The Unorthodox Engineers were the subject of a series of science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short stories by Colin Kapp

Colin Kapp

Colin Kapp was a British science fiction author.A contemporary of Brian Aldiss and James White, Kapp is best known for his stories about the Unorthodox Engineers.- Cageworld series :...

. They were a misfit bunch of engineers who solved problems of alien technology/weird planets in the future. The stories had a very large grain-of-salt-type humor.

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:

• "The Railways Up on Cannis" (New Worlds
  New Worlds (magazine)
  New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine which was first published professionally in 1946. For 25 years it was widely considered the leading science fiction magazine in Britain, publishing 201 issues up to 1971...
  
  October, 1959)
• "The Subways of Tazoo" (New Writings in SF 3
  New Writings in SF 3
  New Writings in SF 3 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by John Carnell, the third volume in a series of thirty, of which he edited the first twenty-one. It was first published in hardcover by Dennis Dobson in 1965, followed by a paperback edition by Corgi the same year, and an...
  
  )
• "The Pen and the Dark" (New Writings in SF 8
  New Writings in SF 8
  New Writings in SF 8 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by John Carnell, the eighth volume in a series of thirty, of which he edited the first twenty-one...
  
  )
• "Getaway from Getawehi" (New Writings in SF 16
  New Writings in SF 16
  New Writings in SF 16 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by John Carnell, the sixteenth volume in a series of thirty, of which he edited the first twenty-one...
  
  )
• "The Black Hole of Negrav" (New Writings in SF 25
  New Writings in SF 25
  New Writings in SF 25 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Kenneth Bulmer, the fourth volume of nine he oversaw in the New Writings in SF series in succession to the series' originator, John Carnell...
  
  ).

Dobson Books published a collection of the stories as The Unorthodox Engineers {ISBN 0-234-72072-7} in November 1979.

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 Software.