The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the Soul. A good Alien Xenologist might not put it quite so poetically. but he can, if he's sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye!
The real trouble with communications satellites is the enormous difficulty of repairing even the simplest little trouble. You need such a loooong screwdriver.
Most useful high explosives, like ammonium nitrate, are enormously violent. once they're triggered. But they will remain seemingly inert when beaten, burned, variously punished--until the particular shock required comes along....
Mike Kenscott is having a really bad vacation. One minute he's camping in the Sierra Mountains with his brother Andy, and the next minute he's on a different world. Now he's Adric, Lord of the Crimson Tower, of the Rainbow City of Narabedla. He has to cope with his fellow Narabedlans: the Dreamer Rhys, the mysterious veiled Gamine, the dwarf Idris, his brother Evarin the Toymaker (whose Toys are deadly), and Karamy, the golden witch, who is either his lover or his greatest enemy...