Skip to main content

story identification - Sole survivor of attack on mining vessel, abandoned by his employer, has ability to teleport


There's a story my grandpa use to tell me when I was younger, about the sole survivor of of an attack on a mining vessel in space. The man lives in space for months/years, ignored by the company he worked for and never rescued. Then when he thinks he is being rescued, it's actually another set of raiders who attack him and kidnap him. He then wakes up in captivity in some sort of prison inside of an asteroid, and has a word tattooed on his forehead. My grandpa called him Ronin (that's what the tattoo on his forehead said) but I don't know what the character's real name is. Anyways, he learns that he has the ability to teleport after having a brush with death and decides to make his way back to Earth so that he can exact revenge on the mining company who abandoned him and left him floating to die.


Does anyone know what this story or book may be? My grandpa told it to me when I was little, he said that he got it from a book he use to love reading when he was younger. I'm assuming the book is very old (possibly pre 1940's as he was born in the 20s). I can't ask him as he is no longer alive. I'm also unsure as to whether or not all the details in the story he told me, are the same as in the original.



Answer



That sounds like The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (1956):


"man lives in space for months/years, ignored by the company he worked for and never rescued."



[Foyle] is marooned in space when the ship is attacked and he alone survives. After six months of waiting for rescue, a passing spaceship, the Vorga, also owned by the powerful Presteign industrial clan, ignores his signal and abandons him




"in captivity in some sort of prison inside of an asteroid, and has a word tattooed on his forehead."



is captured by a cargo cult in the Asteroid Belt which tattoos a hideous mask of a tiger on his face.



"he has the ability to teleport after having a brush with death"



human beings could learn to teleport, or "jaunte" from point to point,



"make his way back to Earth so that he can exact revenge on the mining company who abandoned him"




Foyle is enraged and is transformed into a man consumed by revenge



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...