Plot summary
Trevelyan Micah, an agent of the Stellar Union's Coordination Service, is alerted to some suspicious activity on the part of Murdoch Juan, a Trader with whom Trevelyan has crossed paths before. Murdoch claims to be recruiting settlers for a newly discovered planet he calls Good Luck. However, the cost of building housing and infrastructure for the settlers would make the settlement uneconomical for Murdoch, and the equipment he is loading aboard his ship, the Campesino, seems mismatched for the planet he describes.
When the Campesino sets out, Trevelyan and his alien partner Smokesmith pursue in a smaller, faster ship called the Genji . They follow Campesino to an Earthlike world a hundred light years from the remains of a supernova. Landing on the world, Trevelyan discovers that it once had a race of intelligent natives who were wiped out four centuries earlier when the supernova's radiation front passed by. Their buildings are still mostly intact, and Trevelyan realizes that that is the secret to Murdoch's plan: he won't have to build housing or other infrastructure for his settlers, because he can simply renovate the deserted native buildings. Murdoch stands to become the richest man in the Stellar Union.
A supernova is an event that occurs upon the death of certain types of stars.
In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes:
Trevelyan confronts Murdoch, and tells him that he must wait until archeological teams from the Stellar Union have thoroughly investigated Good Luck, probably for a century, before he can begin moving settlers in. Murdoch has a counterproposal: Trevelyan will surrender to him, and Murdoch will maroon him alone on a deserted island on Good Luck for ten years while the planet is colonized. Trevelyan responds with his final offer: Murdoch will allow him to leave Good Luck or else Smokesmith will nuke Trevelyan, Murdoch, and the Campesino. After Smokesmith sets off a sample nuke in the atmosphere above them, Murdoch agrees. Trevelyan will return to the Stellar Union and spread the word that anyone who takes up Murdoch's offer and settles on Good Luck will be forcibly removed by the Coordination Service, which should suffice to prevent settlement of the planet.
Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American writer, particularly of science fiction, and has been referred to as the Queen of Space Opera. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on such films as The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959) and The Long Goodbye (1973). She also worked on an abandoned draft of The Empire Strikes Back (1980). She was the first woman shortlisted for the Hugo Award.
The Hand of Omega is a fictional device from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
Pitch Black is a 2000 American science fiction action horror film co-written and directed by David Twohy. The film stars Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, and Keith David. Dangerous criminal Richard B. Riddick (Diesel) is being transported to prison in a spacecraft. When the spaceship is damaged by comet debris and makes an emergency crash landing on an empty desert planet, Riddick escapes. However, when predatory alien creatures begin attacking the survivors, Riddick joins forces with the surviving crew and other passengers to develop a plan to escape the planet.
"The Star" is the third and final segment of the thirteenth episode from the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone.
"On Thursday We Leave for Home" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a struggling colony on a distant planet awaits the arrival of a ship that will take them back to Earth. The story centers around the resulting cross-cultural encounter and the enduring ties to one's home planet, chiefly as seen through the eyes of the colony's leader, William Benteen.
"Shadows in the Moonlight" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in April 1934. Howard originally named his story "Iron Shadows in the Moon". It's set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan escaping to a remote island in the Vilayet Sea where he encounters the Red Brotherhood, a skulking creature, and mysterious iron statues.
The Witches of Karres is a space opera novel by James H. Schmitz. It deals with a young space ship captain who finds himself increasingly embroiled in wild adventures involving interdimensional alien invaders, space pirates, and magic power. The story is unrelated to the "Hub" series of stories by Schmitz.
"The Terratin Incident" is the eleventh episode of the first season of the American animated science fiction television series Star Trek. It first aired in the NBC Saturday morning lineup on November 17, 1973, and was written by American screenwriter Paul Schneider who had previously written the Original Series episodes "Balance of Terror" and "The Squire of Gothos". It came from a one-paragraph story idea by Gene Roddenberry based on Gulliver's Travels.
Question and Answer is a science fiction novel by American writer Poul Anderson. It originally appeared in the June and July 1954 issues of magazine Astounding Science Fiction, and was later reprinted in 1956 as part of Ace Double D-199 under the title Planet of No Return, and again as a stand-alone Ace novel in February 1978 under the original title.
The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.
The Psychotechnic League is a future history created by American science fiction writer Poul Anderson. The name "Psychotechnic League" was coined by Sandra Miesel in the early 1980s, to capitalize on Anderson's better-known Polesotechnic League future history. Anderson published 21 novels, novellas and short stories set in this future between 1949 and 1957, with a 22nd published in 1968.
"Entity" is a science fiction short story by Poul Anderson and John Gergen that appeared in the June 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. "Entity" was the fifth story published by Anderson, and the only story published by Gergen, a friend of Anderson's from the Minneapolis Fantasy Society.
"Half-Breeds on Venus" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov was asked by Frederik Pohl, editor of Astonishing Stories, to write a sequel to his earlier Tweenie story "Half-Breed", and he spent April and May 1940 doing so. He submitted the sequel to Pohl on June 3, and Pohl accepted it on the 14th, running it in the December 1940 issue of Astonishing. Asimov subsequently included the story in his 1972 collection The Early Asimov.
Nebulae, often being visually interesting astronomical objects, are frequently used as settings or backdrops for works of science fiction.
Supernovae in works of fiction often serve as plot devices.
"Brake" is a science fiction short story by American writer Poul Anderson, first published in 1957 in Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections Beyond the Beyond (1969) and The Psychotechnic League (1981). As a component of the Psychotechnic League future history / alternate history, "Brake" takes place in 2270, as the civilization built up in the aftermath of the 1958 Third World War is being torn between mutually antagonistic factions, on the verge of collapsing into "the day of genocide and the night of ignorance and tyranny".
Galactic Derelict is a science fiction novel by American writer Andre Norton, the second in her Time Traders series. It was first published in 1959, and as of 2012, had been reprinted in eight editions. It is part of Norton's Forerunner universe.
Star Rangers, also known as The Last Planet, is a science fiction novel by the American author Andre Norton. The novel was published on August 20, 1953, by Harcourt, Brace & Company. This is one of Norton's Central Control books, which lay out the history of a galactic empire through events suggested by Norton's understanding of Terran history.
Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Treasure Island, also known as Doraemon the Movie 2018, is a Japanese science fiction anime film. It is the 38th Doraemon film. The story is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island novel, with a screenplay written by Genki Kawamura - the producer of Your Name and The Boy and the Beast. Kazuaki Imai, an episode director on the Doraemon television anime, directed the project as his first Doraemon franchise film. This film was released on March 3, 2018 in Japan.
