The Unseen Servant forums

You are correct it is the cast from Firefly.

- In The God Conscience, post #1, the words of Romtifex the Illuminated, AI-IV, are adapted from Faith Magazine, May 2018, article "Are all religions simply different paths to the same god?" by Doug Culp.

- In The God Conscience, post #40, discussion of religion is taken from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/faith-re/

- In The Apogee of Memory, the Spectre-IV story arc is taken from Ghost V, by Robert Sheckley, Galaxy Magazine, Oct, 1954. The lifeboat sequence is drawn from The Lifeboat Mutiny, by Robert Sheckley, as dramatized on X Minus One radio show, Sept. 11, 1956. You can listen to it free here. The Mechano-Therapist sequence is drawn from Bad Medicine, by Robert Sheckley (as Finn O'Donnovan), adapted by X Minus One radio show, July 10, 1956. You can listen to it here.

The references to sources is nice. Really interesting.

These little adventures are mash-ups of stuff in my head, or heard, read or watched, with certain events or arcs known but the path there, and ultimate ending, unknown. Apogee was heavy on Sheckley, who's a great author, though its going in a different direction now.

The characters in Urth’s Orphans and in Apogee of Memory (for a little while) are in the flying space city of Starhaven. That name is taken from the Robert Silverberg (as Ivar Jorgenson) novel.



Flying cities were a funny SF concept in the early days.





But then "scientifically" extropolated to a degree in James Blish’s Okie novels.

What are folks reading/watching now?

I’m reading The Siege of Wonder by Mark Geston, about a world of science vs magic. Watching the final season of The Man in the High Castle. Listening to a great improv SF parody podcast called Mission to Zyxx.

Watching 'Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams' on Amazon. Really good IMO, but I don't know how faithful the stories are to the old original ones.

Reading 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis USN. About a cyber war and shooting war between the U.S. and China. The admiral officer was NATO's supreme commander, so I'm guessing it's based on real life projections. Really good, a page-turner and not very long.

In the Apogee of Memory storyline, the Kloros encounter arc ( starting at viewtopic.php?p=556435#p556435 ) was inspired by Isaac Asimov’s short story C-Chute, first published in the October, 1951, issue of Galaxy Magazine. It was adapted in an episode of the radio show X Minus One, which you can hear at: https://www.relicradio.com/otr/2020/09/ ... minus-one/

Apple TV is doing Asimov’s Foundation series. I saw the first episode, it was alright in its own way and visually interesting. 'Inspired' by the story is more accurate than 'based' on.

An unconscious influence on the story line of The God Conscience is this book. I realized this as I came across it again recently, having read it about two years ago. Though the book has nothing of religion in it.

The concluded brief adventure The Beta Model was based on the Robert Sheckley short story Early Model, as dramatized on X Minus One, July 11, 1957, available free at https://s3.amazonaws.com/RE-Warehouse/x ... _model.mp3
One can hear how the player's version was similar and disimilar to the story.

"The Beta Model" was a good story and a really fun RPG adventure. Speaking of old-ish SF, does anyone know if any of Harlan Ellison's stories have been made into films or animations?

Youtube is full of his many interviews on tv and speeches, which you’ve probably seen. He did lots of tv scripts for sf shows which can be seen, outer limits star trek star lost babylon 5 etc.

Of actual tv adaptations of his stories, it seems less so. A Boy and His Dog, a 1970s film starring a young Don Johnson, adapts Harlans short story. It’s worth seeking out.

Harlan himself did many audiobook recordings of his stuff, and his nonfiction essays, which are very entertaining.

I saw him a few times at conventions, and he was always great, controversial, entertaining, arrogant but usually right storyteller. I visited LA four months or so after his death and went by his Aztec temple style Ellison Wonderland house in Sherman Oaks. His beat up old 80s Honda Civic with the vanity plate was in the driveway.