Run For The Sun Now Begun

In Case You Were Unaware -
You shouldn't be, mind, because if you've been reading BOOJUM! of late then you know all about the NASA Parker Solar Probe, which blasted off last night after a day or so's delay.  Art?

Hot stuff

     That bit facing the Sun is the heat shield, which will most definitely be needed when Parker butts up against Ol' Sol, in the upper reaches of the solar corona.  Without that, it'd be dead in 20 seconds.
     Here an aside.  I seem to recall an episode of "Thunderbirds" (epitome of futurologist Gerry Anderson) where a manned mission was sent to the Sun - aha, yes, "Sun Probe".  Of course it all goes horribly wrong and only Thunderbirds can save the day, which they do with the assistance of a custom-built robot - I think.  It's been a while.

I see other minds had similar thoughts.

     Now, in it's travels, Parker* will of course orbit the Sun, ensuring that it sees what we on Earth cannot: the far side.  Once again, futurologist Gerry Anderson has beaten real life to it, in a case of art getting there first.  Art?

<Cue sinister oboe music>

     Now, time to see if the motley can outrun a horde of giant man-eating centipedes!**

Impressed Or Appalled
I'm not sure which of the two I am.  Paying tribute or making a fast buck?
     I'd better go back to the beginning.  You recall the most frightening documentary ever made, John Carpenter's "The Thing"?  Art?

It's behind you!

     It's still not clear how JC got clear of the destroyed camp, or if he brought Mac and Childs back with him.  Of course, none of them were infected, because - er - well, because by now we'd all have been assimilated.
     Well, it has taken 35 years, but someone has taken advantage of the statute of limitations or something, because -

See!

     I sincerely hope that a percentage of the profits go to the surviving widows and orphans, if there are any.  I did have a peruse of a game review, and it recommends playing with over four players, as otherwise the traitor(s) have too easy a time of it.  Art?

I confess, I am curious myself

     Just have to wait until Christmas, I suppose.

Yet More Improvised AFV's
Dog Buns, them Kurdish Peshmerga are good at knocking up a  serviceable-looking military vehicle from a large truck.  In case you don't know the KPM are out slaying Daesh on the battlefield, and very handily, too.  If they don't have armoured personnel carriers or armoured cars to hand, then they bodge them up.  Art?


     Case in point.  This is another improvised APC, but it fooled me at first into thinking it was a proper production model.  I think those assorted outside are the crew and passengers, and if so they seem to be able to pack people in more efficiently than First Bus.***
     If you want a proper laugh at some rubbish improvised AFVs, I recommend you look to Perfidious Albion in the aftermath of Dunkirk, when anything that could be cobbled together, was.  Art?

An Armadillo

     The 'fighting compartment' was made by sandwiching gravel between two sheets of wood (!), and please note that the wheels, and radiator, are entirely unprotected - the KPM have at least bettered that.

A Beginning
I have, for the first time, initiated a post over on the Facebook "Space Opera" page, on the subject of "The Centauri Device".  This is a novel by M. John Harrison that - confession time - I picked up because of the cooooool Peter Jones cover design.  It's written in the 'British New Wave' sci-fi style that originated in the late Sixties, and I loved it from the start (which was "St. Crispin's Eve on Sad Al Bari IV").  Art?

Striking, yet only tangentially related to the plot

     MJH cordially detests it, considering it a piece of hackwork.  Well, he's wrong.  It is widely recognised as a masterwork.  So there, MJH.
     Oh, and the Fred Gambino cover art is much more closely related to the story.


     I've posted it at least once before, and I'm doing it again because - whose blog is it?
     Steve Fellowes, lyricist of The Comsat Angels, probably hasn't read this novel because it's right up his dour, gloomy street and he couldn't resist writing a song about it.



*  Hey, another "Thunderbirds" reference!
**  I nicked this from Biggles.
***  Not very hard, really.