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The Rim of Space on Audio

Blackstone Audio have release The Rim of Space on Audio as part of A Galaxy Trilogy VOL. 4
























Australian Science Fiction Review

Still Running the Rim

Too right I am - literally and figuratively.

As Master of a vessel engaged upon the trans-Tasman cargo service I seem fated always to load in Australia for ports in the South Island of New Zealand, and the shortest way, in terms of distance, is via the Fouveaux Strait, at the southern extremity of the South Island. And if that’s not rim running it’s about as close as one cart get to it on this planet...

Well, I re-read my article in ASFR 3. It closes with the brave words anent BRING BACK YESTERDAY - ‘Even so, it was the last of the Rim Runner Stories...’ And that dates the article more than somewhat. Perhaps my own laziness has been to blame. Here was I, with my own private empire on the tattered fringe of the Galaxy, inhabited by my own people... As James Elroy Flecker remarked - ‘Seek not excess, God hateth him who roams.’ Lorn, Ultimo, Faraway and Thule may not be Baghdad - but I have yet to find my Samarkand.

Oddly enough, in the later stories Commodore (originally Captain) Grimes has been playing a larger and larger part. I’ve come to like the crusty old bastard. There’s just one thing that I rather resent about him, though. When I had only three rings on my sleeve he had four - and now that I have my four rings he’s sporting the single broad ring of a Commodore. But I’m getting my revenge. In the novel just completed - THE ROAD TO THE RIM - I go back to his early life and hard time as a very newly commissioned Ensign. (That, by the way, is dedicated to Admiral Lord Hornblower, R,N) And in the one that I’m working on now he will tangle with my ex-Empress Irene. It’s too early to say who will cone out on top - but I’d be prepared to bet on Grimes.
Originally Published in Australian Science Fiction Review No: 5 - Dec 1966