Tales From the Dream Nebula

What is Tales From the Dream Nebula?

This is a return and updating of the classic pulp serials that America used to love and cherish. Sure they were considered low quality, but at the same time they were a loved artform. 10 cents a novel off the spinrack for a little escapism on the train or at night before going to bed. Whatever. I felt that the genre had not had a good update for modern culture since George Lucas updated Alex Raymond’s seminal Flash Gordon.

This time, I incorporated modern tropes like Artificial Intelligence, genetic engineering, quantum mechanics, nano technology and more. At the same time, I wanted something to feel substantially unique about the universe and that came from studying the production design of the settings carefully and found more harder science ways for them to exist.

On the other hand, I forced myself to keep the old style flavor of the old serials. I left out the more modern terms for certain technology and went back to the old terms. Instead of Lasers, you had all sorts of rays and beams. I ditched bullets and rifles for linear accelerators with high powered musketballs that could do even more. Flight rigs were ubiquitous as gravity control was too, so people are flying all over now like hipsters biking in a big city.

And that was another point I always felt a little empty about: mass populace. In Star Wars, at least George Lucas addressed that a bit. You see more of the commoner background extras in his setting. But because of the limitations of the original serials, there is so little of the common citizen in Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. They were barely background noise. I wanted to feel more of these people in my setting. How would they live under a tyrant like Ming? How would civilization work? Like most sci fi settings people forget to talk about the logistics on why people are where they are and do what they do. They don’t consider services or the necessities of life from the plumber to the garbage man. That was often missing from the old serials, so I wanted to put that aspect into the pulp in an effort to ground such a fantastical setting in real things people would both use and recognize.

How did this story come about?

Like many good stories, Dream Nebula came out of a few silly questions and longing for something I was craving in a story but didn’t see in the marketplace. I was folding laundry and watching the 1980 Flash Gordon and said to myself “You know… I miss Ming.” Face it, Max Von Sydow played the part of Ming with such panache and campiness you loved to hate him and hated that you loved him. Ornella Muti as Princess Aura, Peter Wyngard as Klytus were a perfect balance for Flash, Dale, Zarkov, Barin, and Vultan, and I wanted more. The sequels I never got. So I asked myself why don’t I write something like that movie, and the old cartoon and serials that I loved so much.

Well, the biggest part to figure out was how to frame the questions that I had. And the biggest that came up was “What if Ming the Merciless had won? What would humanity be like if Flash had failed?” That started the ball rolling. I wanted to keep with the aesthetics of the movie to a good extent, but wanted a hard-er science reason as to why chunks of planets were floating in an endless sky with breathable atmosphere everywhere.

It took a few days of thinking, but I realized I had the answers in modern scientific theory and sci fi, but with a twist. A twist that will reveal itself throughout the course of the stories. And then I got a surprise as I was working out the mechanics of the Dream Nebula… my “Ming”, Xiao the Eternal, the All-Seeing Eye became something more than just a big bad Emperor Palpatine like character (aka the serious version of Ming that George Lucas made). I’ve shared this only with 4 people. Every one of them had their mind’s blown. One almost literally fell out of her chair with the reveal. So… that’s being kept so close to the vest, but when it happens, I promise it will be worth it.

But, I wanted to make the Dream Nebula an episodic serial like a TV show.
I wanted it to have a loose connective story arc, like old action pulp series you could start nearly anywhere.
I wanted to take the classic tropes of pulp that we got in John Carter, Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers and blend them with Neo Noir sensibilities, and modern science fiction tropes. You know, punch them tropes hard and have fun with it. Tropes done well are fun.

I also want the books to be primarily for entertainment. Not message fiction. Just have fun and if something deeper lumbers along, address it as it would be in the story for the story’s sake, otherwise kick it to the curb and drive on.

Originally the thought was to create a 3 story arc set of short stories (each about 10k words or so). In the process I discovered I can’t write short stories, but got novellas instead, so although I’m no longer aiming at 22 stories for each series, I’m crafting several novellas to do the job of telling the story in each arc. Above are the covers of the first three novels so far. If things go sort of how I expect, each storyline will probably be 9-12 novellas, considering the length. Get ready for more.

Where’s this going?

As well as the novellas, there is also a set of short stories. Some written and available through the newsletter like “Cold Pursuit of a Hot Case”, and others are going to be released through other sources. I may be serializing some first, and others are waiting for our “Origin Omnibus” which we hope to release this year if we can afford it. We’ve also got plans for audiobooks, but we need to get a kickstarter put together for that. If you’re interested in backing such a thing, please let us know!

Then there is “The Amplified Worlds” of the Dream Nebula. There will be independent stories for the setting that mostly are coming from me running GURPS in this setting! We already have one story in the can based on the convention game that I’ve run a few time with a good amount of success so far. Secondly, we have another ready to go that I am going to be looking for players to stream their adventures, and set in the map of the setting above called “The Chimera Belt” which will focus more heavily on the uplifted animal species that exist in Xiao’s empire.

Lastly, I am going to compile a series Bible for those who are interested in writing fiction for the Amplified Worlds as a shared universe. If this is something you’re interested on getting involved with and fleshing out new areas of the Dream, then you need to reach out and let me know.

A little treat for you all. Here are some of the character design sheets I’ve put together for many, but not all, of the main characters.