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SCHLOCK MERCENARY: Resident Mad Scientist Review and Plug
As most of you know, I am and have been for several years a fan of Howard Tayler's magnificent hard-SF Space Opera Comedy Webcomic Schlock Mercenary. Schlock Mercenary focuses on the adventures -- and frequently MISadventures -- of "Tagon's Toughs", a strangely assorted group of space mercenaries led by Captain Kaff Tagon, a hard-bitten military man who is a LOT smarter than he lets people think he is, and featuring the eponymous Sergeant Schlock (see icon), a 500 pound carbosilicate mass which looks if you're charitable like mobile mud with eyeballs, and if you're not charitable looks like something Mike Rowe would have to deal with in the "Dinosaur Cage Cleaning" episode of "Dirty Jobs". Together with the rest of the Toughs, who include everything from the synthetically-created ambassador (previously living bomb) Ch'vorthq (now ship's cook), Ennesby (once an AI for a virtual boy-band, now sort of advisor and gadfly), illegally-boosted human members, Uniocs (a one-eyed species), and Dr. Kevyn Andreyasn, company scientist-engineer who is responsible for the invention of the Teraport drive, a FTL drive system which early in the series completely disrupted the FTL economy of the Galaxy by breaking the monopoly on FTL travel previously held by the Wormgate system (controlled by the extremely nasty F'Sherl-Ganni species who had, until then, been the Hidden Powers in the Galaxy).
Schlock Mercenary is also notable for being one of the few absolutely reliable webcomics. Howard keeps a significant "buffer" of strips at all times (I think I've seen it go over two months) and he posts a new comic every single day, and has done so ever since June 2000 -- more than TEN YEARS of uninterrupted updates.
Schlock Mercenary: Resident Mad Scientist continues the adventures of the Toughs as they perform various missions for "Petey", the super-AI who was once the control system of the Tough's starship "Post-Dated Check Loan" and who later became unified with multiple other AIs to become the nigh-omniscient "Fleetmind". During these missions, they become entangled in missions that place them directly against another expert mercenary force, discover a threat to the Galaxy itself, and force Kevyn (the Resident Mad Scientist of the title) to tamper with the very workings of space and time.
This is one of the best storylines of the series, which is saying quite a bit. It showcases Howard's ability to do something that is incredibly hard: tell a serious SF/Space Opera story while maintaining comedy. Comedy is serious business and it's even harder to do it when you're playing with science-fiction concepts that might make even more serious "real" SF writers balk. Howard handles it all with an aplomb and dash that I can't help but envy. And the little bonus story at the end, featuring Kevyn and Kaff Tagon's retired, hard-as-nails father, is absolutely top notch (and allowed me to finally figure out WHAT THE HELL THAT PICTURE IS in my signed, illustrated copy!)
Thanks for the excellent work, Howard! Keep it up!
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stupid question
(oh great ... another author to investigate ...
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Me, I have a few Schlock refs in my novels, but the biggest one hasn't been published yet (I hope it will be).
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Boundary's refs come from the Carbonan material and the Tayler Corporation. The GCA-verse ref is from the rating system for AIs, in "Taylers".
The bigger reference will be in my Demons of the Past space opera trilogy, if it's ever published.
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My editing skills are nil, but I could make comments and suggestions.
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Your only responsibilities are to comment on things reasonably often. I.e., every so often I purge the list and the ones who get purged are the ones who don't comment on the stuff. I'm not looking for editors, I look for readers.
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Will do.
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I am now current through February of 2008, so I will be back in realtime land with y'all in another few months.
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...
...I need to use this tool.
(Well, except that it doesn't support arbitrary comics and therefore probably not whichever one I'll want to read next.)
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One common trope is the tactical genius who always out-guesses the opponent, who may sometimes be overcome by overwhelming force, bad luck, or treachery, but who is never out-maneuvered, and if it looks like s/he is, it's just part of his/her ultimate plan. Think Honor Harrington.
The other trope is the bumbling idiot, a moron who succeeds only by luck and/or the sheer overwhelming competence of his subordinates. The Retief books play in this playground, although not precisely with the military.
But Tagon is neither. He's genuinely very good at his job, but he has met his match more than once, and sometimes he just plain gets outsmarted. But not very often, because he is far, far from an idiot.
So as I say, I admire that. It makes him much more believable as a character.