credited to P. Christin. All of the preceding albums were credited under his pen-name Linus. The game the Kamuniks play with Laureline is based on Buzkashi, the national sport of Afghanistan. A number of elements of this story resurface in later albums – most notably the three Shingouz who make regular guest appearances in the series. Point Central is revisited on a number of occasions while Grumpy Converters from Bluxte are used from time to time as well. This album continues the thread first developed in Welcome to Alflolol that suggested that Galaxity may not be the force for good we are led to believe it is in the early albums. While Welcome to Alflolol dealt with colonialism, this album deals with imperialism. Galaxity's ambitions, as revealed in this story, will eventually lead to the events of the two part story The Ghosts of Inverloch and The Rage of Hypsis. This was the first Valérian story to be published in English. It was translated by L. Mitchell and serialised in Heavy Metal magazine in 1981 (Volume 4, Number 10 (January 1981) to Volume 5, Number 1 (April 1981)). It was later published in album form in 1982 by Dargaud USA in the United States of America () and in 1984 by Hodder-Dargaud in the United Kingdom (). The American edition included an introduction by leading French SF editor and anthologist Daniel Riche. This adventure, about a huge space station, at a crossroads in space, where alien ambassadors come to settle their differences but who are secretly being manipulated by an ancient race, known as the Shadows, anticipates certain aspects of the American science fiction television series, Babylon 5, created by J. Michael Straczynski, that began in 1993. It is unclear whether Straczynski ever read the story, though he is known to be a major aficionado of comic books and the publication in English of this story would coincide with the time the idea for Babylon 5 came to him. This album was the main inspiration for the plot of the film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, despite the film's title being taken from another album. References 1975 graphic novels Valérian and Laureline