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Roger Ebert has said the problem with obsessive fans is they only ask questions they already know the answers to. But sometimes a fan finds out more than he ever wanted to know…
“They say that after a career of writing about the value of scientific expertise, science fiction authors start wanting to be treated like they have expertise. So they use their ability to invent plausible-sounding nonsense, and they start passing it off as the truth. They start giving orders and, sometimes, they find people willing to listen to them. There are even SFWA members threatening to speak out about L. Ron Hubbard! It would tear the science fiction community apart.”
When Charlie ordered his fourth beer, he never imagined it would lead him into the least dignified predicament in Labyrinth Inhabitant history.
“Ah! England again!” The man coughed. “I shall begin. Hello. I found your letter. Only old people call it a lav. Why do you hide your letters in toilets? I am eight years old. Who do you think will win the football? Signed, John.” The man coughed again. His voice trembled, as if he was terribly tired. “God, football. Sorry John, don’t follow it. Not many tellies in bathrooms these days. You coming in?”
Politically, it would have been safer to cut off the defeated old king’s head rather than keeping him prisoner. But his captor still needed him alive. Needed him for something quite specific, as it turned out.
The force that tugged at my skeleton weakened, and I stood. “I’m weary, and too old now to provide sport for you. There will be no game.”
The giant figure stood in silence, perhaps contemplating my words. “This is your last chance,” he said. “When the blue moon rises to its peak, your cell door will open – granting you a path to freedom and wealth.”
“A path to madness,” I said. “And if I couldn’t find my way out of Valca Tower in my youth, what hope do I have now?”
“The hope of wisdom.”
If the first phase of the experiment has begun and you still haven’t spotted the control group, it’s probably you…
The Director shrugged. “I would query that, David. Aren’t our problems—wars, terrorism, all caused by our territorial nature? And by our need to ensure our families aren’t threatened by others—trying to take our resources from us? Maybe we’re not so very different from the animals after all. We just prefer to think we are.”
Is it possible for a story about a mysterious artificial environment to be exciting and thought-provoking even if the setting is blank and featureless? Sure, but it’s been done.
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