Unorthodox Engineers

The Unorthodox Engineers were the subject of a series of science fiction short stories by Colin Kapp. They were a misfit bunch of engineers who solved problems of alien technology/weird planets in the future. The stories had a great deal of grain-of-salt-type humor.

First edition
cover art by Richard Weaver

They were commanded by maverick engineer Fritz van Noon and included, amongst others, a convicted bank robber as quartermaster (on the entirely-sound grounds that he was likely to be the most capable person for the job).

The Unorthodox Engineers originally appeared in various British SF magazines and anthologies:

• "The Railways Up on Cannis" (New Worlds October, 1959)
• "The Subways of Tazoo" (New Writings in SF 3)
• "The Pen and the Dark" (New Writings in SF 8)
• "Getaway from Getawehi" (New Writings in SF 16)
• "The Black Hole of Negrav" (New Writings in SF 25).

Dobson Books published a collection of the stories as The Unorthodox Engineers ISBN 0-234-72072-7 in November 1979. A 2013 Kindle reprint is available from Gateway, ISBN 0234720727.

The short story "The Pen and the Dark" was adapted into a text-based computer adventure game by Keith Campbell, with text by Colin Kapp. It was published in 1984 by Mosaic Publishing with the packaging for the game including a book copy of the original story.