A lesser-known work of speculative fiction by Hugo Award-winning author Ronnie Lee Ellis. Old Sailors Never Die chronicles the adventures of Barry Soul, ex-sailor, ex-hero of the Cyberform Conflict and sometime detective who runs afoul of self-centered heiress Sedona My while searching for a lost android. The novel’s important themes are 1) forbidden human/android love, 2) the very mixed blessings of inherited titles and/or fortunes, and 3) the power of the random factor to eclipse both destiny and free will. Reviews of the novel were mixed. That the novel ends as our hero Barry Soul simply finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so dies a cruel and meaningless death, seems to have been a main reason for the novel’s less than enthusiastic reception, especially considering the book’s title.

Old Sailors Never Die

An automated farming disque that functioned as a penal colony, abandoned at the overthrow of the Incorporated Elysian Republic. During the cycles of AnarchEra, Xychromozonian authorities continued to drop the occasional incorrigible prisoner (usually of the political stripe, but sometimes a violent criminal) onto the disque. Such a drop was a one-way ticket. Lifers on the colony, meaning everyone on the colony who wasn’t dead within minutes of the drop, formed prisoner bands, thus improving their odds of survival on the disque’s surface. The smartest and toughest of these bands gradually became tribes. The toughest of these tribes (though, by all accounts, certainly not the smartest) were the unusually mean and incredibly stupid Lyconian Dromo‑Rustlers.

Omegan Amazons. It is commonly believed that women prisoners banded together on the automated farming disque and penal colony, Omega 6, after it was abandoned at the overthrow of the Incorporated Elysian Republic, in order to protect themselves from certain undesirable elements on the colony. Many such prisoner bands were formed, the stronger growing into tribes. The Omegazons grew to be one of the strongest tribes due, so they claim, to their religious beliefs. These warrior women, led by a Priestess-Queen, worshipped the Star Mother, a triple Goddess strikingly similar to Orakian and Old Terran lunar deities (or deity, as they are claimed to be aspects of the same One Goddess). This is more than a little strange, as the Omega Disque has no moon. Legend has it that Trivia, Priestess of the Mother, walked down to Omega 6 on a tiny beam of starlight, bringing word of the Star Mother’s love to her women. Young girls were trained in the way of the sword and, later, the bow. They were topnotch fighters. Male tribe members were often strays, or ex-slaves, won during raids on other tribes. They were offered protection in exchange for performing certain domestic and child-rearing duties. Often, the Omegazons raided enemy tribes (such as that of the unusually mean and incredibly stupid Lyconian Dromo Rustlers) in order to free their female captives. Women who had spent any time at all with the Dromo Rustlers were not good for fighting and were brought into the tribe on the same basis as the men.

Omegazon Priestess

A planet known primarily for its bloody civil war, which some called a battle for religious freedom (March Baptists), others a struggle to achieve independence from a repressive government (almost everyone else). Whatever the case, the war effectively put an end to the planet’s rebellion against the rule of the galactic power variously known as United Free Trade Planets (the government), Crown and Scepter, Ltd (the parent corporation), or Seven Planets (preferred by locals).

A small planet next to a planet (see: Onolo Dos) known primarily for its bloody civil war, which some called a battle for religious freedom (March Baptists), others a struggle to achieve independence from a repressive government (almost everyone else). The war on Onolo Dos effectively put an end to the planet’s rebellion against the rule of the galactic power variously known as United Free Trade Planets (the government), Crown and Scepter, Ltd (the parent corporation), or Seven Planets (preferred by locals). Onolo Une, a habitable, but much less pleasant planet weather-wise, had been the staging body for the rebel forces. It is, at the time of this writing, primarily know as the home of a very large soldier’s cemetery that covers a good bit of its surface. The soldier’s cemetery on Onolo Une is thought to be a warning to possible future rebels (by March Baptists) and a sad commentary on the power of Multi-World Corporations (by almost everyone else).

An unusually ugly (by most accounts) and extraordinarily muculent (by all accounts) mud-dwelling fish that lives in the shallow water and muck surrounding natural wells in the rare desert oases of the planet New Wyoming. Their rather bulbous heads are misshapen, their faces flat, their eyes most often described as “vacant” or “dead.” The Orddle’s skin is an unpleasant greenish-grayish-whitish non-color and is covered with a smelly, viscous slime. Warning: Don’t eat them! The only thing more disturbing than an Orddle’s visage is its effect on the digestive system of nearly every humanoid creature in the civilized Multiverse.