REVIEW: Tracker Tokens

Among the many aspects of old school gaming that the OSR has brought into sharper focus is the notion that resource management is an important part of playing Dungeons & Dragons as it was originally conceived. This isn't just ivory tower theorizing either; it's something that the older rulebooks emphasized both directly and indirectly. It also squares with my remembrance of how we played D&D back in the day, when keeping track of just how many iron spikes your character was carrying or how long your torch had been burning could mean the difference between life and death.

It also meant keeping track of encumbrance -- something I've never enjoyed. I did it, of course, because the rulebooks said you were supposed to do so, but I didn't like it; I still don't. It's one of many ways in which I am a less than ideal old school referee. It's also one of the reasons why I've been hoping to find an alternative to the various persnickety approaches to encumbrance found in the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons. The closest I have seen so far is the system presented in Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which tracks not weight but the number of items, the rationale being that "encumbrance" is as much about bulkiness as it is about weight.

Tracker Tokens from Faster Monkey Games (no designer is listed) employs a similar line of thought, but with the addition of a simple graphical interface to facilitate the tracking of a character's equipment. This interface consists of two cardboard container sheets and 50 cardboard tokens, both illustrated in full cartoonish color by Jim Wampler of Marvin the Mage fame (about which I've spoken before). These sheets depict several different types of containers -- backpack, quiver, sack, bandolier, and small and large pouches. Each type can hold a certain number of items, ranging from 25 for the backpack to 1 for a small sack.

The tokens represent different types of adventuring gear -- torches, oil, rations, etc. -- each of which can occupy a single space in a container, though several arrows or bolts can do so. As the instructions on the back of one of the sheets explains:

Don't worry about exact weights or sizes: when a container is full, it's full. The referee decides how much is too much to carry, and can collect used tokens or hand out new ones as supplies change.

There are thus no rules associated with Tracker Tokens; it's just a tangible way to keep track of the fiddly little items that many lazy players and referees -- like me -- would otherwise not keep track of. In that respect, it's not so much a replacement for an encumbrance system so much as a way to get a handle on how many arrows or flasks of oil a character is carrying. The only drawback, of course, is that every players needs a set of Tracker Tokens for himself and, while the product isn't expensive -- $7.99 -- it is an additional purchase, meaning that not every player will want to buy them.

That cavil aside, I really like the idea behind Tracker Tokens and can imagine using them at my table. Yes, it could be called a "gimmick," but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Often gimmicks are just what players need in order to be encouraged to pay attention to things they might otherwise overlook -- like whether they brought enough iron spikes to nail those double doors shut before the rampaging minotaurs squash them.

Presentation: 9 out of 10
Creativity: 7 out of 10
Utility: 7 out of 10

Buy This If: You'd like to make keeping track of adventuring supplies easier with the use of a simple graphical interface.
Don't Buy This If: You think pencil, paper, and a good memory are all you need to remember how many torches your character has.

Holmes on Distance

I'm always finding sections of the various D&D rulebooks that I don't ever remember reading before. Perhaps that's simply a testament to my advancing age (or poor reading skills -- take your pick), I don't know. Regardless, I recently came across this small aside in the J. Eric Holmes-edited D&D Basic Set where the good doctor says:

Since DUNGEONS & DRAGONS was originally written for wargamers who are used to miniature figures, distances are often given in inches. Inches can be converted to feet by multiplying b ten: 1 inch = 10 feet, 2 inches = 20 feet, etc. This scales movement appropriately for maneuvering the figures on the top of a gaming table.

It's an interesting aside for several reasons, the foremost being that I like how Holmes makes an effort explain the origin of using inches for movement and scale in D&D. As a kid, I was initially quite baffled by this presentation in the Monster Manual and (later) the Players Handbook. I'm not sure that AD&D ever explains it; instead it simply assumes that readers will know the convention. I'm pretty sure I learned it from one of the older guys I knew, perhaps even my friend Mike's teenage brother.

The second reason why the aside is interesting is that the Holmes rulebook doesn't use inches in its text by and large. Both spells and monster movement rates are given in feet, in contrast to OD&D and AD&D, which retain the inches convention. Personally, I don't have any problem with using inches, since it's now second nature to me to translate between inches and feet when reading old school D&D books, but I nevertheless thought it notable that, even back in 1977, Holmes thought it worth explaining the usage and where it came from.

Retrospective: Grenadier Models AD&D Figure Sets

As everyone who reads this blog is probably tired of hearing by now, I entered the hobby in late 1979, just before the faddish explosion of popularity of Dungeons & Dragons catapulted it to public consciousness. In the wake of its popularity came a wide variety of articles in newspapers and magazines that talked about this "weird game," often with photographs depicting players sitting around a table on which were arranged a large number of finely painted miniature figures. In retrospect, I can fully understand why this was the case. "Fantasy roleplaying" was a hard concept to get across in an article, so, to ground it a bit, miniatures were highlighted, since they helped make RPGs seem a bit more like the games with which the average person was familiar.

Even though the Holmes Blue Book edition of D&D with which I started was insistent on the optional status of miniature figures, I wasn't immune to the lure of these tiny lead statues. Between the mainstream media coverage which linked RPGs to minis and the older guys I knew who played the game and used them, I very quickly came to see a strong link between miniatures and D&D. And of course the link is solidly grounded in history, given that D&D -- and roleplaying more generally -- is an outgrowth of the miniatures wargaming hobby. Plus, nearly every game stores I visited in the late 70s and early 80s always included a glass cabinet where they displayed dozens of fantasy gaming miniatures for the delectation of kids like myself.

So, even though I didn't need them, I frequently picked up miniatures to use in my games. While my primary criterion in selecting minis was how cool I thought they looked, always in the back of my mind was Gygax's words in the introduction to the then-new AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide that Grenadier Models figures were "the only ones which comply in all respects to AD&D specifications and the AD&D Monster Manual." As such, I bought a lot of Grenadier's boxed sets and blister packs between 1980 and 1982, when they held the official license for the AD&D line. You can see a rather extensive listing -- with photos -- of Grenadier's offerings here.

By today's standards, Grenadier's miniatures are pretty crude, laughably so at times. Even compared to some of their competitors, their sculpts were not always very good. But, for me, the official AD&D seal of approval meant a lot and not merely because I was a ravening TSR fanboy (though I was). What mattered to me is that the miniatures closely matched what I saw in my rulebooks. Thus, Grenadier's goblins and kobolds weren't generic little baddies but baddies that resembled the DCS and Tramp illustrations from my Monster Manual. This fantastical verisimilitude was especially important when it came to D&D-specific creatures like the beholder, the umber hulk, and the rust monster. Grenadier even produced boxed sets that included monsters that appeared only modules, like the yuan-ti, aspis, and cave fisher.

By the time Grenadier ceased producing official AD&D figures, I'd largely decided that I neither wanted nor needed to buy miniatures for use with my games. As it was, I mostly used minis as "props" to hold up to my players rather than anything more elaborate. And even when I did make use of cardboard dungeon floorplans, most of my minis remained unpainted and insufficient in number or diversity to represent everything included in my adventures. Still, there was something potent about those Grenadier miniatures, potent enough that, even now, three decades later, I find myself frequently thinking about them and imagining using them at my table alongside contemporary old school sculpts like those of Otherworld Miniatures and Fractured Dimensions (which, coincidentally, is currently trying to raise funds for produce four sets of pig-faced orcs). If that doesn't say something good about Grenadier's body of work, I don't know what does.

Yet More French D&D Art

In July and August, I'd made two posts in which I shared some of the images from the French-language edition of the D&D Basic Set I received back in the early 80s. Here are a few more, this time from the monster section. My apologies if the scans of some of them are a little blurry toward one side. In some cases, I'm not certain who the artists associated with each image are, so please let share any insights you have in the comments (or correction when my attributions are mistaken).

These are acolytes drawn by Timothy Truman.

This is a cube gélatineux by Jim Holloway.

A furet géant by Jim Holloway.

A gorille blanc by Jeff Easley.

An imitateur parfait by Timothy Truman.

Limon vert by Jim Holloway.

An ours-hiboux by Jeff Easley.

A troglodyte by Jeff Easley.

It's a very idiosyncratic collection of monster illustrations. I find myself, in retrospect, wondering why these particular monsters were chosen for illustration rather than others that are either more "iconic" to D&D or else harder to visualize. Mind you, I feel that way about the illustration choices in many roleplaying game books, so it's not unique to the French-language version of Dungeons & Dragons.

OSRCon: Dwimmermount, Session 2

I'd intended to post the second of my OSRCon 2012 reminiscences sooner, but better late than never, I suppose. On the morning of the second day of the con, I ran Level 1 of Dwimmermount for a different group of people, including several fellow bloggers: Brendan S, Ramanan Sivaranjan, and Steve Connor, in addition to four others.

As with my previous session, all the players generated their characters on the spot, using the LBBs + Supplements. I really enjoyed this aspect of the session, both because it's fun to see newcomers try and make their way through the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons for the first time and because it's such a delightfully fast process. Generating OD&D characters at the table takes 5-10 minutes tops, even less if you streamline equipment selection through the use of utilities like this one. (That link leads to a blog post by Brendan Strejcek that, at the time, I somehow didn't connect with him, so it led to the amusing situation in which I recommended its use to its creator without realizing it).

One of the great aspects of rolling up characters at the table is that it helps players get into the proper spirit of things. I'm not, by nature, a high lethality referee (if my old school cred card hasn't already been revoked, this ought to do it), but I also don't shy away from killing off characters if that's what the dice dictate. Experience has taught me that this is a lot easier for all involved if characters are created using 3d6-in-order and character generation is kept simple so that rolling up a new one mid-game isn't an arduous affair. Plus, it leads to characters like this being played rather than discarded as untenable:

A joy unique to con play (and, to a lesser extent, Google+ hangout games) is watching different people explore the same stretch of the dungeon. The differences in play style and approach become readily apparent when you play sessions temporally close to one another, as I did at OSRCon. Whereas the Friday night group was rather cautious, even timid (with the exception of Ken St. Andre's berserker magic-user), the Saturday morning group was much more bold. Indeed, they seemed to relish poking, prodding, and generally trashing Dwimmermount in order to determine how everything worked (or didn't, as the case may be).

The differences between the two groups highlighted for me that dungeons (and adventure modules in general, I suppose) can't be used in just one way. Everyone approaches them from their own perspective, which makes the task of producing a "definitive" version of them difficult -- especially since I find that I adapt my own presentation of Dwimmermount (and even its contents in some cases) in response to the actions and expectations of the players. To one group of players, a room whose description -- if it has one -- reads "Former guardroom; wooden debris" is something quickly passed through and forgotten, but to another it's a source of endless fascination, investigation, and experimentation. For the latter group, I often make up details on the spot, details that, if I like them, eventually become permanent parts of the dungeon for future adventurers to find, should they ever make the effort of looking for them.

The other thing that stands out about the second Dwimmermount group is that they actually ventured down into one of the second levels of the dungeon (there are two). I purposely had the players in both groups generated 2nd-level characters in the hopes that, not only would they survive longer, but they'd be better positioned to take on lower levels. So, I was quite pleased when this group did so, since, fond as I am of the 1st level, I've run it a lot over the years, whereas the lower levels are much less well explored, even by my home group. Indeed, there's a lot of the dungeon no one has ever visited.

A final difference between the two groups is that the Saturday group discovered a pretty valuable magic item hidden behind a secret door -- a tome of clear thought. In my mind, I had confused the tome with the manual of puissant skill at arms, thinking that, instead of granting a +1 bonus to Intelligence, it increased the level of the magic-user who read it. Consequently, upon being discovered, the two magic-users diced for possession of it and then elected to leave the dungeon for a time to give the winner a chance to read it thoroughly. The rest of the group healed and re-equipped and they returned with a 3rd-level magic-user in their party. Aside from my obvious screw-up, this was interesting to me, since most con groups don't bother with leaving the dungeon for any length of time, instead forging ahead regardless of the cost. I found it a smart decision and so saw no reason not to allow it. Plus, it gave me a chance to use my dungeon restocking tables.

It was another good session and a reminder of the unique joys of playing with strangers, something I hadn't done since I was a youth, back in the ancient days when it seemed like D&D games broke out spontaneously whenever three or four kids were in the same place for any length of time. I highly recommend the experience, particularly for referees.

Ares Magazine: Issue #14

Issue #14 of Ares was published in the Spring of 1983. It was also, according to the opening editorial by Michael Cook, "the first issue ... done totally under the auspices of TSR Hobbies, Inc." Cook notes that he still has a backlog of submissions acquired from SPI, so that, for the time being, the content of the magazine will "remain much the same as in the past." Nevertheless, there will be a "general improvement" in all aspects of the magazine now that TSR is in charge. I'm no SPI partisan, but, in retrospect, it's not difficult to read Cook's editorial and see it as arrogance. I'm not certain it was intended as such, even if it comes off that way, with its implication that things would now be "improved" under the new management. It's little wonder, then, that relations between SPI's customers and TSR so quickly deteriorated and that Ares would have so few issues as an independent periodical under TSR.

Issue #14 begins with another installment of "Science for Science Fiction" by John Boardman, Ph.D. Gone is "Facts for Fantasy," since, as noted in last issue, TSR would be making Ares a wholly science fiction-oriented journal. Following it is another "science fact" article, "The Troubled Sun," by Dave Stover. This fairly length piece discusses the life cycle of stars, with particular emphasis on our own Sun. It's not a bad article, as these things go, but it's fairly dry and it's applicability to gaming is neither obvious nor explored.

Christopher John continues his movie reviews, this time tackling High Road to China, Videodrome, and Blue Thunder, all of which he liked to varying degrees. Meanwhile Ian Chadwick has been placed in charge of a section devoted to software reviews, with Crush, Crumble, and Chomp getting some attention, along with Sword Thrust. Greg Costikyan turns in more book reviews, none of which are particularly memorable in my opinion. There's also a pair of game reviews -- Invasion: Earth and Dragon Pass. Perhaps because I'm familiar with the games in question, I found these reviews interesting. It's worth noting that, overall, all the reviews have a much more positive and less sarcastic tone than did those published in the early days of Ares. Speaking as someone who finds little pleasure in acidic reviews, I find this a welcome change.

Timothy Truman provided the cover to this issue (again), as well as a black and white comic called "Braskan Gambit," which ties into the issue's integral wargame, The Omega War. It's an engaging enough comic if you like Gamma World-style post-apocalyptic barbarians with lasers science fantasy but otherwise nothing special. The Omega War game itself, by David Ritchie, is intriguing, at least from a world design standpoint. The game takes place in the 25th century, in the aftermath of a nuclear war between Europe and North America, which left the latter devastated. One player takes on the role of the High Commissioner for North America, appointed by the new World Union, whose task it is to restore order to the anarchic wasteland of the New World. The other play takes on the role of the North American rebels who resist this effort. The game can be won either through military action or by political influence, which I think gives it some depth. That said, I find the little details about the setting that come through in the rules, along with map of North America, much more fascinating than the game itself.

The issue rounds up with an article by David Ritchie called "The Alpha of Omega," which is part design article and part love letter to the pulps. In it, Ritchie talks about the pulp inspirations that led to the creation of The Omega War and the difficulties inherent in producing post-apocalyptic science fantasy. It's a really good article that held my attention and the kind of thing I wished Ares had published more of. I'm honestly more interested in the inspirations of a game than in the niceties of its game mechanics, but I'm probably weird that way.

In any event, reading this issue of Ares is something of an odd experience. Knowing as I do the ultimate fate of the magazine -- and SPI's properties -- lends a kind of slow motion train wreck feel to the whole thing. It's a shame, because I think Ares always had potential as a magazine, but that potential was never fully realized under either SPI or TSR.

REVIEW: The Crimson Pandect

Of all the many things there are to love about old school D&D and its clones, I think the one I personally enjoy the most is the ease with which one can modify its rules by cherrypicking good ideas from other games and supplements. Though I play Labyrinth Lord these days, it's a heavily modified Labyrinth Lord, one that borrows rules from a number of different sources. As I play, I continue to modify it, adding whatever I come across that seems to fit my vision of fantasy.

That's why I'm a big fan not only of new rules sets but also of supplements, like Kevin Crawford's The Crimson Pandect. Written as a supplement for the excellent Red Tide campaign setting, this 132-page product (available either as a PDF for $9.99, a softcover book for $19.99, or a hardcover for $24.99) is "a handbook of eldritch lore" that's easily adaptable to other settings. Consisting of five chapters plus a brief introduction, The Crimson Pandect provides a plethora of new options for magic and spellcasting in Labyrinth Lord or most any other class-and-level fantasy roleplaying game.

The first chapter, "Paths of Power," presents six new magic-using classes. These classes are astromancers, the Kuan Amelatu, Makerite theurgists, adepts of the Mountain Way, Nine Immortal alchemists, and the Shakunasar flesh-benders. These are in addition to the standard magic-user class, represented by the High Path sorcerers and Stitched Path vivisectionists. The new classes differ primarily in their spell selection, though most of the classes also get minor abilities, while the two variations of standard MUs differ solely in terms of flavor. Taken together, these eight classes offer a wide range of interesting options, each of which is mechanically similar while being distinct, mostly through unique spell lists and cultural/philosophical details. To my mind, this is an ideal approach to the introduction of new classes and is particularly well suited to old school games.

The second chapter, "Works of Sorcery," introduces a system of research points to aid in the creation of new spells and magic items. It's a simple and open-ended system, which nevertheless provides plenty of examples and guidance for the referee in adjudicating it. What I like is that it covers everything from potions to scrolls to weapons and armor and beyond. Likewise, mentors, apprentices, and even hirelings have roles to play in the process, which gives them good reason to be included in a campaign. The third chapter, "Sanctums," covers the building -- and staffing -- of magical strongholds. It's shorter and more straightforward but just as useful.

The fourth chapter, "Dark Cabals," presents a series of random tables for generating arcane academies, conclaves, and sorcerous cults. These can be used in conjunction with the "Quick Wizard Generation" tables provided in the fifth chapter, "Resources." These tables are excellent, with lots of depth and variety. A few D20 rolls and you can learn why a wizard took up spellcasting, his immediate desires, friends, enemies, clothing tastes, and more. Also provided in this chapter are quick wizard spellbooks, random arcane treasures, and random occult tomes. It's a very useful chapter, but that didn't surprise me, since Kevin Crawford's gaming products, both for Labyrinth Lord and Stars Without Number has always excelled in this area.

Like most Sine Nomine products, The Crimson Pandect won't win any awards for its layout or artwork. The book uses a simple, two-column format and is sparsely illustrated with a combination of clip art and some original pieces. However, it's well written and imaginative and, most important of all, useful. This is a product that can be easily used in almost any old school fantasy campaign, though its new classes probably work best in the context of the Red Tide campaign setting. If The Crimson Pandect has a "flaw," it's that it's a very focused product and is thus likely to only of immediate interest to those who want to expand the scope of magic and spellcasting in their campaigns. It's wholly supplemental, too, even to Red Tide, so there's is no necessity in purchasing it, though I think the new classes, research system, and resources alone make it worth a look, if only as a source of ideas.

Presentation: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 8 out of 10
Utility: 6 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for rules and ideas to expand the options of magic and spellcasting in Labyrinth Lord or other old school class-and-level games.
Don't Buy This If: You're not interested in new magic and spellcasting options.

More Greg Bell Swipes

It's pretty widely known at this stage that OD&D artist, Greg Bell -- who, amusingly, shares his name with one of my childhood gaming buddies -- "borrowed" a lot of his illustrations from Marvel comics from the late '60s and early '70s. I even wrote a post about this way back in 2009. While I understand that "swiping" (as it is known) is a controversial in comics circles, I'm not much bothered by it in the case of Bell's OD&D pieces, perhaps because it only further emphasizes just how amateurish the 1974 game and its initial supplements were. Rather than finding these swipes annoying, I find them strangely charming.

Consequently, when reader Ake Rosenius pointed out several more to me that I'd not seen before, I had to share them with others. My apologies if anyone has already seen these, but they are completely new to me.

First up, here's a side by side comparison of an illustration of Nick Fury and the barbarian appearing in Volume 1 of OD&D. This isn't the first time Bell sought inspiration in an image of the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. The famous "Fight On!" warrior at the end of Volume 3 is also swiped from a drawing of Fury.

Take a look at the warrior in the bottom lefthand panel of an episode of Esteban Maroto's Dax the Damned, which was first published in 1972 but reprinted a couple of times between then and the release of Supplement I.

From the same comic comes this illustration of the wizard in the bottom panel. Bell used this piece as a model for his own depiction of a wizard in Supplement II.

I've never been a big comics reader, so I'd never have noticed these swipes if they hadn't been pointed to me. As more and more people delve into this, I've begun to wonder whether any of Bell's illustrations in OD&D and its supplements is wholly original and without an antecedent in prior art. Again, I say this not in condemnation of Bell, whose work, I think, is a big part of what makes OD&D the game it is. If I might wax philosophical for a moment, I might even go so far as to say that Bell's swipes are an artistic reflection of OD&D itself, which swiped of ideas from earlier books, movies, and comics in creating the fantasy goulash that would eventually colonize the world's imagination.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Edison's Conquest of Mars

When I was a child, one of my favorite stories was The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which I knew from original 1898 novel (and whose opening lines I can still quote from memory to this day) and the 1953 movie I must have one Saturday afternoon while visiting my grandmother. To say that the book had a huge impact on my youthful imagination would be an understatement; for many years after first encountering it I had dreams -- or, perhaps more accurately, nightmares -- of alien invasions of Earth. This is probably what has fueled my lifelong interest in UFOs, extra-terrestrials, and ancient astronauts. And while I'm considerably more skeptical of such things today than I was then (which is to say I don't believe in them at all), I nevertheless retain a great fondness for Wells's masterpiece.

Consequently, when I recently learned of the existence of an unauthorized sequel to The War of the Worlds, also published in 1898, I was greatly intrigued. Called Edison's Conquest of Mars, the novel was written by Garrett P. Serviss, an American astronomer, and was initially serialized in the New York Evening Journal. It was later collected together and published as a whole in 1947 by Carcosa House. Since then it's been republished, often in abridged form, by several other publishers, but you can also read it online, since it's now in the public domain.

Like much late 19th century literature, Edison's Conquest of Mars is very long and given to extensive digressions that detract from one's enjoyment. Serviss's prose is baroque and oddly composed, but it's worth enduring because his ideas are interesting and, in retrospect, prescient, at least insofar as science fiction goes. Written in the first person, from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, Edison's Conquest of Mars begins by both revealing its connection to Wells's original and by immediately expanding on it, as any good sequel ought:

It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form.

The Martians had nearly all perished, not through our puny efforts, but in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their projectile cars, inflicting their cruelest blow in the act of departure.

From this, Serviss goes on to explain that the fleeing Martians had left behind "a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance" in Bergen County, New Jersey -- a device so powerful that it destroyed what remained of New York and the surrounding towns. The destruction not only slays tens of thousands of people, but causes seismic shocks in Britain and on the continent of Europe. In the aftermath of the Martian invasion and the destruction of New York,

Differences of race and religion were swallowed up in the universal sympathy which was felt for those who had suffered so terribly from an evil that was as unexpected as it was unimaginable in its enormity.

Fearing that the Martians might choose to return to Earth to deliver a death-blow against a weakened mankind, the greatest human minds begin a desperate race to understand the Martians' technology and harness it so that they might be repulsed should this inevitable second attack come. Though Lord Kelvin, Herr Roentgen, and others throw themselves into this great task, it is -- as one might expect, given the story's title -- Thomas Edison who succeeds and gives humanity the means to defend itself against the alien invaders from the Red Planet.

Edison's first invention after understanding the Martians' machinery is to build a "flying ship," which uses the "principle of electrical attraction and repulsion" to overcome gravity. A test flight to the Moon proves Edison's genius, a fact made all the more apparent by his invention of a "disintegrator" weapon. Now, the nations of Earth -- led by the United States, "whose leadership was never for a moment questioned abroad" -- meet in Washington to decide what to do with these great discoveries and how best to protect humanity from the Martian threat.

Though initially considering a defensive posture in dealing with the Martians, the assembled leaders of the world come to agree that a better option is an offensive one -- taking the wars to Mars rather than waiting for it to return to Earth. With each nation pledging men and materiel for this cosmic effort, Edison then sets about building a fleet of flying ships, armed with disintegrators, to send into the void of space. In addition, Edison invents spacesuits, an "aerial telegraph," and other marvels to assist in the coming war. The human fleet stops first at the Moon, which they discover was once inhabited but was now a dead world. They also discover gems, crystals, and other materials that might aid them in the construction of yet more devices to use against the Martians.

The story continues on at some length, describing both the wonders Earth men encounter and their preparations for war. As I said, Serviss is a windy writer, given to extensive digressions and his prose leaves much to be desired in terms of beauty. Yet, he throws out so many amazing ideas, from asteroid mining to Martian meddling in Earth's past, that it's hard not to be impressed by the man's imagination, especially when you consider he wrote this story in 1898, well before most of these things had become staples of science fiction literature. Edison's Conquest of Mars is, frankly, an amazing novel from a historical perspective, even if it's far from great literature. 

RIP Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Among the images that symbolize the accomplishments of manned spaceflight is this one of Neil Armstrong on the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969. I was born just a couple of months after that historic event, so, to me, growing up, a lunar landing was never the stuff of science fiction. Rather, I thought it to be a small, first step toward a coming giant leap for mankind. Back then, I fully expected that, by the time the year 2000 (or, perhaps, 2001) rolled around, we'd have a moon base and be exploring the rest of the solar system, not with robot probes but with human beings like the courageous Neil Armstrong, who died last Saturday at the age of 82. And while I fully understand why that childhood dream has not come to pass, I can't deny that I'm still disappointed. Here's hoping that, before I die, I might once again marvel at the heroism of men walking on the surface of a world other than our own.