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EDITDRenctAATOIRECTOR Re(JmondA. Simonsen

MANAGING EDITOR RoberlJ. Ryer

ASSOCI ...TEEOITOR Michael E, MooreMANAOINQARTOIRECTOfl ManlredF. Milkuhn

CONTRIIUTING EDITORS, Greg Cos[,kyan. James FDunmgan.EncGoldberg. BradE, Hessel, SleveL'st.David Ritchie. GA"PHIC PAODUCTION: DaVid Engler,Rosalmd Fruchtman. Ted Koller. CIRCULATION ANDSUBSCRIPTION FULFIlLMENT: John Greer. WltOLESALEFUlFlllIlllENT: Theresa CantQ.

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Pm THEMAGAZINEOFSCIENCE FICTION

• AND FANTASYSIMULATION

SIMULATION GAME'

WorldKilier REDMOND A. SIMONSEN

Dragon•..Ghost M, LUCIECHIN

Gangsters HENRIK NORDLIE

FICTION

WorklKilier Storyboard REDMOND A. SIMONSEN

SCIENCEFOASCIENCEFICTION

No. You're Not Goingto the Stars JOHN BOARDMAN. Ph.D

fiLM & TELEVISION S. BUKATMAN & M. MOORE

GAMES ERIC GOLOBERG el al

BOOKS GREG COSTIKYAN

MEDIA HOWARD BARASCH

FEEDBACK THE GODS

ENCLOSURES: WorldK_"",plndcoun'l!I; r-.ekco'd;lUbIcfipt""'''''rn.

o SPI257 Park Avenue Soulh. New York. N, Y, 10010 (212) 673·4103

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MusgWith this first issue, we take a signifi­

cant step towards the unification of an au­dience heretofore extant only as parts ofother audiences. Fantasy, science fiction,and simulation gaming share a common cordof connective tissue: the constructed world.To a greater degree than any so-called"mainstream" fiction, works of science fic­tion and fantasy imply or explain worldsmuch more dependent upon the product ofthe imagination - worlds inherently morepoetic and allusive, thereby. The readers ac­cept the conStruct in order that they mayproperly experience the fiction.

Similarly, simulation games dependupon the acceptance of a construct - but ina more overt and interactive manner. Ingames, the audience is required not only tovisualize the events land background) of the"story" but also to cause them to happen.This feature is perhaps the most powerfulasset of simulation games as an sftlmedium

I see an ever increasing interest inscience fictionlfantasy simulation games ­indeed, all of SPI's bestsellers are now fromthat category. This relatively young form ofscience fiction and fantasy publishing prom­ises to enhance both the gaming hobbyand the literary side of the genre. New hob­byists will be drawn to the games - thosethat have no interest in conventional

historical simulations but whose readingtastes bring them to the sfll games - and(with Ares) a new outlet for short fictioncomes 10 life in a period of dying sftfperiodicals.

The advent of Ares should not be con­fused with the recent spate of science andQuasi-science magaZines nor with the recentflood of schlock sftf films, Our magazinesprings from the separate phenomenon thatcorrelates gaming and sflf, This correlationwas appreciated by SPI several years agowhen it published SrarForce, the first of along line of science fiction and fantasygames. It would be more accurate to say thatthe pressure of the existence of so manygames caused the inception of Ares. Thisprocess operated in much the same way thatthe growing body of historical simulationscaused the birth of Strategy & TacticsMagazine. In fact, the basic suggestion thatstarted the launch of Ares came from avolunteer game tester (Bill Seligman) on aFriday game-test night a\ SPl's New Yorkeditorial offices (it was on 20 July '79, thetenth anniversary of humankind's landing onits moon)

Aside from its service features, themagaZine is designed around three mainaxes: its game; its stories; and its factualscience and historical fantasy articles. Thethird category of material is meant to per­form the same function as the historical ar­ticles in Strategy & Tactics Magazine. Theyprovide a context within which the creativefiction and simulation material can be en­joyed and explored. In science, our intentionis to cover all the major areas that support orform the heart of mOSt science fiction. The

roots and archetypes of magic, myth, andlegend will be the basis for articles ;;'atlinkfantasy with historical and literary reality

We are alilruly glad 10 have you with usas of this our first issue. Please actively useyour vote (via the Feedback system unique.to SPI publications) and also cajole us inwriting every chance you get - Redmond

SUBMISSIONS:Fiction: Ares seeks original, high quality fic­tion from established fantasy and science fie­tion writers. For story needs and specifica­tions, Michael Moore, Associate EditorNonfiction: Ares needs articles, J:OJ to6CXJO words in length, on science andhistorical magic and myth as they relate toscience fiction and fantasy. Previouspublication credits are desireable. Submitsummary or outlineGame Related Articles: Short critical andtechnical pieces (lCX)() to 3)J() words max)dealing with fantasy and science fictiongames and gaming are needed. In thiscategory, submissions by hobbyists areencouraged.Press Releases and Announcements:Publicity material should be sent well in ad­vance of the event or product release. Arespublishes - free of charge - announce­ments of sf If conventions and fan events

SEND ALL SUBMISSIONS TO:ARES MAGAZINESPI257 Park Avenue SouthNew York, N.Y. 10010attention: Michael Moore

Covel painting by Howald Chaykin, designed by Redmond Simonsen

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FICTION

Dragon..Ghost

6y M. wcieChin

HSU VUEH '''0 was a Taoist monk: aneccentric wanderer, an educatedman, poet and a magician. To me

he was mentor. protector. companion andfriend. He was sometimes called by thepeasants we encountered The Man WhoWalks With Ghosts.

, am the ghost.Or so I have been told. $0 often in fact

that after all the time I have been here thatname alone might be enough. but there ismore. I remember dying. That is I rememberthe event; the time. the place, the circum­stances, the stupidity ... but not the momentitself. Sometimes I think I am still falling. itwas a long way Irom the top of the Wall, andatl my life since that asinine mistake is juSt 8dream, one long last thought between livingand dying. But only sometimes. It is hard tobelieve when the night is cold enough tofreeze dragon fire. It is hard to believe whendrought turns rivers to muddy washes andrice fields to waste lands and a poor travelermust become a thief to eat. At such times itis easier to belie....e I have always been here,following Hsu Yuen Pao across the land.

But in the end that too is utterly unbe­lievable. I know too much of another placeand time. In my childhood mankind reachedfor the slars. The Sons of Han ha....e yet toreach across the sea.

I do not know the date by any measureof time I was ever taught. I can not translatethe Lunar calendar into the Julian of mymemory. It is ancient China, the womenhave not yet begun to bind their feet and noman in this land has ever seen a European.That is what I know of now. What of then?

I was born in Boston Massachusetts onthe 12th of June 2010. a fourth generationAmerican of Chinese descent. My name wasDaniel Wing and the extent of my ethniceducation was limited to the salutations ex­changed on Chinese New Year and thenames of my fa ....orite edibles. Barefoot onthe road I stand five feet nine and a hallinches. and at the time of the accident atopthe Great Wall of China, I was as much atourist as any of the ob....ious Causasians whomade up my group, follOWing the polite gUidewho filled our heads with images of the past.

It was early April atop the Wall. Some­where on the way down, as I exchanged one

reality for another, it became warm andbalmy late spring and I became gwai. .. theghost. Towering abo....e that diminutive an­cient population. dressed strangely, babblingincomprehensibly. understanding nothingand no one, I was a perfect candidate torghosthood: a non-person. inhuman. Gwai. Itis the only WOfd the Chinese have fOf thosewho are not of the Sons of Han, the TruePeople. the Chinese themselves. It ex­presses. more than a lack of life. a lack ofrea/ity.ltsuitsperfectly, these dayS, my awnconcept of myself.

It is said that a ghost grows faint whentouched by the breath of a living man. Tospitupon him robs him of his powers to changefOfm and ....anish. I was spit upon often in thedayS before Hsu Yuen Pao found me. Hewas a wise man. He understood ghosts farbetter than the peasants who harried andchased me from their ....illages and fields. I didnot trust him particularly, but he was quietand patient and fed me and talked for me un­til I learned enough to speak for myself.

He was a small man, e....en among hisown people, and he wore his garments oddlyand in a most casual manner. He was youngin appearance, though generally travel worn.bul his obsidian eyes seemed old as time,deep as wells, seeming to hold yet concealthe knowledge of great age. Villagers some­times whispered that he had found the secretof eternal life. the personal immortality theancient Taoist monks sought relentlessly.His hair was very black and carefully braidedinto the longest queue I have ever seen,which he WOfe looped through his sash inbaclc for convenience. There hung about hisperson and around his neck an array of bags,pouches and containers of many types andsizes, and across his back was slung a long,narrow sheath. It was curved, seemingly tobetter fit the line 01 his body, and nearly ayard long, black and slim enough to houseonly the most needle thin of blades. A mostunusual and impractical weapon I felt butsurely one of great ....alue. for the hilt was thepurest and clearest of pale pink crystal and ingossamer script 01 gold upon the scabbardwere the two characters yu and yu, one theideograph for abundance, the other thesym­bol for fish.

ILLUSTRAnoN BY JOHN H. BUTTERFIELD

He was afraid of nothing. Bra....e, in myopinion, to the edge of foolishness, mis­chievous as a child when the mood struckhim, and we were frequently in trouble ofone sort or another.

There was not a dialect we encounteredwhich he did not speak with fluency andcommand, and he wrote poems I have never­gained the skill to appreciate. I loved themthough I could not read them.

In the quiet of night Of as we walked theendless land, migrating tTIOf9 or less with theseasons, he would tell me of ghosts and hewould tell me of dragons.

"The face of the earth is covered withendless, invisible trails of the dragon lungMai. To build a house or bury the dead uponsuch a spot is a great fortune."

He often said he felt that he and I hadmet upon such a spot.

IN TilE SECOND SUMMER of my new existencewe made a leisu.rely journey toward thewestern mountams. At the con....ergence

of certain mountain streams there is a cata­ract called the Dragon Gate. Thegreatcarpofthe ri....ers migrate yearly to this spot to makethe ....aliant bUI usually futile attempt to leapthe falls. Those fish who succeed and gainthe higher waters are immediately rewardedand transformed into dragons. They thenclimb to the highest peaks. mount the pass­ing clouds and are borne off into theheavens.

The Dragon Gate and the slopes aroundit are also the site of rare dragon bones of thefinest quality. and Hsu Yuen Pac had madethis journey often to collect them for gao­maney and medical uses. In the evenings aswe sorted our small hoard, setting some todry by the lire and grinding the more fragileones into fine powders, he would inslruct meas best he could, considering the still simplestate of my ....ocabulary.

"Remember. little Brother, lung is thegod of all waters and the lord of all scaledcreatures. When lung is small, all fish aresmall. When he is of great size and wellpleased with himself, there is abundance inall the land."

He was patronizing and often conde­scending. But he was also totally fascinat-

ing; no less so for believing himself every­thing he told me. And I learned. Siltingthrough the convoluted speech patterns theChinese love, the multiple meanings and im­plications, carefully sorting fact from mythand tradition, anecdote from parable, I slow­ly built a body of knowledge I could rely on.in one way or another. My preconceptionsand skeptical nature frequently got in theway, however, and my memories of anotherplace and time. The first severe blow to thesenotions came at the end of a month on theslopes around the falls.

There had been a great display of heatlightning far off on the eastern plain duringthe night. and I had been amused by YuenPao's suggestion that it was an omen ofsome sort, by the seriousness with which hesat up much of the night watching the pat­terns of light and the scanty film of cloudshovering abO\le the mountaintops lookingfor interpretations. He found none. though

WE SPENT THE MORNING descending tolower slopes through hardwoodand conifers and rhododendrons.

In the afternoon we passed a villagenestled where three mountain streams con­verged. In spite of this the crops which hadearlier promised abundant yields now wereonly mediocre and then only at the cost ofgreat labor to irrigate. At the next village wespent the night

Their situation was much the same butthere was word that the central flat landswere suffering badly. What had been scantyrain upon the mountain slopes and valley inthe past month had not reached the plains atall. Every morning the women and girls of­fered sweet rice steamed with sausages andnuts, bound in leaves, to the rain god, toss­ing them into the streams by the dozens.Beside the fields and in the bamboo grovesbraces of swallows hung from poles, withlong banners of red paper inscribed withrespectful prayers.

Hsu Yuen Pao looked about, noddingsagely as we walked, and did not bother toexplain. But I got the gist of things prettywell by that time. The Chinese system ofeducation by osmosis was quite workable ..if it was the only thing you had to do withyour life, which in my case was literally true.

He marked our course southeast as wecontinued toward the plain. It was his con­tention that we must reach the coastal landsbefore the monsoon season.

Things were not yet so bad in the low­lands as we had expected to find on that firstday down and at noon we stopped in a bam­boo grove, still delicately lovely in the mo­tionless' air. I took the pack, which I hadbecome accustomed to carrying, from myback and went about collecting the youngestshoots. When I returned with my pockets lullI found Yuen Pao standing across the grove,looking at me so oddly it stopped me in mytracks.

"Brother Gwai," he said somberly."The night of the lightning was indeed anomen. But it was not for me to understand."

I have never been an endlessly patientman. Occasionally, the obliqueness of histechnique exasperated me.

"Brother Pao," I said. "I do not under­stand. I am not a prophet. I know nothing of

dreams or omens. I am ignorant. Pleasespeak more plainly." I had learned to talkhumbly in this land.

"Lan Lung:' he said in a low tone.The lazy deaf one? I was perplexed. Col­

loquialisms are confusing in any language,particularly so in Chinese. But lung is also theword for dragon. Being unable to hear, thedragon came to be known by the word for itsonly handicap. Lan Lung, then, was also alazy dragon. I had heard the term as anepithet hurled at street beggars. It made ut­terly no sense in a bamboo grove. I did notunderstand and said so.

Yuen Pao instructed me to stay exactlywhere I was till he returned, then he seemedliterally to vanish. When he returned therewas a brace of swallows in his hand and theodd look was still on his face.

I went to my pack as he told me, foldedback the flap, stepped aside and waited.Yuen Pao approached the pack cautiously,slowly swinging the dead birds by their feet,wings trussed with red cord.

At first I watched Yuen Pao. Then Iwatched what he watched. There was thesmallest ripple of movement within my bag.Hsu Yuen Pao said one word.

The creature that emerged was tiny,palm-sized. It seemed, as the young of manyreptiles may, exquisitely perfect in miniature

"This:' I said, my smile broad withdelight, "is a dragon?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Little Brother.Lan Lung is dragon enough for any man."

Gesturing for me to move farther asidehe offered the swallows before him andbacked slowly away. Within the shadow ofthe pack tiny eyes flashed incandescentlyorange, bobbed up and down and were ex­tinguished by daylight as it crept from cover.

It was not as tiny as I had at firstthought, though still small and precious. Ala.rge handful then, perhaps a foot long headto tail. It had a vaguely bovine head with along broad-nostrilled snout. Scalloped platesof scale - white rimmed in blue, green andorange - lay flat aga!nst the head, threerows deep behind the eyes and below thejaw. Its muzzle bristled with catlike lavenderwhiskers and upon its crown were short,blunt, double branching horns.

Eyeing the birds greedily, the little lizardarched his sinuous, serpentine body and roseupon his haunches, stroking the air with fourclawed paws. The sleek body was coveredwith lacelike scales, white edged in pale blue,and the curved claws were deep cobalt.There were flat plates of scale similar tothose about his head at each shoulder andhip. It had no wings nor was the spine ser­rated, but there played about the body avague bright aura.

As the little dragon's muscles bunchedand he sank down upon his haunches, tailbraced, he opened his mouth; instead of ahiss there was a sound like the chiming ofsmall brass bells. Hsu Yuen Pao swung thebirds in a gentle arc, tossing them severalfeet into the grove. The dragon sprang,covering incredible distance in a single leap,as though gravity had no meaning for him.And as he moved he seemed to grow. Hewas cat-sized when he landed upon theswallows and began quickly to devour them.

With the dragon thus occupied, YuenPao, mO\ling carefully, collected our fewbelongings and steered me with deliberatelack of hurry from the grove.

We shortly came upon a road and fol­lowed it for a couple of hours in silence b&­fore stopping to prepare the bamboo shootsstill in my pockets. Yuen Pao was deeplycontemplative, but for the first time in my ad­mittedly limited experience he also seemedburdened by a weight of uncertainty. As weate he told me a story.

Lung is the greatest of all creatures liv­ing in the world besides man himself. But asthere are lazy men, so too are there lazydragons. They do not like to exert them­selves in the task of directing rain cloudsabout the sky. So they make themselvessmall and drop to earth where they hide intrees, under the roofs of houses and even inthe clothing of unsuspecting men. Lung mayalso make himself invisible, as is usually thecase when man is present. Lung Wang, thedragon king, learning of their desertion fromduty, sends messengers into the world tosearch for them. These messengers are sel­dom seen, but when Lan Lung is found, theLung Wang, in fury, raises a great storm, kill­ing the deserter with lightning bolts. Thisexplains what might often seem a wantondestruction of life and property during suchstorms.

The convenient logic with which thesestories usually ended invariably amused meand I made the mistake of smiling. Hsu YuenPao became indignant and proceeded to tellme more about dragons in the next hour thanI truthfully cared to know.

"It isa great puzzle," he said as we final­Iy walked the road again. "It is rare that lungallows himself to be seen by the eyes of mor­tal man. Such sightings are auspicious occa·sions and would normally be related directlyto the emperor. But this is Lan Lung. It is notclear to me what this could mean."

I squinted up at the bright, cloudlesssky. What did anything mean in this place?My whole existence was a mystery. Alicedown the rabbit hole. Butas for the dragon, Ihad to admit the little fellow was fascinating.He had displayed an interesting degree ofmutability and he did look strikingly like thecreatures I had seen in Chinese artworks.Hardly the beast of legend - but a littledragon and a lot of imagination, persistentlyapplied, can leave behind legends larger thanlife. Hsu Yuen Pao believed this was adragon capable of all he claimed for it.

When I looked back, Yuen Pao was alsocontemplating the sky.

"Yes," he said, "this must be so,though I am still unsure of what it means."

I pleaded ignorance."Lung is territorial," he said in an un­

characteristically straightforward manner,still looking into the sky, "Each is responsiblefor the rainfall upon his own lands." The restwas obvious enough. This time I managednot to smile.

~E NEXT TWO DAYS on the road provided

clear enough evidence that the tales wehad heard in the hills were true. The

drought deepened substantially as weentered the central plain and promised toworsen. The rice crop was already un­salvageable, it being too late to plant againeven if rain came soon, and despair wasgrowing over the other, less fragile sorts ofproduce. And everywhere the people shooktheir heads and wondered what they haddone to offend such a powerful dragon, forthe area of drought was extensive.

In the villages we passed, Hsu Yuen Paobartered geomancy and spells and prayersfor roots and dried preserves and goat blad­der water bags (which were lighter to carrywhen fullJ and we amended our course tofollow the streams and rivers more closely.

On the evening of the fourth day wecamped on the bank of a muddy stream.Yuen Pao dug for roots. He would forage aslong as possible to save our stores of driedgoods for harder times. Those he found werepulpy and shriveled, but we boiled them inthe water I had spent over an hour strainingagain and again. It made a bitter. unpleasantbroth. The tubers were nearly tasteless butedible, and we supplemented the meal with asmall handful of dried plums.

The fire was to have been extinguishedas soon as the meal was prepared. Every­thing around us was dry as tinder and a fireof any size was perilous in the open, Yetwhen I moved to do so, Yuen Pao stoppedme with a silent gesture. Peering intently intothe dark, it was several seconds before I sawwhat he saw. At first I thought it was a sha­dow by my pack, but when it moved, twoiridescent orange eyes flashed in the firelightand it had my complete attention.

Yuen Pao took up his small copper bowland his chopsticks and began to eat with thesame deliberate, unhurried movements withwhich he had steered me from the bamboogrove. I did the same, dividing my attentionbetween Yuen Pao and the flickering eyes.Eventually the creature moved into the lightand I saw that this "dragon" too was whiteand roughly the same size as the other. This,Yuen Pao insisted, was because it was thesame dragon.

We finished our meal and sat watchingthe little lizard prowl about our belongingswhile Yuen Pao recited poetry (ostensibly tokeep the two of us tranquil, since the dragoncould not hear them) till the fire went out onits own. He told me to lie down and sleep,which I eventually managed to do, but for along time I could see his silhouette againstthe stars as he sat in contemplation of hisdragon,

In the morning the little creature wasgone, but Yuen Pao continued to conduct

himself with the same care as the night ba­fore, It was his belief that lung had been withus all along. He had simply been invisible ashe may well have been at that very moment.

1 tried to take the matter seriously. Forhim this was an important event and he hadbeen allowed to participate, if only he couldunderstand in what way. Personally, I envi­sioned the little fellow either sleeping quietlybeneath a rock or curled up among our food­stuffs out of the heat of the sun. The notionthat he might be happily feasting on driedmushrooms and plums which we would laterneed bothered mea great deal, but Yuen Paowould not let me sort the contents of mypack before we set out.

In the evening as I laid our small fire thedragon appeared again. I could not tell fromwhere. He was simply there, sitting on mypack on the ground in the smothering,breezeless heat. Again he was white. I, too,was beginning to believe it was the samedragon.

The next morning he was nowhere to beseen. This time, however, I sorted my pack.All our belongings were in order and no foodhad been disturbed. Perhaps he ate bugs, ora pair of swallows would last him a week. Idid not bring the subject up with Yuen Pao.

Again the night and morning were thesame. We were getting used to him. YuenPao was no longer quite so careful in hismovements, deciding that the key to the rid­dle was 10 wait for the ending. This day,however, at our noon meal (little more thanmushrooms and lotus root soaked in stalewater) our companion showed himself. Icaught Yuen Pao staring at me and. lookingdown,lound Lan Lung curled up in the sha­dow of my left knee. When we finally stoodto go, the little dragon scampered to mypack and vanished beneath the flap.

From that time on I seemed to take on adifferent dimension in Yuen Pao's eyes. Butsince I was never quite sure how he regardedmy ghosthood, the new status was equallyunclear.

In the following weeks the dragon estab­lished himself as a permanent member of ourparty and my own special companion. It wasimpossible to say what attracted him to me.Perhaps my smell. Perhaps it was my ghost­hood. He and I were both fantasies, lung andgwai; dragons and ghosts; stories to frightenchildren into obedience. It seemed appropri­ate that the myths of our existence shouldkeep each other company.

He developed a habit of riding uponwhatever part of my body shaded him fromthe sun, taking to my pack less and less fre­quently. Sometimes he would ride in one ofthe pockets of my loose. sleeveless coat orslither down my chest beneath my shirt andcurl up next to my belly, a small bulge abovemy belt. He was smooth and dry to the touchand the strange aura rippling over his body(Yuen Pao called it dragon fire) was almostlike a cool breeze against my skin. When heclimbed a leg or arm or scampered across myshoulders, his tiny claws prickled and hiswhiskers tickled. He seemed to absorb themoisture of my sweat, leaving a trail 01 dryskin in his wake. He'was virtually weightless.

The hardships of the summer were in­credible. Thepeoplewere ravaged as badly asthe land and during the passage of the weeks

became increasingly hostile to transients,guarding their stores of food and waterjealously. It became impossible to barteranything we possessed for the things weneeded, especially water. And to find avillagewith a good, deep, spring fed well was agreatfonune. Obtaining fresh water, however,even from these places, became an exercisein stealth.

At such rare times as we passed othertravelers or stopped at a town or village, LanLung would disappear from sight. A bitaddled by the heat, perhaps, I actually beganto think of him as invisible myself.

We made progress slowly. The heatbecame a weighty burden, requiring us tostop often for rest. The rivers were reducedto muddy sludge and many streams had van­ished entirely. For a time we took to travelingby night. Not that it was noticeably cooler,but it spared us the direct assault of the sun.

I lost count of the weeks; could notmake out even the slightest progress towardour goal. The mountains of the southerncoast looked as far away as ever. Our rate oftravel by then could have been little morethan ten miles per day, and Yuen Pao guess­ed we had another five or six days to go. Twodays out from the river there was so littlefood left that any attempt to ration it furtherwas a useless illusion, and we finished it offwithout further pretense. The water was inno better shape but that illusion we maintain­ed as long as we could.

Lan Lung had settled into my rightpocket and for over a week had barely stir­red. When Yuen Pao and I shared our smallbowl of water, a bit was always left for the lit­tle dragon who would crawl into the bowland curl up into a ball rolling over and over inan attempt to bathe himself as best he could.On the evening our food ran out, I found itwas necessary to help him. I carefully liftedhim from my pocket with both hands, plac·ing him in the bowl. He moved a bit, tuckinghis tail feebly but did not roll over. When HsuYuen Pao was not looking, I wet my palmfrom the last goat bladder bag and strokedhis dry body, He felt brittle to my touch and itseemed days since I had seen his aura abouthim

Looking up from the bowl, I found YuenPao watching me and realized he had seenwhat I had done. He did not disapprove.Days before, when I had mentioned that LanLung seemed to be suffering from thirst evenmore than we, he had explained that it wasnot thirst. It is the presence of moisturewhich preserves his powers of motion andmutability. Without this, lung becomespowerless and dies.

The following evening there was notenough water to preserve that illusion either~E NEXT TWO DAYS became an exercise

• :n placing one loot before the other.We moved when we could move and

stopped when we could do nOlhing else. Ibelieved I had begun to hallucinate when wefinally reached the foothills, where we atleast found shade and the vaguest hint ofmotion in the air. The leaves on the treeswere not shriveled here, and farther up theslopes the grass was almost green. Werested there, digging up a half decent root ortwo and locating a few edible berries. In mypocket Lan Lung was very still.

The next morning we made our wayslowly into the foothills. The heat was stilloppressive and the going even slower sincewe now had to climb and frequently had tohelp each other, but the world seemed fresh­er around us and things were making areasonably successful attempt to grow.There was hope of water here, if only wecould find it. Yuen Pao c~shed leaves andgrasses and put the broken vegetation intomy pocket with the little dragon in the vainhope that there might be enough moisture topreserve him.

I wondered what would preserve us, butYuen Pao felt if there was any greal import tothis dragon it was our duty to do all that waspossible. I think it kept him going far longerthan even the need to save his own life. Asfor me, I could only reflect that dying the firsttime had been far easier than the secondseemed destined to be.

ON THE -""EfIHOON of the third day, amidgreen grass and cool shady trees, wecame upon a swiftly flowing stream,

V8fY deep and clear. Snow fed, I realized,raising my cupped hands that ached from thefrigid water. The long prayed for moisturewas more pain than comfort in my mouthand throat and transformed my stomach intoa dutch of knots.

Yuen Pao filled our two copper cookingbowls from lhe stream and set them on awarm rock in the sun. Then he set about fill­ing our water bags before drinking himself.As he did these things and I tried to containmy eagerness for the water, I felt a feeblestirring in my pocket. I reached in and care­fully removed Lan Lung with both hands, butYuen Pao would not let me place him in oneof the bowls. The water was still too cold forhis enfeebled condition. So I put the limp lit­tle lizard back into my pocket and removedthe garment, hanging it on a tree branch inthe shade. When the water was warmed,Yuen Pao dribbled some of it into the pocketand he and I shared the rest. refilling thebowl before starting the next. By the time wehad drunk two bowls each and given asmany to my pocket, Ihe activity within hadincreased and it began to swell even as Ihewaler soaked through and ran off.

"It is enough," Yuen Pao said. "Thebelly is better filled with food."

"If we had any," I agreed."Look in the stream," he said.There were fish in the deep swiftness of

the current. Brown and white and goldenorange carp, large and sleek, flashed by 100rapidly for my weary eyes 10 follow. Therewas an abundance of food within reach bulhow to obtain itll had neither the Slrengthlor speed nor the courage against lhe bonebiting cold to consider seriously trying tocatch them by hand.

Pointing out a far tree, Yuen Pao sentme to hang my dripping garment there,dragon and all, which I did while he took ourwater bags from the stream. As I watched,he raised both hands, gripping the crystal hiltabove his right shoulder. Murmuring in lowtones. eyes dosed, he uttered an incantationI could not property hear and slowly movedhis hands up and forward. What he drewforth was not a sword. I was surprised torealize that in the time I had known him I hadnever actually seen this object before.

Amazingly ftexible, too long to be with­drawn straight, the shaft whispered from itssheath and spran!=j free, whipping back andforth in supple, diminishing strokes. A yardlong, it was less thick at the hilt than thestem of a 110W9r, tapering away to nothing. Itshone in the sun, lustrous and brilliantlypurple. Yuen Pao's face was set and seriousas he gazed up and down lhe length of theshaft, his voice hushed and reverent as hesaid, "Dragon whisker."

I thought of Lan Lung, his tiny whiskerstickling my neck or hand and was dumb­founded.

Yuen Pao stepped to the bank, thecrystal hilt in his right hand and murmured afew more barely audible words. Slipping thedragon whisker into deep water, he and Iknelt upon the brink and watched.

"Come, brother Yu," he said. "Comeseek your master Lung Wang."

The fish and eels came from all direc­tions, massing about the purple wand till itwas no longer visible among the bodies.EYerI from downstream they came, fightingthe current to reach the dragon, master of allscaled things upon the earth. They CtlJshedtogether from bank to bank till there wasbarely room to move and those closest to thesurface could be picked up by hand, barelywetting the fingers.

That night we feasted on eel and fishroaSted upon flat rocks about a large fire.Others were prepared for drying to be carriedwith us for future meals. Finally, fed andwatered and rested, I began to feel humanagain as we slowly climbed the foothills, fol­lowing the course of the water upstream.Then there was a road and villages again,nestled in the mountain valleys. The people inthis land had not suffered drought at all. Thecrop here was good, though it could notbegin to make up for the devastation uponthe plains, and the people were willing tobarter for Yuen Pao's skills. There weremany dialects here and they seemed 10 varyfrom valley to valley. Travelers were few,especially in the higher villages and, after aninitial period of suspicion, for which my ownappearance was no great help, the stories ofour journey and the news of the lowlandswere as much in demand as spells or medica­tions.

Lan Lung once again took to ridingupon my shoulder or occasionally on top ofmy head. As we reached the higher passes,however, he once again took to my pocket orto nestling bP.neath my shirt. II was cold herebUI Hsu Yuen Pao, in his infinite wisdom,proclaimed that was not the reason. Wewere too close to heaven here. The cloudswere thickening on the southern horizon andpuffy white ships sailed close over our headsThe messengers of the lung Wang wouldbe watching. During the last days of ourcrossing Lan Lung rarely betrayed hispresence even to me. Only when he rode inmy pocket was 1truly aware of him.

Then we were climbing down. Thoughwe were still high on the slopes, I wasjubilant. It was almost like coming home.

Yuen Pao was known in many of the vil­Iages we passed, a fact I had come to realizewas not particularly unusual. But one plea­sant, near autumn afternoon as we passed a

mile or so from the outer wall of a large town,Yuen Pao stopped short in the road, nearlycausing me to run him over. In my pocket,Lan lung squirmed unhappily for a moment.Then we abruptly changed course, awayfrom the wall and the town. Hewould not tellme why. At dusk, when we stopped to layour fire, he told me a story from his seem­ingly inexhaustible fund.

?HEAEwASONCfa Taoist monk II wondered• ,:",ho) traveling through the moontain

passes where he came upon six menbearing baskets of oranges northward ­bound for a high official in the emperor'sOOllrt. The baskets were very heavy, and inreturn lor the protection of their company,the monk agreed to help bear the loads.

He took a basket and carried it for anhour, then another and so on till all had beenshared and the monk took his leave.

Sometime later, at a lavish feast inhonor of the emperor. the court officialpresented the fat oranges; a rare and expen­sive delicacy from the south. But when theemperor lifted one, it seemed oddly light. andwhen the skin was broken ... it was empty.Another was opened and another, but theywere all the same.

The bearers were sent for and chargedupon pain of death to explain the mystery,whereupon they told of the Taoist monk andexclaimed that he had surely tricked them bymagic. Since the peasants were too stupid tohave conceived of such a skillful theft. theemperor was inclined to believe them. Butrather than gaining favor, as the official hadhoped, he found himself rewarded with areduced income and the government of apoor province in the south, far from thecourtand power.

Yuen Pao claimed to have been told thostory by one of the bearers only a year or twobefore he found me, implying that alltravelers in this land were suspect and monksmost especially. Sometimes I wondered ex­actly how gullible he thought I was

It was not yet mid-morning of the nextday when they caught up with us, eventhough we had been prudent enough to stayoff the road - eight armed men on horse­back. Any argument would have been utterstupidity and, though we proceeded at a fastforced march, it was dusk before we reachedthe great gale of the town wall. Our belong­ings were confiscated and we spent thenight in a hovel on the edge of town. By thesmell and the consistency of the floor, it was astructure frequently used to house swine,which was a clear statement of what themagistrate thought of us.

Lan Lung, who had been in my pocketthat morning, was gone. He had vanished, aswas his habit when strangers were about.But this time, Yuen Pao said, he would notreturn. lung has no love for men and theircommunities. When I naively suggested hemight join us again on the road, Yuen Paodid not reply.

tn the end, even I was astute enough torealize what a man seeking status would c0n­sider proper satisfaction for the affronteddignity of his emperor - though I still did notbelieve the business about the oranges. Thefact that I had nothing to do with anythingwas unimportant. By now the magistratehad heard all he required from the nearby

villages. In his mind I would be an integralpan of Hsu Vuen Pao and his Taoist magic.

There was no sleep that night. This timeit was I who stood in the dark, watching thelightning far to the south as the monsoonsgathered at the coast and wondering aboutomens and dragons.

At dawn we were ushered out and madeto stand waiting like penned sheep in thetown square throughout the dismal greymorning and on into the afternoon. AwaitingPei Tae Kwan's pleasure. Waiting to die athis leisure.

It was unclear to everyone, includingmyself. if a ghost could be killed, though Ihad a pretty good notion by now. But asthere was no answer, Pei Tae Kwan had will­ingly accepted for himself the honor of dis­covering the facts.

The executioner arrived well ,beforenoon and stood like a statue among hisswords. A doz!'!n guards. stoic and heavilyarmed, encircled us. Beyond them, curiousvillagers and bold little boys eyed us care­fully, pointing and talking loudly. Old womenpeered between the shoulders of the guardsand railed at us. Vuen Pao was unmoved bythe abuse. I simply did not understand thedialect.

The murky overcast had grown denseand slate grey by early ahernoon. The air wasa sullen broth of humidity, and water drop­lets occasionally fell out of suspension;creating a fine mist. Though they threatenedheavily, hanging low and pregnant over­head, the clouds did not open and drown us.

Pei Tae Kwan showed his face at (astabout mid-afternoon, making his way slowlydown the street from the ornate monumentalgate. The men in the drum towers signalledhis approach, and a wave of silence fell uponthe villagers as he passed. He took his timequite deliberately

Entering the armed circle, he walkedaround slowly looking us over with obviouscontempt. When he spoke, the tone of hisvoice was unmistakable - insulting, berat­ing, humiliating. Two servants who had fol­lowed him into the guarded circle now beganrummaging through our belongings, whichhad been dumped on the ground several feetaway. They smashed our rice bowls underfoot and broke our chopsticks, throwing thepieces in our faces. They opened the boxesand containers of Vuen Pao at the magis­trates's command, spilling the contents toshow his contempt for us. We could not buyhim. We had hardly expected to.

The boys opened the black lacqueredcontainer and spilled out the shards of

variegated bone we had collected at TheDragon Gate. They broke the lid from thecarved box of red cinnibar and emptied thepale yellow dust of ground dragon bones in­to the dirt, shouting and picking out smallround rubies (petrified dragon blood HsuVuen Pao had called them).

Alarmed, the magistrate left us and tookthe gems from the boys, sending them outamong the villagers. He laughed at VuenPao, placing the stones in a pocket of hisgrown, and called out mockingly as he kick­ed our belongings about. He spied the blackscabbard and drew out the shining purplewhisker which quivered in his hand like a stiffwhip. There was silence for a moment, thenmore loud chatter. He bellowed, nolding theprize aloft for all to see, and looked at HsuVuen Pao, his eyes alight with greedytriumph. He brandished it like a sword andadvanced upon us, kicking my pack out ofhis way. I saw it moved aside by his footwith an odd jerk which seemed more like alurch to my eye, and it suddenly began towrithe and swell on the ground.

At the collective cry from the crowd PeiTae Kwan turned and, seeing the churningform within the cloth, beat at it with thedragon whisker, then backed away and fledbeyond the line of his guards as the bagswelled again.

Weapons drawn, the soldiers formedrank around the magistrate and one mansprang forward, striking a blow to the bagwith his sword. There was a muffled soundlike the distant toll of a bell, and the pack splitto shreds as lung burst forth, 'growing to im­mense size in an instant. His serpentine bodywrithed, his tail lashing about, massivecowlike head held high, four clawed forepaws slashing air. He was an explosion ofsilver and blue in the darkness of ahernoon,fifty feet long. His voice was the booming ofa gong. In the damp air his breath shonebright. Dragon fire played over his body.Beneath his chin was the great blue pearl ofthe sea, and upon his leh shoulder was along, ragged wound of red.

So rapidly did lung grow to his full, ter­rible size. that the soldier who had struck theblow was crushed beneath the scaled belly,without even the time to scream. Then lungleapt, much as I had seen nim do that first dayin the bamboo grove, but now his body blot­ted out the sky. When he landed among tneterrified screams of the people, men diedbeneatn his huge leet and trashing tail. Theliving fled in panic - villagers, soldiers anddignitaries - but the magistrate Pei TaeKwan, the dragon whisker still clutched inhis hand, lay beneath the right fore foot ofthe great saurian. a foot long claw embeddedin his chest.

The gong of his voice beat again, andlung moved around the tree, dragging thebody of Pei a step or two before it droppedfrom his claw. I watched, numb but fasci­nated, only slowly becoming aware of a per­sistent tugging at my arm. When I looked atVuen Pao, I was surprised to see tne fear soplainly on his face, but t recognized it to bethe fear of a prudent man. As the thunderbegan to rumble above and a hot wind cameup at our backs, I looked once more at LanLung, my little pet, and realized the magni­tude of my folly. This was no pet, had never

been one. I perhaps, had been his. This wasTsao Lung, a great scaled dragon, Lord ofRain, Ruler of Rivers. Commander of Floods.The monsoons at our backs were under hiscontrol as were the clouds above ourheads. He was deaf to the voice of man andpaid no heed to the puniness of his life. Had Iexpected obedience from this creature? Af­fection? At that moment I would countmyself lucky if he did not even notice me.

The town wall preventing retreat, thedragon between us and the street, Vuen Paoand I moved slowly about the tree, keeping itbetween us and the dragon as we maneuver­ed toward the door of the nearest house.

lightning startled me and the dragonturned, watching us. His breath was a brighthaze about his head and he favored his leftleg. Out beyond the tree the house seemedvery far away. Behind the great reptilianbody we could see a knot of people, theboldest of the curious, peering from theshelter of the memorial gate. The lightningand thunder came again, and lung turnedend to end, lacing in our direction now.Body arched. head waving high, his voiceboomed once more. Vuen Pao tensedbeside me as my own muscles set for a boltto the door - but there was no time to run.The dragon sprang into the air, his arc longand flat, looming ever huger as he hurtledtoward us.

M VMUSCUSJ£AKEO in an attempt to runbut I fell instead. The dragondropped to the ground barely ten

feet from me, twisting his head and bodyaway to confront what I suddenly saw fallfrom the sky and land farther up the street.Another dragon, this one gold and orange.He was five clawed and the pearl beneath hischin was the color of honey.

Sheltered behind the wall-like back ofLan Lung, we scrambled for the house. Aswe moved, he moved, leaping away up thestreet. A moment later there was an ear ring­ing crash of lightning, shattering the treeacross the square barely a yard from the tipof his tail

I thought of Vuen Pao's .story. LanLung, the lazy dragon. For desertion of hispost and duty, Lung Wang would send mes­sengers to seek him and, when found, woulddestroy him with lightning bolts.

The two dragons confronted eachother, rearing on their hind legs, their breathat last lurninQ to fire as the rain came. Theirvoices beat upon the ear, and when they leaptto each other, the ground shook beneaththeir bodies. They changed size rapidly andoften, looking for advantage. Scales as bigas a man's hand littered the street like fallenleaves as the dragons, red clawed, red fang­ed, rolled about in each other's embrace.Lightning struck twice more, gouging theroad and shattering thewall. The rain poureddown in dark sheets till all that could be seenwas the fiery glow of their bodies and breath.They could no longer be told apart.

Then, as Vuen Pao and I sheltered in thedoorway of the house, the quaking earthstilled. the brightness diminished and therecame a great quiet beneath the beating of therain.

Slowly, as the torrent thinned, a moun­tainous form could be seen lying in the street

/Mftri~~<d""ptI~IJJ

10

SCIENCE FOR SCIENCE FICTION

No, You're Not Going to the StarsAn Examination of the Realities of Manned Interstellar Flightby John Boardman, Ph. D.

The relationship between science andscience fiction is like a marriage betweentwo compatible but strong-willed people.Tl:lings are generally congenial, but when thedifferences of opinion develop, they are like­ly to be deep and difficult.

Much science fiction takesa didactic ap­proach to the sciences. The author has somescientific principle or speculation which he orshe wishes to present to the reading public,and uses the story as a teaching device. Thisis an approach that can be mishandled, and inthe older science fiction, frequently was.Paper characterizations and unconvincingplots frequently decorated a fictional exposi­tion of a scientific idea. Hugo Gernsback's"classic" and unreadably awful novel Ralph724C47 +, nearly 70 years ago, was the fatherof this lineage, and he sought out similarstories when he founded the first sciencefiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1929In his honor, this approach to science fictionwas later called "the Gernsback Delusion."

But the opposite approach can be justas bad. Many of the early science fiction"pulp" writers sent stories around to all thepopular fiction magazines· detective,Western, romance, sports, and fantasy. If astory wouldn't sell as a Western, for exam­ple, the author would rewrite it with the cow­boy as a spaceman, the horse as a rocket­ship, the pistol as a ray-gun, and the sinisterIndian chief as something green, Martian,and elaborately tentacled.

Since literary rather than scientific con­siderations were important to this class ofauthor, no boring scientific ideas were allow­ed to get in the way of the plot line. This ap­proach could be acceptable as long as thetravel was limited to within the solar system.As of 193) or 1940, the best astronomical in­formation seemed to indicate that Mars,Venus, and the satellites of Jupiter might beplausibly habitable by human beings, andtherefore could have indigenous popula­tions. Hermann Oberth's orbital calculationswere available, and so Northwest Smith plot­ted larceny along the canals of Mars whilethe blind Rhysling sang in Lunar cabaretsand Hall) Hamilton courted his Englishsweetheart through the steaming Jungles ofVenus.

But in the 193)'s new ground wasbroken, as E.E. Smith took the backyardspaceship Skylark completely out of our gal­axy, and Isaac Asimov and Edmond Hamil­ton then designed Galactic Empires. It waswell-known by then that the velocity of lightis a "speed limit" in the universe, and if youwere limited to this slow crawl, it would takeover four years to get 10 Alpha Centauri, thenearest star, and centuries to reach the sing­ing crystal ·mountains of a planet ofCanopus

Here, science fiction parted companywith science, producing not a few mutual re­criminations. The special theory of relativity,first published in 1905 by Albert Einstein,demonstrated that the velocity of light in avacuum - 3OJ,O:X> kilometers per second ­is an absolute upper Ii mil. Huge amounts ofenergy would have to be expended to get aparticle even close to this value, which isconveniently called "c" for "constant" byphysicists. An infinite amount of energywould have to be used to attain "c," let aloneto exceed it.

However, if science fiction writers lim­ited themselves to this slow crawl; no plotcould ever take the hero outside the solarsystem. Several writers tried to work withinthis limitation. In 1941, Robert Heinlein'snovelette Universe introduced the "genera­tion ship," a huge self-contained spaceshipaboard which generations of human beingswould live and die as the ship slowly ploddedonward, at below the speed of light, towardits destination. An alternale form of thisstory, the "freezer Ship," loaded the passen­gers aboard at cryogenic temperatures. to bethawed out automatically when the ship gotto a habitable planet of another star.

The same physical theory which makes"c" a speed limil, means that duration andlength change with the velocity of the obser­ver. For example, a spaceship which travelsfrom the Sun to Alpha Centauri at 99% ofthe speed of light would take over four and athird years by the clock of an observer onEarth. However, the elapsed time would onlybe 7 months for the spaceship's crew. Stillfaster velocities would Shrink the travel time,as measured on the spaceship, even moredrastically. A spaceship that travels at 99.9%of the speed of light could make a round tripto a planet 100 light years away in only 9years as measured by the spaceship's clocksHowever, 200 years would have elapsed onEarth.

There is raw material for a number ofgood stories in this effect, and several havebeen written. L. Ron Hubbard, who was agood science fiction writer before he found­ed Dianetics, handled the effects of thistime-dilation very well in his 1950 novel ToThe Srars. Space travelers become a societyunto themselves, detached from all planet­bound concerns. In some stories, such asPoul Anderson's Ghetto (1954), theybecome not an elite but the scorned scape­goats of planet-bound society.

Still, the limitations imposed by thespecial theory of relativity bother manywriters, including some with good scientificbackground such as Isaac Asimov, LarryNiven, and Jerry Pournelle. After all, everyother type of adventure story has a hero wholeaves for six months, fights all kinds of sinis-

ter menaces, and returns home to find thathis girlfriend has spent six months waitingfor him. Why should this change, simplybecause the sinister menace is a slimy,megalomanic, intelligent octopus on theninth planet of Rigel?

Beating the Speed LimitMaybe a flaw can be found in the special

theory of relativity? Poul Anderson, in his1958 novel We Have Fed Our Sea, attemptedto find in Einstein's general theory of relativ­ity a way around the "speed limit." Unfortu­nately, at just about the time Anderson waswriting this novel, Vladimir AleksandrovichFok was writing a paper which proved that"c" is just as much a speed limit in. the gen·eral theory as it is in the special theory.

Other attempts to "get around" Ein·stein, by both physicists and science fictionwriters, have been equally fruitless. A 'quar­ter-century after Einstein's death, as more ex~

perimenta! tests of his ideas become tech­nically feasible, his ideas still stand against allopposition.

The "space-warp" is a popular way tobeat the "speed limit." In any number ofstories, the inventor of a space-warp per­suades a skeptic by marking two dots on apiece of paper. "Observe," he says, "thesedots are quite far apart. But now I bend thepaper, and these two dots are now next toeach other. My gizmo does the same thingwith space - it warps it so that we are actu­ally quite near to our destination, the planetFornakVIII."

It sounds good. Unfortunately, weknow from the general theory of relativitywhat it takes to "warp" space. What it takesis mass. Unless the inventor has some way todrag in a huge amount of mass from the hindend of the universe, space will obstinately re­main unwarped.

Some writers remain unconvinced. Ar­thur C. Clarke believes that a way will befound around the "speed limit." He basesthis belief on nothing more than the factthat, in the past, many generally acceptedscientific ideas have been abandoned in theface of better evidence. This, by itself, doesnot constitute a proof, or even a valid in­ference.

How about tachyons? These are par­ticles that were first hypothesized by thephysicist Gerald Feinberg about 20 yearsago. They do indeed move faster than light- if, of course, they exist. But, althoughthey have been a fertile field for speculation,no experimental evidence for their existencehas ever been presented. Furthermore, evenif they do exist, they are already movingfaster than light, and an infinite amount ofenergy would be needed to slow them downto below "c." But if these particles cannoteven interact with our normal universe ofvelocities below "c," there is no sense inspeculating about them. Trying to infer theproperties of tachyons by analogy withknown particles is like trying to infer thebreeding habits of unicorns by analogy withknown ungulates.

And so, on this issue, scientists andscience fiction writers have come to a part­ing of the ways. If the exigencies of plotdevelopment require that Dexter Farnsworthspends three weeks in travel from Earth to

the fourth planet of Sirius, then the writerhokes up a method of space travel that keepsOur Hero en route for three weeks. Nevermind that light takes more than eight years toget from here to Sirius. (Also, never mindthat Sirius is highly unlikely to have planets.But that's a whole other story, which I hopeto take up at a future date.)

Since scientists like good adventure fic­tion as much as anyone else, few nasty let­ters from them are likely to follow publicationof a story in which the UpChuck Horde takes amonth to travel in from the MageUanicClouds for the purposes of ravaging Earth.Science fiction editors are just as glad aboutthis, because scientists are likely to write inwith vigorous protests of errors of just aboutany other sort. If a flying creature with amass of much more than 25 kilograms takesto the air on an Earth-like planet. the editorwho published the story is likely to be hear­ing about it for weeks from engineers, physi­cists, biologists, physiologists, and ornithol­ogists. But the continuing tide of storiesabout faster-than-Iight travel has apparentlydeadened the critical impulse in sciencefiction readers.

Problems with SimulationsAs with science-fiction stories, so with

science-fiction war games. War garners andwar game designers fall into two categories:those who emphasize historical authenticity,and those who emphasize playability. SPI'sSinai game began play-testing before thefourth Arab-Israeli War, and the game's de­velopers found it a real problem to design ascenario that the Arabs could win, and stillavoid hoots of laughter from anyone whoknew anything about the relative militarycapabilities of the two sides. lin one 1967scenario, the Arab victory conditions requirethat they not get beaten roo badly}. How­ever, no one at SPI figured that the Egyp­tians could knock down the Bar-Lev Line withfirehoses, and as the play-testers incorpo­rated the events of the then-current 1973war, the game developed a little morebalance.

There is as yet no question of "histori­cal" authenticity in science fiction wargames. However, scientific authenticity isalso worth discussing in game development.SrarForce: Alpha Cenrauri and its succes­sors at SPI have assumed an instantaneousteleportation system of space travel, com­parable to "jaunting" introduced by AlfredBester in his 1956 classic The Stars MyDesti­nation. Similarly, the science fictional wargames of other firms either invoke methodsof space travel beyond the present under­standing of physics, or simply do not men­tion the matter at all. And SPI's 8attleFleetMars, limiting itself to the solar system, canget along with the "old-fashioned" nuclear­powered reaction drive.

There are still some interstellar scena­rios, either for science fiction stories or forwar games, that remain scientifically practic­able. Most nations make war with the hopethat their conquests can bring back raw rna·terials, finished products, precious metals,or slaves to be of use to the home country.Interstellar distances make this imprac­ticable, unless you want to hypothesize arace whose life is measured in millenia. But ahorde of nomads or exiles, looking for a

11

place to settle down, loot, and rule could bean acceptable set of villains within the limita­tions of relativity. The Xenophobes of Star­Force: Alpha Cenrauri are an example of thissort. Or the enemy may not be alive at all.Imagine a pathological warrior race that getsjumped in desperate self-defense by its pastand projected victims. Going down underthe combined assault (a thing which hap­pens to most warrior races, sooner or later),they build an army of warrior robots with theone directive to kill anything alive, anywherein the universe. Having exterminated thedestroyers of the warrior race, this hordestorms through the Galaxy (sound familiar?)One day, they arrive at Earth ..

A Slow JauntStill, most anticipations of space travel

assume that Our Heroes will get into theirinterstellar ships at or near Earth, go wander­ing off across light years of space, and even­tually return in their own lifetimes and notsignificantly older by the ship's clocks. Inorder to do this, they first have to speed uptheir ships to a suitably high velocity. Thismeans that the ships would have to beaccel­erated, and here slightly different dilations oftime take place from those we have alreadydiscussed. let us suppose that the shipbegins at rest, on Earth. (Oh, I know thatEarth isn't at rest, but its orbital velocityaround the Sun is something like 3) kilome­ters a second, which is about .(XXI1 that oflight.! It then accelerates until it reachessome large fraction of "c." This is likely totake quite a bit of time, so we'll assume thatthe ship travels with the same accelerationthat we experience daily, right here on Earth,from gravity - 9.B meters per second per se­cond. In astronomical terms, this is 1.03 lightyears per year per year. Now, how muchtime will be required for the ship to get tosome pre-selected fraction of "c," both byEarth's clocks and by the ship's? And howfar will the ship have traveled by the time itreaches this velocity? See Table 1 for ex­amples.

At last we seefT! to be getting some­where. Consideringl that Ferdinand Magel·lan's expedition took three years to getaround the Earth, times like these seem to bereasonable. Of course, Magellan lost his ownlife, four of his five ships were lost, and veryfew of his crewmen ever saw Spain again.But the expedition returned a handsome pro­fil to its backers, and that seems to be whatmost people want out of the space program.

Just to have a number to talk about, letus assume that a star ship makes a round tripto a planet 20 light years away. This isa goodguess, as the nearest single sun-like star isDelta Pavon is, at approximately this dis~

tance. Since we already know of one singlesun-like star which possesses a habitableplanet - the Sun itself - Delta Pavonisseems a good object for further specualtion.

So we accelerate our ship at "one gee"until it is at some desirably large fraction oflight speed, and then coast under "weight­lessness" until it's time to decelerate at "onegee" to rest, and see if anyone near DeltaPavonis wants to buy our baubles, bangles,and beads. (Columbus found that hawks'bells were highly prized by the West Indians.With falconry currently undergoing a revival,this might not be a bad idea for an item of

TABLE I: K....""'_of. Spec:e Ship _ Accelere_from R_.t '.8 miMe'

Final Time requiredvelocity Un.,..,..1as fraction by clock on Distanceofe traveled M...IIPHdolll,1ttl Earth Ship Unllgh.y....1 Ratio

0.1 .10 .10 0.005 1.11

0.5 .56 .53 0.150 1.730.5 .73 .57 0.242 2.00

0.7 .95 .84 0.389 2.380.8 1.03 .85 0.647 3.000.9 2.00 1.43 1.26 4.360.99 6.81 2.57 5.91 14.10

0.996 10.82 2.99 9.89 22.300.999 21.70 3.69 20.70 44.70

12

trade,) Then, after loading up with rawmaterials, we head back the same way. Howlong would this take, by Earth clocks and byship c1ocks7 See Table II.

However, the lime required for theround trip will not be the most importantconsideration for the planners of the voyage.The energy required to produce this acceler­ation and deceleration will be the biggestproblem involved in planning interstellar tra­vel. Let us assume the most energetic nuc­lear reaction available in contemporary phy­sics - the complete annihilation of ordinarymatter with an equal mass of anti-matter.This will produce an enormous flux of gam­ma radiation, which can be expelled out theback of the spaceship, rocket-style, to pushit forward. l8e careful that nothing impor­tant, such as the Earth, is in the way of thatblast of gamma rays.)

EnergyCrioiaWhere you get the anti-matter is a good

question in itself. There may be chunks of itlying around some corner of the universe,though this appears increasingly unlikely.But it can always be created, together withan equal mass of ordinary matter, out ofwhatever source of energy you haveavailable near your home base. It won'tcome cheap, though. To make one kilogramof anti-matter lSquires 5704 megawatts ofpower, operating for one year - about 2.5%of U.S. 1976 electric power output. (Oneton=about 25 years of U.S. electricity pro­duction.) Then, once you have the anti­matter, it has to be suspended magneticallyin a vacuum to prevent premature ignition bycontact with ordinary matter. Thespaceship's fuel will consist of equalamounts of matter and anti-matter. Difficultas this reaction will be to arrange and con-

The SuperfuelendltllCost

The most efficient fuel possible re­quires a truly staggering amount ofenergy to produce. Imagine, if you might,the total annual energy production of theUnited States, including all forms ofenergy - electrical, chemical, fossil fuel- and that all this energy is available totum into matter/anti-matter fuel for ourstarship. Furthermore, presume that thiscan be done with 100% efficiency (a verybig presumption since few processes areeven 50% efficient). How much fuelcould' we then produce in one U.S.Energy Year (USEYI?

less than one ton (f&) kilograms, tobe exact).

So, to determine how many USEY'swould be required to send a payload of agiven mass out to the planet of a nearbystar and then back home, we shouldmultiply the mass of the ship by one of themass ratios indicated on Table II. The keycontrolling factor is the crew, particularlytheir lifespan and endurance under longconfinement.

trol, it is far more energetic than any merenudear fusion.

If we assume this method of propulsion,the "Mass Ratio" columns of Tables I and IIapply. This is the ratio of the initial mass offuel plus payload, to the final mass after allthe fuel has been expended. This ratio risessharply as the maximum velocity rises, to theplace where a small increase in velocity maynot be worth the huge additional expenditurein fuel.

If we cannot count on finding any fillingstations away from Earth, then the fuel re-

If we suppose a starship no moremassive than the Apollo lunar missionconfiguration (about 20 metric tons,minus the service module) and we don'twant the crew to spend more thantwenty-five years in such an absurdlyconfined space, then the distance youcan travel most efficiently is ten lightyears (roundtrip) at about 0.5 c, lasting18.4 years ship's time. This distance isjust a little more than the roundtrip to thenearest star system, Alpha Centauri. Themass ratio is nine.

The energy cost is204.5 USEY's.Keep in mind that all the above

presumes perfect efficiency, a ridiculous­ly small payload, and a very patient, long­suffering crew (who won't eat much).The upshot is that, barring a "miracle,"manned travel to the stars doesn't seemto be a very likely possibility. Despite theoptimistic homilies one cares to cite con­cerning the "infinite" potentials ofscience, the fact remains that there arehard and fast realities and limits toeverything we do or could hope to do.

••

quired for the return trip must be cartedalong. This gives us the Mass Ratio for thesecond to last column in Table II. For el<am·pie, to take a 5-ton payload on a 20 light yearround trip with a mal<imum velocity of O.99c,we would need a blast-off mass of 198,CXXltons. And five tons is a very small estimatefor the capsule. Equipment would be neededfor separating matter from anti-matter, andfor shielding the passengers against cosmicradiation. At a speed 99% that of light, everyhydrogen atom at rest in interstellar spacewould be coming at the ship with 6 billionelectron volts of kinetic energy.

There might be some relief if we couldarrange in advance for refueling. If we setup, in advance, a radio contact with our des­tination and if they have a technology thatcan produce anti-matter, then we can refuelwhen we get there. That wilt reduce the nec­essary Mass Ratio to the figures given in the"Refueling" column of Table II. Our five-tonpayload would then need a blast-off mass ofonly about 1,(XX) tons.

In the end, some government expertwould have to run his finger down such achart as Table It and soowhere the desirabili­ty of speed and the cost of fuel meet at an ac­ceptable value of maximum velocity. (Itwould have to be a government, too. Anvprivate agency, corporation, faction, orfoundation with the money and power ·toundertake interstellar flight would have tongsince become a government. (We have longsince passed the era of Robert A. Heinlein'sfilm Destination Moon, in which the firstlunar flight was accomplished by passing thehat in a suitably filled board room.ll wouldbe partial to some such figure ~s 0.8c. If ananti-matter technology is feasible at all, andthe crew begins in their twenties, the el<pedi­tion comes within range of reasonable el<­pectation. However, a source of energy forproducing all that anti-matter will still have tobefound.

TABLE II: TIme in Vea,. for Round Tripa'of Various DurationsMaximum Mass ratio ,equir.<P...velocity 10 Light Years 20 Light Years 40 Light Vears 80 light Years8S fraction Refuelof, Earth Ship Earth Ship Earth Ship Earth Ship No etfop_ofllehd Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Refuel Osstination

0.1 100.2 99.7 200.2 199.2 <00.0 398.0 lIlO.O 796.0 1.49 1.220.5 21,0 18.4 41.0 35.7 81.0 70.4 161.0 140.0 '.00 3.000.• 18.0 14.7 34.• 26.1 66.0 54.7 134.6 108.0 16.0 '.000.7 15.9 12.0 30.2 22.2 56.7 42.6 115.9 83.4 32.1 5.670.• 14.4 ... 26.' 17.3 51.9 32.3 101.9 62.3 81.0 '.000.' 13.5 •. 1 24.7 13.0 46.' 22.7 91.3 42.0 361 19.00.96 13.3 7 .• 23.7 10.5 44.• 16.3 86.2 26.0 2,401 49.00._ 23.• '.7 43.' 13,1 84.' 19.9 20,100 '"0.99 43.• 12.6 84.2 18.3 39,600 1990.996 43.7 12.1 83.' 15.7 249.000 4990.999 83.• 14.8 4,000,000 2,000

13

1. A round trip includes travel time out and back; thus, a 10light year trip would reach a point 5 light years away fromEarth. 2. The mass ratio does not change over distance; Le., atrip of 10 light years or allight years would use the same massratio atO. 1 the speed of c. On all trips the ship is assumed to ac­celerate to the desired velocity. coast a certain distance. and

then decelerate for the rest of the trip. 3. At the bottom end ofthe chart there is a variation in velocity reached. A ship under­taking a 10 light year trip would be unable to achieve 0.999 c,for it would not have enough time to slow down beforereaching its target.

By the Numbe.....

Suppose that a space ship beginsfrom rest and accelerates at a constantacceleration g until it anains a velocity u.By the time the ship reaches u, it hastraveled a distance x. The time that haselapsed in this process is t according to aplanet's clock, and t' according to theship's own clocks. If c is the velocity oflight. these quantities are related by thefolloMling equations:

t=~. t' =tsinh-l¥. X=~{K-l)

where:

Dragon...Ghoat {dM'i"_from_~1

- motionless,. fireless - and beyond it.burning faintly, another dfa~on stood, itshead waving slowly in the air. upturned tothe clouds.

t wiped rain from my eyes, straining fora glimpse of color through the sheets ofgrey. I could not help but care. I had been hisrefuge till the end. even aiter I believed hehad left me, and, in spite of all I had justseen, if he had scampered, mouse-sized,toward the door where I hid, I would havesheltered him again, foolish as it doubtlesslywould have been. But 'in the thinning rain Icould identify neither the dead dragon northe live one.

Then the final bolt of lightning struck.Hours later, when the rain stopped,

there was not so much as a splintered bone

In metric units, c=300,OOO,OOOmeters per second, and 9 = 9.8 metersper second per second. Using thesevalues will give x in meters. t and t' inseconds, and u in meters per second. If"universal units" are used, c = 1, 9 = 1.03light years per year per year. x is in lightyears, tand t' are in years, and u is a frac­tion of the velocity of light.

Let us consider a round trip to aplanet whose distance from Earth is d.The space ship will accelerate from rest tou, and continue at the constant velocity uuntil it is necessary to decelerate. Havingreached its destination, it will return bythe same process. Necessarily, d must be

~~~~~t~;t~ :J~~~t~~ :~; tt~~sr~ou~trip by a planet's clocks, and T' be thetime by the ship's own clocks. Then:

in the muddy, cratered street. But beneaththe blasted tree Yuen Pao found one largeround scale of silver scalloped in blue. I wearit on a braided cord about my neck like anamulet. It marks me, though that is hardlynecessary these days. Word of mouth travelsswifUy in this land. The villagers saw Iromwhence the dragon came. They knew whosepack it was. It was never established whetheror not a ghost could die a second death (andI am srill not sure about the oranges) but noone Questioned the power of ghostly magic.It has been mainly to my advantage, I sup­pose; only occasionally have r resented it. Iwear the reputation as I wear my "amulet"and the name the people gave me

I am called Lung Gwai.The Dragon Ghost

T=$12c2fK-11+K9dl,

T' =~ sinh-d$E!+K~U[gd -2clIK-1)].

The Mass Ratio m is the ratio of theinitial mass of the ship plus fuel, to themass of the ship alone. If the ship travelsby matter-antimatter annihilation, emit­ting gamma rays and traveling on thereaction er"l8fgy from these gamma rays,then m is given by the following equa­tion:

m= (~~~) I>

Thisis the m required to get to u. Fora round trip, with refueling at the destina­tion, the Mass Ratio is m2. Withoutrefueling at the dp.stination, it is rn-.••

ed his coveralls and'felt his key ring as theyellow vehicle bucked forward out of thetight parking space. Three carlengths up thestreet, the artist recklessly swerved thebaker's truck into a vacant spot. The vanlurched as it stopped and a parking lightcrunched into the car ahead of it. Jumpingout, the artist slammed the van door shutjust as his delivery pulled into the alley.

"Hey criminal, you break my door. Youbreak my light. Come back," Peretti com­plained as he bent to look at his vehicle'sfront end.

The artist ignored the shouts of the red­faced baker as the crates of circuit boardswere loaded on 8 dolly by the truckman. Hesigned the bill of lading and swiftly rolled theshipment throught the freight door, bangingit shut behind him.

As the angry baker rushed to the fronldoor of the loft building and raised his fist tohammer on it, the artist appeared in the en­trance. He held ten twenty dollar bills in hishand and had his face fixed in acold smile.

"For your damages. Relax, it's not sobad," Then he laughed in a Stacatto barkingnoise as he threw the money down the stepspast the wild-eyed Peretti.

The artist was delighted at the way theold man unthinkingly scrabbled for the air­borne bills. The usual street audience wasstruck silent by this humiliation of the gasp­ing, confused baker. Never stopping his yips01 laughter, the artist picked up his grocerybags, slammed shut the metal dad frontdoor of the loft, and threw its bolt with athunk that announced the end of this roundof confrontation.

Methodically he placed the crates neareach appropriate subassembly of his"sculpture." Although he was vastly ex­cited, he didn't rush or tear into the shipmentbefore it had all been initially placed. Hisstrong fingers easily pried open the steelpacking bands and pulled apart heavy cop­per industrial staples on the first case. Hereached inside carefully and with deliberateslowness extracted the first slim corrugatedcontainer. His sharp nail neatly slit open thetop and revealed a glistening froth of plasticbubble-packing individually wound aroundeach of four heavy anti-static envelopes. Heundressed the rightmost envelope and priedopen its sell-sealing end

The pale green board slid out into hislarge, long-fingered hand. The silvery circuittracings glinted in the work lights that werehung all around. Little chips and brightly col­ored resistors ornamented the surface of theincredibly complex board. lovingly, he slidthe unit into the brass colored frame 01 thefirst subassembly.

"Step one of the last phase," he an­nounced to no one.

His VoK:e echoed in the large, circularworking space he had cut out of the firstthree stories 01 the old, c:ern8flt flooredbuilding. Bright new insulated structuralstringers sprung from the exposed steelworkof the lofts. They connected and supported aspidery cylindrical framework that rose some15 meters, up through the layers of thebuilding. The old baker's slightly mangledvan could easily have been driven betweenthe vertical supports and parked within thecircleo! the base.

The cylinder and its supports occupiedthe center third of the whole building.Cinderbloclc walls separated its space fromthe front and rear on each floor, and each ofthese walts had but a single Steel dad door inits center.

The artist had supplemented the alreadymuscular electrical lines with several connec­tions of his own devising, made withoutbenefit of Can Edison's approval. The maincables ribbed the ground floor and con­nected to step-up transformers and Voltageregulators located near the base of each 01the cylinder's four main vertical structuralmembers.

When the time comes, he thought, thelower half of this island is going to black out- which itself was part of the plan.

As he completed the ceremony of in­serting the first circuit board, he breathed asort of sigh and massaged the tense musclesof his neck in an almost human gesture.

"Time for a tittle justifiable self­indulgence," he said aloud. leaving theboards of the open packing crate, he walkedthrough to the freight elevator. It thrummeddown into place as he released the switch onhis remote controller. The lights shiningthrough its gate strobed across his featuresas he rose into the gloom of the sealed third­floor segment 01 the shaft. He slid aside thesafety gate of the car and faced thecinderblock-sealed portal. Taking off hiselectric wrist watch, he reversed the expan­sion band and pressed all three control studsat once. Something hummed behind thewaH, and the cinderblocks emitted 8 soft blueglow, becoming transparent as they did so.The artist walked through the glow into thespace beyond.

Now he was contained in a room filledwith intense, deep blue light. Floor joinedwall seamlessly and undetectably, makingthe space seem vast, even though it was nomore than six meters square. In the center ofthe room was a transparent green, hex­agonal column rising almost to the ceiling.One face of the booth-like column had manygleaming, glassy planes intersecting its sur­face along its entire height. Striding to thatside, he reached into one of the seeminglysealed facets and withdrew a slender toolabout the size and shape of a dental mirror.The disk on its end glowed orange when heput it to his forehead. His mask fell off andmade a flopping noiseas he caught it with hisother hand. He flashed a delighted expres­sion as he glimpsed his reflection in thecabinet.

"Good to see you again," he joked,making the barking noise. Quickly he strip­ped off his clothes and, in turn, the pseuao­human skin and appliances underneath untilhewascompletely himself.

Standing before the plain, semi­transparent side of the cabinet, he admiredhis image: pure white, translucent skin tintedblue by the light; a fine tracery of purpleveins moving and pulsing just under the sur­face. Powerful dark cords of muscle rippledin his long arms and legs.

Fingers and toes flexing, he peeled backhis lips and hosed out his dark, toothlessmouth with a little, flexible spigot he drewfrom the green glassy structure. A black li­Quid sluiced out the side of his mouth; a

15

hacking and blowing noise came from theflapped slit between his orange eves as hesucked in.

Turning sideways, he struck himself inthe middle of his torso and whispered to hisreflection, "Even with all of the chern­change and bio-tailoring you could still kill afriend or two in an Endgame."

He spat and then stepped into thebooth-like half of the cabinet, reachingoverhead to hit its ceiling. The panes of itsopening dosed in one smooth, practicedmotion. Fans producing a mini-cyclone blewpumice and sand against his body while hegroaned in satisfaction. Reaching up again,he switched off the grit and buffeted hisbody with air at 90" C. Stepping out into therelative coolness of the room, the large whitebeing reeled a wire from the side of thecabinet. He clipped this to a wattle thaI hungfrom his lower be!ly just above his featurelesscrotch. As he squatted on the floor, his eyesglazed over and his mouth hung open loose­ly. He remained in that state for exactly 104minutes before he was awakened by the in­truderalarm.

~DO aAAONE l()()l{EO UP over his half·

glasses at the two large young menstood in front of his marble top­

ped desk. The marble top was one of AIde'sfew concessions to conspicuous consump­tion. In his personal behavior, and in most ofhis business dealings, he was conservative,fair, and not given to rashness and temper.He was displaying a little temper now,

."""""'-"This very day my mother's brother waspushed around - disgracedl And in our ownneighborhood'" He swept a hand towardsthe window of his third floor office. Placingboth his be-ringed hands on the desk lOPwith elaborate care, he loW8fed his voice toalmost a purr. "I want the man responsibleinformed of to whom he should showrespect. I want this man to publidyapologizeto Carlo Peretti and give his solemn wordnever to cause any trouble in theneighborhood any more."

"How much difficulty should he have inlearning this respect, Mr. Barone?" askedthe larger of the two young men.

"You be careful and smart, Johnny. tdon't want this artist to be hurt unnecessari­ly. Absolutely no rough stuff except a bendof the arm to show you're serious - and thatonly if this guy is as stupid as they say. Norepeats of that laundry number."

Johnny tried to look embarrassed andcontrite. A commercial laundry owner hadresisted Mr. Barone's business offers withregard to his restaurants, and Johnny stuff­ed the man into one of his own machines.The big young man figured that Barone likedhim for it in spite of what he said, knowing itto be a sign of the tremendous loyaltyJohnny Case felt for the low-key leader ofthe small organization. As a gesture ofrecognition of his temper problem, Case ask­ed, "You want us to go see him naked, Mr.Barone?" He held out his heavy pistol butt­first as if making an offering.

Barone took off his glasses and camearound the desk to hug his two employeesaround the shoulders, drawing them almostinto a huddle. "No, no, no. Georgie,Johnny, you two 1 trust. You're my best.

16

God took. away Illy Julio to give me two sonsin his place."

Barone coughed and pinched his nOS9,overcome with his own sentiments. "Go.go," he said, "and be careful yourselves.Maybe this guy's nuts, hah?"

"Sure thing, Mr. Barone," noddedGeorge. "an' if we're through by ten, we'lfstop by personal and let you know thescore."

Their well-made shoes clicked down theold tile hallway, and they ran down the stepsinstead of waiting for the building's sluggishelevator.

IN THE BLUE OF THE ROOM, the stillness wasbroken by a small pinging noise as thewattle clip released in response to the

alarm. With amazing speed the naked. palecreature re-entered its man-suit while acti­vating the molecular doorway to the ele­vator. Maybe some more of those ignorantchildren want another scare, he thought ashe rode down the elevator, tossing his headback to seat the teeth and mouth-wall appli­ance. In the past when the outer perimeter·ofhis building was violated, it had always turn­ed out to be children or young adults show­ing off their courage to friends outside. Ashout or a beam of light had usually sufficedto scare them away. The freight entrancewas where they usually broke in. This time itwasinthefront.

On the ground floor, he dimmed thework lights and activated a viewing screenthat showed him the front-third of thebuilding - the part that contained his mockliving quarters. The wide spectrum screenshowed two large adult males dressed inbusiness suits and topcoats. Under theirsuits, the screen showed an outline herecognized. Projectile guns. Unsophisticatedweapons, but deadly in close fighting. Themen looked physically strong as well. Thetaller was only hall a head shorter than he.

The manner in which they stalkedthrough the darkened quarters made theartist uncomfortable. They were profes­sional. Calm, but alert. Could it be that thenative police suspected him of some sort ofillegal activity? Had the paper camouflagecovering his industrial theft beenpenetrated? Telling himself to stop assumingthe worst, he entered through the false backof the closet just before the taller humanopened it.

"You're in clear violation of the law," hedeclared, stepping out into the room. Theyoung man lost his composure only momen­tarily.

"We come to talk to you about com­munity relations and like that:' said JohnnyCase, jabbing a gloved finger into the artist'schest.

"Get out of my building or I'U call thepolice."

"No, I don't think you wanta do that."George said from across the room. As theartist faced the speaker, he noticed the firstone move behind him. He felt his upper armsbeing grabbed as the man across the roomcame towards him.

"Now here's what you aregonna ... "The artist kicked out and caught the

speaker between the legs. Simultaneously.he jabbed his elbow backwards into the

chest of the man holding his arms. Bothblows were extremely powerful in humanterms. For an instant, he thought he'd putboth of them down for good, but no, the onehe had elbowed came up from the floor,swinging his fist at the artist's head andbringing his left knee up into the groin.

The blow to the head jarred him but theknee simply pushed him further out into thecenter of the room. The artist reached down,easily picked up George Aletta from the floorand simply threw the man at the other in­truder. Johnny was knocked back into thecloset, falling onto a heap of clothes. He sawGeorge's head lifelessly looking at him fromtop of an obviously broken neck. Even Mr.Barone would use his gun now, thoughtCase.

In the hyper time of his fighting mode,the artist saw the large pistol being drawnout of the tangle of the big man's coat. Toruin the aim, he made a rapid horizontalmove. Two shots smashed into the plasterbehind him. He sprang and caught the gun·man by the throat with one hand and by thewrist with the other. Johnny Case made a lit­tle noise of regret and died.

Rocking back on his haunches, the vic­tor cleared his lungs and consciously ad·justed his body chemistry from fightingmode. His hands were spasming slightly,something that they would normally neverdo, had he not been altered somewhat tosurvive on this world. Picking up both in­truders, one under either arm, the artist ac­tivated the main door to the inner chamber.He dropped the bodies near the frameworkand considered the situation. If he finishedthe first stage of the final assembly now,he'd have a field into which he could drop thebodies without a trace. Happy to have agoal, he hummed a passage from one of hisnative atonal schemes as he set to work.

"Well, I knew you had something goingdown, Mr. Barone," the phone voice said,"an' I saw your guys go in .. .'n I heard theseshots an' nobody comes out." Aldo Baronejust looked at the phone in his hand withdisbelief. "An' I figured you'd wanta knowright away, Mr. Barone," said the little voice."You there?"

Barone hung up.

~£ FOUR MEN PLAYING CARDS in the back of• ~he restaurant rose quickly as Barone

approached."I have an order that needs to be filled

immediately," he said."What style you want this Mr. Barone?""The old style, atl the way. I want you to

bring the merchandise out to me in the streetand I'll take delivery personally."

The rilen at the table stared at eachother in wonder. Aldo Barone? Personally?But they recognized the took on the olderman's face and nodded.

"Right away, Mr. Barone."Two of the men trotted down the steps

to the basement while the others shooed outthe lingering diners at the front tables.Barone filled in his staff with what had ap­parently happened to George and Johnny.

"All due respect, Mr. Barone, but Ialways said Johnny Case had a habit of go­ing into things half-cocked, kinda." When hesaw the stony glare that greeted this ap-

praisal, he quiCkly added, "But don't youworry, we'll make it good for Johnny andGeorge. Nobody's gonna get away withnothin'. You'll see."

The two men came up from the base­ment and opened heavy cases on two tables.Inside were four straight-clip Thompson sub­machine guns and two Walther P-3Bautomatic pistols.

"Best one's for you, Mr. Barone," saidthe staff man as he handed him a loadedWalther butt first.

"Let's make it quick and no mistakes,"ordered the aging gang leader. The five menmatter~of-factly walked out to the waitinglimOUSine, making little effort to conceal theweapons.

He had only to install and check twomore boards on the last column beforepower could be put into the grid and thebodies dumped. There were still many hoursof work left before.the gate could be tunedaccurately enough to link with its twin twen·ty light years away, and more days of testingbefore full power was applied. Only thencould members of his consortium transferalong with their heavy weapons. Once the300 shareholders had come across, thisworld would fall in a matter of days.

We'll only need to hold it hostage lortwo years before the Council meets, pays theransom to our accounts and allows us todissolve as a group. What a relief to be un­burdened of the obligation of administration.He'd personally invested most of his eco­group's positive funds in designing and pur·chasing the equipment and energy for thisinitial landing. The years of his life he'dwasted in dormancy, getting here in anormal-space body capsule, arriving virtuallynaked on a hostile world. Too bad that thenearest gate was so far away and thesublight payload cost was so high.

The irony was, once they got throughthe ransom period, the inhabitants of thisworld would be accepted as provisionalcitizens and allowed to build their own ac­counts in combat against organized forces.With the pugnaciousness of these people, itwould take only three or four major lossesbefore they'd gain enough experience to wina few money yielding skirmishes. They'd beable to payoff, recover, and fit in, most like·Iy. Of course, they'd have to trade popula­tion for time, but that's the way it always waswhen some minor race entered themainstream.

He and his group of protectors wouldn'tget any real thanks, of course. Not that theydid it for the glOry. It was the money and therelief from Endgame challenges that itbought. Still and all, one would think that aransomed race would show some gratitudeevery once in a while. Look at the wonderfulautomated metal and semiconductor plantshe'd given theml Of course when the L'clethentities bound into the software matured andbegan to fabricate themselves, there mightbe a few difficulties - but doesn't every'thing have a consequence and a price? And,he had to fund his stay here somehow, didn'thel

He hummed as he slid the last board intoplace and applied the checking matrix.Perfect. Nothing like a plant driven by aL'c1eth fetus for accuracy. The urge for

perfection and consequent assurance of aproperly fabricated birth found its way intoevery aspect of the factory's function. Wereit nOI for the severe drawbacks of coming toterm, l'c1ethi would be routinely used oncivilized worlds.

He slJould credit the natives too, hereluctantly admitted. It was their semi­conductor and metals technology that luredhis group here in the first place. The lon9­scan had shown that the little beings weredamn clever in some things. Oddly enough,they were nowhere near the theoretical basisfor travel by scan gate. And their powergeneration systems were laughable. Actual­ly, in most areas they were losers and theydeserved to be oppressed for a couple ofyears.

The application of partial power to thegrid resulted in a satisfying discontinuity inthe center of the latticework cylinder. It wasin a random roll of course, drunkenly scan­ning all over hell-and-gone for a hundredlight years or more. But it was more thanadequate for waste disposal. One at a timehe picked up the dead bodies of AidaBarone's best boys and flung them into thegalaxy. After punching upa check run on thetest control board, he left the gate underpower and went to·the front of the bUildingto clean up the signs of the disturbance. Aweapon filled his right hand as he made hisrounds through the gloom. He spotted theday's groceries sitting on the hall table, Tak­ing them to the kitchen, he traded them forthe ones on the shelves and in therefrigerator. The "old" food was opened andflushed down the toilet. No sense gettingcareless this late in the game, he thought.

IIG,llY, YOU AND TOMMY .go round the b~ck- Vinny an' me WIll go in front. I giveya 'til thirty to get back an' go." Aida

Barone watched his men move silentlytowards their jump-.-off points. He sighed andsat back in the limo's plush upholstery. Theheavy Walther came to his hand, and he pull­ed back and released the slide to jack the firstround into the chamber.

They could see where Johnny andGeorge had wired the bolt on the front doorand jimmied the cylinder lock. Only the knoblock was engaged and that was easy todefeat. They entered in complete silence.The barrels of their submachine guns gleam­ed dully in the half-light from thedoor.

"Vinny?" hewhispered."Joey?" came the reply in the dark."I'm gain' round in here," he said softly,

"andyougoin .... "Both men froze as they saw the tall

shape watching them from the central roomat the end of the hall.

The night blazed and thundered as eachsqueezed a burst from his weapon. A terrificcloud of dust, debris and smoke kicked backinto the hallway. Joey and Vinny peeredfrom the doorframes of the rooms on eitherside of the hallway.

"Hedown7"As if to answer, a white and purple

beam struck Vinny in the upper thigh andburned a hole right through, setting thedoorframe smoldering.

"Ah Sheesl" he moaned, rolling andclutching his burning leg.

Another beam lanced out at where Joeyhad been. It was quick - like an electricspark, but perfectly straight, It made a sharpcracking sound when it passed through theair. Joey popped out low in the doorframeand threw a burst down the hall, then skip­ped across to where Vinny lay cursing hispain.

"Shut up. You're alright," he lied. "Getbackinaction."

"What is it, Joey7 - I ain't never facednothing like that - hah7"

"Look," he Whispered, "you gotta putsome heat on that doorway while I moveup,"

Vinny made the heavy submachine gunspeak, Joey advanced like the well-trainedinfantryman he was - weapon up, body flatagainst the wall until he got to the cover ofthe center doorframe. For a few seconds itwas quiet except for the distant hammeringof the two men at the back of the building.Joey looked back and saw Vinny's sweatcovered face gleaming like a sickly moon. Hesignalled him to withdraw into the doorwayof the side room. With a racket of firing Joeyburst into the center room and dove onto hisbelly.

There was no one there.

"You hear that, Gilly7 They're having agoddamned firefight up front. " Tommy wasterrifically excited at the prospect of actuallyusing the submechine gun, and wasdesperate to find some way out of the ap­parent dead-end storage space that thefreight entrance led to.

"Gilly, com'on, the elevator. "It made no sense but both men wanted

to do something and so they Qat in theelevator and pushed the lever towards "UP,"They found the second floor to be aduplicate of the first, and the steel door in theforward wall was apparently barred from theopposite side. Back in the elevator they con­tinued their ascent.

"Look at that, a sealed floor." Tommyreached out a hand to touch the cinderblockof the third floor. It was hot,

The unused fourth floor was completelydark. Gilly struck one of the big kitchenmatches he liked to carry for his panatelas.As far as they could see, the floor was emptyexcept for heaps of old packing material andempty crates, Walking to the far end of theeerily creaking floor brought them to a deadend.

"Hey, watch the matchesl This placecould go up like a tinderbox, hey."

"Would you care?" said Gilly as he flip­ped the dying match to the floor.

Both turned as they heard a deep clunk­ing noise. The elevator was leaving withoutthem.

"How the hell ... that's a manualelevatorl" complained Gilly.

"Put a cork in itl Get over against theother wall an' be ready. I got a feeling we'regoing to have company on the fourth floor."

The two men took up separate posi·tions, each about five meters from theelevator shaft.

"What if it's the other guys7" whisperedGilly.

"Then don't shoot. idiot."The space they were in was almost com­

pletely black except for the faintest of light

17

coming up the shalt. They both heard themetallic clicking sounds and the whine as theelevator reversed and began to climb back tothe fourth floor, They sensed the comingbulk of the car and readied their weapons.The cage of the elevator appeared, dully il­luminated by the one weak bulb in its ceiling.It stopped before it was level with the floor.

Gilly was the first to stand up. "Thereain't nobody on it. Tommyl It's goddamnedempty for chrissakel" He turned to faceTommy with hands indignantly on hips, gunheld loosely under his right arm,

Two quick purple beams sprang fromthe top of the elevator, taking off the top ofGilly's head and burning a hole throughTommy's stomach; his Thompson seemedto fire itself at the top of the cage, continuallyuntil it jammed. The elevator descended.

One of the bullets had grazed his faceand most of his mask was hanging off, MoreseriOUSly, another round had shattered hisleft shoulder and the arm was hanginguselessly, Worse yet, he had to go up frontto make sure he had gotten both of the otherassault troops that he'd seen on the screen.He tapped the controller with his thumb andthe elevator settled to the ground flooragain,

IN THE UMOUSINE, Aida Barone was very con­cerned. All that firing. It meant that it wasgoing wrong again. Was this guy in­

destructible7 Did he have help7 Five minutesI give it and I'm going in myself, he vowed.

Joey felt along the wall of the win­dowless center room for any place that thebig man might have passed through. He risk­ed his pocket flash light to examine the floorand there he found a trail of scuff marks andstains that led to the closet. Secret doorsyet, he thought. This is the craziest thing I'veever done. Inside the closet he noticednothing. Why be subtle, he shrugged, andcracked the back wall sharply with his gunbutt. It immediately swung out into a huge,well-lit space containing a kind of gleamingmetal tower in its center.

But in the middle of the thing was thisweird black space filled with constantlychanging flecks of light. It made him sort ofsick to his stomach to concentrate on thestrange roiling mass inhabiting theframework. Whatever it was, it must be im­portant to the guy he was trying to nail. Ex­perimentally, he smashed his gunstock intosome of the more delicate looking parts ofthe lattice work. He heard sounds like littledrops of water on a very hot skillet. Yellowsparks showered down and the thing beganto make a deep thrumming sound. Joeybacked away, feeling scared and lookingabout nervously almost as if he feared to beblamed for what he had done. He took up aposition on the far side of the framework,behind a heap of crates and bubble packag­ing.

He sensed more than heard the ap­proach of the loft building's owner. Joeywas good at remaining absolutely still, atechnique he'd acquired on ambush mis­sions in the war. He nevertheless almostflinched when he saw the face of this thing.Its skin was hanging off and what wasunderneath made Joey's stomach heave. Inthe thing's right hand was a silver wand with

1aa loop on the end - like those wire rings kidsblow bubbles with. The left arm looked likesomebody had scored a hit.

"Freeze, asshole!" he shouted, stand­ing up from the crates. The artist stopped inmid-stride. Absolutely still, except for theslight twirling motion his fingers imparted tothe wand in his hand. Joey kept the big piecetrained on him as he came out around theframework.

"I got him, Mr. Barone. Vinnyl" he call­eel Qverhisshoulder.

The shaft of purple white light hit Joeysquarely in the neck. His spasming fingersfired one round into the hip of his killer, andsprayed the remainder of the clip into thecomplex framework running up one of themain supports of the cylinder. Joey sliddown against the base of the framework,and his upper torso teetered into the strangeblack space and vanished, leaving behind hislegs and hips.

The space inside the lattice was gyratingeven more wildly and some of the brightspots resolved themselves as stars beforezooming away. The now crippled creator ofthe lattice staggered through the openedcloset and into the central front room. Hisclouded vision resolved the form of Vinny ly­ing unconscious on the floor, and he beamedhim through the head to make sure. I've gotto secure and shut down, he thought. Get tomy room, repair.

Barone waited more than five minutesafter hearing the last shots. For the first timein a long while he was truly terrified. He look­ed at the dark, hateful building standingisolated on the corner and contemplated theruin of his orderly, business-like world ofroutine extortion and bribery that wassignalled by the ominous quiet. I need help,he thought.

Even though he was old, the thin littleman in Brooklyn came quickly awake at thesound of the almost hysterical voice on theother end of the phone.

"Calm yourself, calm yourself, Aldo.Tellmeagain, moreslowly."

He listened and grew concerned. In allthe years he had known Aida Barone, he hadnever heard a lie or exaggeration come fromhis lips. If anything the man was usually guil­ty of understatement. So he listened patient­Iyandcredulously.

"You just stay near your car and watch,Aida. I'll take care of everything."

He owed Barone a great deal - tonightit would all be paid in full. Thanking theMother of God for touch-tone phones, hisarthritic fingers quickly punched severalnumbers and woke many young men.

The wall glowed and he staggered intothe room, almost crashing against the greenbooth. In pain that was just barely con­trollable in his body's fighting mode, he peel­ed off his damaged outer coverings. Whatdid these people want? The credentials he'dtaken off the last one told him nothing. Pro­bably not police after all. They behaved like agroup in an Endgame.

Have to change chemistry to repair, theblurred thinking ran in his throbbing head.Little yellow lines of light were spreadingacross the green translucent plate that

swung down over his long bleeding form.Lying on his back, he willed the metabolicchanges that would slow his body functionsand enable the mechanism to repair hisbody. Before his eyes the blue in the roomdeepened to black and he lost con­sciousness.

Sixteen men jogged up the stairs of theold tenement building. Even though they allcarried long heavy cases, they moved easily.They were all young and strong, well trainedby both the legal and illegal governments oftheir country. The tenants had already beenmoved out by some of the organizationmembers in the neighborhood. They had allobeyed unquestioningly, knowing thatwhatever was to be done that night was fortheir own good. And they knew it was to bedirected against the tall strange artist whoowned the loft building next door. They hadall smiled at that part.

Most of the men had served together orhad been in similar units. When they hadbeen told that the work was to be done fromthe outside exclusively, they knew whattools to bring and how to proceed. Haff ofthe men went to the roof and used an in­genious folding contraption to make a littlealuminum bridge to the other building. Theyset the black cylinders at precise intervals,carefully throwing the little levers on top asthey did so. The tar of the roof crackledunder their boots.

In admiration, Aida Barone watchedfrom behind the wheel of his car. He sawfour ropes fly out from the roof on the streetside of the building and men seem to hopdown them as if flying. Every few metersthey stopped and stuck something to theside of the building, paying panicular atten­tion to the bricked up windows. On the alleyside, the others reached out with telescopingaluminum poles to stick things to the win­dows that looked like black coffee cans. In ashort while the loft was dotted with them.Not once in all this time did a patrol car, orany other vehicle for that matter, pass by thescene of all this silent activity.

S OMETIiING WAS DRASTICAllY WRONG. Thetearing pain in his hip and arm told himthat the medical unit was not yet

finished, yet it was interrupting its work andshutting down. He saw the pulsing of thelights and heard the shrill rhythmic beepingof the intruder alarm. They'reall dead ... Igotthem all. More? Why do they keep coming?

He saw an image form on the far wall.Against the deep blue. an iridescent greenschematic of the building appeared. Atregular intervals it glowed with brilliant redspots, and cloudy orange shapes that movedand left new red spots. Extend the field, hethought. Get downstairs. Make a weak ex­pansion outside the frame to neutralize thehumans and their devices. Might kill me butonly chance. Hurry.

Spikes of excruciating pain stabbedthrough him as he lumbered against the wall.He fumbled with the controller as he sawmore bright red spots form on theschematic.

The man in the alley waved a penlight atthe watching faces in the windows. They allwithdrew in unison. Feet could be heard run­ning down the creaky steps of the old apart-

ment house. Shortly, all the men were in thestreet carrying their now lightened longcases. The man witn the penlight walkedover to the car and handed Barone a littleblack box with an aerial on it.

"Your good friend in Brooklyn said thatyou wanted to do the honors, Mr. Barone."

"No wires? Aren't we too close?" askedthe worried voice from the dark limousine.

The young man smiled patronizingly."Naw, it's by radio see - and all the forcegoes inward. I could stand on the steps withmy mother's teacups an' be alright. Relax.You'll seel Just turn it to the right and makea wish."

~EBLACK FIELD SWEUEO and Spun, sending• ~ingers of space radiating out from the

frame. Orange blood bubbled from histortured arm and hip. The power in the framekeened upwards and seemed to make thewhole building throb. He punched in the lastdelimiting coordinates on the test board. Ablue digit glowed on the panel. "Eight," hecounted "seven "

All 'of do';';~town Manhattan wentblack.

"Christ, what's with the streetlights. Hitthe switch, Barone. Hit it."

" ... three... "Barone goggled as the walls of the

building seemed to turn to black glass andshine with points of rose and purple light.

" ... two... "The young man wrenched Barone's

hand on the switch." ... one.... "A tremendous stillness accompanied

the visually spectacular detonation of theshaped charges. The explosions bloomedwith red-White heat from all sides of the nowweird looking building, but at first no soundwas heard.

Then there was a rushing noise and astrong wind built at the backs of the awe­struck men.in the street. The shape of theloft was filled by fiercely white lines radiatingfrom the center. Trash on the gutter lifted upinto the shape. A dynamo sound whinedtowards the unhearable range.

"Runl" the demolitions leader shoutedover the ro&.r of the air disappearing intospace. Barone started the car. Some of themen seemed to rise into the night, silhouet­ted against the mad tights of the thing acrossthe street. Random shafts of black waveredout of the mass. Barone felt sick to hisstomach. Dizzy. Weightless.

The heavy Cadillac whirled like a leafand disappeared into black with a dull boom­ing noise.

The three men who had escaped turnedat the noise and saw a tall, iridescent figureseemingly suspended in the space where thebuilding had been. The radiating lines haddulled to red. They heard a deep gratingnoise and felt a shuddering vibration throughthe street. The brilliance snapped out, and aprolonged loudening hiss rose up, followedby a climactic thump like the slamming shutof a gigantic book.

A ragged smoking hole had taken theplace of the fourstory building. The adjacenttenement was in ruins.

In downtown Manhattan, the lightswent back on.

WORLDKfLLERRULES, PAGE 1

MiRLDKII.I.ERCopyright © 1900, Simulations Publications, Inc .. New York, N.Y .. 10010

Space/rain 3(reserve cruiser)

Quantily,6

V-Duster (patrol frigale)Quanlily: 7

INTRUDER SHIPS AND MISSILES

~E:J

Defense Strength: The basic defensivecapability of a ship or fortress.Jump Range: The maximum number ofCubes a ship may movc in a single Game­Turn.

[1.31 A single six-sided die isnecessary to play WorldKill6r.

This is provided in the boxed edition ofthe game but not in the subscription version.This die is used to generate a random numberfor use in the combat procedure. It hasnothing 10 do with movement.

1...:;..1 Cro,h" 11 (mi"",)403-2 Quantity: 6

PLANETARY SHIPS ANDORBITAL FORTRESSES

1 <m )-, D,"'d" (o<bi,,' 'om,.,) R536-0 Quanllly: 4 ~

1.;.1 Sm.,h" (mi"", ""i,,)244-2 Quantity: 2

~'"1;;'-6 B/itzRider (S~Olll vessel)Quanllty: 4

1~ 1Domi"",", ("",'''hi,)444-2 Quall1lty: S

I ~ IS,,"y IX (""""",,,,)~426-2 Quanllly: 2 L....:...-J

12f..31 K~W",o" (Ii,h, """,)Quanmy: 3

FRONT BACKIe= IWo,ldKiIl" ("",,, ,hip) r-;;;:l336.3 Quanllly:9 ~

the standard scenario, one Player commandsthe ships and orbital fortresses of the defend­ing human forces; and the other Playercommands the ships or the maraUdIng alienforce. Beyond the standard scenario thereare provided additional rules and types ofships in order that play might be varied andscenarios of the Players' own devising begamed.

BASIC PROCEDURE OF PLAY:The Planetary Player'S fortresses and

ships are set up first, and then the forces ofthe Intruder Player, according to the Stan­dard Scenario instructions (2.0). Takingalternating turns, each Player moves or firesthe weapons of one of his ships. Movementtakes place on the II" x l6 w map that showsthe position of the planet in a rectangularvolume of space. The basic object of thegame for the Intruder is to destroy the planetand its defending forces.

CASES:[1.1) The WorldKillermaprepresents a rectangular volume ofthree dimensionalspace. measuring eight by twelveby seven Cubes.

The basic unit of distance by which allrange and movement is measured is the Cube(each cube is a scale 10,000 kilometersacross). The two dimensional surface onwhich the map is printed also includes thethird dimension as a series of positive (to +3)or negative (to - 3) positions within each twodimensional grid box. Note that each gridbox is numbered with a three digit number.Since each grid box is actually seven Cubesdeep, this number should be followed by azero or a positive or negative number to in­dicate an exact Cube. For example 101 + 3 isthe "highest" Cube in the upper left space.Zero coordinates use "@;"e.g., 101@0.

[1.2) The playing pieces representthe ships and orbital fortressesinvolved in the battle.

Carefully punch out the cardboardcounters and examine them. Each shipcounter has a series of numbers printed on itsfront side which represetll the capabilities ofthat particular ship.SAMPLE SHIP fdelllif~IJliollNumber

~~4W'~"""'"AlllukStrellglh 336- JumpRIJllge

Wto>PQIIR rlge

Derinition ur Values on Counters:Attack Strength: The basic offensive powerof a ship or fortress.Weapon Range: The maximum number ofCubes of distance at which a ship or fortressmay use its Attack Strength to hit an Enemy.

Rt:MOVING THt: KUU:S FltOM THIS ISSUE:Open the mllga~ine tu the cenler. bend lhe staples Wilh a penknire or scre"'dri"er: tift oUllhe ruin and close slaples.

Rules QuestionsShould you have any difficulty inter­

preting the rules, please write to SPI, phrasingyour questions so thaI they can be answeredby a simple sentence, word, or number. Youmust enclose a stamped, self-addrcssedenvelope. We cannOI guarantee a properanswer should you choose to phone in yourquestion (the right person is not alwaysavailable - and since SPI has published hun­dreds of Rilmes, no one individual is capableof answering all questions). Write to:

SPIRules Questions Editor forWorldKiller257 Park AvenueNew York, N. Y. 10010

Read This First:The rules to WorfdKiller are organized by

major topics arranged in the order in whichthey occur in the play of the game. Each suchmajor topic is given a number and a namebelow which is given (usually) a General Ruleor Description which summarizes the rules inthat section. This is usually followcd bynumbered paragraphs called Cases, whichgive the spedfics of the rules. Note that thenumbering of the Cases is a decimal form ofthe Major Section number. Players should ex­amine the map and counters and then quicklyread the rules (without trying to memorizethem). Then the game should be set up to playand a "trial run" made. Note that it isn't evennecessary to have an opponent - the gamecan be played solitaire without any specialrules, simply by assuming the roles of the op­ponents in proper turn. Because simulationgames are richer and more complex than thetypical board game, this Slyle of play can bequite enjoyable (and is certainly one of thebest ways to learn the rules).

Inventory of Game PartsEach game of WorldKi//er should con·

tain the following parts:

One II W x 16" mapshectOne sheet of die-cuI counters (IOOpicccs)One rules folder (bound into Ares version)One die (not inAresversion)One game box (not in Aresversion)

If any of these parts are missing ordamaged, notify SPI's Customer ServiceDepartment.

[1.0] Basic Description ofPlay and EquipmentGENERAL COMMENT:

WorldKilleris a simulation of the classicscience fiction theme of planetary assault. In

2 K- Wagon Light Cruisers

5 V-Duster Patrol Frigates

4 Spacetroin Reserve Cruisers

[3.3] No ship or fort,... may ev.rp.rform more than one act p.rGam.Turn.

[3.4] A ship or fort..... Is ellglbl.to act If It Is fac.up on the maplI.e. it hasn't yet acted In thatGam.Turn).

Note also that a ship or fortress may beineligible to fire if it currently sustains anumber of Damage Points at least equal to itsAttack Strength (see 6.2).

[4.0) JumpingThe Act of Moving

GENERAL RULE:When it isa Player's turn to act, anyone

of his eligible ships may Jump a distanceequal to or less than its Jump Range. TheJump Range is expressed in Cubes ofdistance. Damage does not affect Jumping.

PROCEDURE:The Player takes the ship from its cur­

rent position and places it in its new position,being careful to place it on the exact linewithin the grid box that indicates the specificPositive or Negative Cube that it occupies.This is done by placing the edge of thecounter abutting the app~opriate line.

'0'11-'--7_-----,'02

Ship in sample illustration is positioned inthe "+2" Cube.

CASES:

[4.1] A ship measures the distanceof Its Jump by ret.r.nc. to theTru. Dlltance Table (lee pag.22).

The Players should note that there aresome legal jumps, particularly in diagonaldirections, that are not readily recognized assuch. The True Distance Table is a simple ex­pression of the three dimensional geometryof Jumping. See last page of rules.

[4.2) Shipi may Jump through anyCube on the way to theird..tlnatlon Cube.

Jumping is considered to be a kind ofhyperspace travel (moving from one point toanother without having to traverse the in­tervening space), and as such, nothing canblock or get in the way of a jump.

[4.3] Ships may Jump Into or fromCubes containing other Fri.ndlyshipe or fortr......

[4.4] Shipi may not .nter Cub..containing Enemy ships orfortre..... nor may th.y ev.rent.r the Cube containingthe planet (40900).

These forces deploy in any Cubes in the In­truder Set-up ZOne.

[3.0) Sequence of PlayGENERAL RULE:

WorldKiller is played in consecutiveturns called Game-Turns. Each Game-Turnconsists of a number of alternating Playerevents called acts. Basically, each Player canperform one act per Game-Turn with everyship or fortress he has. The ~me can con­tinue for an indefinite number of Game­Turns, until one or the other Player satisfiesthe victory conditions.

Outline of the Sequence of Playofa aam.TumStep J. Intruder performs an act with one ofhis eligible ships (or passes). Upon acting, heturns the ship face down.Step 1. Defender performs an act with oneof his eligible ships or fonresses (or passes).Upon acting, he turns the ship or fortressface down.Step J. Repeat Steps I and 2 until bothPlayers have passed consecutively. If bothpass consecutively (regardless of order) - orall possible actions have been performed ­then the Game-Tum ends, and all ships andfortresses are turned face-up and a newGame-Turn begins.

CASES:[3.1] There are any on. of fivepOlllble actlonl a ship can take:Jump, Attack, Pop, Stretch,and Repelr

[3.2] Th.r. are only two po..lbleactions a fortre.. can tak.:Attack and R.palr.

[2.3] Th. Intruder Play.r wins If hedestroys the plan.t end has atI..st on. surviving ship upondoing so; otherwis., the PlanetaryPlay.r wins.

Note that, if after twenty Game-Turnsof play, the Intruder has been so weakened asto be incapable of destroying the planet andyet still capable of avoiding the PlanetaryPlayer's attempts to eliminate him complete­ly, the Planetary Player can claim victory

.. total Attackh",tho

n isonly meant to prevent the weakened and los­ing Intruder from dragging out the game bydodging around the map avoiding combat.

WORLDKfLLERRULES. PAGE2

[2.2] Th.lntrud.r Playe"lstarting fore..are asplctur.d:

If,;-31 'Wo,IdKill" ", It Ship,

I-I 2 Dominoto' ", It Ship,

"'-2

4 Outrider Orbital Fortresses(one each in Cubes 308@0;31O@0; S08@O; SIO@O)

[2.0] Standard ScenarioHow to Start the Gemeend How .to WinGENERAL DESCRIPTION:

In 3021, the fragile peace thai existedbetween the human race and the e'kenn wasshattered by e'kenni attacks on the frontierworlds of humankind. E'kenn strategy andoperations consisted largely of unsubtlefrontal attacks aimed at nothing short of an­nihilation of the target planets. The popula­tions of two frontier worlds were totallydestroyed before the others had had suffici­ent time to develop defense fleets to respond[0 the alien threat. The game presents the at­tack on Greendream in 3022.039. at 1155hours Sector Three Standard Time. In the ac­tual battle, the defense forces from Green­dream inflicted heavy losses on the c'kenniassault group, while losing most of their ownreserve forces. Because the weakened alienfleet was subsequently annihilated in the Bat­tle of Margrett, Greendream is looked uponas the turning point that led to the Truce ofIkenna in 3023.019.

PROCEDURE:The Planetary Player sets his forces up

first, in any of the Cubes not in the Intruderset-up zone marked on the map. He alsoplaces his orbital fortresses on the Cubes in­dicated on the map. The Intruder then setsup his forces in any of the Cubes within theIntruder set-up zone. Playlhen proceeds ac­cording to the Sequence of Play (see Section3.0) until one side or the other wins or resignsthe game.

CASES:

[2.1] The Planetary Player'sstarting forc.. are as pictured:

12::-21

I·~I\~-31These forces deploy in any Cubes not in theIntruder Set-up Zone.

20

MARKERSBACKFRONT

W D"A" PlandaryShields

-5-

0 Damage 0

[4.5) Intruder ships may not enterthe Cuba near the planet whichere merited with ste,...

These Cubes are prohibited (to Intruderships only) due to the presence of powerful,short-ranaed planet-based defenses.

[5.0] StretchingA Speci8' Kind of Intruder Jump

GENERAL RULE:Any Intruder ship may increase the

range of a given jump by inactively waitina(Stretching) a number of Game-Turns beforeperforming the Stretched Jump. An Intruderthat remains inactive for two Game-Turnsmay jump a distance of six Cubes (regardlessof its normal range). An Intruder that waitsfor three Game-Turns may Jump on thefollowing Game-Turn to ony Cu!>e on themap (except the Prohibited Cubes, the onecontaining the Planet, and Enemy occupiedCubes).

PROCEDURE:Each Game-Turn in which Intruders

have been Stretching should be r~orded on apiece of paper (using the J.D. number on thecounter).

CASES:

(5.1] An Intruder iii not required toexecute. Stretch Jump simplybeceiu.. It Is eligible to do so.

The ship may continue to stretch or itmay attack, pop, repair, or move normallythereby makina itself ineligible to StretchJump. It may reinstitute the procedure sim­ply by staning to wait inactively again.

(5.2) Damege does not Interferewith Stretching.

[6.0] Attackingand Popping

How Combet Is Resolved

GENERAL RULE:Each ship and fortress has an Attack

Strength and Weapon Range. Wheneligible, a ship or fortress may attack anysinale Enemy within its range.

PROCEDURE:Subtract the Attack Strength of the act­

ing ship or fortress from the finol DefenseStrength of the target. Take the resultingnumber- and subtract it from the numberdetermined by the roll of one die. The resultis the number of Damage Points inflicted onth~ ship or fortress. Place a Damage markerunder the affected ship.

-If less than zero, treat as zero.For example, a WorldXill~r (Attack

Strength of "3") fires at an undamaaedV-Duster (Defense Strength of "4"). Thedie-roll obtained (for the sake of the exam­ple) is "5." This is reduced to "4" (DefenseStrength minus Attack Strength yields a sub·tractor of "I"). The V-Dusttr sustains fourDamage Points and now has an ~//eeljv~

Defense Strength of "2."

CASES:[6.1] When e ship or fortre.ssusteln. e number of Demage

WORLDKILLERRULES. PAGE3

Pofnts double (or more thendoublellts printed DefenaeStrength. then thet ship or fortr...Is destroyed.

Remove the piece from the game im­mediately. For example, if a WorldJ(iII~r

assault ship currently has 12 Damage Pointsscored on it, it is destroyed.

[6.2] When e .hlp or fortreasustains e number of DemagePoints tlqwl to or gr..ter then itsAttllck Strength. then thet .hip orfortress can no longer ettllck.

Should it repair itself, reducing the cur­rent Damage Points sustained below its At­tack Strength, it may resume its ability to at­tack.

[6.3] The effective Defen.eStrength of a ship or fortress Isequal to it. printed strength mlnu.half of the demege Points it i.currently su.talnlng.

Round down when halving DamagePoints for calculation of effective DefenseStrength.

Examp~: A ship with a printed DefenseStrength of "J" that has three points ofdamage on it has an effective DefenseStrength of "2."

[6.4) The Planeta·ry Player'. ships(not fortresses) may heve theirFinal Defense Strength Increesedby a. much a. two Points due tothe edjacency of Friendly .hlpsorfortreuea

The Final Defense Strength increases byone for each of any two adjacent ships or for­tresses. There is no increase beyond two, normay any ship ever have a Final DefenseStrength greater than six.

Example: There is a V-Dust~r Frigateeach in SOl + I; 802+ I; SOl +2; and 802+2.All are mutually adjacent to each other andtherefore can add as much as two to eachother's Defense Strength.

[6.S] Any eligible .hlp may make ePop attllck by moving and firing(or firing end moving) In the ..meGam.Tum.

Immediately after making a Pop attack,the acting ship suffers two points of Damage(for straining its capacities). Note thai a Popattack is only considered to be one act.

[6.6] When e ship or fortre.. i,destroyed. ell other .hips (but notfortresses) In the seme Cube areImmedietely de.troyed as wen.

(6.7) The Planet ha. three pessiveground be.ed shield., each with eDefense Strength of "5."

These shields must all be destroyedbefore the Planet is considered destroyed.They must each be attacked individually andthey may not repair themselves. Players keeptrack of the status of the shields on a piece ofscratch paper. Alternatively, Players may usethe Shield Markers provided to record whichShields remain and which oneis under attack.

[7.0] RepairThe Ability of Ships 000 Fa_to Recover from Damage

GENERAL RULE:When eligible to act, a ship or fortress

may choose to repair itself. The number ofDamage Points removed is equal to thee//ee­tiVf! Defense Strength of that ship or fortressconsidered alone (Le., without any possibleadjacency benefit).

Eumple: If a ship with a printedDefense Strength of "4" had four points ofdamage on it, its t//ectil/t: Defense Strengthwould be "2," and it could remove twoDamage Points in an act of repair, making itscurrent effective Defense Strength "3."

[8.0] The Reinfol'cementScenario

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:As an alternative line of the history of

the battle, it is presumed that the long rangeengagement which preceded the main battledid not result in the mutual destruction thatactually occurred. Rather, some of the forcesinvolved recover and return to assist in thedefense of the planet, pursued by the rem­nants of the second enemy fleet.

PROCEDURE:On Game-Tutn thirteen, the Planetary

Player rolls the die, and as a result, may possi­bly bring on an additional force of sevenships. These new vessels enter the map from arandomly determined map edge. When thePlanetary Player brings on his ships, the In­truder Player follows on a subsequent Game­Tum with a group of six of his own.

CASES:

(8.1) The Planetary reinforcementgroup consists of the followingseven .hlps:Two V-Duster Patrol FrigatesTwo S~tra;nReserve CruisersTwo &ntry IX Regular CruisersOne X-Wagon Light Cruiser

[8.2] The Intruder reinforcementgroup consi.ts of the following sixship.:Three WorldXiII~rAssault ShipsThree Dominotor Assault Ships

18.3] Stertlng with Gem.Turn 13.the Planetary Pleyer throw. a dieto determine whether thereinforcement group will errlve;the chance for reinforcementImproves on every subsequentGame·Turn.

21

22

On Game-Turn 13, a roll of"J" meansthe reinforcements arrive. On Game-Turn14, a roll of "1" or "2" means the reinforce­ments arrive. A roll of "3" or less on Game­Turn IS, a roll of "4" or less on Game-Turn16, and a roll of "5" or less on Game-Turn17 will bring on the reinforcements. The rein­rorcement force automatically enters onGame-Turn 18, if it has not been activatedbefore.

[8.4] The edge on which thePlanetary reinforcement groupenters is determined by the throwof the die.1 ;;any Cube with a number ending in 01.2=any Cube with a number ending in 12.3,4= any Cube with a number starting in I.5,6=any Cube with a number starting in 8.

The whole group is placed in the entryCubes and is eligible to act individually as ofthe Game-Turn of entry.

(8.5] The Intruder reinforcementgroup may enter in eny Cubels!not occupied by Enemy forces andnot closer than three Cubes tothe planet.

The Intruder reinforcement group ar­rives on the Game-Turn following the arrivalof the Planetary Defense reinforcements.

[9.0] Missile CNisersAn Optional Intruder Ship Type

GENERAL RULE:If the Players desire, they may allow In­

truder Player to use two Smasher MissileCruisers, either as starting forces or as rein­forcements. These ships could have been pre­sent in the actual battle had the e'kennstripped their home system defenses. Thecruisers fire missiles which act independentlyafter being launched.

PROCEDURE:Missile Cruisers may each fire one

missile as an act.

CASES:

[9.1] Missile Cruisers have 8missile carrying capacity ofsix missiles.

There is no need to move the onboardmissiles with the ships; rather they should ap­pear only when launched.

{9.2] Missiles act independently onevery Game-Turn, including theGame-Turn of launch.

They move just as ships do.

[9.3] When a missile enters anEnemy occupied Cube, itimmediately explodes and attacks'the Enemy with itsAttack Strength.

Once a missile explodes it is removedand recycled for use as a new launch(presuming the ships have not used up theirsix missile load). Note that the missile (or aBlitzRider acting as a missile, 10.3) is the onlypiece allowed to enter an Enemy occupied

WORLDKILLERRULES, PAGE4

Cube. Missiles may be used against theplanet. Note that the explosion of a missile orBlitzRider acting as a missile does notautomatically destroy ships or forts asdescribed in Case 6.6.

[9.4] Although missiles don'trepair themselves, damage neveraffects their Attack Strength.

Notice that the Attack Strength has noWeapon Range and can only come into usewhen the missile explodes.

[10.0] BlitzRiderScout VesselsAn Optional Planetary Ship Type

GENERAL RULE:If both Players agree, the Planetary

Player may be assigned as many as four Blitz­Riders, one to each orbital fortress.Although this type was not then found in theinventories of frontier worlds, a change ofcentral fleet policy could have made themavailable.

PROCEDURE:In any Game-Turn an orbital fortress

may launch its BlitzRider which then acts in­dependently after being launched.

CASES:

(lO.lJ BlitzRiders may execute aPop without suffering the usualmandatory damage, if they moveno more than half theirJump Range.

[10.2] BlitzRiders may alwaysattack regardless of the damagethey might be sustaining,

[10.3) A BIitzRider may act as amissile, i.e., crashing itself into anEnemy and immediately attacking.

If it performs this suicidal maneuver, itexecutes its final attack with an AttackStrength of "3." This maneuver is treated asa Pop; i.e., the BlitzRider may move andthen explode in the same act.

[11.0] Variable Strengthof Forces

GENERAL RULE:If the Players agree, they may vary the

starling forces and reinforcements in anymanner they wish. Even switching positionsis allowed; i.e., the Intruder ships defend theplanet and the normal Planetary forces at·tack. Note that an extra WorldKil/ership hasbeen included in the mix to make the Intru­der even stronger if so desired.

PROCEDURE:After gaining'some experience with the

qualities of lhe various ships, the Playersmay construct any reasonable scenario. It isadvisable to record variations and track theresults so that successful variants can beplayed again. None of the conventions of thegame should be considered sacrosanct -

Players should feel free to change startingforces, set-ups, positions of fortresses, etc.

The entire frontier war can be simulatedby playing a series of games. Start the In­truders with all of their ships (including op­tional counters). Planetary forces can startwith only fortresses and four V-Dusters forthe first two games. The third game is thestandard scenario (except that the Intruderonly has what survives the first two games).Players may elaborate this suggested formatin any way they deem reasonable.

TRUE DISTANCE TABLEX-V

2-2

2-3

2-4

2-'2-6

3-3

3-4

3-.

4-4

4-.

How to Use the True Distance Tabla:

When a ship displaces from Cube toCube, the Player should think of themove as a shift in three separate dimen­sions. If we call the two directions on theflat map surface X and Y, we can use theconventions of geometry and caU thethird (up and down) dimension Z. So, forexample, a move from 801@Oto604+2is expressed as X3, Y2, and Z2. Lookingon the Table we find that this is a truedistance of 4 Cubes.

Design Credits:Game Design, Graphic Designand Rules:Redmond A. SimonsenGame Development:Anthony Buccini, Eric GoldbergGraphic Production:Dave Engler, Rosalind Fruchtman,Ted Koller, Manfred F. Milkuhn,Mike Moore, Bob Ryer

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Alm&Television

STAR TREK - The Mot:k-' PIctu..Produc.r: Gene RoddenberryDlfKtor: Robert A. WiseStory: Alan Dean FosterSerMflp"Y: Harold Livingstone8peclalEtfllCU:Douglas Trumball, John Dykstra

eo.tWaliamShatner A(jminlIJames T. Kj(tl.eonardNimoy Mr. SpockDeForestKeI~. . .Dr. McCoySlephenCollins 0000fNPeBis Khllmbana IINIJames Doohan SCOfl'yNichelleNichois UhuruWalter Koenig Cheka",G80fgElTakei SuluMajel Barrett .. .Christine Chapel

While Star Trek was not without its ap­peal as a television series in the sixties, the in­tervening years have increased the defunctshow's reputation beyond all sense of reality.Gene Roddenberry. Trek's creator and guru,prefers to locate the saga's continuing suc­cess in his facile. pro-future gospel. but it ismore probable that the series' greateststrength lay in the simple but pleasurableschemata of its character interactions. In theumpty-million dollar Star Trek - The MotionPicture, the Enterprises's CfeN is reunited,only to become subsumed by the absurdlyhigh-tech vision of our future. The ultimateresult of the transformation of series to film isto reveal the complete hollowness of Rod­denberry's mock liberal/humanist vision.

The film's failure in the philosophicarenais overshadowed by its concurrent failures aseither interesting science fiction or dramaticfilmmaking. While the episodes of lastingresonance from the series (The City on theEdge of Forever, Amok Time) involved in­triguing tensions between and within lhecharacters, Srar Trek - The Motion Picrureconcentrates instead upon an obfuscatedconfrontation with a machine called V'gar ina sloppily constructed narrative that seems,after considering the tales of multitudesof re­jected scripts, a desperate eleventh-hourrecourse. Alan Dean Foster, an sf writer of afrighteningly prolific nature, is credited withthe story. He has simply dusted off severalideas old even to Star Trek and added apredictable dose of Quasi-mystical preten­sion. V'ger, generating an impossibly power­ful energy field, is discovered 10 be he?din~

direclly for Earth, deslroying everything IIcan along the way. The Enterprise, orbitingEarth in drydock, is hastily dispatched withKirk, McCoy, er. al., 10 avert the approachingdisaster. Probing V'gar's inner depths, Kirkdirties his hands to discover that V'gar is ac­tually an antierlt Voyager probe that has ac­Quired its own brand of electronic sentiencesince its launch way back in the dark ages ofthe twentieth century. An annoying officer

named Decker merges with the machine (inthe mechanical duplication of Ilia - his onetrue lovel and disappears in a hotyshimmeroflight. Its Quest for its "creator" satisfied,V'gar takes off for higher planes.

This V'gar/Voyager conceit is remark­ably uninspired, a lame effect to rank withthe inglorious finale of Planet of the Apes.What first appears as profound or witty is,upon reflection, revealed as mechanical andtrite. As a climactic hook in an hour-longepisode it is inconsequential enough; as acentral revelation in a two and one half hour,fantastically expense, "major" motion pic­ture, it is only insipid.

To accentuale the banality of the plot, abackground rile with human, dramaliepotential, concerning a desk-bound AdmiralKirk who is recalled to command a heavily­modified, and largely unfamiliar Enterprise,is dumsily sKle-stepped with only the mostperfunctory treatment. As is usual with mostmodern science fantasy films, Foster's storyand Harold Livingstone's screenplay seemdesigned only to make full use of the over­extended and appallingly exaggeratedspecial effects budget. Electronic gimmickryagain scores over dramatic characterization,a decision which, in the case of Srar Trekresults in an empty, joyless film.

As treated by director Robert Wise, thismaterial also becomes stately slow andponderously dull, a misguided attempt to ap­ply the epic poetry of Kubrick's2001 10 Rod­denberry's moralistic fortune cookie. The au­dience is reintroduced to the Enterprise viaan overly loving, almost erotic, live-minuteseQuence. The reverence with which thefilm's technological setting and technical ef­fects are treated neatly undercuts all the"emotion over electronics" philosophizing,effectively revealing the hypocrisy al thefilm's core. Humans are treated as static ob­jects, and thus the eye is constantly drawn tothe bewildering profusion of flashing lightsand cruising spacecraft provided by the ef­fects department. Perhaps Star Trek couldnever have survived the change in format.The crew aboard the bridge is mainly oc­cupied,with punching buttons and staring ata viewscreen - not the stuff from which ef­fective film is made. On television, theenclosed simplicity of the bridge set wasperfectly suited for the presentation ofworkable, intimate, television drama. Ex­panded to Panavision proportions, however,the stasis is overwhelming. A complete lackof dramatic editing - odd for Wise, a formereditor himself - only emphasizes the failureof the filmmakers to exploit any of the exis­tent human possibilities. The clutter of thefilm isolates the characters, and renders im­possible any of the series' intimacy. At firstthis disorder works to the film's advantage;Kirk's return is to a cold, sterile Enterprise,and its unfamiliarity alienates an audience asit should Kirk. However, this alienation,never acknowledged, is never overcome.The Enterprise is too big, too clean, too new.

With Star Trek, Roddenberry's trick hasbeen to wear the mask of the humanist as heplays with his Erector set. The scale of thetelevision series arrested his vision at a com­fortable and still interesting level, but thenew film has finally removed the mask.

Scott Bukatman

THE LATHE OF HEAVENCo-Producers/Co-Dlrecto,.:David Loxpon, Fred Barzylt510": Ursula K. LeGuinT......,: Roger E. Swaybill, Diane EnglishC,..dve Co....ul1llnt Ursula K. LeGuinSpeeilll Ett.c:lII: Lori Spiegal

CUtBruce Davison.. .G6OTTJtI0ffKevin Conway Dr. WiHilIm HaberMargaret Avery. . HtNlrhfJr Lmache

If we are lucky, The Lathe of H88ven,produced by PBS from the novel of the samename by Ursual K. LeGuin, will put to restthe ghosl of Star Wa~. The success of StarWa~ spawned a succession of high-pricedimitations, from Battlesrar Galactica all theway through St8r Trek - The Motion Pic­lUre and The Black. Hole. These latter twomovies emphasized the special effects to theexdusion of plot and character. While theymay have been visually impressive, bothfilms were sorely lacking in the fundamentalsof good story-telling and good film-making.

Lathe, however, has shown lhat asuperb science fiction production can becreated without a mammoth budget. In­deed, produced for less that) one milliondollars, Larhe managed, nevertheless, tocapture the core of Ms. Leguin's novel!thanks perhaps to the fact that she wascreative consultant for the production), andmaintain good production values and ap­pearance 8S well.

The story of George Orr, who by hisdreams 8CtUBlfy changes the flow of reality,builds consistently. The plight of his ex­istence - the re-creation of the wond duringsleep - is examined through his conflictwith Dr. Haber, a man who would useGeorge's dreams to create paradise on Earth.Each neN dream induces a widening sense ofawe, as the world's climate changes, asaliens are drawn into conflict with Earth (onlyto be found to be peaceful) and as the pro­blems of humanity are erased by erasingmost of humanity. Lathe succeeds where thesf exploitation films collapse: in the universeof storytelling and meaning. The central pro­blem is eventually resolved ingeniously, us­ing the materials of the world-constructLeGuin has created. Lathe is lhe best pieceof science fiction (as opposed to science fan­tasyllilm to appear in years.

One hopes some producers who planyet more dones of Star Wa~ will havewatched Lathe and learned that science fic­tion does not consist solely of dogfights inspace and cardboard heroes facing "gee­whiz" challenges. The best science fiction,such as Lathe, examines humankind's placein the universe and the products and pro­blems created by intelligence. Let us hopePBS continues with more science fiction.Just think, for the price of one Star Trek, youcould have fifty Lathes ofHeaven.

MichaelMoore

CONVENTIONS AND SPECIAL EVENTSAres will gladly publish lfree of chargelnotices of gaming and sf&f conventions.Provide ~e information at least sixmonths in 8dvance of con date. Send to theattention of Convention Notices/Ares.

27

Games

A Galaxy of GamesReviews of the Most Significant Science Fictionand Fantasy Gamesby Greg Costikyan. Eric Goldberg, Steve List, and David Ritchie. EDITED BV ERIC GOLDBERG.

Conflict simulations are well-suited forexploring future and fantastic crises. Thepast decade has seen science fiction and fan­tasy games become increasingly popular,The reviews that follow are intended as bothguides for the purchaser and as a retrospec­tive lor "veteran" garners.

Each game is given a capsule review.The initials of the company thaI produces thegame will be found in parentheses after thegame title; consult the list of companies forthe name and address of the producer. Thesecond line lists the designer and, if there is aslash between the designer's and a secondname. the developer. The components andprice are listed in italic type; the price willgenerally to an indicator of the size and stur­diness of the components. The body of thereview concludes with a numerical rating forthe game, so the reader may see the relative"worth" of the game in the eyes of thereviewer.

For those to whom individual reviewerbiases matter, the reviewers are identified bytheir intials at the conclusion of each review.

The numerical ratings 01 the games maybe interpreted as follows:, - Without redeeming social value2- Terrible3- Poor4 - Below average5 - Fairoraverage6- Good7- Very good8- Excellent9 - Great (one of the bestl

The following list of company addressesis provided for readers who wish to contactthe publishers for further information:AH: The Avalon Hill Game Company, 4517Harford Road, Baltimore, MD 21214.

EG: Excalibre Games, Inc., P.O. Box29171, Brooklyn Center, MN 55429.

EP: Eon Products, 96 Stockton Street,Dorchester, MA 02124.

FGUI: Fantasy Games Unlimited, Inc.,P.O. Box 182, Roslyn, NY 11576.

GOW: Game Designer's Workshop, 203North Street, Normal, IL 61761.

MC: Metagaming Concepts, Box 15346,Austin, TX 78761.

08G: Operational Studies Group, 12618roadway, New York, NY 1<XXl1.

8PI: Simulations Publications, Inc., 257Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10010.

TC: The Chaosium, P.O. Box 6::l>2,Albany, CA 94706.

TFG: Task Force Games, 400 SouthCrockett. Amarillo, TX 79106.

TSR: Tactical Studies Rules, P.O. Box 756,Lake Geneva, WI 53174.

YP: YaQuinto Publications, P.O. 80x24767, Dallas, TX 75224.

ZE: Zocchi Enterprises, 01956 Pass Road,Gulfport, MS 39501.

Science FictionAfter the Holocaust ISPIlR. Simonsen/I. HardyOne 2r by 34· m8P, 400 playing pieces. 144piec6s of play money. four 4-page chtJrts andtables. 20-P898 rules, six-sided die, pasteboatdbox and counter fnw $14.00.

This is as much an economic model as it is awargame. America and Canada have beendevastated by a nuclear holocaust. Eachplayer controls a section of the countrywhich is attempting to reconstruct a centralgovernment. The heart of the game is themanagement of the labor pool, naturalresources, transportation net, and thebalance of trade with the other regions lFarWest, Southwest, Midwest and Northeast).Though. th.e game deals with complex can·cepts, It IS a relatively simple economicmodel. The rules are muddy in places, andeconomic realities limit the "payoff" a playercan receive for good play. However, Afterthe Holocaust is a fine teaching device andan intriguing game. It falls short as a simula­tion only because of the difficult nature of itssubject. The patient or the studious gamerwill find Aftor rhe Holocaust a worthwhile in­vestment 7fEG!

Asteroid Zero-Four lTFGIS. Cole16.5· by 21.5· map, 273 playing pieces, strsregicdisplay, 2O-page rules, r9S88lable plastic bag.$3.95.

There are these two fortified island basessomewhere in the Pacific, covered with air­fields and missile launches and flak and justwai ... Whoopsl There are these twoasteroids out in space, serving as bases formining operations but nevertheless armed tothe teeth with missile and spacecraftUighter~ .and bombersl, launching and. ser­vice faCIlities, defensive lasers and engineergangs for damage repair. Solar flaresthreaten to cut off traffic with Earth, so theU.S. and Soviet high commands see it as anopportunity to cripple the other's vital miningoperations in an isolated campaign to be

finished before forces from Earth can in­terfere. T!ming is 01 essence in this game ­outguessing your opponent while his CAP(pardon me, that's Combal Space Patroll isdown for servicing. However, the key to thegame is the static defenses: missiles to pickoff the incoming ships at long range andlasers to swallow up those who close. Mass­ed attacks are necessary to saturate thesedefenses. While this game is not particularlygood science fiction, it is fun to play. 6fSU

BattleAeet Mara (SPIIB. Hessel & R. Simonsen/G. CostikyanTwo 2rby34· maps, 4OOplayingpieces, 2recordkeeping pads. 2 distance 1T1fN1Sures, 28·page rules,2 six-sided dice, pasteboatd box andCOUnter (rsy.$15.00.

As the clt;lse 01 the 21st century draws nigh,the colonists on Mars, several asteroids, andthe moons 01 Jupiter wish to cut their tieswith the Ares Corporation. That corporation,headquartered on Earth, has been exploitingits field workers by making Mars a "companyplanet." Ares will not let its lucrativg profitmargins be reduced, and so the colonists goto war. The resulting conflict is examined attwo levels: ship-to-shipand in overview. Thetactical game pioneered an excellent three-di­mensional movement syStem, a streamlinedmethod for recording ship functions, and arealistic combat system (i.e., in its extrapola­tion of current science and weapons syS­tems!. In short, the game is "hard" sciencefiction. Unfortunately, the tactical versionhas several weaknesses as a game, chiefafT.long them being the non,dependence ofships upon each other lwhich eliminatesmost positionalplayl. Thestrategic game, onthe other hand, IS worth the priceof the gamea.lone. The design encompasses the revolu­tIOn of the planets about the sun and themovement of ships according to Newtonianlaw, and i~clu~es an elegant political syS­tem. The obJect IS not to win a purely militaryvictory - a goal neither side can really afford- but to place enough economic, militaryand political pressure on the other side toforce capitulation ..To this end, players mayperform sabotagEl, Implant spies, attempt as·sassination (of spies!, and negotiate truces.Each turn the plaXers consult the politicalindices and determme how news of the waraffects their res~tivepopulaces. Every timethere is a battle, It may.be r~solved using thetactical game, or via aSimplified strategic ver­sion. BatrleFleet Mars remains one 01 the bet­ter science fiction games. 8fEGI

28

Belter (GDWIM. Miller & F. Chadwick22- by 28- map, 48J playing pieces, 3 sheets ofcfums end tables, '2-page roles, 'die. pasleboardoox.S/UJ8.Belteris a multi-player game in which playerstake the roles of the leaders of great miningcorporations which are in competition for thewealth of the aSlariod belt Competition is bypolitical, economic and military means (onthe theory, apparently. that there ain't toomuch law and order out in them thar aster­oids)' Features include: prospecting andmining system, maintenance rules, a systemfor r~ruiting person.nel, a nice rule on I~borrelations (transfernng personnel, riots,strikes. etc.), shipping and equipment pur­chase rules. The advanced game brings intoplay the PKF [Peace Keeping ~o~ce). dedi­cated to protecting the industrialized statesback on Earth. The PKF Player wins by maxi­mizing price for the products of the belt.That player may also accept bribes (if simula­tions are teaching devices, then ... ). Whengreedy corporate playe~s are allowed torevolt against the PKF, It IS a bit too much of

~e~:~;~~~~i~:il~~~~~~f::~e;~~tr~~~~ventional setting of revolt and repressionthat muddies the basic themes of the game.Still and all, an interesting product withmuch to recommend it. Moderately com­plex, and playable in an afternoon 710RI

Bloodtree Rebellion (GDWIL. Willis/J. Harshman2r by 28- map, 480 playing piecas, city mapsdisplay, 4 organization displays, 16-page rules, 1die, pasreboard box. $12.98.

The human-colonized planet Somber is oc­cupied by a clone regiment whose purpose isto insure the exploitation of the planet by thePetrochem Orionid interstellar cartel. Need­less to say, the indigenous populace is lessthan thrilled by the presence of these futuris­tic Hessians. Accordingly, they rebel. Deepwithin the Bloodtree forests they set up theirsanctuary and begin a guerilla campaignagainst their oppressors. This is the frame­work of the game. Within that framework,the rules allow for agitprop, assassinations,kidnappings, riots, demonstrations, arrests(and prison breaks), desertions from theranks of loyal troops, espionage and most ofthe other elements of modern insurgency.Interestingly enough, if you remove the sftrappings, you have a very accurate treatiseon the "little wars" of our own age. Some­what complex, but playable within a fewhours. Buck Rogersgoes to Vietnam. 6(DRJ

Chitin: I (MCIH. Thompson8.5- by' 14- map, 112 uncUI playing pieces.24·page rules (IargelyadvertisingJ, resealable plasric bilg. $2.95.

Science fiction provides many possibilities,most 01 which have not yet been explored bywarga.ming companies. luckily, the desiQnerof Chitin: lis a Jack Vance fan who saw fit toborrow an idea from his idol. The game positsa planet dominated by intelligent insects whoreguiarly slaughter each other in "harvestwars," fought for the rich vlaros which thehive uses for sustenance. The game uses astandard "move/fight" sequence of play fortwo sides. The design departs from the normwhen it liberally doles out combat bonuses by

unit type, making for a tactical daisy chain inwhich one unit type is extremely effectiveagainst a second type which is effectiveagainst a third type, etc. While the combatunits are busy rending and tearing at thepsychic behest of leader types called"basics," the workers scramble around try­ing to snag as much vlarosas possible. Fairlyshort and simple. lots of fun. Those with ataste for the bizarre will appreciate their units'ability to eat friendly casualties. 5 fORI

Colony Delta (FGUIlA. GruenTwomounted 11-by 1rmaps, 2 sheetsofplayingpieces (about half blankJ, 13-pa!J8 rules, one die,pasteboardbox. $12.00.

Humans and aliens join in a brushfire warover a rich colony world. The humans (fromEarthl compete with the "Siggies" lfrom Sig­ma Draconis, and suitably bug-eyed), bothclaiming the planet because of thei~ colo­nists. Winnmg is by Victory Points, which aregained by farming and mining the planet, ~otfighting the enemy. Indeed, purchaSingtroops costs Victory Points, rather thanmoney, so a purely military campaign couldwin battles at the expense of losing the war.As an added fillip, the planet has semi-intelli­g~nt (whatever that.~eans) native .Iifewhichdislikes all aliens. ThiS IS abstracted In an attri­tion rule, which is supplanted by alien units inthe advanced game. The chief drawbackwith the basic game is the lack of action.Each player may only make six round-tripdeliveries to the planet in twelve turns, andmust use these to bring in everything (notonly colonists!. The advance game removesthese limits, but will last for a decent while

5f5U

Dixie (SPIIR. Simonsen/J. NelsonIrby22-map, l00pl8yingpieces, 12-pa!J8ru!es,SIX-Sided die, resealable plastic bilg. $4.00.

If some preparatory text were included withthis package, it could be titled "How Not toDesign a Warga me. " It seems the Confed­eracy secured a peace treaty from the Unionat the end of the Civil War by mutual exhaus­tion, and so remained independent. It is nowthe midst of the Depression, and war hasbegun anew. The rationale is plausible, butthe game robs it of its credence. First bothsides begin the game with virtually identicalforces. This may work well in chess and Go,but those are not played on a map of theUnited States. The real culprit is the Admini­strative Point system, which is structured sothat the player with the greater number ofpoints is the winner, given at least mediocreplay. Therearea host of other problems, butthis dead horse has had the skin flayed off itlong ago. Of course, one should not wastetime or money on Dixie, but students of thehistory of wargames might be interested toknow that the concept of AdministrativePoints was invented with this game. 2(EGJ

Dune (AHIFuture Pastimes/M. Uhl & R. Hamblen22- by 28- map, 3sheetsofplayingpieces, 2battfewheels, 54 cards, player aid pad, 8-page rules,pasteboard box. $15.00.

Frank Herbert's Dune has~n rendered intogame form by the designers of the estimableCosmic Encounters. Gone from the transferof novel to game is the "reproduce

everything down to the protagonist's sneezeon page 182" approach; it is replaced by agame which is intended for the family m.ar­keto Players become characters representingone of six different factions on Arrakis; eachcharacter will lead his or her faction to glory{i.e., control of the planet! or defeat. Thesystem centers around control of spice,which is highly addictive and the main exportof Arrakis. Battles are won and lost depen­dent on the number of spice tokens presentin an area. Treachery, storms and the fear­some shai-hulud (gigantic sandworms)enliven affairs. Dune is a nice little game, butnothing special. 6 fEG)

GEV(MCIS. Jacksonlrx 14- map. 135uncur playing pieces, 24-pagerules, reseslable plastic bag. $2.95.

This game is compatible with Ogre, but con­centrates on the interaction of otherweapons systems, primarily the GEV, orGround Effects Vehicle. Presumably this is"Son of Ogre!" It is good enough to warrant"Revenge of Son of Ogre." GEV is not asclean as Ogre, but probably has more replayvalue. There are some imaginative scenarios,including one involving an armored train.Possibly the best single micro game. 8(DRI

Godsfire (MCIl.WiliisTwo 22- by34- maps, fRJditJ.curplayingpieces,616 uncut playing pieces, 15 system sheets, 6 na­lional government sheets, 16-page rules, paSle-­board box. $15.95.

Those who dream great dreams of galacticdomination will like this one. From two to fif­teen players can take part, though compon­ents are provided for only eight. Godsfire isdivided into a basic and an advanced game.The basic game concentrates on the me­chanics of operational space combat in threedimensions. The advanced game adds athick pastiche of political and economic ele­ments, including taxation, loans, produc­tion, political parties, revolts, subversion,diplomacy, inflation, elections .... Well,anyway, there's not much left to the imagi­nation. Either the basic or advanced gameswould have been quite interesting alone, iffurther developed. Taken together in unpro­cessed form, they are a wee bit too much.The amount of data the players are asked tohandle can be immense even when only twoare competing. Quite long and complex butdefinitely worth a good look, if systemspolitics in the far future is your bag. 5(DR!

Holy Wer (MCIl.WiliisIr by 14- map, l35uncu( p/ayingpieces. 24·pageroles, reseslable pli:lstic bag. $2.95.

Amtik is a nebulous, space-dwelling creaturesome 4OO,CXXJ kilometers long. Out of scienti­fic curiosity, it has enclosed a cosmic anoma­ly within itself, and created a pocket uni­verse. Unanticipated intelligent life devel­oped on the planets in this universe anddiscovered seams on either end of Amtik,which led to a religious schism. The resultingwar between the Holy War, who believed inAmtik as a god, and the Sun Throwers, whowished to give Amtik a "hot-seam" by hurl­ing a star into a seam, .was rather bloody. !'the player IS interested Iflthe struggle, that IStoo bad. The rules to Holy War are extremely

diffICUlt to decipher, and, as the game is in­terpreted by the designer, only one side maywin. The design concepts are worthy of atrue development being essayed on thegame; hopefully, Metagaming will see fit todoso. 2(EGJ

IceWsrlMCIK. Gross8.5· by 14·~, 135 uncur playing pieces,24-p11g6 ruin, f8S88JabJe p/BSric bag. $2.96.

Metagaming apparently decided that SPIshould not have a monopoly on arctic war­fare and anagrammatic national names. Thisone postulates a raid by something called theEurasian Socialist Alliance on the oit fields atPrudhoe Bay within the larger context of aUSA-ESA war. Induded are a variety of unittypes, among them sled-borne troopS, infa~­

try and outposts, as well as others. There.sheavy emphasis on limited intelligence andthe effect of various weapons on the ice packoff the bay. Playable in 46 minutes Of less.Simple, but fun. 7(OR)

Imperium IGOWIM. Miller22" by 28" msp, 352pJsyingpieces, (W()she6tsof::M1Bl'ndmbies, 12·pageruJes, 'die,pastsb08rribox. $9.98.

This one has Terra as the home of the barbar­ians who have come in contact with the an­cient and powerfut (but decadent! Imperium.Much of the game is fairly standard fare; theinfrastructure of limited conflict between ayoung, self-<:onfident, somewhat savagecivilization (our ownl and the older, lesscocksure culture of the Imperium is whatreally powers this design. Since the sectorportrayed is little more than a backwater inthe vastness of the Empire, a problem couldnave ariserl in the game balance li.e., thelikelihood that a galactic Empire could easilycrush upstart Earthl. The designer has neatlysolved the problem with a minor gem of a$'(Stem: The Glory Index. Basically, the con­flict becomes one of Terran barbarians ver­sus the Provincial Govarnor of the sector(who wins by accumulating Glory Points,representing the number of times his name ismentioned in a positive light at the Imperialcourt). This is either a sefendipitous designor a cold-blooded development of a classic.Nicely conceiv9d and beautifully executed. Amoderately complex game, playable in a fewhours. 8fORJ

Invasion: America ISPI)J. Dunnigan/J. NelsonTwo12"by34"maps,4OJpJsyingpieces, '6-page1IJIes, six-sided die, pasteboard box lind COOntertilly. $18.00.

A paranoid patriot'S nightmare is simulatedin this near future history game. The UnitedStates' position in the world power structurehas been reduced considerably; in fact, theother three world powers have decided toannex the U.S. and canada for their materialriches. A coalition of South American, Euro­pean and Far Eastern countries (whosenames are rendered as alphabet soupl spear­head the invasion, supported by the SovietUnion, which has developed laser technol­ogy capable of destroying nuclear weapon­ry. The action takes place on a beautiful mapof North America and, fOf a large game,plays quite well. The concept of "untried"units was first used here li.e., a player does

not know the strength of a unit until it is in­volved in combatl. The system covers am-

~~~hs ~ntr~~'N~~ a~s =~a=~sunk). There are serious problems in the sce­nario victory conditions and some of th.emiscellaneous rules; the game is not one thiSwriter would play more than once. There wasenough interest in the syStem, however, todo a game in which the Soviet Union got thesame treatment (Objective: Moscow).

6tEGJ

Mayday IGOWlF. ChadwickFour 8" by , I" maps, 120 pl8ying pieces, 8-pagerules, reSOBlable p{dsfic bag. $5.00.

~~~ g~~'~~~~Ya~abi~:~~o;~~u~~~bat resolution module. The simple vectormovement SyStem utilizes counters to repr&­sent the past, present and future position ofeach ship in the hexfield. The combat systemfeatures missiles distinguished by propulsionand guidance types, but also includes lasers.Combat, maneuver and navigation are all af­fected by the capacity of the ship's computerand the program currently in progress (a nicetouch). Relatively simple. Playable withintwo hours. 6fORJ

OgrelMCIS. Jackson8.5" by 14" ~, 112 uncut p/lJying pieces,24-PlJ9S rule$, rtiJStNJlBbJe "wtic bag. $2.96.

The first of the MicroGames, Ogre started anavalanche of small, fast, playable gameswhich continues to this day. The basic sce­nario pits the "unstoppable thing," in thiscase a 5O-meter high cybernetic super-tank,against a conventional force of 21st centurycannon foddef (infantry, howitzers, severalvarieties of tank, and something called aGround Effects Vehicle or GEVI. The Ogreplayer keeps a record of his availablemissiles, state of his treads and the condi­tions of his main and secondary batteries andanti-personnel weapons syStems. His oppo­nent just throws everything available at theOgre and prays a lot. Playable in 20 minutesonce the syStem is understood. A panzerfreak's ultimate dream. 7(ORJ

Olympica IMCILWiltis8" by 14· miJp, 96 uncut pJsying pieces, Upagerules, reseaJllbJe pJlIsric bBg. $2.96.

U.N. forces are attempting to raid Mars tocapture the "Web Mind Generator," whichclosely resembles a big, bright green plea­sure machine that turns aU under its influ­ence into dedicated servants of the Web.The dedicated men and women of the ex­pedition face fanatical webbie infantry duginto strongpoints inside their tunnels. TheU.N. troops do have all manner of sophisti­cated weaponry, Iasef tanks for support anda giant drill to break into the tunnels holdingthe machine. The game borrows quiteshamelessly from Heinlein's SrershipTroopers, but for all that (and despite a reallyhorrible map) is fairly interesting and fun.Playable in an hour or so. Moderately simple.

5(oRJ

Outreach (SPI)I. Hardy/B. Hessel22· by34· miJP, 4OOpflJyingpieces, 2chllIB l'nd

29

tMJIes sht1ets, '6-page rule$, ~-sidt1d die, pest&­~rdboltllndcounrerrrlly. $12.00.

The Outroach rationale completes the futurehistory begun with StarForce. After thehuman race has surpassed the other raceswithin twenty-five light years of Sol througha series of interstellar wars, it is ready tostruggle for galactic hegemony. The abilityto explore and colonize becomes as potent aweapon as military might. The technicolormap portrays most of our galaxy, with eachhex coded for its habitability, how navigableit is, etc. The uniQue system allows for thecreation of alliances, setting up colonies, anddiscovering the center of the galaxy (wheresome incredibly ancient race has left recordsof the secrets of the agesl, etc. Outreach hasenough play value to entertain the first fewtimes it is played, but then degenerates into 8mathematical puule. Stilt, the ideas andgeneral direction of the design allow theenterprising player to design a much bettergame. 6(EGJ

Snapshot IGOWIM. Miller'1" by 22" map, 120pJsying pieces, chart sheer,28·page rules, 2 dice, pasreboard box. $7.98.

The folks at GDW do come up with strangetitles - Snapshot is a game of sentient­being to serltient-being combat aboard' aship in deep space environment. The gamemay be linked with Traveller, presumablywhenever there is a mutiny, a boarding ac­tion (shades of the Jolly Rogerll or over­eager customs officials. Discussions of theimprobability of 8 ship being hijacked in deep

:r~: :~i~:~t~:~ ~r:~ :~~~~~sn:~~ei~~8~~edl. Snapshot has the distinction of havingthe largest combat f"!Sults table in all of war­gaming - itspans '0 pages. The scate is 15seconds a turn and 1.5 meters to the square.A section on character generation is includedfor those who do not have the parent game.Slightly more complicated than necessary,but fairly playable. Adventures can take halfan hour or an afternoon. 5 rEG)

S1arForce ISPIIR. Simonsen/J. Young22" by34" map, 2tXJpJlIyingpitK:s$, 24-page rules.plOt pad, ~-sided die, P/lStebolJrd bolt llndcoontertr.ty. $'2.00.

Earth has sent her children to the stars,where they will meet and do battle with otherraces. Int9fStellar travel is an inexact science,requiring the use of speciallv-d~igned"tele­ships" run by stronglx telesthetlc.and mildlytelekinetic women. Since such women areextremely rare, Earth's capability to wagewar (not to mention commercel is verylimited. The aliens have similar problems, sothe result of each war is a huge number ofcivilian losses and the capture of the losingrace's home planet. Despite the grim natureof the rationale, the game itself is"bloodless." Ships may be moved anunlimited distance on the stellar display(which extends three-dimensionally 21 lightyears tram 5011; however, the further a shipattempts to move, the less certain its chanceof arriving at the desired destination. Com­bat results in the vanquished ship being neu­tralized, or randomly teleported to anotherlocation. Battles are conducted on a smalltactical disJ>'aY, with a ship's strength beingdependent on its range from its target and onhow the owning player wishes to allocate

30

that strength (offensively or defensively).Play can seem very stale at times, due to thepeculiarities of the system. StarForce wasthe first mass .market science fictionwargame, and holds up remarkably well.

6(EGJ

Star Quest IOSGIE. CurranlT. Walczyk1/- by ,r "",p, 100 playing pieces, 0f16 plotsheer, 4-PlIfJ8 rulBs, f6S88l8ble plastic bag. $3.95.

This is a limited scope tactical spaceshipcombat game. Each of the two to six playerscontrols one ship and up to six missiles atone time. Moyement is plotted prior to its ex­ecution along the X and Y axes (which is dis­torted due to the use of a hexgridl. Themovement is pseudo-Newtonian, as velocityfrom prior turns carries over, and the gravita­tional effects of the star are felt at closeenough range. Combat is resolved by missileonly - if a missile passes through a shipcounter, both are removed from play. Thisallows for rather stark victory conditions, inthat the winner is the last player on theboard. Ships may also be moved via "hyper­space Jump" which positions ships randomlyon the board. As a space combat game, it ismore realistic than most, in that it almostobeys the laws of physics. It is also one thatpays off both on the ability to plan ahead andreact quickly. If one ignores the rationale (thegame is based on a coin-operated game!,and the minor inconvenience of photocopy­ing the plot sheets, it is a serviceable littlegame. 5rSu

Starship Troopers IAHIR. Reed22- by 28- fTJ8P, 2 shoors ofplaying pifJces, 1mappad, 1 chart sheet, 24-page rules, 1 die, paste­boBrdbox. $/2.00.

Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers isregarded as a science fiction classic; it is ananti-fascist satire written during the 1950's.The story is told from the viewpoint of sol­diers in the service of an Earth with imperialaspiralions. First, the humanoid Skinnies areconquered (and become subject allies!, andthen the Arachnids are annihilated. Thegame examines the conflict at a tactical level:almost all the scenarios concern a landing byTerrans into enemy territory. The systemused to simulate these future battles is a Pan­zerBlitz derivative {which is a game of WWIIEastern Front battles!. Of course, there aremany rules to account for the special natureof an almospheric landing - and also for thepeculiarities of the alien cultures. Theemplacement of the Arachnid tunnels,which is crucial to lhe play of the most in­teresting scenarios, is handled via a plot pad.The play of the game will prove interestingfor the first few times, but then the simula­tion value of the game will be exhausted ­this cannot stand on its own as a game. Thedesigner should not be held wholly responsi­ble for this problem, since simulating anaspect of a popular novel is almost as diffi­cult as fitting t~e proverbial square peg in a I

round hole. Simulation of a novel provesharder than that of history because thedesigner must satisfy both those who wishrigorous attention to detail and those whowantafungame. 5fEG!

Stellar Conquest (MCIH. ThompsonIr by2r map, 480playing pieces, fK) star cards.

sheet 01 Player Records, /6-page rules, pasre­board box. $15.96.

The classic game of inter-stellar system war·fare. One to four players start in their respec­tive corners of the map and come out col­onizing. As the number of star systemsunder their control increases, the playersalmost inevitably come into contact and con­flict with each other. Rules include systemexploration, ship-to-ship and ship-to-planetcombat, the effects of technologicalresearch, production and population in­creases, and conquest of colonies. Extensiverecord keeping is required in play, but thepayoff for all that writing is fairly substantial.After five years and three printings, the gameremains almost as fresh and exciting as theday it was published. Somewhat complexand long, but can be completed in an after­noon. 7rORJ

Traveller IGDWIM. MillerThree c. 4O-page rules books, pastebOilrd box.$12.00.

The game contains three booklets dealingwith generating, supplying and adventuringwith an imaginary character. The basic gameallows characters to become explorers, freetraders, can men, etc., within the general­!zed context of a sprawling, loosely organ­IZed Imperium. Succeeding releases In theseries expanding upon Traveller include:Mercenary (rules for generating army andmarine types and details on training andcombat), High Guard (rules for the organiza­tion and use of various navies within theTraveller construct), 1001 Characters andAnimal Encounters {pre-generated charac­ters and beasties for those too lazy to maketheir own), The Spinward Marches {mapsand tables of information on one ImperialsubsectorJ, Citizens {more spoonfed charac­ters), Mayday and Snapshot (games whichmay be played separately or to resolve bat­tles in the Travellerconstruct! and Kinunir (aprogrammed adventure using the Travellerrules!. This game starts where Dungeonsand Dragons left off, but, if there is anyjustice, will end up being more popular thanthat venerable relic. For one thing, theTraveller rules are fairly consistent (moresothan is usual for such games!. For another,unlike the first generation of role-playinggames, this one requires no referee orgamesmaster. Somewhat complex. Variableplaying time.

8rDR!

Science FantasyAlien Space IlE)l. Zocchi3fj-page rules, eight 4-)(4- cardstoak playingpieces, resealable plastic bag. $7.00.

Alien Space was one of the first commerci­ally published games dealing with tacticalspace combat. There is no board; instead,each ship is represented by a 3-inch squarewith a ship silhouette and a 360° compassrose superimposed. The squares are placedon the table (or floor, if you live in an apart­ment and don't have room for ping-pong)and movement is conducted by measuringdistances with a yardstick. Ship data ­speed, power allocation, damage status, andso forth - are recorded on data sheets pro-

vided in the rules (which must be xeroxed ifthey are to be reused!. Combat is conductedusing a rather simple system; a string is fas­tened to the middle of each ship's square,and when it is his turn to fire, a player esti­mates the angle at which his ship must fire,then lays the string out along this angle onthe ship's compass rose - if the string inter­sects the enemy ship, it has been hit. This isnot precisely realistic, but it produces a fast­moving and enjoyable game. Alien Space isnot for the hard-core simulations freak, butit's certainly a pleasant way to kill an after­noon. 6fGCJ

Atlantis: 12.500 B.C. lEG)D.D'Leary -2rby28·map, 74playingpieces, l(f}pagerules,resealable plastic bag. $3.40.

This goober was designed for the estheticallyretarded. The components include a map, ofsorts, shOWing the world of 12,500 B.C.replete with a f8"W extra continents, perfo­rated counters reminiscent of the worst ofZap Comix, and the aforementioned singlerules page. If you are into the turgidnonsense churned out by Erik von Danikenand company, this should please you noend. The premise is that Mu and Greece arelocked in a death struggle with Atlantis inwhich such exotic weapons as hovercraft,rocket bombers and flying saucers vie with(presumably spear-armed) infantry, giantsand mythological monsters. Double ugghlThe rules are so sketchy as to be non-exis­tent and, if it weren't for the fact that this re­gurgitation of low-grade pulpdom's worstsins is so unintentionally funny, the gamewould long ago have been confiscated by theSurgeon-General as hazardous to our mentalhealth. By all means, do throw your moneyaway on this. 1 (DR)

Black Hole IMCIR. Taylor8.S- by 21- map, 135 uncut playing pieces,24-page rules, resealable plastic bag. $2.96.

Black Hole has two sides duking it out over adoughnut-shaped asteroid with the unfortu­nate name of Dunkin. In the center of theasteroid is a black hole (quick, recall all astro­physical texts and have them revised to ac­count for this amazing discovery!. The uni­Que shape of the battlefield provides most ofthe interest of the game. Since most of theweapons with which units landed on Dunkinare projectile-types, the various missiles lendto whiz off the map and come around theother side in a lurn or two (which makes for agood deal of uncertainty!. Oh, yes, there'sthe black hole from which the game takes itsname. Actually, the black hole doesn't havemuch effect on play, except to randomlyradiate units trying to jump across the holefrom one side of the doughnut to the other.However, it does make a hell of a good title.Playable in an hour or so. Moderately simple.

6rDRJ

Cosmic Encounter IEP)Future PastimesS hex "tiles. "IX) plastic playing pieces, 16coloreddiscs, 54 playing cards. IS Alien Power cards,cardbOilrd cone, pasteboard box. $/2.00.

Cosmir: Encounter isa game you're going tobe seeing more of, like it or not. It is by nomeans a wargame; it is a relatively simple,

mass-market-oriented game. It is also a clas­sic, and despite Eon Products' small size anddistribution, it is destined to become one ofAmerica's favorite games - on a par withMonopoly and Risk. Each player controls asingle solar system with five planets. His ob­jective is to gain bases on five planets outsidehis home system. Combat and conflict ishandled acx:ording to an extremely simplesystem, which is explicitly described in 50Jwords of rules. But a game of Cosmic En­counter is considerably more complicated ­and wilder - than those simple rules wouldimply. You see, each player has a Power,which allows him to break, change, or cir­cumvent one or several provisions of therules (depending on his power). The result isa weird, constantly mutating, and grippinggame that does not lose its appeal even afterinnumerable playings. The addition of any ofthe four expansion sets makes Cosmic En­counter even more fascinating. 9fGC)

The Creature that AteSheboygan (SPIIG. Costikyan". by rr map, 100 playing pieces, two I-pafJ6charts and rabies, 4-pafJ6 roles, pasreboardbox orrese8lable plasric bag. $5.95 boxed, $3.95 sofr- •pack.

It's 1::JJ a.m., and all regular programmingfor this independent TV station is over. Now,insomniac viewers are treated to Gorgo, thegiant dinosaur/ape/insect methodically de­stroying an English/Japanese/Midwesterncity, because pollution/radiation/an ancientcurse made the fearsome beastie grow largeand ornery. No matter how highbrow youfancy yourself, you probably have not es­caped such a film. CfflBture is a delightfultreatment of this genre, pitting one player asthe monster versus the other player as theNational Guard, police and populace of She­boygan. The monster is constructed from aninitial allotment of Strength Points, while hu­man forces are chosen via a similar method.The monster comes rampaging onto theboard, burning city blocks, grabbing helicop­ters and munching on them, and using any ofits special abilities (flying, web-spinning,lightning throwing) to terrorize the innocentcitizens. Tanks and guns then enter the fray,and the game almost always proves tense.Six different monster counters are provided,so a player's favorite monster may be used.Since Creature even appeals to non-gamers,nooneshould bewithoutacopy. 9(EG!

Double Star (GDWIM. Miller22· by 28- map, 4lKJ plaYIng pieces, 2 sheets ofcharts and tables, 8-pafJ6 roles, 1 die, pasteboardbox. $9.98.

An Islamic culture and a Chinese culturehave settled separate planets of a binarysystem. The Chinese, having settled thepoore.r of the planets, ultimately attempt toincrease their living standard via militarymeans. The premise. of the game is sociolo­gically absurd. The science is almost equallyludicrous (the planets of this system are notinhabitable as described), but the game is somuch fun that lapses in logic are soon forgot­ten. What powers the game is the insertionof minor touches of detail at the right places,creating a patina of verisimilitude through­out. Fairly detailed interaction betweenfleets and planetary defense systems, nicemechanics for entering and exiting planetary

wavitational fields, and use of formations in

~ff~~n2.a~f::~ca~~sal~~~C.I'~~a~i~~"g~~I~which limits the effectiveness of fleet unitswhich have not operated together for a suffi­cient period to employ formations. All in all,this is a honey that chooses to entertain bydoing a few things and d<,ling them well.Playable, rather than definitive, you mightsay. Moderately complex. May be played inan afternoon. 7(DR)

Freedom in the Galaxy (SPIIH. Barasch & J. Butterfield

22· by34'"map, 4OOplayingpieces, 140CiJrds, 12·and 32-pafJ6 roles, 2 six-sided dice, pasteboardbox and coomer trlJY. $19.95.

A disclaimer at the beginning of the rulesbook might read "Any resemblance betweenthis game and an extremely popular movie ispurely intentional." That's right, kids, thereis this evil Galactic Empire being opposed bya small but. valiant band of rebels, includingThe IncrediblY Brave Younj:l Hayseed, TheLovely Princess Who Satisfies Her Con­science, The Wise Old Man, etc. The requiredvillains are at Stage Left. Freedom is dividedinto a Star System, a Province and a GalacticGame, so players may choose the level of in­volvement (and concommitant amount o(time) in the game. The map displays theinhabitable star systems of the Empire, and isextremely attractive. However, most of theaction is conducted via the character and ac­tion cards. Characters are used to performmissions on key planets - these can varyfrom sabotage, recruiting allies, and startingor stopping rebellions to leading an armyagainst the foe. The rules format allowsplayers to layer on sophistication, up to thePlanetary Stabilizer (Empire jargon for awea­pon capable of destroying an entire planet ­no John Dykstra special effects includedl.The game is marred by the cutesy approachused in naming characters and places; manyare simply anagrams for SPI staffers' names,bad puns, or true nonsense words. How­ever, the amount of care that went into thegame and the smooth flow of play makeFreedom a very good game. It is certainly themost professional development effort inscience fiction and fantasy this past year.

7(EG)

Invasion of the Air Eatars (MCIK. Gross11"by 14- map, 13(juncutpJayingpi8c8s, 24-pafJ6roles, resealable plastic bag. $2.95.

Alien creatures cast covetous eyes upon fairMother Earth, but must transform the atmo­sphere to sulfur dioxide before they canbreathe it. The aliens begin with a mother­ship and base, plus a few other units. A basemay be used to build another base, combatunits or atmospheric converters. The latter isused to alter the atmospheric index towardzero; if it gets there, the aliens have theirver­sian of clean air. The earthlings begin witharmies and submarine fleets, neither ofwhich is very useful for attacking the aliens.Numerous more effective types can be built,but Industrial Units must be expended tohave a chance of building such units. Thenumber of available IU's is limited by alien ac­tivity. The design should have made for anintriguing game of management as well ascombat, but the aliens never lose. This maybe a design statement that certain corpora­tions have saturated the atmosphere with

31

too much sulfur dioxide already, but it doesruin the play value of the game. 4 (SU

John Cartar (SPI)M. Herman & E. Goldberg/E. Goldberg22'" by 34'" map, 4lXJ playing pieces, 168 cards,two 8-paga charts end tables, 16- and 28-pageroles, six- and twenty-skJad dice, pasteboard boxlind coomer (ray. $19.95.

John Carter is a character role-playing gamebased on the E.A. Burroughs' "Barsoom"series. The rules to this game are presentedin a semi-modular format, offering a numberof possible "games." These range in subjectmatter from a superfluous Military Gamethrough three levels of character games (TheDuelling Game, The City Sub-Game and TheStrategic Gamel. With the exception of theMilitary Game, all of the modules present thesame basic structure: a villain has capturedthe fair love of the protagonist and must begiven his just deserts by the hero. Thedistressed damsel must be rescued beforeshe is subjected to "unspeakable acts"(think about itl at the hands of the villainand/or his henchmen. The differences are inthe scope of the scenarios. Where the Duel­ling Game deals with the denouement of thehero's quest, the City Game places him at thepenultimate decision point of the story (seek­ing to come to swordpoint with the villainonce he has traced him to a city), and theStrategic Game starts at the very beginning,with the hero pursuing his lost lady love andher evil abductor across the vast expanses ofBarsoom. All three levels can be usedtogether within the Strategic Game. Thegame is notable in that winning is not all ...not by a long shot. Like Burroughs' originalheroes, their cardboard counterparts mustwin only by fair means. To win by engagingin foul acts - which, among other things,loses the love and respect of your lady ­means that, in game terms, you've lost thewhole enchilada. For the first time in thehistory of the hobby, a game has been builtaround such themes as love, romance,treachery, remorse, hatred and friendship.The only thing which happily remains vagueis just what happens between the time JohnCarter and Dejah Thoris tie the nuptial knotand Carthoris appears on the scene. Some­what complex. The Strategic Game plays inabout 6 hours. Other games take con­siderably less time. 8(DR!

Lords of the Middle Sea (TCIL.WiUis22- x 34'" map, 240 playing pieces, 16-pafJ6 roles,4 chart sheers, resealable plastic blIg. $10.00.

Nuclear holocausts have been credited withcausing many a future North America, butnone so delightfully bizarre as that describedin Lords of the Middle Sea. The Middle Seaof the title occupies what was once the Mid­dle West, and elsewhere the geography ofthe Americas is pretty much the same.Several quasi-feudal kingdoms have arisen,and many of these ply their trade across theMiddle Sea. Still others ship goods bydevices which resemble ornithopters. Theheads of state in this latter-day America havedeveloped magic, and are much feared for it.H<,lwever, the g.ame is not a fantasy gameWith a scienca fiction background; rather, itis a well-balanced presentation of medievalforces doing battle with the aid of super­natu~al an~ technologi~1 help. While this is'a fairly Simple strategic game, there is

32

enough 01 substance towarfsnt several play­iogs. 71EGI

Me1amorphosls: Alp"," {TSRIJ.Ward32-pt1f/f1 fIJIes book. $5.roThe propulsion drive and the minds of thepassengers on a spaceship are discombobu-

==='u~~~~tr=~~~causes rapid mutation among all the passen­gers, but does not interfere with the work­ings of the life-support system and other in­temal machinery. Since this is a role-playinggame. each plaver repres8flts a mutanl whois theoretically trying to repair the ship's driveso he may go home again. In actuality, theplayer 8S mutant will search through the vari­ous rooms, attempting to gain fay guns andmedikits and, incidentany. slaughtering theoccupants of those rooms. If this soundsvaguely familiar, it's because Metamorpho­sis: Alpha is Dungeons and Dragons inspace. Regrettably, one can only stretch 8great idea so far; this offering is far too con­trived to gain acceptance in the minds ofmost players. Perhaps Roger Corman (kingof science fiction B-movies) will bid for thefilm rights 10 the game. 3(EGJ

Queza,lEGIFour 21· by 2r INPS, 840 peying pieces, CMffSlind tMJIes, 60plJfJfl roles, r8S8B/abJe plntic bilg.$'2.00.

The Ouazarian Galaxy, a humanoid galacticsociety, is being threatened with invasion bysomething called the X-<::onfedefation. Thetwo sides maneuver and conduct combatwithin the framework of a fairty standard,but not very complete, set of rules. ThemoSI innovative element in the design is therandom appearance of secret weapons forboth sides. The rationale is not Quite aslogical as, let's say, a Marvel Comics plot,but if you bought this gobbler because ofthe cover, you shouldn't expect better. Set­up time of about two hours with an eQualamount of time absorbed by each Game­Turn (called a "time phase segment" In therulesl. There are 40 turns in the game. Slow.Simple. Deadly. 2 (DRJ

Rlvels (MCIR. Taylor8.5· by 14· INP, 112 uncut p/llying pieces,24-{»(JB roles, ffJS68/abJe plastic biIg. $2.95.

Rivets is a two-player game of robotic con­flict set sometime after the utter obliterationof the human race. Man may be dead, buthiscreations live on. In this case, the Cfeationsare the "boppers" - robotic tanks "with theaYefag9 intelligence of an electric canopener." Each side's boppers are controlled,built and programmed by that side's BCPClBapper Control and Production Center!.The game depends on a variation of "rocksbreak scissors" combat system, in which thevarious types of boppe~are programmed bytheir BCPC to attack only one other type ofenemy bopper. Their program can be chang­ed during the game, but so long as a JackBopper is programmed to attack only Tinylpronounced "teeny"! Boppers, they will ig­nore other unit types and will be at a disad­vantage when attacked by an enemy they arenot programmed to attack. If if all soundsslightly silly ... it is. This one is simple, andshould be played by players with the average

intelligence of an electric can opener. Anaverage game lasts Ihree-quarters of anhour. 3fDRJ

Time We, lYPIJ. Peek2'.5· by 27.5· INP, «XJ /Mying pieces, log$he&rs, :JO.{»f/& roMs, 2 dice, counr.r tmy lind/NISteb08tdboJt. $13.00.

Time War is not a wargame in the traditionalsense, though it surely is a "conflict simula­tion." The board is an abstract diagram oftime from 560 million B.C. to 2075 A.D.Twelve eras of varying length are delineatedby concentric circles. The corners of theboard are the "bureaus," or home bases, foreach of the players. Here they train their timetravel agents and conduct research to im­prove efficiencY of such travel; they are alsosanctuaries, as fightin9 may only be done inthe past. Twelve radla! lines intersect theconcentric era circles; each intersection isknown as a "Jonbar Junction." Initially, aset of black arrows is placed on the junctionsof the neutral line to show the unaltered flowof time. The players' objective is to aher theflow to their advantage. Each player holds ahand of three cards, each representing a spe­cific era. If he can make a controlled shift inan era for which he has a card, the blad: ar­row is replaced with one of his own colorlplayers should igllOfe the legends on thecards - most are in poor taste). Combat oc­aJ~ wheoevef two players have operativesat one junction, and results in the totalelimination of one lorce. Thus, it is necessaryto keep a constant llow of replacementsheading into the fray. Since the more effec­tive operatives take longer to train, playersmay be forced to be gun-shy in play. The si­move mechanics require a more than ampleamount of time, but do make planning andoutthinking the opponent paramount. TimeWar is an excellent effort into a heretoforeunexplored field, and thus many of its flawsshould beexcused. ](SU

Villains & Vlgilentes IFGUIlJ. Dee & J. HermanO"64tJ..pagB roles bookler. $6.00.

Villains & Vigilantes is a superhero role-play­ing game ~ that is, players assume the per­sona of superheroes. ReQuisites are notrolled; instead, the gamesmaster assigns re­Quisites equal to his judgment of the player'sabilities. This is a bit silly, actually, asgarners tend to be introverted, bookishtypeS while superheroes are brawny, Conantypes; but the purpose here is not to arguewith a design decision. The designers haveobviously done extensive research, as theylist an innumerable volume of differentsuperhero powers - I can't think of anypowers omitted from the list. Since V&Vostensibly follows the Comics Code,characters are not permitted to be super­villains; the Comics Code prohibits villainsfrom being presented in favorable or sym­pathetic light. Villains £t Vigilantes is an

~~~i~:t!~(e:~j~~a~&&is~;,lt~::j~fPt~~game-systems are directly derived fromD&D, and are out of place in a superherorpg. Also, the short rules do not really pro­vide enough background material andworld-design advice for a full-scale role­playing game 6 (GeJ

We, In the Ice (SPIIP. Kosnett22"by34"lNp, «XJp/lJyingpiece$, U{»f/&roles,2 sbl-sided dice, /NISt8botJtdboJtllndcounr.rtnJy.$12.00.

The two. great superpowers have run out ofAfrican and Asian countries in which to con­duet their brushfire wars by the 1900's. Sincepenguins are unable to petition the UnitedNations for sanctions against invaders, theUS and USSR get a chance to test out theirarctic weaponry. The cost of producing suchweaponry is Quite expensive, so the numberof vehicles and men committed to the Ant­arctic War is limited. The War in the Icssystem meshes land lor snowdrift), air andelectronic warfare. The electronic warfaremechanic is an excellent idea, which helpsflesh out a rather spare skeleton of conven­tional game ideas. Regrettably, there is notenough play value in the game to make thispotentially fascinating situation come alive.The various scenarios plod along until theplayers seek a more amusing diversion (suchas throwing snowballs!. Even the back­ground is poorly constructed: a lost civiliza­tion is found beneath the Antarctic surface,beginning another war for its technology. It'san amusing idea. but doesn't belong in thispackage. 4(EGJ

FantasyAnnlhlleto,/OnaWorld IMCIW. Armintrout/J. Tucker8.5· by 14· lind 12· by 14· mtJPS, 135uflCUtp/IJy­ingpiece$, 24-f»!Ieroles. reselJlIJbIepesricbilg.$2.95.

OneWorki takes the childhood game of"rocks break scissors" and attempts to digni­fy it by using that system (thinly disguised! topower a game. The premise is a world inwhich two gods strive for dominance. Theirchildren, in the form of blade, stone or fog,attack the rival god. The game ends whenone god is destroyed. This one doesn't evenQualify as cotton candy. Annihilator is evensimplertha~ OneWorld, but man.ages to holda bit more mterest. A planet-killing, compu­ter-eontrolled spaceship is heading towardEarth and must be stopped. One playerbecomes the computer; the other leads aboarding party which has the task of destroy­ing the computer with demolition charges.The computer's automatic defenses lplussome robots! are a fairly significant challengeto the boarding party. The tesult is a nicelybalanced game which almost succeeds inovercoming the flimsiness of its premise. Thetwo games are playable in one-half to three­Quartersofanhour. 2'ORJ

a_st Lo,d IYPIM. MathenyTwo 21.5" by 27.5" maps. 640 p/lJying pieces, 4S6t-{)p sheers, ., SCff1ffflS, :JO.{»!JIJ roles, 2 dice,coumtNtrlly, {»sreboiJtdbox. $15.00.

Beast Lardis a fantasy board game of a fairlyconventional nature. A valley is more orless peacefully shared by three races (men,elves and goblinsl, but at its center is the lairof the Dragon. These ruins house the GreatSword of the almost mythic Beast lord andare surrounded by the breeding grounds ofthe beasts who follow him. Strategically, thethree races must each defend their own terri-

tory from the others, and then deal with thereturn of the Beast lord and his army ofunlovable creatures. Players gain VictoryPoints for wreaking havoc on other players'forces; how these points are garnered isstrictly up to the players' consciences (alli­ances are not binding). Generally, a playerwill not be aware of where the other players'main forces are; a single counter on theboard can represent nothing or a huge stack- the corresponding force is placed on oneof the counter displays behind a screen. Phy­sically, the game is quite sturdy, thoughsome of the graphic choices are a bit peculiar(maize yellow for a map background?!. Theonly truly defective component is the rulesbooklet, which leaves out crucial informa­tion. Beast Lord is really a four player game,and mediocre at that. 4 r5LJ

Chivalry & Sorcary (FGUIlE. Simbalist & W. BackhausOne T28-P8!J8 role book. $10.00.

Chivalry B Sorcery was the first second­generation role-playing game. It, unlikeprevious frp games, contains complete rulescovering almost every aspect of a Europeanmedieval fantasy world: a realistic and com­plicated combat system; extensive socialrules; large-army combat (i.e., miniaturesrules); a plethora of different modes of usingmagic; monsters; and characters. CBS is amust for experienced frp'ers who havebecome sick of the insipid OBD system. It isnot for novices, though; the 128 pages arefilled with dense, compressed type, and thesheer Quantity of information which must beread and digested before the game-systemmay be adopted will daunt the occasional frpgamer - although it will delight the hard­core gamesmaster. Another drawback is thefact that CBS is designed specifically forcivilized medieval Europe, and requires a fairamount of work if it is to be adapted to othercultures; however, this drawback is miti­gated by the publication of CBS supple­ments dealing with barbarians (Swords &Sorcerers) and intelligent reptiles (Saurians).Also in the works is an Asian medieval sup­plement, designed by the indefatigable LeeGold. Although the lack of world-designrules and poor organization are sorely felt,CBS remains the best full-scale complicatedfrp game published to date. 6 (GC)

Daathmaza (SPIIG. Costikyan200pfsying pieces, 16-page rolas, pasteboard boxor fflS6iJlable plastic bag. $5.95 boxed, $3.95 sofr­pack.

The idea of adventurers going into a largehole in the ground to combat monstersguarding treasure is a very silly one. The con­cept of the "dungeon," as treated in mostfantasy role-p~aying games, is totally illogi­cal. But such IS the popularity of Dungeonsand Dragons that a "spin-off" game hasbeen released. This is not to denigrateDeathmaze, which is a good enough smallgame, but to demonstrate that popularitylands credence to the most ludicrous ofpremises. Each player takes his characterinto the Deathmaze, a series of catacombs ofill repute. The shape of the Deathmaze isdetermined by the draWing of counters atrandom, and laying the sections adjacent toeach other. All the standard elements of thefantasy role-playing dungeon are here: wan­dering monsters, monsters guarding trea-

sure in remarkably cfamped rooms, and neatlittle magic items. Still, if one ignores the pre­mise, Deathm8ze will hold the attention ofthe purchaser as well as any of the recentreleases. 6rEGJ

DamonslSPIlJ. Dunniganrr-by lrfTl8p, looplayingpieces, 8-pagerolas,pasteboard box or rBS68/able plastic bag. $5.95boxed, $3.95 sofcpack.

Here is the perfect present for Walter Miny:a game in which demons can be compelledto give Mr. Mitty power over everyone whowrongs him. The demons can intimidate orslay his enemies, procure vast quantities oftreasure, or cause women to fall in love withh!m. Each p.layer assumes the role of a magi­cian in medieval Armenia, seeking to employdemons to find treasure before the secularand spiritual authorities can catch up withhim. Those authorities wish to torture themagical entrepreneurs, so the penalty forfailure is high. The magicians are powerlessby themselves, but as they master control ofdemons, they become able to ignore all op­position of mortal ken. The game may beplayed solitaire, and various systems are ofinterest, but Demons does not stand up torepeated playings. 5 rEGI

Divine Right ITSRIG. & K. Rahman24- by 34- map, 200 playing pieces, 4 sheers oridentifY and personality cards, 1 sheet of dipk>­macy cards, 24-pBga rolas, 2 dice, pasreboardbox. $10.00.

Divine Right is a fantasy boardgame a bit outof the usual mold. While there is some magicin it, it is essentially a game of military and po­litical strategy. Thirteen states are repre­sented on a mythical continent, and one ofthem is assigned to the two to six players atrandom. Each of the players is "on theboard" in the form of a monarch piece,which, if killed or captured, knocks the playerout of the game. Non-player monarchs areassigned personality cards which will governtheir interactions with the players to someex­tent. The essence of the game is to create alli­ances with these non-players, recruit addi­tional forces from the many available specialmercenary units, and use these to eliminateother players from the game. Each playeruses his ambassador piece in attempts to ce­ment pacts between his country and a neutral(there are no inter-player alliances!. Combatis based on a single die-roll, which may bemodified by odds. The game systems em·ployed make Divine Rightwell-suited for soli­taire (despite its multi-player nature) andpostal play. Play is fast moving, as usuallyfew units are in play and lengthy discussionsbetween players are not as important as inother multi-player games. This descriptiontells nothing of the artistry and humor thatwent into its making, or the many ramifica­tions and possible strategies available to aplayer. 7(50

Dungeons and Dragons ITSRIG. Gygax & D. ArnesonThf8fl rula books of c. 36pages each, pasteboardbox. Also: Advllnc:ed Dungeon••nd D~gonl:

Thf8flhardboundrolabooksofc.l50pagesfJOch:B..le Dung.on••nd D~gonl: 32- 8nd48-pagerules, 5 polyhedraf dice, pasteboard box. D&D:$12.00; Adv D&D: $39.00; B••le D&D: $10.00.

33

The most importantconcept to be introducedto the wargaming hobby in the last ten yearsis that of role-playing. Unlike other war­games, role-playing games do not makeclear-cut distinctions between winners andlosers. To be sure, some players will do betterthan others, but since the game length istheoretically infinite, there is plenty of time toset matters aright. Dungeons and Dragons isan impressive achievement based on the con­cept alone, and also must be credited withcementing the marriage between the fantasygenre and gaming. The actual game, how­ever, qualifies for federal relief as a disasterarea. If anyone can discern organization inthe rules, he is eminently qualified to make aliving as a crypto)ogist. The design shows a(hopefully unintentional) contempt for theEnglish language and classical mythology.Matters become completely confused whencombinations of typographical errors andgame phraseology conspire to make phrasessuch as "% 1iar" (jnactuality, this reference issupposed to give the percentage chance of aparticular beast being in its abode whenadventurers happen by, but seems to havemore relevancy to a polygraph test). Many ofthe people w~o play the game regularly havespeni much .tlme at redesigning the. game tofit their particular needs, so that it IS rare tofind two groups playing the same version ofthe game. TS R has attempted to mend mat­ters by issuing a more complex version of theoriginal, but the revision creates as many prob­lems as it solves. Though 0&0 is a mediocregame supported by a great idea, it willbecome the all-time wargame best seller inthe not too distant future. 6'EGJ

King Arthur's Knights (TCIG. StaffordOne 16-P8ge rule book, four-cofor map, 320 cards,resealabla pliJsric bag. $10.00.

In King Arthur's Knights, each player is aknight of King Arthur's court, wanderingaround Arthurian Britain in quest of holy ob­jects and money and fair damsels in distressand tyrannical monsters to slay. As playersmove through provinces, they draw cards todetermine obstacles encountered; suchobstacles are of three types - knights,wizards and women. Knights may be slain orbefriended; wizards may be slain or befriend­ed, and the results of such an encounter maygrant a knight a magical boon, or curse him,or send him on a quest. A knight must beespecially wary when encountering women,for at one extreme he may be driven tosuicide at the perfidy of his love, and at theother he will find all of his advances rejected.In between, he may wed the damsel, inwhich case, he takes his wife and places herin the pile of cards containing his otherpossessions - magical swords, holy ob­jects, .and the like. King Arthur's Knights isan enjoyable game for an evening's enter­tainment; it is not particularly sophisti€<Jted,and palls after a few playings, but, after all,so do most other games. 5 (GCJ

Lankhmar lTSRIF. Leiber & H. Fischer22- by 28- map, 3 sheets of die-cut counrers, 1sheet of geas cards, 1 sheat of reward cards,12-page rolas, pasteboard box. $10.00.

An accomplished author does not necessari­ly made a good game designer, even whenhe is designing a game based on a world ofhis own creation. Fritz Leiber has kindly pro-

34

vided the proof to this statement in this sim­ple, lifeless game. Players become a charac­ter"fram one of Mr. Leiber's Fafhrd and theGray Mouser stories, and gallivant across anarea map of the land of lankhmar. The char-

f~~e~:~s~~:~~r:~n~·~;;.~~I~;~aa~cannot be expected to capture fully themood of a story which it simulates, Lankh­mar manages to strip the Leiber stories of in­terest. Many wargame companies nowunderstand how to simulate history properly,but few know how to recreate a story. Thebasic mistake committed in Lankhmar is thedesign approach: the stories depend on agreat degree of uncertainty (or mystery),which is absent in the game. 3 (EGI

Lord. & Wizard. (FGUI)A. GruenOne 6G-page rules book, 4 chart sheets, l1XJ die­cur counrers, four-color map, r8soalable plasticOOg. $12.00.

Lords & Wizards is a multi-player fantasygame of world conquest, resembling nothingso much as a fantasy Blitzkrieg. Combat isin-hex with multiple combat rounds, and dif­ferentiation between missile and melee com­bat. Units are differentiated not only byownership and type, but also by race ­human, dwarven, orcish, and so forth. (Thislast results in a graphics problem, as theunits have neither race nor unit type printedon them; one must infer their nature from theillustration on the counter, which results infrequent reference to the counter summaryin the game rules.) Magic is present, but isless important than in other similar games;strategic finesse is the major factor in deter­mining the outcome of the game. All in all,Lords & Wizards is a solid, competent designwith no great innovation, and some graphicsproblems. 5 (GCI

Magic Raaim (AH)R. Hamblen20 mi;fp "hexes, " 1sheet of mi;fgic cards, 16 char­ecter cards, personel history pad, 35-page rules, 2dice, pasteboard box. $15.00.

The physical and game designs are rather un­conventional in this package. Playersassume the role of a character, whose abili­ties are well-defined. The character will ven­ture forth into a fantasy land formed by theplayers' placement of the hex tiles whichserve as a map. There are seven differentlevels of play, so one can learn the game atany pace one chooses, Many fresh new ideaswhich could be used to good effect are pre­sented here. Unfortunately, the gamedoesn't work. After negotiating the firstadventure, which is no more than a footrace,the characters settle down for some serioushacking at one another. The personal com­bat system is simple - simple enough forany player to figure out whether he will winor lose before he engages in combat. Thisproblem exposes, in turn, the inequities be­tween the various characters, which, ofcourse, destroys any chance of enjoyablecompetitive play. As the rules become moresophisticated (and this is a complex gamewhen all the rules are used), the murky rulesrequire as much interpretation as a SupremeCourt decision. There could have been agreat game in Magic Realm, but it wasaborted early in the life-cycle of the game.

4(EGI

Melaa (MC)S. Jackson8· by 14· map, 68 uncUf playing pieces, 24-pagerules, reseelable plastic bag. $2.95.

This number may be played separately or as acombat resolution module for role-playinggames. The rules include character genera­tion and selection of weapons. Experience,which is gained in mortal combat, can becashed in for increased attributes (strengthand dexterity!. All in all, fairly standard stuffbut executed in an integrated manner withvery little "dirt." The actual combat proce­dure involves randomly assigning initiative toone character whose player then choosesthe sequence in which he will "move-fight."As the initiative passes f.rom player to player,each selects an "option" from a list providedand executes the movement portion of theoption with his character. When all havemoved, combat takes place. Performance isgoverned by randomly generated attributes,weapon and armor types. Clean, fast anddeadly. Combats can be resolved betweenindividual characters in 5to 15 minutes. Sim­ple, but not simple-minded. 7(DRJ

Runequaot (TCIS. Perrin, R. Turney, S. Henderson,&W.JamesOne l~pagerul6book. $12.00.

Runequest was the third major fantasy role­playing game to appear, and has the mostpolished and comprehensible rules of the lotThe rules are organized in logical progres­sion, and numerous examples dot them,making them enjoyable to read and easy tolearn. The game-system is simple comparedto Chivalry & Sorcery, but on about thesame level as D&O ~ and Runequesr is amuch superior game. In Runequesr, thereare no artificial character classes; instead,each character is free to learn whatever skillshe is capable of picking up. Each character isassigned a number between 1 and 100 foreach of the skills he learns. When he at­tempts to use a skill, he rolls percentile diceagainst this number to determine whether hesucceeds. Thus, characters acquire a widerange of skills, leading to diversity of charac­ters and a more interesting game. Similarly,there are no artificial levels; i.e., charactersdo not suddenly jump in all abilitites throughsome sort of idiotic admission to highercircles of power. They progress as people ac­tually progress, concentrating on perfectingone skill at a time, or several skillssimultaneously. In other frp games, all fifth­level fighters are identical to all other fifth­level fighters - they are killing machineswith no other interest in life. In Runequest,to the contrary, characters are forced todevelop personal philosophies through theneed to join a religious cult, and develop dif­ferent powers and interests by the process oflearning different skills and spells. Rune­quesr is the most playable and elegant fan­tasy role-playing designed to date. Its onlydrawback is that it does not cover enoughground for a full-scale role-playing cam­paign, and is, perhaps, a bit simpler than ex­perienced frp'ers would desire. The firstproblem should be solved as Chaosiumcomes out with the sequels to Runequest(Heroquest and Godquesr) and producessupplements such as the excellent Cults ofPrax; the latter makes Runequesr the idealgame for novice and occasional role-playinggamers. 7rGc)

Sorcerer (SPilR. Simonsen IT. Walczyk22· by3r mi;fp, 400playing pieces, 16-pagerules,six-sKfed die, pasteboard box end counter tray.$12.00.

The world of Sorcerer is the intersection ofseven planes of reality. Mere mortals haveconstructed villages in the plane in whichmagic has little or no effect; all other planesare magic-rich. The six magical planes aredistinguished by the three primary and threesecondary colors, which causes a viewer ofthe map to check his coffee for any trace hal­lucinogens. Several humans have harnessedthe necessary forces to become magicians;they too are distinguished by the color oftheir magic (though some may control morethan one color). As one might suspect, aplayer's key unit is his primary sorcerer. Allaction begins with the sorcerer, who mayconjure units, teleport about the map, hurl

- magic bolts, etc. The combat system is bas­ed on color interrelationships: if red is betterthan three colors, it will also be worse thanthe other three colors. Magical units may at­trite away (i.e., go back to their own plane),depending on the color of the hex they oc­cupy. The game system is nice, but it seemsmore appropriate for an abstract color wargame than for a fantasy game. In the finalanalysis, Sorcerer fails as both a game and asfantasy. 5rEGJ

Sword. and Sorcery (SPilG. Costikyan & E. Goldberg2r by 34· mi;fp, 400 playing pieces, 56 C/Jrds, 2separete displavs, two 8-page charts end teblesbooklets, 56-pa{J8 rul6s, six-sided die, pasteb08rdbox end counter trev. $18.00.

S&S is an extremely detailed game of magi­cal combat and quest in a fantasy world ofthe designers' creation. Basically an incom­plete distillation of both the best and theworst of fantasy gaming ideas, S&S is notrecommended for the person with a casualinterest in fantasy gaming. Ground coveredin the system includes: the use of manna (thestuff of magic for those not cognizant ofLarry Niven}, the effect of astral bodies onmagical powers, individual and army com­bat, demoralization and rallying, vortices,conjuration, talismans, diplomacy, captureand escape of characters, spell-casting,wandering monsters, neutrals, invasions,emissaries, racial characteristics and speciesdifferentiation ... you get the idea. The gameis presented in a series of scenarios andadventures rather than a massive campaigngame, which is just as well since the wealthof information presented is almost too muchto handle in a lump. Quite complex. Theaverage scenario takes about three hours toplay. If you can get past the truly awful puns,it's worth more than a few replays. 6fORJ

War of tha Ring (SPI)H. Barasch & R. Berg/B. Hessel& E. Goldberg2r by 34· end 1/. by 34· map, 400 piavingpieces, 112 cards, 28·page rules, six-sided die,pasteboard box end counter traV. $18.00.

Middle Earth, the fantasy world of the lateJ.R.R. Tolkien, is reconstructed in this gamecovering the War of the Ring, S.A. 1418 to1419. The design breaks down into twosepa­rate games. The first, a somewhat feeble"Character Game" (obviously designed forthe mass marketl concentrates on the eventsof the quest of the Fellowship. It is enjoyable

'"""lnNH ...._JPI

BookSAnother Ane Myth, Aobert AsprinDell Fantasy. $1.95TNh..' World. ed. by Raben AsprinAre Books. $1.95The Rul,. of I... Marion Zimmer BradleyPocket Books, $1.95T." of Neveryon. Samuel R. DelanyBantam Books, $2.25J ..... on Man. Philip Jose FarmerPinnacle Books. $1.95EIKtric For.t. Tanith LeeDAW Books, $1.75Emplra of the East. Fred Sabefhagen

. Ace Books, $6.96

A World B.......... Norman SpinradPocket Books, $2.25The .=.c•• Jack VanceDAW Books, $1.96

Science FictionGenerally speaking, science fiction ­

unlike mainstream fiction - has been able toavoid falling into the "relevant" trap. Sci­eoC8 fiction writers have avoided obsessionwith the burning issues of the day, and thushave gel"l8fally avoided many of the idiocieswhich quickly out-dale "relevanl" fiction.There have been stories written about themoral problems of Viet Nam and ecocatas·traphe, of course, but these SlOries wefegenerally neither sermons nor calls to action- they simply took the moral questions asstarting points. In the last few years, how­ever, a huge number of stories - mostly byfeminist writers - have been written aboutthe problems of feminism. There is nothingwrong with this per se, of course, but theresult is a disheartening cornucopia of-femin­ist cliches. If I read another story telling mehow a society consisting entirely of femaleswin inevitably result in a utopia where war istotally unknown, I will suffer severe stomachpains.

As it happens, the problem of sex rolesin a technological society is not entirely ex­hausted, as two recent novels by excellentwriters show. Marion Zimmer Bradley's TheRuins of Isis deals wilh lhe adventures of asociologist and her husband on a female­dominated planet. The pair comes from asociety in which sexual attitudes approxi­mate our own, and they are forced to adoptto the cultural forms of the female planet ­an awkward situation, when the head of thescienliflC team is treated like an unintelligentanimal. Bradley, thankfUlly, refuses topreach, and the novel, instead of becomingshrill feminist propaganda, becomes a fast­paced advenMe novel which explores thenature of sexual relationships.

Ruins of Isis is by no means Bradley'sbest wort.; and her" characters seem less well­realized than those of previous novels. Onbalance, however, the book is worth its$UI) cover price.

The other novel is Norman Spinrad's AWorld Between, which takes place on 8

planet called Pacifica. Pacifica's governmen­tal system is a media democracy, in whichelections are held on a world-wide computernet, and every citizen, as a constiWtionalrighi, has access to innumerable mediachannels continually carrying a vast varietyof shows. Sexually, the planet is pretty muchdevoted to equality. In the course of thenovel, two ships arrive at PacifICa - onefrom the Transcerldental Scientists and theother" from the Terran Femocracy. The first isa union of scientists who have developed atechnology far beyond thai of Pacifica andare using their technological superiority 10establish cultural domination over as manyhuman worlds as possible, by making accep­tance of Transcendental Science Melage aprerequisite for access to their technology.

The Femocracy is a female-dominatedsociety which embodies all the worst andmost extreme facets of feminism. Their 0b­jective is to mobilize the females of Pacificato seize power, oppress their males, and jointhe Femocracy. Naturally, the Transcenden­tal Scientists retaliate by trying to mobilizemale opinion, and the result is a devastat­ingly divisive propaganda war foughtthrough PacifICa'S ubiquitous media net­worlc

The stOfV deals with the ellorts ofCarlotta Madigan, Pacifica's Chairman, andRoyce lindblad, the Minister of Media andCarlotta's lover, to fight both sides of the"Pink and Blue War" and maintain Pacifica'sindependence and cultural integrity. In Spin­rad's firm hands, the result is a gripping sloryfrom start to finish. His portrayal of Pacificansociety is so convincing that lhe reader takesfor granted its differences from our own, andhis depiction of all three sides' propaganda isat once moving and convincing - yes, this iswhat their propaganda would belike. If Spin­rad sometimes succumbs to the urge topreach, what he preaches is democracy, sex­ual eQuality, and human understanding;surely, Vol8-G8n forgive him for this.

Tanith Lee's Electric Forest is more thanan excellent novel - it is, in my opinion, oneof the best works science fiction has so farproduced, something I will reread for the restof my life, and something which, if there isany justice in the world, will garner several ofthis year's sf awards. The story is gripping,the writing is excellent, the plot twists aredazzling - but even more, Electric Forestturns the reader inside-out, emotionally.Much science fiction is cold, cardboard, anddeals only with events and not at all withemotion. Electric Forest, without sacrificingthe solid story of hardcore science fiction,has none of these flaws. In short, it is a per­fect and seamless union of a well-plottedadventure stOfV and the mainstream fICtionwhich deals primarily with human emolion.

I can't tell you much about the Storyitself, because I don't want to ruin it by reveal­ing any of the plot. However, it deals with adeformed woman who is giwrl a new body aspan of a government espionage effort.

Philip Jose FarTl"le?s latest novel, JB$USon Mars, is a disappointment. Only Farmercould get away with a topic as weird as this:mankind"s first manned mission to the RedPlanet lands in the Vallis Marineris and findsa door that leads to an underground complexin which Hassidic Jews - and their Messiah,

35

Jesus Christ - live a happy existence. Thepremise is fascinating, but Jesus on Marsseems to have been written with no otherpurpose in mind. In the beginning of thestory, the expedition discovers the Hassidimand meets Jesus; in the middle of the story,the characters struggle to integrate the reali­tY of Christ's existence with their worid­views; and at the end of the story, Jesusgoes to Earth and initiates the millenium. Inother" words, the title is a fair summary of thestory, and the novel has little else to say ­and 256 pages is a bit long for an extendedgag. Again,JesusonMarswould be brilliantif it were written by a novice; but fromFarmer, one expects better things.

Another long-standing writer fromwhom we expect good things is Jad: Vance.Although Vance is pretty well known, hehasn't attained the status of one of sf's bestas of yet IIor reasons that escape mel; like somany other good writers, most of his fICtionhas been recently republished in paperbackform, so it's readily available.

Back in the thirties and forties, therewas a theory among mainstream critics andwriters that the Fiction of the Modern Ageshould deal not with individuals - for indivi­duals were outmoded - but societies. Obvi­ously, this idea was engendered by the sortof simplistic Marxism whictl was ther1prevalent in intellectual ordas. Devotees ofthis theory took Dos Passes as their best QX­

ample. Vance's fiction likewise deals withsocieties more than people. Each of hisnovels deals with one or more socielies,which are all exotic and incredibly differentfrom our own. Vance's societies are ex­tremely detailed and entirely believable ­and, usually, quite bizarre. But simply de­scribing a society is not enough, of course,to hold the reader's interest; Vance does thisby using his well-realized societies as thebackground for a violent, fast-paced and ex­citing adventure story.

The Face is the fourth novel in Vance's"Demon Princes" series. The DemonPrinces are a group of five interstellar crimi­nals of bizarre character. The series dealswith the efforts of Kirth Gerson, whose fami·Iy and entire city was enslaved by the DemonPrinces in one of their few cooperative ef­forts, to hunt down and destroy thesecriminals. Presumably, the series will incor­porate five novels, since there are fiveDemon Princes; The Face deals withGersen's assassination of Lens Larque.

Lens Larque is a Darsh, from the planetOar Sai, and the bulk of the novel concernsGersen's efforts to flush Larque out into theopen on that planet. The men of Oar Sai arenearly hairless, and their women mustached;the males chase adolescent females, knownas kitchets, while the females chase youngboys. Oarsh male by journeying out on thedesert at night and attempting to waylaymembers of the opposite sex of the appropri­ate age, while attempting to avoid beingwaylayed by members of the opposite sexwho they consider ugly or too old. Thus, themost usual sexual encounter is rape, which isnot a crime but a way of life.

This describes only the sexual habits ofthe Darsh, however; their other" customs areequally bizarre. The novel deals not only withthe Darsh, but also with the planets of

Greg Costikyan

36

Methlen and Aloysius, which Gerson alsovisits.

All in all, The Face is an intriguing andwell-plotted adventure in Vance's usualstrange style. It is also considerablv more ex­pert and deanly written than most ofVance's other wOO; apparenttv. Vance is stillrefining his style and sharpening his abilities.The Face is well worth reading, especially jf'(OU can get hold of the previous three novelsin the "Demon Princes" series.

FantasyIn the last couple of years, publication

of fantasy has experienced a renaissance. Itis my belief that the success of role.p1ayinggames is 8t least partially responsible for thisupsurge; anyone who gets into role-playingto any great degree will probably becomesufficiently intrigued by fantasy to pick up afew fantasy books. According to rumor,Dungeons & Df9gons is now selling as rapid­ly as the typical Parker Brothers game, whichmeans a hell of a lot of people are getting ex­posed to it.

Whether that's the case or whetherthere has simply been a rise in interest in fan­tasy, it seems that a number of well knownscience fiction writers are trying their hand atwriting fantasy. This is by no means a trend,of course, as most of the fantasy writers ofthe forties and fifties were also science flC­~ion writ~. However, Fred Saberhagen, forInstance, IS hardly the sort of person I wouldexpect to see writing fantasy, since he is wellknown as a hard-core technology-oriented sfwriter. Nonetheless, in Empire of the Esst.he has produced an extremely interestingfantasywor1c

Empire of the East takes place on anEarth in the future when, as the result of ascientific experiment, magic has becomepossible. It deals with the efforts of theWestern Kingdoms to overthrow the domin­ion of the evil Empire of the East, which hasalmost conquered the world. In so doing,they use, among other things, an ancienttank and hot-air balloons; the resulting mix­lure (If technology and magic is quite in­terestmg. Empire of the East is actually threeseparate novels - The Broken Lands, TheBlack Mountains, and Ardneh's World - allof which can be read separately but are tiedlogether. The first deals with the freeing of asingle Weslern Kingdom; the second withthe overthrow of the Eastern Salrap of theWest; and the third with the final destructionof evil. Together, they pretty much followlhe standard sequence of events for an apoc­alyptic fantasy epic, a Ia Lordof the Rings.

Empire of the East is elCtremely cleanlywritten, moves along rapidly, and is fun.

Another science fiction writer moving'OVer into fantasy is Samuel Delany, author ofNova and that monumental piece of glug,Dhalgren. In Tales of Neveryon he shows notonly that he has not completely succumbedto the modern penchant for meaningless pre­tention, but that he is still capable of writinga dynamite story. Tales of Neveryon claimsto be the novelization of an ancient legen­dary epic called the Culhar' Text which iseven older than the Gilgamesh legend. At theB:nd 01 t~ book, Delany includes a preten­tiously wItty scholarly article called "Some

Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Cal­culus, Part Three" which deals with this sup­positious legend.

This appendilC shouldn't scare potentialreaders off; Neveryon is written in a straight­forward style, not some mock-epic style.The book contains five inter-locking storiesdealing with several characters in a bronze­age prehistory, and in the process deals withthe nature of power, servitude, and money.The imagery is elC1temely well-defined andthe philosophical aspectS integrate nicety in­to the story without affecting the rhythm ofthe novel; all in all, Neveryon is brilliant. Myonly carp is Delany'S attitude toward money,which is that of the typical modern socia­liberal - and this is not a valid kvetch, ofcourse. since the book's politics havenothing to do with its value. Buy it.

Robert Asprin is not exactly a newwriter, but he hasn't been around for thatlong, either. HisAnotherFineMyth (that's apunl is a fast-moving fantasy story in the tra­diti~n of De Camp - an unsuspecting herorOVing through a series of impossibly strangeevents. Skeeve is tM apprentice of a not­terribly-competent wizard in the land ofKlahd, when his master is killed by the min­ions of an evil wizard while in the process ofsummoning a demon. The demon is actuallyan old friend of Skeeve's master. anddecides that it is necessary to destroy the evilwizard. Unfortunately. Skeeve's master tookthe demon's powers away before dying, sothe pair must rely on Skeeve's rather skimpymagical expertise - and the story is off to arunning start. AnotherFine Myth is extreme­ly funny and thoroughly enjoYable.

Another" book from Robert Asprin isThieves' World, which he edited. The ideafor Thieves' World is: a fantasy world, con­taining many heroic characters, is created inwhich any number of writers are welcome toset their stories, as long as they conform tothe p~-established w~rld-background. Theresult IS a series of multI-hero fantasy stories;since fantasy role-playing involves the groupproduction of a multi-hero fantasy story,role·playing fans especially will find Thieves'World enjoyable.

The stories are set in the city of Sanc­tuary, a dying trading city on the southern tipof a peninsula. The city has recently receiveda new governor appointed by the empire thatowns it, and this governor is vigorous in hisattempts at reform. The resulting conflictforms the backdrop for many of the stories.Sanctuary has become a den of thieves,primarily because there is little other in­dustry; life is cheap, fighting is endemic, etc.

The idea for the cOllection has apparent­ly caught the imagination of a number of ex­cellent writers. for it contains stories bywriters such as John Brunner, Poul Ander­son, and Marion Zimmer Bradley - as wellas relative unknowns such as ChristineDeWees and lynn Abbey. The Stories them­selves range from mediocre to excellent, butall are worth reading.

Thieves' World. according to theEditor's notes, is only the first volume of aseries of story collections based around thecity of Sanctuary; further collections con­taining stories by writers of the same caliberwill be fonhcoming.

MedigThe phenomenal success of Star WalS

and Close fncounrelS of the Third Kind hasfinally opened the eyes of the movie industryto science fICtion. Currently in the worb area number of major projects plus some inter·esting minor ones - mainly in science fictionbut also in fantasy.

Coming soon and greatly anticipated, isthe next Star WalS film entitled The EmpireStn'kes Back. Its official release date in thiscountry is May 21,1900. Closs fncountslS isgetting some new blood or, at least, a slightrevision. A re-release is planned for August.less five minutes of original footage but withan additional seven minutes of new footage.

The world famous producer, DinoDelaurentiis (King Kong, Orca, etc.) has im­me~sed himself in science fiction and fantasyprojects of grand magnitude. The propertiesin work are Flash Gordon, Dune and Conan.Flash Gordon, which is the closest of thethree to completion, is elq)8Cted to have arelease date of December, 1900. The moviewill be based on Alex Raymond's comic stripand will feature a newcomer in the title role.Max von Sydow is Flash's adversary, Mingthe Merciless. Michael Hodges will direct.

Frank Herbert's Dune is just gellingunderway and features Ridley Scott {AlienIas director. Herbert will help with the screen­play, and the film is promised a $20 to $40million budget. Most likely, a 1002 releasewould be ir:l order. Again, as is typical withDelaurentiis, a newcomer will be selected toplay Paul Atreides.

R.E. Howard's Conan is moving towardthe casting phase, with Arnold Schwartle­negger billed as the super-barbarian. OliverStone is handling the script which will offeran original Conan story. John Milius willdirect.

Bakshi is moving slowly on Lord of theRings: Parr II, and Easter of 1981 will pro­bably be the release date. In the wings wehave the makings of a Heavy Meta' moviewhich is being called "a feature-lengthanimated anthology."Some of the six storiesto be adapted in the film include Moebius'Anbach and Corban's Tales of the AmbianNights. Harry Harrison will do the script.

A potentially interesting picture. despitepossible miscasting, is Saturn 3 scheduledfor spring, 198J. Kirk Douglas and FarrahFawcett are hard at work in an undergroundhydroponics station on Titan, Saturn'slargest moon. Harvey Keitel cum robot dropsin to pay them an unusual visit.

In the world 01 the absurd we have anItalian made Star WalS to be known as Twoin the StalS, starring Fred Williamson, BoSvenson and Arthur Kennedy. Also on tap isa musical version of H.G. Well's War of theWorlds. (That's rightllh's a spinoff of the 3million LP seller from Columbia Records ­and you're going to tell me that you neverknew that there was a record.A How."'B.,.,ch

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38

FeedbackReaderSurvey.Aresnr.1

't'ou,op;n;or,.di,ecttyaffect the editOfiel conten1 of Af,SM..'''''' We in~, vou to partieiOB'a in this, our'll9UIa,aurveyof,8lIden.

How to uu the FeedtNK;k Response CI1!d' Aile< you'Vi!finished reading th,s issue oIA18S. please read rr.o"Feedback questions belOW. and 11M" u5 you. tlnswe's bv writ­inllthe answer-n<Jmbe.s on the card in the responseboxes which COffe5POnd loeecn quest;on number, Seecente<foldIOfca'd,P'easebesu,etoansW<l,aIlQUllS\ions(bul (i() not w,ite anythi"ll in the box lor question.num·bars labelled "no Question·'I. Incompletely tilled-outcardscannorbeprocessed

WhBl the numbers mean: When answering questions,"0" alwavs means NO OPINION Of NOT APPLICABLEWhen the Question is a "ves Of no" Question, "1" mearlSYES and "2" means NO, When the Question is a ratingQlJeSlion. "'" is rheWORST rating, "9" 's the BEST ,•.,ing. "S"jsan AVERAGE ,ating. and all numbers in b&­tween exp'ess va'ious sl'oaodes 01 app,oval or disapprovalloJ. No QUe5lion

The following qU~lions115k ~OOIOtll" thelNlick~in thisis&IJ~onllscMofl(poorJthrough9(t1xcellentl;O_noopinion.4. WorldKlIlllflgamel.5.WorldKiller$loryboa,dllicl,onl6. D'<tgon...Ghosllficlionl7. Gangsle,sUicHonlI. No.You·,enolGoinglolheSta,slsclflncel•• AGalaxyoiGameslgame'evlflW5l

10. BoohlrevlflW!II. Med.ahevl8W)Il.F,lmllndTelevlSionl,evoew!U. MuseleditollallI,.. NOQueslion1's.Thisissueoverall16. Assume lhal YOU don', subsctibe to A",s. Would lheQuality 01 lhis issue elone molivale YOU to subscllbel1-Yes;2-No

Il. You, &gfl: 1_13 yea'S old or younge'; 2_14·11;3_18-21;4_n·27;S_28-35;6_360'oIder

II. You,sex:1-Male;2-Female.

". Educalion;1_11yea,so,less;2_12yea,s;3_13·15yeafs; 4_13-15 yea's and still in school; 5_16 yea,S;6-11yea,sormo,e

20. How long have you been playong CQnflicl somulaliongames]O-lesslhanayea,; 1-lyea,;2_2years .8-8yea,s;9_9ormo,eyea,s.

U.Whatisthellve,agenumberofhou,syouspendplay·ingsimutal>ongameseachmonlhl0_none; 1 __ lhou,o,less; 2_2·5houfs; 3"6-9hou,s; 4_10.15 hou,s;5_16-20 hou,s; 6-21·25; 7-26-3:1;8_3140; 9 __ 4(10,mo,ehou,s.

21. How m3ny simula\lon games 101 all IlUblishflfsl doyou possess? 1_1·10; 2_11·20; 3-21,3:1;4-31-4(1;5-41·50;6_SHlO;7_61·70;8_71·9);9_81ormo,e

23, Whal level 01 complexity do YOO p'eler in gameslRateyou,p'ele'e<1Cflonal·9scale.W'lhhighflfnumbersindicaling mcreaSll:d complexity. Use the lollowinggames

~~rg~~ines." - WorldKiller, 7 - B8/1IeFIeeI Mars;9 ..

U. How many CQnllict simulal>on games have YOU PUfchased in the last twelve monlhsl 00 nol ,nclude games,~ivedbysubs<:IIplion.l-onetolh'ee;2_lou'10

S,X;3_Sfl'IIe<'I0n,ne;4_te<110Iitlflflt'l;S_$ixteenl025;6_26103:);7 __ 311040;8_411050;9_S1or

2.5, How many games do you pl8n 10 buy ,n the ""Xltwelve monthslnot ir.cluding Ares subscllptoon gamesl?l-onetoll"ee;2-foo'loSlx;3_sevenlon,ne;4_lenl0l,heerl;S"soxleento25;6_26103:'>;7_311O4O;8.411050;9-Slo,mo,e

U, Whal per<:ent&gflol lhe games you buy do YOO expectwill be SPI games? 1 __ 10%; 2 __ 20%; 3.3:)%;

.9-~'ll.

27, How ml>Ch moflfl\l do you plan 10 spend On conlliclsJmula1ion games ;n the nexl twelvil monthS? 1 • lesslhanSl0;2_S1o.25;3_s25-50;4_S5(}.7!);S_$75-100;6. $100-200;7- $21))-3((1;8. $:X:o-400;9 ..S4OOormore

u. How much have YOU sperll on conflict simulationgames in the lest twelvemonlhsl1 • less than $10; 2 ­$lo.25;3_$25-50;4_$5().75;5_$J'5.100;6_$I002CO;7_$2I))-3((I;8 __ $3'Xl--4CO;9_$4000,more

2•• Pick the one a'8lI 01 science fiction that YOU rnoslen·joy,eading;1_SpaceOPflfll/scienceiantll5y;2 __"Ha,d··sciencelictiona<tventu,e;3_P'oblem_$o/vingl\a,dscienoeliction;4_ htrater'esl,ialsocietie5;5.oFutu'esocielieslulopia/d'(Slopial;6 _ Allerll8tehi$uxy;7. Time-t'avel;8 _ Soh scienceliction l8.k.8. '."fNfwave"1;9 __ 0Ihflflpleasewllteinlhecalego,ydes<:;,ip·lionl.

30. Pick the 0"" a,ea about which YOU would rnosllike toseescience liction games done: 1 __ Stralegicspaoacorl'Ilict;2-Tact>calspaceconilictlshipagainstshipl;3_Strategicplarlel·boundconfliclla,myagainsla,myl;4_Tactical oIanetbound CQnllict (man aga,nst manl; 5 •Altemalehistoryconllict;6_ Conflict in a CQnle<noorarysettong; 7 _ Role-playing adventu,e; 8 _ Economic/sociological/pp1iticalconflic1;9 _ Othe'(pleaSflw,ile,nthecategorydesc,iplion)

]1, How many scier.ce !ictiOfl games do yOU own (in·cludir>gthegame;nthisissueIl1 _ 1;2 __ 2;3 _ 3;4_4;5_5to10;6_111015;7_161020;8_211025;9• 26ormo<e

32, How ml>Ch did you Sf)&Ild on science riclion bool<sinthelaSl lWfllvemonths? 1 _ unde<$10;2.oundfl'S20;3.undflr$3:);4-unde,$4(I;S·undf!r$50;8-under560;7. ur>def$70;8_undet$lll;9. 5810rmo<e.

lJ. What perOllnlageol lhe money spenl on sc'ence fict>on bookS wil$ spent On ha'd·coverbooks? 1 __ 10%;2_20~;3_3:)"';4_40"';",9.90"".

.14. Pick lhe one 8,ea 01 ISnlasy thaI you most e<1joy'ead,ng: 1. Swo'dand SorCl!fY; 2 __ Mylholog,call8n·lasy; 3 _ Ouesl adventu'e; 4 _ CI8S5>ealty·based Ian .lasyle,!I" A'thu,.anleg&fld!; 5 _ F8n18sy in a CQnlem'pa,aryselllng;S_Superhe,0/he<oicadvenlu,e;7.Amh,opomorphic fSnlasy (e.g., Warership Down!; 8 _Horror/occult; 9 _ Othe' (please w,ite in lhecalegorydesc,ipl'Orl)

3's. Pock lheonea,eaaboul which you would most like toseelantaSygamesdone; 1 _ Strategicswo'dand50'ceryboa,dgames la,my against a,my); 2 _ Tachcal swo'd/lnllSOfOilry boa'dgames (hflfo /lgainst evildoe,l; 3 •QueslladVllntu,e boa,dgames; 4 .. Sword and sorcery,ole-play,ng; 5 _ Quest/adlre<'ltu'e 'olf!-pIay,ng; 6.Classically·baSf!d fantll5y; 7 __ Anth'opamo,phicsociet'es;8 - Horro,/occult;9 _ Other (please w,ite inlhecatego,ydescllptionl.

36. How much money did you Sf)&Ild on lantasy books ,nlhelaSllwetvemonlhsl1 _ under $10; 2 - undfl,$20;3.undf!,$3:l;4.ounderS40;5 __ underS50;6"unde,$00;7- undfl'$70;8- unde<$OO;9- 5810,mo,e

J1.W1la1 pe,centageol the money spenl on fanlasybookswasspentooha'd-cove'booksl1 _ 10%;2.2O'll.;3_3:)'ll.;4_40'll.;.,,;9.~'ll.

JI. How rT\lIny fantasy gllmes do you ownl 0 • none; 1_1;2_2;3_3;4_4;5_51010;6_11101S;7_16to20;8_21to25;9.260'more

39. How did YOO lirsl!ea,n of Aro:s? 1 - A Inend lold meaboul ,1; 2 _ I saw8nadin a scieocelictionmag8lone;3.. I sawanadin awa'gam,ng magaline; 4 _ I saw an adin anolhflf k'nd 01 magazine; 5 _ I saw a COllY al a rlQbbysI0,e;6_lsaw8capyalaloysto,el,eta,lo,whok!salel;7 _ I $IIW a copy al a bool<slore;8 - I 'eadanarllcleaboulAresinanewspape'ormagazine;9_ other

The following questions concern othet frIIIgIUm.S. PickOM~tlltt1tr1t1f>l thlltis moslltuellboullNlchmllglUine.I.lhllWlMWN':Rfffl8Copy;2_18ImostntlWlfbuYIIcopy;3 .. locclISio1WlyooYllcopy.oorldonolhawlIsubsctiption; .. _ I did hllve 8 subsctiprion 10 lhismtlgIIzineinrhepllSI.oolldonottudi'lInymort1;5_ldidhave8subsc,iptionlotht1fr111g8zinein,heptJs{.ool/onlybu~itontheMWssrllndnow;6_ lhaW8SUb·scription to tMmagazm. frxont1 ~ell,rxless; 7. 1M""subscribt1dIO this magllzint1 frx two J'Ht:'l 0,H.ss;8 - IhaVt1 wbsctibt1d to 1M mtlgflline for 3 10 5 ~Ht:'l; 9 _ IMWisubscrib8dtoth/smllgllzintlforOWN5yut:'l.

4O.St,ategyandTactics

41. MOVES

42. The General

44. SpaceGamer

45. $orcerer'sApp,entoce

46. TheO,agon

<17. Sc'er.ceDigesl

ft.Omni

SO. Fanlasy&SclflnceFoction

.51. Galaxy

52, Isaac As'mov SF Magazine

53. Galileo

,54.Sta,log

!'IHst1'II,.rhefollowinggllmtlSonIl1t09SCM.with-,··indic8tingllfJllfliCIJ!IIrlysttongdislikt1forllgtlmtl,lInd''g­8nes~fllvor8b18opinion.PlHSt1f818on1yth0s8

gIImtl! which ~0<1 have ~yN IlIgJlim, lin oppotlf!flt orsoli/llirel lit INst 0IIC1I in the 11151 six monrhs. /fyou haYtInOt~~«J tM gJlmfl in ,hlIl11St si" months, p/tNI~donort81t1irltt1spond "O"in rhespllCt1l. AHgIImtls/istN8tlISPfpvb/ishtHJ.U,*5S01herwi~sPf!Cififld.

.55.Wa'01IheRing

.56. JohnCarlflrolMa,s

57. C,ealu,elhalAte$helx>vgan

.51. Vecto,3

,S9.TitanSI,ike

6O.Sla'9B1e

61. Swo'd&Sorce'y

61. Demons

63.0ungeons&0'lIgonsITSRl

64. Dealhmaze

6.5.0gfeIMGWl

66. The Ch'naWa'

67. DurmIAH!

61. MagocR""lmlAHI

6'). C05m.cEr.counle'sIEPI

70. MeloolMGWI

71. Frflfldom,nlheGalaxy

n.Sl&,IalllYaql

lJ.The8eastlo,dlYaql

74. T'avelle,IGDWI

75. Commando

76.0ivineR,ghlITSRI

Rllfe the fo/iowinggllmtlptOpoUIIsonllSCll!l1o! I to 9;wilhlindiClltingWlfylit~inclinalion'obuytMgIImtlif

pub!ish/1dup lhtoogh 9 indiCIIl;ng II dt1finit8 intention toPU'ChllS8it

77. 21s1 Cenwry: Out Nexl Hundred Ye.irs. Compa,e199:}101BlJ);every asoec t olsocialexistenOilhaschang·ed, Now compa,e 19l(J 10 2(8); w1lal will rT\lIn. society.&nd the nalions 01 thewo,ld be hke 100 yea's Irom nowlWill China ,ndeed reach II slaleol modern ,ndustllalizal!On? Will lheSC/I'cilY of 0;1 d,ive thewo,ld 10 wa' 0'fiMnc'ald'sasle',o,willalte'nateene,gysau,cescomelothe ,escue] How wililhe Middle East and NA TO·Wa'sawPaclenlanglemenlsendl TheseQuesllOnsand olt..e,swillbeexpIOfOO,n2tslCenwry. a plaV'llf-o,ief1ted blJl hea",fy,esea,ched slmulallon uacmg the world's ··'ulu,e·his·lOry'· ',orT1 UXlay to lhe enll of lhe next cen\U,y. Two 10eoghl p"'ye's w,1f control the CUrfenl maiO' poIil,cal.ElCOrlOmlC or ,ellglOUS pawers. although 'a'ely will aplaye,'s POWil'·base ,etaln lhe same !lflQlI,aph,cal 0'ideologIcal stfucture lor the game's du'ation. ht""s,veuse 01 ca'ds, a goo·polihcal map of thewofld. andf,veyea, Game·Turns will keep the game felahvely s,implewhile,nvoIv,nglheplaye<sinalleconomoc,scoentoloc.poIit>eaI,m,lita,yanddiSllStrousdevelapmenlSI1lalmighlOCCU' belween now and 2(8). W,II ,r.clude one map, 168ca,ds,4C(Icountersandexlensi"",sludymalelial

71, PillnefDrooITheXQu,Ch06s1,ucksWlhly;swa,m,ngootofanunexplo,edQUa'lerollhegalaxy,thf!Yb,oughtfi,eanddealhtolhelh lnlyset1ledworldsoflhePeriphe,yThe peaceful ,ac:es ollhe Galactoc Conlederacv wereShoved bad. lheo,worldsdespoiled and lhepopul81i<)nsens.laved. Now they a'e delefm4ned 10 w,nbaock lhe l05tworlds; one by one they will liberale the plarnllS. Pta""lDropl's II s,mulallonofaplanctafymallneland,ng,nthe261hCenlu,y, Usonga \IOOmorphlC map and 200 double·5<00d eotonl"". PillnelDropl WIll fecrealeseve,al SUChplaneta,y assaults by human and allied alien fo,ces

against v~rying numbers of the enemy, who care for !itt~

butVICtClfy at any cost. 8ned on SPl's Sta,SoIdief,PlanerDrop!w;lIret~ilfOf$l2.{X1

". rfleCorpotateWafS:203I. The year is 2031. Thete!lIenQmo.... n~llons. Thetea,enomorepalilicalpart.esThere are no more unions. Only the Co,po,alions exisl.Only the COfpor~llonS prospe,. It has t-n this way fortlljrtYYNrs. Evarsince the series of devastating warswhi(:hcharacterized the end of the201hcenturyeffecl<Vll'Iysounded the death kool 01 the nahon·state. the Cor.porations have grown and prospered. Now the grealmulti.national CorporaTions hold unchaHen<Jl!d pewerThey oontrolthe world's resoo.'ces. They control thewofid·scities. Thlrirpewerislimitedo,.,lybythlrirmutualmistrust rfleCorpot"ate WSfS.2031woold beamulh·Dl!Iyer, multi·scenario simullltio,., of the possibilit>es lorcoofli(:l in such a setting, Each Player wookl &dopt therQle of "The Cha<,man"of h,S OWn corporatio,."engagedin a struggl<:! IOf wealth and POWI!f v", polit~I, ecortOmi(:and/Of mililary mea,.,s with his opposite numbers i,., othercorporaTio,.,s. Included woold be limited warfaresc_rios clepi(:l,ng maJOf "offensives" ,nvolv'ng two.ttwee Of mOfe <x>rpor~tio"'s ilS w~1 as a "BraVl! NewWorld"scena'iodepiclingaworld·widerevoltagainstlhecorporations by a secrel society of comm't1ed in·dividuahslS and an Armageddon scena,io fOf up to si~

players whi(:h wookl el'\d with one player i,., conlrol 01 thewofidortheoot"eglobeared~tivecinder.Theent"e

gamut 01 political al'\d military weapons woold be~aitable including assasso,.,s, agitprop r>ets. orb<talweapons platforms. NBC systems and convent,o"",llal'\d.~irand see units. among Olhers. Two maps depicting theentireglobe,8Xlcoonters, $16

10. lssetbursr. A lull sile-mep game, dealin!l with ~

fightet-to--lighte' bettleovef a future city. Each playerwouklcont,oIalighterSQU<Jdron,Ol'leplllyer trying to at·18Ckend deslroythe city ami ilSgroon<lU<l1!SI,ncludi"llespecial p,esidentilll envoy!. and theolherplaye'~t1empl'

i"ll tohurlba<;k lhedefooders, by using his smalHlr lighterlorce. armed ground units, and lower lOP IaSllf tunets toblow the enemy out of The skies, while keeping the impOft~"tg,ound units, buildings, ~nd thep<esident. ,""Ie from~m. The game would use simultaneous movement,wilh many movement ~nd fire oplio,.,s for the fighte,s,~nd ~ special damage system that can cripple a ship's\Ilms.jets, Of deslroy it all together. Oamegewould benaled on the ,""me S~ts that the si·moves woold beW'fittenon. thisst\eeT being specially lormalled for justthat.natunlikelhe8srrlefleerMiJrsfleetrecords~ts

To win wooid reqUire ca'eful strategy to OUl1hin~ theenemy lightefs, especially when YOU haveol'le on your"ia<!".a"d muSl use specoal maneuvers or the brakingtechnique to shake him of!. AIt.in·all. 8 true game ofstrate!lV. Tosellfor $t2

'1. Wa,oftfleWestemReach. TheTerranConleclera.,"on end the Centa",an Allianceh~vebeencoloniling thearchipelago wOfld of Poseidon fOf overe century. Thepecul"r ~tu'eol the ptanet and the lack of high·technology resources prevented the inhabilams homlllinking about anything butsufv,vel; nOW,bothcotoniesareViftuallvself·sulfici'mt MeanWhile,tens,onru"sh,ghbetween Conlederat,on and AII",oce, end Poseidonbecomes lhesite 01 the Itrsl "bfush·!i,e" war betwee,., thetwogr""thumenpewers. Ptayerscontrolmihtarylorceswhich include hove,coall, amphibiOUs assault vehtdes,space-to·surfaee anack vessels, and ,nfemry. A,.,ythingmore potenl than 2 kiloTO'" tact,cal nuclear weapons ISeschewed by both forces, lIS the geoIogiCiJI strUClUre ofthehomeislarn!sis,eleTivelV"~g;le. St,ategvwill have tobelormulated W;th both the enemy and the nature of thepl!tnetinmind.lnlldditiOfl,polit>calconsic!erat,onmuslbegiven 10 COflfederation·Aliianc8 relalions, and to thosewho actVocate sall·gove".,ment fOf Poseidon. Wa, of tfleW....ternRtNJChwilibethej"stope.-alio""llevele~pIOfa·tionolsurfacewa,f8feinlhedi~tantluture.W,lIinclude

one map, poIiT~1 end t<tCticai d.splays, 4(X}counters ~nd

(hooefullyl~b<tekgroundstOfY. $17to$2O.

U. rfle Field 8t Danny/lne. rhe Masters of Soh'tude is animportantnewscll!<lCllficlio,.,novel,co·itUthofedbyMar·m KaVll ~nd P~,ke Godwin. Set in an America twomillennia hence, lhe StOry pits the p,imitive. buttelellet~llyad~t,tribesagairtStthetech'lOlogically

sophisticatedCily. TheCi1Yhas,solaled't~lfromthe

trt>e5bymeansoftheSelf·Gale,whichdeslroysthemir.dof ....y who dare IOcrQSS il. To fU'lher discourage theuibesmen. the peooleof the Cily havtl bee,., hiringmercenanes to systematically kill membefs of lhose lrIbeswhoch mighl seek enuaoce 10 the C,ty Gari(:k of lheSflarKIolriberealil8Sll'oatthet,ibes'survivalisdeptlfldent

onlhetechnologyollheCity,amlso~ssevetaltribes

to do battle with the City's mercenaries at OennylineGarick hn meny mofe troops than his counterpart.Callan, but Callan is ~ f~, SUperiOf military slrategist. Themerce"",ries also have flamethrowers. The tribes mustdefeat the merce"",ries before sundown, 01 lhemercenariesw;1I be able 10 link up with e mercenary a'myfrom the north, Oannylinecanbesimuiatedusingasimplecomb;Jt system, wilh rules messing terrain,flamelh,owers, te4epathiceb<fities,andespecially\e.adefship la renegad-e mercena'y commander won the batHefOfthetribesl, The limetable imPOSl!d upon the tribes wiltmake lor a tense, e~citing caPSUNlllame, which mey beiociudedi,.,Arss.

13.88tb!J,ilmKings.Thesavageandsorcerousco,.,tinemof Queme.-ya ioctudes meny powerful city,slales. Each;sledbyoneofthegreatHeJO·King~,whoseef:tounilythe

va,ious peoples into one powerful fIlllion. Everynatk".,;sassembling its mulli.raciat Brmies. levyin!l ta~es andrec,uiling wiza,ds to their service. Thewinl'le' ollhismassive STruggle will become Overlord of Quame<ya.Each ptllye, is assigned One prov'nceaml a Heto·King.F'omhis inihalallotment 01 bezantsandHero Po,ms,thepl~yermustchooseabilitiesj",hiS Hero--King and deler·m,,,e the composition of his army, The combat u,.,its ~re

d,vided by type (archef. infantry, etc.1 ami rac:e (alves,goblins,etc.l.Ml!fcen3ryleadersmu51behifedto~da',

mies, and w;za'ds must be employed to cast spellsa,.,dConduCl,esea,ch. The player who leads hisc'lY-5tate toconHol of the most p,ovince will become the OverIOfd0I'lecapsu1e·silemap,2OClcounters.andr~alivelyshOft

rules. sa114. CltBdel of Blood. A fenlasy role-plaVin!l game uSingThe OeiJrhff'lille game sYSlem, bul set in the Valley of lheG,eat Sword, firsl populariZed i" SPl's Swords iJndSrm:ery. From one to "ve players enter lhe Citadel ot8Jood in search of The Heligate. the ffidder1 talismanwhichwllS the foundalio,., of the pawer 01 lheOealhJord01 Arehelm. The gllme woold include the entife gamut ofcharacters and species from the swOfd arn! sorcerycosmoJo!ly, but would be presented in a se"ous formet2IXlcounters, 12pagerulebook,nomep. $S.

Magic Capsules: Ulling the same fo<m8t BS the just ·re­leased SfNlct! Capsule !I~~, we ~re planning ~ series 01fantllSY ~nd mythical games that WOIJld feeturequick·pl~ying. highly developed, novel systems that havebeeon ClIrf!lully balanced lor competitive play. The gamesWOIJldeach includesbout50counters,sn 11" x 17" map.~ndfourpagesofrtJles.

85. Tfle FiJf/en Angel. Luc,ferand h,shoodes rise up tocontestlhea,changels in lheultimete power struggle.

16. FiJnethtlMiJd.BesedontheSOrt:er8fworld,Fanetheall·colorsorcete, has go"" med and mustbedeleated bythe lesser wilards belore he becomes ell powerful.

'7. Crazy World. In a r811lm where physicallllws changei,., diuying succession, adventu'l!fsvl8 for !lIOfY and sur·v"'~, EachGame·Turnpresentsdillerentt\Jles:"oO<1eisever sure what natural laws apply, The impoSSible OCCI.'rsevery day on lh,s topsy·turvy world

U. Merlin. Thekn,ghtsolthefoundtable,Mood'ed, A,·lhu'andtheoldwll~rdba1tleac'ossCamelot

89. Asgard. Odin, ThOfand lhemhe, NOfse gods delendlhe" fealm "9l'inst Loki and the great trolt UP"si"llSpoctal'ainbowbfidgerules

90. Against MiJgk. It is the dawn of the Age of Ma,." Thestrength of the Elder Aaces is ebbing fast, befOfethemighl of the vibrant human powers. It is a tome 01 chaos,wilh many human states warnng "9l'inst each othet asolten as they ballie non·humens. Most 01 all;l is the timeof the f"st great so,cerersBnd sorceresses, when lhehuman pot""",,1 p'oves itself. Against Megic will be anadaptation of the Swords and Soteery game syslam,combinin!l personal end army combat to itlustrate lhefolesoftheg'ealent,tiesof lMlday, To sell fo, $15-20

91. How manv s",,,,,ce l+chO'" and fantasy magazines doyouregularlybuYOfrece,vebysubsc"pTion1 1_t;2_2:3_ 3;4_4...;9_ go'more

92. How many se,er>ce lictoon magazines IOmni, ScienceDigest, etc.ldoyou'eguiarlybuvorrecelvebYSubserip.hon!t _ 1:2_ 2;3_ 3;4_4...;9_90rmo,e

93-96. Noquest,ons

Dn thfl FeedbiJckciJt(/. pleasliinciudeyou,three fllvoritesciencefktionlfllntasYllu/hot's.

39~U"_lromPfl,.J4/

only for those who like die-rolling exercises.The second or "Army Game" is muchgreater in scope, taking into account themilitary struggle between Sauron and theFree Peoples. The Army Game capturesmuch of the richness of the mythos whichwas absent in the Character Game. The useof cards, pioneered in this system. allows forthe inclusion of more data than could beplaced on unit counters. Other cards may beplayed to represent random events. magicalitems of use to the characters, and thesearch capacity of Sauron's minions. Twomajor problems mar this otherwise excellentgame: the atrocious rules and the player'shindsight lIhe climax of the novel ispredicated on Sauron not being aware of theFellowship's intentions!. The first issomewhat mitigated by the thorough atten·tion to detail (a reader of the novel will beable to piece together many solutions), andthe second is reduced by the uncertainty ofthe card play. Games 01 War of (he Ringrange from predictable to cliff-hanging. gut­wrenching suspense. Fairly complex, and re­quires several hours to play. Not for thosewho have not read the Ring Trilogy. 7fDRJ

White Bea, & Red Moon (TelG. Stafford2rx25y.· map. 252 p/8ylng pieces, £lJ-pageruies, rese8lableplasticbag, $10.00.

When Greg Stafford first published WhiteBear & Red Moon, he knew very little aboutgaming; he was, however, obsessed withGlorantha, a fantasy world of his creation.and felt the need to describe the conflictsand wars of its long history. His inexperiencewith gaming resulted in poor rules andawkward systems; regardless, Whire Bear &Red Moon is one of the lew games whichcan safely be described as a work of art.Despite its relative obscurity. it has spawneda whole host of imitators - the rabble maynot recognize its worth, but the communityof designers does. White Bear & Red Moonis less a game than a descripti~n of an entireculture. In a short rulesbook, It prOVtdes aninsight into the religions, governments, andideologies of whole peoples; descriptions 01weird and imaginative alien races; the ra·tionales for several competing kinds ofmagic; and the biographies 01 the greatestheroes 01 the age. Further. despite its occa­sional awkwardnesses, While Bear & RedMoon is an enjoyable and fast·playing game.

SIGel

Other science fiction and lantasygamesnot reviewed are listed below. BH stands forBattleline/Heritage; DC stands for the DaveCasciano Company; FB for Flying Bullalo;andTYR for Tyr Gamemakers.

Alpha Omega (BHI; Arms R~ce IDC); Ba"1e of Fivtl Ar·mies (TSRl; BUshido (TVA I; Cerberus lTFGI; Or8g<""LOfds fFGUII; Eltie ITCI; Empire 01 the Pelll Throne(TSRI; Gamme Wofid nSAI; Gondor ISPI); Hot Spot(MCI; The Iliad (GOWI; IT (OCI; Kin!l AnhIJr ISPlI; LOMsami Wizards (FGUIJ: Nomad Gods !TCI; Objective:Moscow ISPI); Rift TrOOP'lf lOCI; S~uro,., (SPIJ; SpeceOuest (TVR); Spellmak.., (BHI; St~rFall (Vaql; St~,

Fightet (BHI; Starfire (TFGI; StarF""'t Ballles (TFGl;St~rGate ISPI); SUltsh;pS ~nd SpeCemefl IFGUIl; Sllr­Soldier ISPIJ; Stompl !TCI; Strange New Worlds (BHI;Titan Strike (SPlI; Tripla""t~ry mOWI; Tunr.els ~nd

Trolls IFBI; VectOf 3 (SPIl; W~, of the Sta, Slaven (OCI;War of Wizards nSR); War;> W~r fMCI; W~rriors of theO~rlc Star IDC); Wizard (MCI; Wizard's Quest IAHI; TheVthrilMCI.

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BOIh simulation gaming and Ihe science fiction/fantasy milieu deal with varietiesof the possible, and Ares is the natural product of this synergy. Each issuecontains a complete capsule-sized science fiction or fantasy simulation, two ormore science fiction or fantasy short stories by recognized writers in the genre,articles on science fiction and fantasy game design and play, and reviews andservice features dealing with all forms of science fiction, fact, and fantasy.Rates: / year (6 issues): $/4.00. 2 years (/2 issues): $26.00.Single Issue: $3.00.

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