues of the hunt and conquering your enemies were dominant. By Flandry's time the Mersians had decided that mankind would not be allowed to become a vassal state like other races had, but would be exterminated because they might be too great a threat if allowed to flourish again. They understood, while at the same time found it hard to believe given the way the noble classes behaved, that, as said by one of the Vach's, "The blood of conquerors once flowed in thier veins and might yet again."
It's all too easy to admire the Mersians and recognize in them some of the "good old days" when humans were first expanding among the stars, but the story "A Plague of Masters" shows the danger in admiring them too much. The scenes involving Flandry and his opposite Mersian agents trying to outsmart eachother, or out-drink eachother are great.
The Empire's rival and eventual successor, the Mersians (who were ironically saved from extinction by David Falkayn's efforts for the League in the van Rijn era) were more like the men of van Rijn's day. They were modelled more along the lines of the Sassanid Persians - masculine virtues of the hunt and conquering your enemies were dominant. By Flandry's time the Mersians had decided that mankind would not be allowed to become a vassal state like other races had, but would be exterminated because they might be too great a threat if allowed to flourish again. They understood, while at the same time found it hard to believe given the way the noble classes behaved, that, as said by one of the Vach's, "The blood of conquerors once flowed in thier veins and might yet again."
It's all too easy to admire the Mersians and recognize in them some of the "good old days" when humans were first expanding among the stars, but the story "A Plague of Masters" shows the danger in admiring them too much. The scenes involving Flandry and his opposite Mersian agents trying to outsmart eachother, or out-drink eachother are great.
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