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February 19 - February 21, 2023
For Mari Who makes the torches burn brighter A wise man wants for only nourishing cabbage soup; seek not other things. Except perhaps a toaster. – from the teachings of St ZvlkxTM the wisdom of St ZvlkxTM is wholly owned by the Toast Marketing Board
not only is there a policing agency within the BookWorld known as Jurisfiction, but that she has been apprenticed as a trainee agent to Miss Havisham of Great Expectations.
‘If a thought crossed her mind it would be the shortest journey on record—’
I thought in all honesty that ‘head-in-a-bag’ plot devices were a bit lame, but being too polite to say so, I said instead:
Reminded me of Cordelia in /Barrayar/, a severed head incident that was not lame at all.
The atmosphere in the room was so thick with dramatic clichés you could have cut it with a knife.
a large Painted Jaguar got in with her son, who had a paddy-paw full of prickles and was complaining bitterly that he had been tricked by a hedgehog and a tortoise, who had both escaped.
From Kipling's /Just So Stories/.
But by 1884, to all intents and purposes, we had depleted our stock of original ideas.’ There was muttering among the collected Jurisfiction agents. ‘Flatland,’ said Bradshaw after pausing for a moment’s reflection. ‘It was the last original idea, wasn’t it?’ ‘Pretty much. The few leftover pieces were mopped up by the SF movement until the 1950s, but as far as pure ideas are concerned, 1884 was the end. We were expecting the worst – a meltdown of the whole BookWorld and a wholesale departure of readers. But that didn’t happen. Against all expectations, recycled ideas were working.’
The twentieth century has seen books being written and published at an unprecedented rate – even the introduction of the Procrastination1.3 and Writer’s Block 2.4 Outlander viruses couldn’t slow the authors down.
Granny Next was one hundred and eight years old and was convinced that she couldn’t die until she had read the ten most boring classics. On an earlier occasion I had suggested The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, Ivanhoe, Moby-Dick, A la recherche du temps perdu, Pamela and A Pilgrim’s Progress.
Are you making supper?’ ‘No,’ I replied, testing their sarcasm response, ‘I’m giving my pet egg heat therapy.’ Ibb laughed – which was a good sign, I thought – and went off with Obb to practise whimsical retorts in case either of them was given a posting as a humorous sidekick.
There was an excited knock at the door. It was Ibb. It had been looking more feminine all week and had even gone so far as to put on haughty airs all day Wednesday. Obb, on the other hand, had been insisting he was right about everything, knew everything, and had sulked when I proved it wrong, and we all knew where that was leading.
There was silence as everyone took in the awful possibility of a Jurisfiction agent gone bad. The only time it had happened before was when David Copperfield murdered Dora Spenlow so he could marry Agnes Wickfield.
Ambrose Bierce was lost trying to access Poe. His name, along with many others, is carved on the Boojumorial, situated in the lobby of the Great Library.’
The most publicised flaunting of these rules was by Heathcliff when he burned down Wuthering Heights. Fined and sentenced to 150 hours’ community service within Green Eggs and Ham, Heathcliff was just one of many high-profile cases that Jurisfiction were prosecuting at that time.’
This was often the reason why people in the Outland argued over the quality of a recommended book. They had read it during the Bookies.
I re-entered the Starlight Room as the ‘Most Incomprehensible Plot’ was awarded for the fifth year running to The Magus.
John Fowles?
Zhark belongs to what we describe as “Lesser Science Fiction” or “Winsome” or maybe even “Classic”.’ ‘How about “crap”?’
Ouch! That's harsh.
Only ten minutes to go before the prestigious ‘Most Troubled Romantic Lead (Male)’ was due to be announced; the female version of this award had been well represented by Thomas Hardy; Bathsheba Everdene and Tess Durbeyfield both made it to the nominations only to be pipped at the post by the surprise winner, Lady Macbeth. Sylvia Plath was short-listed but was disqualified for being real.
Jude Fawley
/Jude the Obscure/.
Credits Falstaff, the three witches, Banquo’s ghost, Beatrice and Benedict all kindly supplied by Shakespeare (William) Inc. Our thanks to Mr Heathcliff for graciously agreeing to appear in this novel. Uriah Heep kindly loaned by Wickfield & Heep, attorneys-at-law. My thanks to ScarletBea, Yan, Ben, Carla, Jon, Magda, AllAmericanCutie and Dave at the Fforde Fforum for their nominations in the ‘Bookie’ awards.
Evilness consultant: Ernst Blofeld. Mrs Bradshaw’s gowns by Coco Chanel. Aornis little sister idea courtesy of Rosie Fforde. Our grateful thanks to the Great Panjandrum for help and guidance in the making of this novel. No unicorns were written expressly for this book and no animals or Yahoos (other than grammasites) were harmed in its construction. This novel was written in BOOK V8.3 and was sequenced using a Mk XXIV ImaginoTransference device. Peggy Malone was the imaginator. Plot Devices and Inciting Incidents supplied by Billy Budd’s Bargain Basement and the WOLP Plot Salvage and Recycling
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