The Cambias Digression

Notes and thoughts on everything from what I had for breakfast to the fate of the Universe.

  • Random Encounters: The Bar Outside Area 51

    It's a tumbledown roadhouse on a desert highway, no cute signs, no come-ons for tourists. Inside it's shabby but comfortable. The customers are mostly crewcut types with sunglasses. But the photos on the walls include shots that can't be anywhere in the Solar System. This is the bar where the people who Know The Secrets…

    jamescambias

  • Pulp Trek!

    I've noticed that discussions of Star Trek — especially as it enters its second half-century — focus on its "cerebral" nature, and how it addressed social problems and moral dilemmas related to real-world politics. That may well be true, but I think there's an even more important component of Star Trek's DNA which goes unrecognized.…

    jamescambias

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  • Random Encounters: The Cloud Island

    Cloud Island is a mile-wide mass of solid cloud, shaped rather like an egg. It was settled long ago and is currently ruled by a Cloud Giant sorcerer. The island serves as a free port and marketplace for ships and creatures that sail the sky or venture through the ether. ENCOUNTERS ON THE CLOUD ISLAND…

    jamescambias

  • Retro-Review: The 8th Annual of Year’s Best SF (Part 4)

    We're on the final stretch now in our read-through of Judith Merril's 8th Annual of the Year's Best SF, covering stories published in 1962. The 26th story in the collection is Zenna Henderson's "Subcommittee," about the budding friendship between a human child and a young alien while the adults are conducting a tense peace conference.…

    jamescambias

  • Random Encounters: Remote Frontier Starport

    Today's Random Encounter Table takes us to a distant star system at the edge of explored space. The spaceport can be either an orbital station or an outpost on the surface of a planet. Because this is the frontier, equipment is patched-together and law enforcement is lax and ad-hoc.  Use this table to generate roleplaying…

    jamescambias

  • Retro-Review: The 8th Annual of the Year’s Best SF (Part 3)

    Picking up where we left off last time, at the halfway mark. "MS. Found in a Bus" by Russell Baker, is a bit of alleged political humor from the New York Times. Baker was a Times columnist from 1962 to 1998. This very short piece is (I think) a satire of espionage thrillers and science…

    jamescambias

  • Island of Lost Games: A Footprint in the Sand!

    Exciting news about one of the first titles I covered in the "Island of Lost Games" series — John Hill, one of the original Droids gaming group, ran across my post and sent this reply: I enjoyed your recent post about the game "Droids", though the circumstances that led me to discover it leave much…

    jamescambias

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  • Random Encounters: Accursed Leng

    Where does the horror-haunted Plateau of Leng lie? In Central Asia? Past the Mountains of Madness in Antarctica? Or is it outside of waking reality altogether, in the dimension of nightmares? The city of sinister temples and forbidden magic draws visitors from all space and time. ENCOUNTERS IN LENG (Roll d20 when moving, d10 when…

    jamescambias

  • Retro-Review: The 8th Annual of the Year’s Best SF (Part 2)

    Picking up where we left off, we reach a milestone: the first story in this anthology — published, let us recall, at the height of the Space Race in 1963 — which actually takes place in outer space. Poul Anderson's "Kings Who Die" is an odd blending of swashbuckling space opera action, Cold War political…

    jamescambias

  • Random Encounters: Post-Apocalyptic Houston

    ENCOUNTERS IN POST-APOCALYPTIC HOUSTON (Roll d20 if the party is moving, d10 if they are staying in one place.) Roll Twice and Combine Plot-Advancing Encounter: Something or someone related to whatever brought the adventurers to Post-Apocalyptic Houston in the first place. (If they're just passing through then this is an adventure hook: someone who knows…

    jamescambias

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