Brief:
Semroc has released a futuristic kit by guest designer Jay "Centuri Guy" Goemmer. The design was inspired by the Paul Anderson novel of the same name. It features both fin and ring stability, sharp-looking details, and a set of decals in alien language.

Construction:
Parts are the usual excellent Semroc quality:

• Balsa nose cone
• ST-7100 body tube (basically a thick-walled 18mm ID tube)
• ST-1622 ring fin/tube
• Laser-cut balsa fins
• Launch lugs, dowels for trim
• Crepe paper streamer
• Waterslide decals
• Laser-cut cardboard tool sheet

The instructions are well written and illustrated, consisting of about 30 steps spanning 15 half-pages.

Before beginning, give some serious thought to how you want to handle the paint/color scheme. The cover art and recommended colors look great, but would be a huge pain to mask, so major parts would need to be pre-painted before assembly. I went that route, painting the tube ring, body tube and nose cone silver metallic, the fins a bright orange, and the trim lugs black. I had marked bond lines and applied a tiny strip of masking tape first to give a good bond surface later.

The body tube is minimum diameter, so just gets a motor block (centering ring). There is a motor hook provided, which is held in place by an exterior tube coupler section. The motor block also serves as an anchor for the Kevlar portion of the Kevlar/elastic shock cord.

There are 6 total fins--3 interior fins that support the ring tube, and three exterior fins. Marking is done via a template on the instruction sheet. There is a neat little fixture included on the tool sheet that slides over the fins and holds them in alignment. The exterior fins have a similar tool, though in this case it's a piece that rests against the outside of the ring tube and serves as a spacer between two adjacent fins.

There is a set of "guns" on the outer edge of the fins that consists of a section of launch lug and a piece of dowel.

Attaching the streamer to the shock cord wraps up construction.

Finishing:
As noted earlier, finishing can be a real pain if you don't pre-paint as I did. The only post-construction painting I wound up doing was masking off the lower section of the nose cone (transition section) and painting white.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
For first flight, I went middle of the power curve with a B6-4. I flew in light winds, puffing between 6 and 8 MPH. The flight was straight up with a couple rotations of spin, but no weathercock. It was just tirning over when the ejection charge kicked.

Recovery:
Earlier reviews noted the undersized streamer issue. In my case, I had also bought a low numbered edition directly from Jay, and he kindly sent me a few larger streamers to use in his plus my from-Semroc kit. It still came down a bit fast, but not too fast for the snow and tall grass field I was flying on.

When I got to my rocket, I noticed some damage related to the shock cord snap-back. The nose cone was deeply gouged, but apparently not from the body tube. It had instead knocked out one of the three main fins, which I could not locate anywhere nearby.

The nose cone touch-up won't be too bad, but the fin repair is probably going to offer a good excuse to place another order with Semroc.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
This is a very cool design, flies well, and I especially like that Semroc is opening things up to "guest designers" like this.

The only con I'll offer up is the wimpy streamer. Even with the larger streamer, I think I'll upgrade to a regular 12" chute once I get the repairs done.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5