A communications specialist in the year 2185 is marooned in deep space by his ship’s assistant (a transgenic fish/humanoid). Stranded just outside the horizon of a supermassive black hole, he begins to send messages back to record his actions and observations. A radio astronomer in present-day Antarctica is listening. Something terrible is about to happen.
Note: Unknown Transmission is unfinished, with no recent updates. It contains some graphic violence.
Tags: adventure · blogfic · monsters · near future · science fiction · time travel
Listed: Feb 12, 2010
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The writing in the first chapter, a series of short daily journal entries, is solid and interesting. The narrator is having problems with his equipment and his fellow crew member. He includes some interesting images. The author suggests reading this concurrently with his brother’s blogfic, "Station151".
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Unknown Transmission is the sister-story to Station151 (which was my last review). It is, in part, a parallel story, since some of the events take place at the same time of Station151, and it is also, in a sense, a sequel, because many of the events take place seventy years after Station151. It is told from the perspective of a space explorer from the future whose ship is sabotaged by a vat-grown, half-human, half-fish artificial intelligence who decides it doesn’t want to be a servant any longer and decides to build its own empire. Unfortunately for our hero, that means killing him as well . . .
I don’t want to talk about the story too much, because it builds on the events in Station151: while both stories stand on their own, they really should be read as a set, and Station151 (at least the part currently published) should be read first, because Unknown Transmission ads an entirely unexpected level of depth to the original story. Station151 is a First Contact story, and Unknown Transmission explains why it happened and exactly how disastrous the consequences were. The hero of the story is, essentially, the sole survivor of an entire timeline, and perhaps the only chance there is to salvage the nightmare world he’s currently in.
The writing is crisp and smart, the exposition and the dialog are excellent. It’s a very fun read and moves quickly. The last update was in March, but it’s hard to gauge whether the author has abandoned the story or if we’ve just hit a lull in the updates. Like Station151 I recommend subscribing to the RSS feed.
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