9A p r i l 2 0 0 4

THE FAILURESusan Lange

THE ANNALS OF VOLUSIUSClaudio Salvucci &Paolo Belzoni

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BOB THE ANGRYFLOWER

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April 2004 1

FEATURES

The Editor’s Rant by Michael D. Pederson........................................................................2

Conventions .........................................................................................................................4

Spine Bender by Robert Balder, Amy Moler, Michael D. Pederson ................................8

Faces of Fandom by Catherine T. Pederson .................................................................12

Comics ................................................................................................................................30

FICTION

The Failure by Susan Lange..............................................................................................14

The Annals of Volusius, Part VI by Claudio Salvucci and Paolo Belzoni .................20

Nutria by Johnny Eponymous ..........................................................................................28

POETRY/FILKS

Snuffing the Dragon by Mike Allen ..............................................................................29

Captain’s Song by J.W. Liotta.........................................................................................32

Cover Illustration for “The Failure” by Andy World

CONTENTS

April 2004, Issue #9

Nth Degree is a free semi-pro fanzine. We encourage you to submit your manuscripts, illustra-tions, or photographs, but cannot guarantee the return of any unsolicited materials. Allcontributors retain individual rights to their contributions. Six-issue subscriptions are availableby sending $15 to: Nth Degree; 77 Algrace Blvd.; Stafford, VA 22556; 540-720-6061;Fax 540-720-7050; email editor@nthzine.com. Nth Degree #9 is ™ and © by Big BlindProductions, April 2004. Printed by Valley Offset Printing, Inc.; Valley Center, KS.

PUBLISHER/EDITORMichael D. Pederson

MANAGING EDITORCatherine T. Pederson

ASSOCIATE EDITORRobert Balder

WEB DEVELOPMENTBrandon Blackmoor

GRAPHIC DESIGNMichael D. Pederson

WITH THANKS TOPhill Ash

Susan BlackmoorR. Craig EnslinAmy Moler

Lloyd MontgomeryJames S. Reichert

Jeff SmithArt VaughanS.C. WatsonAndy World

BIG BLIND PRODUCTIONS, INC.77 Algrace Blvd.

Stafford, VA 22556540-720-6061

Send $15.00 to the above address to receive a 6-issue subscription.

Nth Degree is a semi-pro fanzine.

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STAFFRantM i c h a e l D . P e d e r s o n , P u b l i s h e r / E d i t o r

t h e e d i t o r ’s

2 Nth Degree

It might be time to change the name of this column. I had origi-nally thought up the idea of giving myself a page to rant about little things that were irkingme when I was in my late-twenties and publishing a local entertainment magazine. Nowhere I am in my mid-thirties and I don’t seem to be in much of a ranting kind of mood. Thisscares me a little. Am I no longer an “angry young man”? And if not, can I at least gracefullyslide into the status of “crotchety old man”?

Now that I think about it though, I have much nicer toys now than I had then. It’s hardto be too angry when you have a really bitchin’ home entertainment system. We live nextdoor to a major military installation, and I’m pretty sure that there have been a couple oftimes when I’ve had The Lord of the Rings cranked up so loud that the Marines have startedmobilizing to prevent an Uruk-hai invasion of central Virginia. Not that an Uruk-hai inva-sion of central Virginia would be a bad thing. I can’t imagine it would make the traffic anyworse. It might even improve things. I’ve lost track of the number of times that I’ve beenstuck behind a driver who could be out-smarted by your average orc.

Oooh! That’s it! I do have a rant in me. If ninety percent of everything is crap—and I’m pretty sure that this applies to people

too—then it follows that a rapidly increasing population should make it more difficult forone to sort out the worthwhile ten percent. I suppose that this is yet another advantage ofFandom. It’s been my experience that the average fan is more intelligent and creative thanthe average man-on-the-street (take a bow, you know I’m right). Of course, the average fan’ssocial skills are generally sub-par too (yes, sadly, you know I’m right again) but that’s not aproblem because we’re such a forgiving lot as well.

In fact, I’m beginning to suspect that the mundanes—straights, norms, muggles, proles,plebes—might be a little jealous of fandom. That would explain the ongoing conspiracy toshut down conventions on the east coast. “Conspiracy?” you ask. Yes, it all seems innocentat first glance but when you start to put the pieces together you see a pattern…

Disclave ’97. A New York cop (not a registered member of the con) handcuffs the “M” half ofhis S&M couple to a sprinkler head. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happenswhen you bust the head off an emergency sprinkler. Or maybe it does. Result: no more Disclave.

JerseyDevilCon ’03. A girl’s high school basketball team is staying at the same hotel. Afterbeing told they can’t drink at the Nth Degree party they wander down to the lobby where thedecide to lift the kilt of a man dressed as the Jersey Devil. Oddly, the man who had his per-sonal space violated was the one taken to jail that night after the kids’ coach filed a complaint.No more JerseyDevilCon (that’s not the reason the con closed, but it didn’t help).

Philcon ’03. At 5:00 AM, the fire alarm goes off. We later discover that another groupstaying at the hotel (I think it was a wedding party, but don’t quote me on that) had acci-dentally started a trashcan fire. Fortunately Philcon is a well-established convention and canshrug off a little event like that. It was still irritating though.

We’re taught when we’re young that police officers, teachers, and married people arerespectable and that we should be just like them. Thank goodness we aren’t.

April 2004 3

MACENovember 14-16High Point, NCIn the past couple of years I have found MACE to be anamazingly well-run small gaming convention. It seemed alittle bigger this year though with almost 400 attendeesand more games than you can shake a stick at. The gamingrooms were kept open until 4:00 AM on both Friday andSaturday and had at least fifty people still playing at thathour. Once again, the corporate donations were incredible(nearly fifty sponsoring companies) and helped to raise over $1,700 for the con’s local char-ity, the Reading Connection. This year’s con is scheduled for November 12-14. Keep an eyeon www.justusproductions.com for more info. JS

Philcon 2003 December 12-14Philadelphia, PAPhilcon is Philadelphia’s large regional convention, withattendance between 1,000 and 2,000 fans each year (closerto 1,000 this year). The con offers a huge array of activitiesto satisfy any taste. This year the Writer Guest of Honorwas David McDevitt, the Artist Guests of Honor were theBrothers Hildebrandt (although only one of the brotherswas able to attend), and the Special Guests were PeterDavid and Harry Harrison. Of course, many, many other artists, authors, editors, cos-tumers, and other genre luminaries were in attendance as well. A grossly incomplete listwould include Dr. Paul Levinson, P.D. Cacek, Michael Swanwick, Diane Weinstein, MarkRogers, Darrell Schweitzer, George Scithers, John Gregory Betancourt, Tony Ruggiero,Laura Anne Gilman, Scott Edelman, Gordon Van Gelder, Gardner Dozois, Jon Norman,and David Hartwell. Of course, the merry Nth Degree crew was there as well, with Issue #8in hand, literally hot off the presses.

As with past Philcon’s, my wife and children joined me, along with a friend and herthree children this year. For me, this was a con characterized by many highs and lows. Wearrived at the convention hotel early Friday morning so that the five children and myselfcould volunteer for the Art Show set up. I highly recommend this; volunteers make con-ventions happen and for the few hours you put in setting up, helping out, or tearingthings down afterwards, you get your membership for the next year waived. You also getto meet the wonderful people that work so hard all year to put on the show. While wewere laboring away in the showroom, my darling wife and her friend went shopping. TheMarriott Center City is one block from Lord and Taylor, the Reading Terminal Market,and a multistory shopping mall. Given the proximity of this con to Christmas, these storeswere very handy.

The con officially opened for business at 7:00 PM, with such panels as “Breaking theBelljar: Peter Max Draws Harlan Ellison” on genre art and “Transformation of the

CONVENT IONS

CONVENTION

S C H E D U L E

APRIL-JUNEApril 2-5 Costume-Con Atlanta, GA

April 8-11 Gaylaxicon San Diego, CA

April 8-11 World Horror Con Phoenix, AZ

April 9-11 Minicon Minneapolis, MN

April 9-11 Anime Boston Boston, MA

April 16-18 EerieCon Niagara Falls, NY

April 23-25 BakuretsuCon South Burlington, VT

April 30 - May 2 DemiCon Des Moines, IA

May 7-9 LepreCon Phoenix, AZ

May 14-16 Anime Central Rosemont, IL

May 28-30 Oasis Orlando, FL

May 28-30 Marcon Columbus, OH

May 28-31 Balticon Baltimore, MD

June 4-6 Duckon Chicago, IL

June 4-6 Con Carolinas Charlotte, NC

June 5-6 Mythic Journeys Atlanta, GA

June 11-13 Counterpoint Rockville, MD

June 24-27 Midwestcon Sharonville, OH

4 Nth Degree

Graphic Novel.” I especially liked the panel entitled “I Want toWrite That When I Grow Up” followed by “Contract and LiteraryLaw.” I also found time to visit the Art Show and the Dealer’sRoom. This year’s art show was in excellent form, with dozens ofartists attending.

Throughout the evening my children and their friends splittheir time between the gaming room and the anime room. My soneven entered a Mage Knight tournament and took first place. He lit-erally walked away with his arms loaded down with prizes from thegame designers. Later, my wife and I stopped off at the lounge inthe atrium of the hotel for martinis before we called it a night.

Saturday is the main day for the convention, with activities run-ning from early in the morning until the wee hours of the night. I’lljust mention a smattering of the things we did. I started the daywith a panel entitled, “Can This Writer Be Saved?” and a discussionof time travel by the noted author and physicist John Ashmead at10:00 AM. At 11:00, I ran into my first serious conflict. Scheduledat the same time were: The Editors’ Panel with Gordon Van Gelder,David Hartwell, Andrew Wheeler, and Gardner Dozois; a panel onrecommended jobs for writers hosted by Scott Edelman; a panel onthe use of pen names; and a panel on writing from the point of viewof a sociopath. For a writer like myself, each of these panels was amust-attend, so I felt terribly torn.

At noon I grabbed a quick bite and then presented myself atthe Writer’s Workshop, the highlight of the convention for me.For novice writers, this is definitely something you should do.This year the convention had arranged for Darrell Schweitzer,P.D. Cacek, Roman Ranieri, Diane Weinstein, and GeorgeScithers to review and critique any and all manuscripts submitted.Nowhere else have I ever been able to get such a concentrateddose of professional feedback on my writing, and as painful as itsometimes is I can’t pass it up. Sadly, this was the first low pointin the convention for me. The workshop was not well advertisedthis year. Only my story and one other were received, comparedto 6-10 manuscripts in previous years. Did you ever wonder howa scrap of meat thrown among a pack of hungry wolves felt? It wasa good news/bad news kind of experience. The other story was aneffort by a novice writer about a knight in shining armor rescuinga beautiful princess from an evil ogre. They tore the tale to bloodybits. Having already satisfied their bloodlust, they then spentclose to an hour with me and I’m happy to say that they werelargely positive. They had some specific recommendations, butoverall liked it. I floated out of the room.

I spent the rest of the day watching anime, making a few pur-chases in the Dealer’s Room, and watching my son take third placein another Mage Knight tournament. For dinner, our friend tookthe kids to the Mall for pizza while Patty and I went across the

street for an excellent Italian dinner. Back at the hotel, we got thekids settled in the gaming room and headed over to the main ball-room for the Masquerade. While CostumeCon and WorldCon arethe premier events for costumers, Philcon has traditionally been animportant regional competition. Sadly, this year was not up to paststandards. I understand the convention committee ran into prob-lems obtaining a venue for the competition and had a great deal ofdifficulty setting up. Although scheduled to start at 8:00, the doorsdid not open until 8:30, and the show did not start until almost9:00 due to technical difficulties. The presentations were truly won-derful but we were disappointed to learn that there were only ninecompetitors this year, as compared to the usual twenty or so in pre-vious years. Still, we did get one pleasant surprise. A young man onthe convention staff contrived an elaborate ruse to get called onstage and then had his girlfriend brought up as well. On one kneehe proposed and she accepted. The popular rumor afterwards wasthat their ceremony will be the highlight of next year’s Masquerade.

We exited before the awards were handed out and scattered. Iheaded to the video and anime rooms, the kids returned to thegaming room for yet another tournament, and my wife and herfriend visited the lounge before calling it a night. The rest of us fol-lowed shortly after midnight. We had enjoyed the day and werewell tired out. Unfortunately, we hit our third low point of the con-vention shortly after we turned in.

At 5:00 AM the fire alarm sounded. The security staff assuredus that there was no emergency and they were checking out thealarm. Still all of us and many others dressed and headed down tothe lobby to await the outcome. It turned out to be a false alarmand we were back in our rooms by 6:00. The rumors the next daywere that someone had triggered the fire alarm intentionally, butI never did hear a final resolution. (Someone not involved with thecon had accidentally started a trashcan fire—ed.) Still I am dis-turbed by the whole scenario, as this is how Disclave inWashington, D.C. ended.

Needless to say, we all slept in late the next day, and then head-ed to the Art Show to place our bids for the items we’d selected overthe weekend, then moved over to the Dealer’s Room for some last-minute purchases. I caught a panel on suspended animation beforewe all returned to the Art Show to pick up the items we had wonin the bidding. Normally, we would have stayed for a few morehours, but the weather reports were calling for rain/snow/sleet, sowe (and many others) loaded up the car and headed home.

Overall, I enjoyed Philcon very much, as did my family. It istrue that there were some glitches as noted, but the high points faroutweighed the low points. We already have our memberships fornext year and I would recommend you do the same. See youDecember 10-12, 2004! www.philcon.org JSR

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Genericon XVII January 16-18Troy, NYI returned, quite welcomed, toGenericon again this year.Coincidentally, the con hadrecord-breaking attendance thisyear. Once again they had anincredible array of web comicpros, such as Pete Abrams ofSluggy Freelance, Randy Milholland of Something Positive, and IanJones-Quartey of RPG World. There were other guests includingBard and Vicki Bloom, creators of the World Tree RPG; Tom VanZandt and Aaron Wood of Captain Drew and his Crew of Two; andFuzz Face of Looney Labs.

I arrived late on Friday because of traffic problems, but that wasfine. I quickly ran into an old friend and we passed the time catch-ing up and ended up playing in the Play-Doh Wars. I made a headthat looked like an Easter Island statue crossed with the MartianManhunter. The competition ended in a three-way tie, whichincluded my friend Dan Marsh who made a Bun-Bun, completewith switchblade and Easter egg. By this time it was kind of late soI went to check into the hotel.

I woke up early the next day to get to the Art Show. After set-ting up I ran to the panel on Fandom that I had been invited totake part in. It turned out to be a pretty relaxed panel with FuzzFace and me talking to the other people about Fandom for abouttwenty minutes. However as it came closer to noon the room filledup more and more in anticipation of the next panel. I began passingout ’zines to the people as they came in, I even threw some to peo-ple as I pranced around the room. By noon, the room had filled forPete Abrams’ Sluggy Freelance panel which was a great deal of fun.After lunch I decided to spend some time in the Art Show chattingwith the other artists. I even squeezed in some time in the Dealer’sRoom talking to Tom Van Zandt and Aaron Wood.

That evening Genericon took the guests out for dinner. We wentto a small pub in a rowhouse called “The Holmes and Watson,”which looked appropriately like it was straight out of VictorianEngland. The place was rather posh and had dark wood everywhere.They fit thirty of us upstairs. We had a blast, eating, joking, and cre-ating a panel-by-panel comic. I added a picture of a ninja pulling apair of lips from his eye. After dinner we all split up—a few went toset up the party, a few went to Lego Wars (just like Play-Doh Warsbut with Legos), and I hung around the convention.

I eventually went to the party and had a blast. There weren’tmany people, but we had fun turning Munchkin into a drinkinggame. The game lasted until 4:00 AM.

The next morning I crawled out of bed and grumbled my wayto the con complete with hangover and obnoxious cat girls shrillingin decibels that should not be hit. I caught the “Business of WebComics” panel and the “Web Comics Jam.” After the Jam I got theweather report—snow—and decided not to stick it out until theend like I was hoping. I missed a good chance to make some extracash (they let guests pimp their goods at the end of the con) but Idid avoid a massive snow storm.

Next year’s Genericon will be held January 21-23. There are nodetails online yet but stay tuned. AW

Arisia ‘04 January 17-19Boston, MAGoing to Bean Town in January isa certain way to freeze your beans.Boston gave its chilliest receptionto the throngs of Fen arriving atthe Boston Park Plaza, but theatmosphere inside was friendly,cozy and warm.

Arisia is a well-planned and well-executed literary SF/Fantasycon with a broad spectrum of programming for gaming, art,music, comics, and free-form fun. For sheer variety of program-ming choices, in fact, this is one of the best middle-sized cons onthe East Coast.

The chosen theme for programs this year was “The Future ofFreedom,” which meant the inclusion of some unusual panels andpanelists. Electronic security experts and open-source program-ming gurus were nearly as common as writers and artists. Panel top-ics such as “Does Information Really Want to be Free” producedmany spirited debates which continued even long after the panelswere finished. But the slate was not a slave to the theme, and therewas much to enjoy, whatever your fannish obsession. Other panelsincluded everything from Monty Python to Astonomy toLiveJournal. Tim Powers, the writer GOH, really gave of himselfand graciously participated in a great many panels and events.

One particularly notable track was all of the music-related pro-grams. King of Filk Tom Smith was the filk GOH, and in additionto performing concerts he spent a good deal of time in the filk cir-cles. There was also a chorale workshop, giving particularly ambi-tious singers the chance to filk in four-part harmony. But the onemusic program which got the biggest response was the demonstra-tion of a theramin. The crowd packed the conference room andspilled out into the hallway.

The most fascinating GOH had to be the kinetic sculptorArthur Ganson. A special reception for the display of his bizarre,

April 2004 7

If you would like to have your convention listed in our ConCalendar please send your information to editor@nthzine.com at least two months prior to your convention.

If you would like to represent Nth Degree at a convention and review your experience, please contact us and we will be happyto send you extra copies of the magazine to make you lookimportant.

hypnotic inventions was held on Friday night. It is impossible todescribe these works and do them any kind of justice, but if youever get a chance to see his work, seek him out. The little mechan-ical gems he makes will blow your skull off.

Our only major beef with Arisia was its alcohol policy and thethreatened enforcement thereof. We know that this had a lot to dowith codes in the City of Boston, but still. For a con themedaround freedom, threatening to infiltrate our party with plain-clothes officers (in order to ensure that adults of legal age were notchoosing to imbibe alcoholic beverages) seemed a little Orwellian.

But other than that, the management of Arisia was outstanding.Dealers’ Row was hopping, and many merchants reported excellentbusiness. The Green Room was well stocked and comfortable. Theprinted programming materials were beautiful and informative.And the staff was as friendly and helpful as you could ever ask for.

We loved Arisia! Despite the long drive and the dangerousweather, we are looking forward to the next one which is scheduledfor January 14-16, 2005 with Barbara Hambly as the Guest ofHonor (www.arisia.org). RB

MarsCon 2004 January 23-25Williamsburg, VAOnce again, all of the regularsdescended upon Williamsburgfor another fun and relaxingweekend of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, andLARPing. I love the absoluteconsistency of MarsCon. I’vebeen attending this con foreleven years now (since their second or third year). In fact, theywere the first convention to make me a programming guest (wayback when) so I have a soft spot in my heart for them.

The con committee took it easy on me this year—only sched-uling me for a single panel—so I had lots of time for catching upwith old friends. My light schedule for panels was mainly becauseprogramming at MarsCon is heading more and more into a heavyworkshop-oriented schedule, which is nice as it makes for a moreinteractive convention experience. This year’s workshops includedArt, Miniatures Painting, Terrain Building for Gamers, ArmorMaking, Writing, and SF Poetry. I’m told that next year there willbe even more.

And, of course, all the usual guests were there: Bud Webster,Daniel Trout, John and Jason Waltrip, Women of Whimsey, Luna-C, Robin Welch, and others. Overall attendance was down (fan-dom in a Navy town takes a big hit when the fleet is out) but I stillsaw several new faces at the con and talked to a few people whowere enjoying their first MarsCon.

Next year’s con will be held January 21-23, 2005. You can visitwww.marscon.net for more details. MP

The ultra-cool interactive miniatures strategy game, Quickfire 2, being played at MarsCon.

8 Nth Degree

The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, edited byDarin Park and Tom Dullemond, Dragon Moon Press, 360pp., ISBN 1896944094. The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasyis a remarkably ambitious title. Imagine a warehouse filled with allof the Fantasy literature ever written… stacks of books, rising to theceiling, representing everyone from Piers Anthony to RogerZelazny. In struts a 360-page trade paperback, which glancesaround at the looming towers of works.

“Oh yeah,” says the cocky little book, “I've got it covered.”Fortunately, we’re all drilled from grade school not to judge a

book by its cover. On the inside, the Complete Guide is a muchmore homey and down-to-Middle-Earth read.

The book is a carefully assembled collection of essays by writers,fans, and subject-matter experts (often all three rolled into the sameperson). There are chapters on the basic staples of Fantasy (magic,arms & armor, combat), plus some fun oddities and surprises (mar-tial arts, medieval food, humor). In all, fifteen people contributedtheir expertise. The committee-animal nature of the book is both astrength and a weakness, as might be expected. The quality of theinformation provided is uneven from section to section. Some of thecontributors laid out their knowledge in great depth of detail, creat-ing a useful reference which a writer might use for, say, choosing anappropriate weapon to arm a horde of goblins. Others only gave thereader a batch of glossy platitudes, the sort of opinion-tinged gener-alities you hear in the last ten minutes of a panel discussion.

Overall, though, the diversity of writers is much more of a plusthan a minus. Single-author guides to writing can often sufferfrom tunnel vision. This book is less of a tunnel and more of amagic forest. There are sights to be seen and treasures to be uncov-ered. The chapter on medieval food, for instance, is a wealth ofdetail and insight into an aspect of world creation which a writer

could easily overlook. For that matter, the chapter on world cre-ation does a great deal to encourage the aspiring writer to exercisecreative muscle in place of cliché. And there’s even a chapter onclichés themselves, giving some useful warning flags and Do NotEnter signs for the landscape of Fantasy writing.

My main complaint as an aspiring Fantasy writer reading thisbook is the lack of real industry insight. There was a lot of care todiscuss anachronisms and other potentially-correctable cosmetic mis-takes a writer might make. But it would have been nice to have a sec-tion to talk about the limits of the genre, the “unwritten rules” ofpublished Fantasy, the sorts of themes and choices an author couldmake which are most likely to cause a publisher to reject the work.There is a section on markets, but it does almost nothing to guide awriter to write for publication, other than advising you to study thepublisher's submission guidelines. But this is a nitpick. The book isfilled with insights, examples, anecdotes and advice, which anyFantasy writer can use to good benefit. Taken as a whole, TheComplete Guide to Writing Fantasy is both an informative resourceand a very entertaining read. It belongs on the shelf of anyone whois setting out to write in this challenging and popular genre. RB

Greetings From Lake Wu, Jay Lake and Frank Wu,Wheatland Press, 246 pp., ISBN 0-9720547-2-3. This com-bined effort from the talents of Jay Lake and Frank Wu, in additionto having one of the most clever titles I’ve seen lately, affected me onmany levels. For starters, I’ve been cursing myself for not being ableto read all of the genre magazines on the market. For if I could, Iwould have known about Jay Lake sooner. Wow. I can’t rememberthe last time that I have read such a consistently great collection ofshort stories from a single author. In a time when short fiction getslittle respect (and less money), it’s refreshing to see someone that has

SP INE BENDERRobert Balder, Amy Moler, Michael D. Pederson

so clearly mastered the form. The stories here cover the full range ofscience fiction, fantasy, horror, fairy tale, satire, and a few surprises.The Wu in Lake Wu is, of course, Hugo-nominated fan artist FrankWu. Having met and been on panels with Frank at conventions, Iknow what an energetic, jubilant person he is. If I hadn’t met himthough, I could tell as much from his illustrations—many of themseem like they are constrained by the dimensions of the page, readyto burst from the page, and all of them evoke an emotional response.It’s just a shame that the book is in black and white because, as youcan tell from the cover, Wu’s art works even better in color. If you’rea fan of short fiction then your library is incomplete without this one.

Ilium, Dan Simmons, Eos, 576 pp., ISBN 0-380-97893-8.I loved it! Before I had even finished reading the book, I found myselfrecommending it to anyone who would listen to me. As in Hyperion,Simmons once again blends science fiction with classic literature inbrilliant new ways that will shock and amaze you. Ilium incorporateselements from Homer’s epics, Shakespeare’s Tempest, and the works ofMarcel Proust. It’s an unusual combination but damned if it doesn’twork. Only Dan Simmons could successfully pull off a scene withrobots on Europa analyzing Shakespeare’s sonnets and not make itseem ridiculous. The story here is too complex to sum up in a blurb(I tried, the best I can come up with is “a sci-fi version of the TrojanWar,” and that barely scratches the surface). Space-faring robots, god-like Post-Humans, pampered eloi-styled humans, Greek warriors,Shakespearean monsters, Quantum Teleportation, resurrected schol-ars, Little Green Men from Mars, intrigue, betrayal, and the face thatlaunched a thousand ships. Simmons redefines the term “Epic”—again. And as incredible as Ilium is, it’s only the build-up for the finalwar between men and gods that will take place in the sequel, Olympos.

Julia and the Dream Maker, P.J. Fischer, TraitorDachshund Books, 290 pp., ISBN 0-9744287-0-1. Despite allwarnings to the contrary, I highly recommend judging this book byits cover. This small-press publication looks like a big-press offering

and reads like one too—it’s a ripping good yarn. Set in the nearfuture, the story starts with our hero, Steven, on trial for the violationof genetic engineering laws. A couple of courtroom chapters serve tobuild the suspense before flashing back to the main story. In anattempt to raise some cash, Steven, his girlfriend Eli, and their friendBennie create an AI toy rabbit to sell to kids. However, Steven com-bines the rabbit project with some cutting-edge bio-engineering ideasthat he is currently writing a thesis on. Not quite hard-science andnot quite soft-science, this squishy-science is strong enough to lay thefoundation of the story upon. Although some of the antagonists arethinly drawn, the main characters are real enough that you laugh attheir antics and worry about their predicaments. The book takes astrange turn at the end when Steven’s AI genetic-modeling programbrings Eli into a simulation that Steven has allowed to evolve on hiscomputer. This is where the titular Julia comes in. Unfortunately, theonly character that can properly explain how and why this happened(Steven) is in jail, so any explanations will have to wait until book two(due out later this year). Apart from the somewhat baffling ending, Ireally enjoyed this and think that it would be an especially goodstarter-novel for someone that has never read SF before.

Morevi: The Chronicles of Rafe and Askana, Lisa Leeand Tee Morris, Dragon Moon Press, 512 pp., ISBN 1-896944-07-8. It’s high fantasy! It’s historical fiction! Two, two, two books inone! A very clever setup. Rafe Rafton is a privateer for Henry VIII,Askana Moldarin is Queen of Morevi in the world of Naruihm.Thanks to a rift in the space-time continuum (yes, it’s an old andtired device but this is fantasy not SF, call it magic and everyone’shappy) our heroes are able to cross between the two worlds. It’s beendone before but Lee and Morris have fleshed out both worlds so fullythat this worn-out plot device works better than it has in years. Thestory… Rafe and his crew are hired by Askana to root out a conspir-acy that threatens her throne. After rescuing her from assassins thegroup travels back to England to recruit allies. The following adven-ture brings us magic, intrigue, romance, tragedy, beasties, and one

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10 Nth Degree

heckuva climactic battle. The book does have some flaws though thatwould have been fixed with a more thorough editing job—it’s nearly150 pages before the concept of magic is introduced, the endingcomes too far after the climax, and there are some glaring anachro-nisms—but I’ll always overlook a few flaws if the characters are good,and these characters are on the verge of stepping off the page andraiding your fridge. This is true swashbuckling adventure!

Roger Zelazny’s Chaos and Amber, John GregoryBetancourt, ibooks, 318 pp., ISBN 0-7434-7494-5. Havingbeen rather pleased with the first of Betancourt’s prequels, I startedreading the next shortly after it came out. The latest is, in many ways,true to Zelazny’s form—it picks up practically right in the middle ofa thought and within days of the previous book, chronologically. Thistime we get to see more of the Courts of Chaos and learn a littleabout their dueling forms. I found it minorly annoying that a lot oftime seemed to be spent repeating descriptions of how Oberon per-ceived things in Chaos. However, this did serve the purpose of rein-forcing his inability to integrate with the Logrus, but it was overkillin a few places. In this book, Oberon’s brother Aber finally gets a bitof fleshing out as a character. Dworkin spends most of his time awayfrom the action, but is referred to quite a few times as Oberon triesto fathom the motivations behind some of his father’s actions andnon-actions. And he does make a notable appearance near the end ofthe book. I did find it somewhat frustrating that even though we arelearning much about Oberon, so secretive in Zelazny’s classic Ambernovels, the same sort of treatment is now being applied to Dworkin.But then I suppose that’s rather true to Zelazny’s style too, as is havingthe book end literally in the middle of a sentence. I won’t tell youexactly what comes to pass but the unicorn is involved. All in all, Ifound this book as enjoyable as the previous one, and look forwardto To Rule in Amber, which is due out in the fall. AM

Team of Darkness, Tony Ruggiero, Hard Shell WordFactory, 180 pp., ISBN 0-7599-0103-1. If you’re a regular con-vention attendee it’s hard not to know who Tony Ruggiero is. Itturns out that in addition to being a master of self-promotion,Ruggiero is also a talented action-adventure writer. Team ofDarkness is a Military/Horror novel about a group of vampiresworking with a US Navy Special Forces team. The plot is simplebut effective—military discovers vampires, apprehends vampires,sends vampires to kill drug lords. And appropriately enough, thestory is written like a black-op itself: it’s a quick in-and-out strike,precisely written, and doesn’t waste your time with unnecessarydetails. I was particularly impressed with the flashback scenes thatestablished the vampire’s backgrounds. The transformation fromyoung Serbian villagers to inexperienced WWI soldiers to reclusive

vampires to cold-blooded killers is handled so well that I foundmyself wanting to know more about where these characters go afterthe book is finished. There is also a great sub-plot grudge matchbetween the vampires and a Serbian farmer/vampire hunter thateffectively gets to the heart of the character’s motivations. This is amust-read for military minds and horror hounds alike.

This Magic World, Ru Emerson, SRM Publisher Ltd., 53 pp.,ISBN 0-9722473-3-5. This Magic World is subtitled “ACollection of Fine Fantasy” and, for the most part, it is. This chap-book brings together four previously published short stories from RuEmerson. In only four stories Emerson manages to cover an amazingrange of fantasy styles. “Call Him By Name” is a sharply clever decon-struction of fairy tale clichés that follows a pair of star-crossed loversthrough their trials against an unseen tormentor. “Tall Magic” is awitty three wishes tale where the basketball playing heroine gets thelast laugh in this very original character-driven genie story. “A GoldenNet For Silver Fishes” is as beautifully written as its title suggests. Butdespite the fact that I enjoyed the lyrical use of language in this Celtic-inspired fantasy, I felt that it never really caught my interest. “TheWerewolf ’s Gift” was a fantastic choice to end the collection with.Combining the best elements of her other work, “Gift” is a cute andmoving story about a werewolf that is presented with a chance tobecome human again but must make a difficult choice first.Collectively, these stories put a fresh new face on the fantasy genre.

The Rapidly Dwindling Stack of ‘Zines…Although I’m still receiving copies of other people ’zines (mostly at conven-tions) the number has dropped a bit this issue. Lets keep those ’zines coming!

Childlike Empress, No. 0; Raequel Solomon; 402 W. AirySt., Apt. 5; Norristown, PA 19401-4602; ladytris@yahoo.com;irregular; trades for ‘zines. This one really keeps the spirit alive.Digest-sized, cheaply copied and handed to me at a con, this is afanzine in the truest sense of the word. Con reports, goth fiction, adrinking game, info on zine-ing, and a Penn Jillete fan page—I ratethis one Funtastic.

The Tarpeian Rock; Arx Publishing; 10 Canal Street, Suite231; Bristol, PA; www.arxpub.com; annual; free. Beautifullyprinted, glossy cover, 16 pages. A Catholic-friendly mix of fantasy,historical fiction, poetry, and essays.

The WSFA Journal, December 2003; Samuel Lubell;lubell@bigfoot.com; monthly; free to members, also availableonline. The club ’zine for the Washington SF Association. Containsclub business and an assortment of movie and book reviews.

April 2004 11

Announcing the all-new

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12 Nth Degree

Nth Degree recently sat down with con artist, er, freelance artist CraigEnslin for a quick chat.

ND: How would you define yourself in the world of Fandom?

CE: Well, I’m a published artist, but more than that I specialize inproviding custom illustration directly to the members ofFandom… the fans themselves.

ND: Custom illustrations. How long have you been doing that?

CE: Off and on since the late ’80s. I was always doing charactersketches for my role-playing game pals. One day I decided to get a tableat a local convention. I brought a portfolio and a sign that said, “PleaseDisturb the Artist.” It was a greater success than I’d expected, and I’vebeen attending conventions to one degree or another ever since.

ND: A published artist—tell me more about thetypes of publications andthe work.

CE: I worked in thecomic industry for abouta year, on a very nicecomic called Raven. Ihave contributed illustra-tions to many role-play-ing and card games, aswell as magazines and

graphic design in and out of fandom. It can be a tricky profession,because it’s so very, very fun and cool.

ND: How do you balance the “contract work” with the “egowork”? And I mean ego in a good way.

CE: <chuckle> Well, good or bad, I certainly have one… just askmy wife (costumer Rae Bradbury) and family. But to answer yourquestion—to me, it’s been a priority to make my way in the worldwith my art. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Lots of artists sup-plement their income with “day jobs” non-related to the art field.For me, that’s never worked. The good side of that is that I do whatI love and make a fairly handsome living doing it. The bad side isthat I don’t have the time, or maybe opportunity is a better word,to explore “ego art” as you call it.

ND: Tell me more about your day job.

CE: Well, it varies. I do software interface work, Flash work,advanced web design. It varies with my clientele and their needs.That type of commercial or graphic design work constitutes about

two-thirds of my income, while pure illustration makes up theremaining third. I expect the ratio to reverse over the next year or twoso that the pure illustration work comprises the larger two-thirds.

ND: And that’s the work you find at conventions?

CE: Yes. Some for individual fans/gamers/models, some for publishinginterests, like we discussed before, some… well… in the adult industry.

ND: Gotcha. Moving on with our G-rated discussion… Let’s talkabout cons. How many have you attended over the years?

CE:Whoa… Anywhere from five to twenty a year over an approx-imately fifteen year period… <checks calculator> So over 180 or so.Wow, that’s quite a lot, isn’t it?

ND: Yes, it is! Any cons that are absolute staples for you?

CE: Arisia is a great, great con. Very consistent, well run, good loca-tion. Dragon*Con in Atlanta is wonderful because it’s so enormous,and the attendees are SO into what they’re doing. There’s a fantasticlevel of costuming and enthusiasm there. Beyond that, in my view,the quality of a given con will vary tremendously from year to year.

ND: What’s your most memorable con experience?

CE:Well, for a G-rated interview I could tell how I met my wife: I wasliving in Virginia and I traveled about as far north as I ever traveled backthen to attend Shore Leave at the Hunt Valley Inn in Baltimore. Rae wasliving near Boston at the time, and had traveled as far south as she hadever gone to attend the same event. She walked by my table in a fairlyalluring and mighty tight outfit. I didn’t leave her alone all con until Igot to know her and, more importantly, got her address and phonenumber. We were living 600 miles apart, both in relationships—eachwith varying levels of commitment—and we had managed to share agrand total of six hours together at the event. Obviously, it was fate.

ND: Beautiful… it’s an inspiration to other con-goers.

CE: Indeed, cons aren’t for fandom, they’re for true love!

ND: How about your worst con experience?

CE: One time I drove to Atlanta for Dragon*Con and I pulledinto town without enough money to get me home. I had to counton a successful event—or I’d have to move there.

ND: Financial issues are common to many Con-goers. How doyou deal with it?

CE: I went through a period where I was focused entirely on thefinancial side of what I was doing. Every aspect of my approachto custom illustration was focused on profitability and it can bean insidious trap for artists. It may sound corny, but if an artist

FACES OF FANDOMCatherine T. Pederson

April 2004 13

doesn’t care, I mean really care, about what they’re doing, their tal-ent will atrophy, and that will show in their work, believe me.

ND: Let’s talk about your illustration work. Do you have a stylethat you’re naturally inclined toward?

CE: Well, the subject matter of what I do is dictated by the wishesof my clients, not my personal preferences. That is, incidentally,why so few artists do what I do, it requires that your subordinateyour artistic preferences for your clients. I have developed a sort of“default” drawing style that I drop into in the absence of otherdirection. Certain facial and body types I tend to gravitate towards.

ND: What kind of demand does the personal illustration workput on your time?

CE: A tremendous demand. I’m the chief bread-winner for myfamily. Every hour I spend working on something “off the clock”hurts the household cash flow. It’s a question of building a buffer oftime, so I can invest that time into more of what I want to do, inorder to give that a chance to take off, and thus become all that Ido. Did that make any sense whatsoever?

ND: No, but who’s really reading this, anyway?

CE: Good point.

ND: You mentioned that your wife Rae is a costumer. As a supportivehusband, how does her work affect your time at home and at cons?

CE: <laughs> I once was asked to participate in a panel aimed at

those who are married to or dating a costumer. It was actually quite

an informative panel and surprisingly well attended. What came out

of that panel really sums up the issues involved with having a cos-

tumer as a significant other: 1) At least one room of your home will

be consumed and ever-after exclusively devoted to their costuming

habit. 2) You will be involved in the creative process, whether you

like it or not, and finally, 3) You WILL be on stage, probably within

the year. Resign yourself to it. It’s much more fun that it sounds.

ND: You tend to “garb up” at Cons. Would you say that you wear

a “costume” or are putting on a “personae”?

CE: Well, that’s easily your most insightful question. It’s a compli-

cated issue. I wear different garb at different events. I’ve found that

wearing garb, or some sort of distinctive attire, is good business. But,

while I don’t feel my personality changes in the slightest, in or out of

garb, it is true that when I’m wearing garb I look very different than

I do in regular, daily life… and that difference does have an impact

on the way some people interact with me. Cons are an accepting

environment, where a person is assured that 90% of the people

around them have interests and hobbies just as strange as their own.

ND: Finally, how can people learn more about what you do?

CE: Check me out online at http://www.enslin.com/fantasy/

14 Nth Degree

The Failure by Susan Lange

Illustration by Andy World

April 2004 15

Jennie Knot sat in dismay in the graffittiless powder room ofthe Student Union, constipated. This was due in no small partto the fact that she had eaten nothing but animal by-products

for a number of weeks. She simply wasn’t getting her fiber. But italso was an indication of her psychological state. In her final termat the famed Schloss Institute for Excellent Musicians, she wasalternately relieved to be done with six years of grueling study andscared shitless—so to speak—about the fact that now she’d have togo out and be somebody. As if fitting into the big picture wouldever be a problem for Jennie Knot.

In the fourth grade, after she took the musical aptitude test, itwas discovered that not only could she keep a good beat, but shecould dance to it as well. In other words, she was musically-inclined.She wasted no time in taking up the Boehm’s Instrument—a hollowtube that generates a sound when the operator directs his or herbreath over the principle opening at the near end. The pitch of thesubsequent vibrating air column inside the tube changes as the oper-ator opens or closes valves and holes situated on the far end.

By high school graduation Jennie had mastered the Boehm, enjoy-ing no less than first chair in the orchestra and bands—symphonic, pit,jazz, and marching—as well as holding featured soloist status on “specialmusic” Sundays at church. In that span of time she’d memorized theentire body of important music that had been written since the begin-ning of time. Even if nobody was writing anything after 2302, that’s alot of music. From Bach chorales to Led Zeppelin drum spectaculars,Jennie knew every solo line transposed to the correct key for the Boehm.

For her diligence and sacrifice of personal life, in 2396, JennieKnot was accepted to the Schloss Institute—Soloist’s Track—andcame to the astonishing conclusion that it was high time she gotserious about her music. She began practicing twelve hours a dayand relearned all that archived music in the remaining eleven keysof Western harmonic thought.

And now, with only one examination left and a final performancebefore the talent scouts for the Big Symphonies (BSes), she was bothelated and frightened that graduation loomed. She was the Institute’sstar pupil and all the BSes were chasing after her, trying to entice heron board. They alluded to gifts of solid gold flutes, free long-distancefor a year, exotic trips to Germanic countries. The baby combos didn’teven bother. They knew they’d never attract someone of her stature.

Still, as is often the case with the overly-talented, she haddoubts about herself.

She emerged from the antiseptic powder room, red-faced anduncomfortably bloated. Spotting her curly-headed pal, Loonie,over at a table on the side, she walked over and gingerly sat downin a vacant chair.

“I saw that peasant with the glass eye again today,” Loonie said.“What peasant? There’s no peasants anymore,” Jennie

answered.“Okay, okay, you know what I mean. That old lady in black

with the babushka thing.”“Oh, right. The ‘gypsy.’ She’s standing on the corner waiting for

the light to change. You’re on the bus. She looks at you with herglass eye. Big deal. What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s the third time. And she looks at me. Nobody else.”“How can you tell where she’s looking if she has a glass eye?”“I can tell. And it’s the third time!”“Yeah, all right. Bad luck. Can’t you go home and break a mir-

ror or something to cancel it out?”“No, I have to live through it whatever it is. This is the worst

time this could happen with finals and everything. I gotta go homeand light a candle.”

“Why don’t you go home and practice? You’d do a lot better.”“Easy for you to say. You’ve never even seen second first chair.”“Because I practice.”“And you’re the most talented person I know.“No, I’m the hardest worker. You’re the most talented. You’re

pulling straight C’s and you never practice.”“I burn incense.”“I practice.”“No shit. When was the last time you made it to the

Congolese?”“Orientation Day.”“Jesus! You need a drink.”“I have my instrument.”“Yeah, please. You sound like you’re in band camp.”The conversation degraded from there and soon Jennie and

Loonie left for their respective abodes; Jennie to practice, Loonie todo whatever it was that Loonie did to ensure she passed her classes.

Two days later, as the March winds scoured the last bits of driedOctober leaves from the landscape oaks around town, Jennie sat onthe airbus headed for home. She stared at the piece of paper withthe number grade of her final exam slashed in red ink across thetop: 8.5. Numbed by the sheer impossibility of the grade, she sat insilence. Never had she received a mark lower than 9.5 on anything.Even penmanship back in third grade.

She was beyond the point in the tragedy where she repeatedlyasked herself how this had happened. She knew how it happened. Inthe middle section of her final challenge—the solo duet in“Unraveling Ravel,” where the performer sings along with herself—she jumped to the third instead of the prescribed perfect fifth for thevocal harmony. And with that capricious move came all the emotionthe third entails. Not only was it a mortal sin at this late date, whenevery schoolgirl should play a solo note-for-note like an ice skatercarving the figure eight countless times on top of itself with nary a

16 Nth Degree

skew, but the choice of a third to be the point of the revolution wasnothing short of, well, revolting. After that she might as well havecome waltzing in with a wholly-owned new piece of music. Thedamage for changing an “as written” was the same.

Not that writing music was against the law or anything. Just thataround the turn of the previous century, it dawned on people thatnobody had come up with anything original in two hundred years. Newmusic represented a mere rehash of older ideas. The glory days wereover. The big recording companies took note of the situation and firedall their uncreative songwriters and composers and fat copyright lawyersand went on to make more money in the tribute band arena than eventhey had dreamt about. Nobody wrote any more music after that.

Jennie stared at the stain on the paper in her hand, worrying forher future. Suddenly the airbus jolted to a stop to let passengersboard, momentarily rousing Jennie from her gloom. She looked up.Through the moving line of arriving passengers she could see an oldwoman standing outside on the corner dressed in black. The womanseemed to be staring at Jennie and even at this distance it was obvi-ous the old woman had a dead eye capable of seeing into the future.The airbus jumped into motion again and continued on its journey.

Once in her room on Denison Street, she tossed the Boehm inits black leather case onto the bed, flopping next to it, face forward,without removing her spring slicker. She lay staring at the faux-linoleum floor tiles until she heard her next-door neighbors slam-ming the door, signaling their return home to start supper and thenightly bicker session.

Jennie reached up to the wall unit next to the bed and pushedthe “send” button.

“Who?” the unit asked.“Loonie,” she answered.The line remained silent until Loonie on her end, pushed the

answer button and said, “What’s up?”“I, uh, I’d like to go out tonight. Are you doing anything?”“Whoohoo!” Loonie hollered. “Let’s Ceeeeeelebrate good times,

C’mon!” Loonie sang out from the middle of the room, probablydancing on the furniture.

“Cut that out or I’m not going. I hate that song,” Jennie yelledinto her speaker.

“Okay, okay, okay. I’ll pick you up at seven. I got a great littleplace for you. Strictly hush-hush. It’s a blind pig.”

“I’m not really hungry. I was hoping we’d go get drunk.”“Not to worry, hon. It’s a speakeasy, but we’ll talk later and

don’t forget to erase this conversation.”“Uh.”“See you at seven.” Loonie clicked off.“Uh.”At seven-thirty-two on the dot, the drone buzz of the down-

stairs call-up signaled Loonie’s arrival. By seven-thirty-eight Looniehad packed Jennie into the back seat of an unmarked cab, inside ofwhich sat a couple of characters of the male persuasion.

Loonie made the appropriate introductions. Apparently theirnames were Raif and Tonál. Raif, the guy that was sorting out to beJennie’s date, smiled at her. The inside of the cab was almost com-pletely dark, and she wouldn’t have known he smiled at all exceptthat he had a gold tooth which reflected just enough light from apassing street lamp to show his lips. Was that tooth shaped like a fang?No, it was just her imagination. If Jennie was insecure about goingto what she thought Loonie had said was a sleaze-easy, going withsomeone of the opposite sex with teeth made out of metal, drove herto near panic. She racked her brains for a good opening line.

“What’s your major?” She cringed as soon as she said it.The boy, or man, or wolf, laughed. Thank god the only light in the

cab came from that tooth so nobody could see how red her face was.“These cats don’t go to school, Jen,” Loonie butted into the

conversation. “They’re in the band.”“Oh,” Jennie answered, as if being in a band was an excuse not to

participate in life’s activities. Not to go to church, for example—on apar with being a conscientious objector or a vegetarian. One didn’thave to do what everyone else did if one was in a band. For some oddreason it didn’t occur to Jennie that she herself was in a band.

There were a few more gold-glinting smiles and uncomfortableconversation starts—comments on the weather and such—with nohelp from Loonie who was slurping at her partner’s face the wholeride until the chatty group reached their destination. The cab pulledup in front of a brownstone, flanked on each side by identical brown-stones. Jennie noticed the name of the street was “Ludlow” and real-ized she had no idea where she was. A wrought iron fence ran downthe length of the sidewalk in front of the houses and the boys madea big show of opening the gate for their ladies. As she passed through,Loonie, in turn, made a big show of stopping to apply lipstick usingthe glow of a nearby retro gaslamp in her compact mirror.

“Want some?” she asked Jennie, handing the tube over.“No thanks,” Jennie answered. “I can’t wear that and play. It’s

like trying to whistle through wax lips.”“You’re not playing tonight, Sweetie.”“Thanks anyway.”The group bustled inside and the boys escorted Loonie and

Jennie to the “band table,” ordering a round of comp beers beforejumping up to the stage.

The room, packed by patrons sitting six to eight at tiny oil-rubbed oak tables, was lit by candlelight. Incense mixing withstinky perfume and pomade permeated the air. The room smelledlike smoked Vicks and Jennie worried about damage to her lungs.She left her coat on until Loonie admonished her to stop fussing,

April 2004 17

relax, enjoy, and take a swig. Finally the band dug in.From the moment the first trombone sliced through the trade-

mark intro and the big bass drum slapped down on the one, Jenniewas blown away. It was all she could do to stay in her seat. Butnobody else was dancing so she didn’t either. They all stuck by theirtables, screaming and singing with the band, feet stomping on thefloor, hands clapping, heads bobbing in whiplash timing. Once in awhile somebody stood up and did a couple of steps, ground againsta wall pole, or slapped a knee, but nobody danced as the bandassaulted the stand, swaying back and forth to punctuate the rhythm.The standing bass twirled his big guitar, the piano player trouncedthe keys, the saxes lifted their instruments up on the squeal notes.

The first set—the show set—swept Jennie away. During a lull,she leaned over into Loonie’s face and demanded to know wherethis music had come from. She’d never heard it before. “Who wroteit?” she asked.

“It’s not written, you jerk,” Loonie answered. “They make it upas they go along.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” Jennie said. “No, it’s not. It’s just not done,” Loonie laughed. “Man, you are

really square.”The second set was the dance set. By now all the undercover cops

had gone, satisfied that no illegal dancing was going on, so everybodyjumped up raring to go. A couple of goofy college guys wearing mob-ster hats and smoking alpha cigars dropped by Jennie and Loonie’stable. Jennie, by now committed to the scene, hopped up withoutgiving a thought to the poor union dancers and how she was takingbread out of their mouths by doing her own hoofing. She was on herfourth comped beer by this time and kicking higher than anybody.

The evening continued in this sweaty vein until around threewhen Loonie dragged Jennie out by the slicker tails to the all-nightbus stop. Raif and the boys were still going strong thanks to chem-ical enhancers passed to them by loyal followers, but it was officiallya school night so the girls somehow talked themselves into goinghome. They tearfully said “g’night,” to their heroes and swam homein a puddle of sweat, alcohol, and rain. A spring shower had com-menced sometime during the night.

A blistering hangover developed the next day, but Jennie smiledthrough the pain. New music she’d never heard before existed in theworld. Fresh music. Sinful and unmemorized. Virginal.

She sat on the toilet and evacuated her bowels for the first timein weeks. Nothing works on the impacted quite like skunky beer.

She excused herself from her classes claiming an intestinal virus,and spent the day in bed. She tried listening to Mahler, Babich,Rose, even her favorite—Tchaikovsky. They were nice, but she kepther finger on the tuner and flipped through the selections of piped-in music showing up on the view board. She searched for some-

thing she had never heard before but for some odd reason knew wasthere. She stopped on each milli-Hz band and listened for a hint ofsound emerging from the static.

Finally at the high end of the spectrum—the black bar end, thesection that requires parental guidance—lay the unnamed, uncata-logued 20th offerings. She had never listened to anything from thissection. Hadn’t bothered to study anything beyond the monotonyof Philip Glass, John Williamson, and Elvis. It was frowned uponfor one thing. Not only was it ridiculed and maligned in publicopinion, it was rated X and had to be paid for.

She picked through the unfamiliar names and stopped onone—Basie at Saranoff Hall. She had no idea what it was but sheselected it, punched in her debit code, and lay back into the pillowsof her headboard within arm’s reach of the Alka Seltzer.

She soaked in the music the entire day, shelling out her last fewweeks of food allowance. Boehm kept packed away in its case. Shemade life-changing resolutions—promises to study newfoundmusical forms and get out a little more.

The next day, of course, hangover and money gone, constipa-tion settling in again, she slammed back to reality and the 8.5 she’dreceived two days previously. She got up early and punished herselffor her day of truancy by practicing nothing but études in C—nosharps or flats—for several hours.

She did penance in this way for the next few days, practicingmajor scales down one mode and up another, circling through thefifths. Each day she exercised through the entire set of microtonesbefore even taking a sip of water. For sustenance she ate oyster crack-ers or whatever she could scrape from the walls of her cold unit—leftovers from days gone by when the food allowance had not yetrun out. She avoided the Student Union and Loonie like an albinoavoids the sun. She dropped ten pounds and urinated hourly.

Finally the eve before the big final performance came. She felt likeshe was on the edge of a precipice. Everyone else thought so as well.Her periodic weeping and flailing and praying to God to exorcise thesinful thoughts of free music from her head left her red-eyed and pale.Professor Linn stopped her on her way out of the final sectional.

“What’s wrong, Jennifer?” she asked. “You look terrible.”As soon as the last student had exited, Jennie broke down and

cried. “I am so, so sorry, Dr. Linn. I have sinned. I have strayed. Idon’t deserve to be here.”

Dr. Linn closed the door to the practice room. “Uh, what’s withthe dramatics?”

Jennie told her teacher the whole story of the night at the noname club, the intestinal flue lie, and the improvised music.

Seeing how miserable Jennie was, Dr. Linn stifled the laugh thatthreatened to erupt from within. She hugged her protégé close andinvited her home to supper, explaining how everyone “dabbles.”

18 Nth Degree

“It’s okay,” Dr. Linn said later at dinner. “It’s important, in fact, tosample the other side. It’s unhealthy to never experiment or wonder.”She recounted her own dabblings wistfully, pointing out that Jenniehad a serious career in a fast, high-paying field. She was desired by allthe BSes, and why not just put this little insurrection behind her?

Having confessed her story to Dr. Linn, Jennie’s spirits lifted.Especially after hearing the bit about the BSes. Of course a double help-ing of pork chops with gravy plopped onto a mound of mashed pota-toes, buttered wax beans on the side, did its part as well. She departedfor home stuffed and gladdened, and practiced her part in the next day’sperformance for four hours before lying down from exhaustion.

Unfortunately as soon as the lights went out, Benny Goodmanpopped into her head. And no amount of finger exercises got himout of it. She slept a mere half hour before the biggest, most impor-tant day of her life.

The exam performance was scheduled for noon. Jennie spentthe morning visualizing. She sat cross-legged facing the mirror, eyesclosed and humming her part. She became one with her instru-ment, even as it lay untouched in its case, unassembled. She becameher instrument, breathing the air inside the tube. Its melody was inher and it was her. By 10 a.m. she was ready. She dressed in her per-formance uniform, black gabardine slacks with matching dressjacket, white ruffled shirt, make-up—no lipstick—combed andsprayed hair, glossy eye shadow, garnet earrings, powdered neck,shined shoes. Finally she removed to the symphony hall.

The place was filled with parents. Hers were there somewhereas well. (They’d flown in the night before, but as per Instituteguidelines in order to avoid bad luck omens, did not visit with theirkid before the performance.) She’d meet them afterwards for lunchat The Songbird so Mom and Pop could tell her how wonderful shewas and how proud they were.

The performance was a blur. Later she couldn’t tell much about itor when the idea hit her. Everybody including Jennie was playing per-fectly up to the point of the indiscretion. Her duet with herself went offquite well in the first half—she received a standing ovation. Numbersof nametag-wearing recruits scribbled continuously on pocket pads.

But just after that something inside Jennie struck.The second half began with the violins warming everything up.

The kettle drum revved. The cymbal woke the members of the audi-ence who were dozing. Then the French horns took it all back down.The audience lulled. The orchestra swelled and then quelled. It wastime for the second Boehm duet—the dramatic dreamy section sym-bolizing the death of the nightingale. It has been said that this nocturneis the saddest, most moving music that has ever been written. Jenniewas crying even before she raised her instrument to her lips and tookin a breath. She began and became one with the instrument. Its breathwas her breath, and the melody came from within her, the notes sound-

ing like the weeping of a stricken soul. At the start of the duet she obe-diently raised her voice to the fifth but then quick as an eyelid flutter,dropped back to an incorrect flatted third. The conductor looked ather, he couldn’t believe his ears. The audience collectively gasped. Theytoo knew this piece by heart. Jennie dropped the Boehm completelyand sang the remainder of the duet (solo at this point) alone, vocalizingthe tormented bird’s song. The audience was mesmerized. The otherplayers, astonished, stopped their quiet accompaniment altogether.Jennie, with her naked voice, stood alone in death. Tears streamed fromher eyes as she communicated the nightingale’s pain.

When it was over, after the bird had expired and all that was left wasthe broken-hearted lover leaping to his death courtesy of the shockedbut obedient remainder of the orchestra, the hall was silent. Finally onechild in the front row sniffed back a tear. The audience let out its breath.Someone’s dad started clapping and immediately everyone else joinedin. They hooted and hollered. Most jumped to their feet. Only Jennie’sparents and the BS talent scouts remained silently seated.

Jennie stood up, bowed, and walked off. As she moved past theconductor, he snarled, “You’ll never get any work!”

“I hope not,” Jennie answered over her shoulder.The rest is not recorded history, of course. Jennie’s parents even-

tually forgave her and invited her over for Thanksgiving.Loonie, the straight C student, stood by her friend and applauded

her and, in fact, got her in with Raif ’s band. Jennie dated Raif for awhile—hypnotized by the gold tooth and all—but eventually broke upwith him and started her own little combo, playing the blind pig cir-cuit, never recognized by the legitimate music-loving public. But shebuilt up a huge following in the hip crowd who consistently showed upfor her shows, passing her “enhancements” throughout the sweatynights to keep her “head straight.” Loonie sat in once in a while. Shehad a permanent gig with one of a LKSes (Lesser-Known Symphonies)but snuck out for a hoot with Jennie’s group every once in a while,breaking a few clauses in her contract. Nobody ratted her out though.

Many, many years later they both died of natural causes.Naturally, bad beer mixed with unindexed chemicals would kill you.

Two years after Jennie Knot’s death, her underground followers,which was practically everybody by that time, started a movement, gota representative elected to Congress, and a law enacted to promote thewriting of music once again. Funds were allocated for research and fel-lowships granted. Three hundred years later, pop artists became thebehemoths they once were back in the primitive twenty-first centuryand the music naturally degraded into a multimillion dollar industryagain. As before, pop music was churned out at a rate of a bad song aday and played on the air waves until the puking populace took to thestreets and started flailing songwriters and industry execs alive.Inevitably a new music law was passed banning the writing of musicand that’s why thankfully today, we have no new music.

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April 2004 19

20 Nth Degree

The Annals of

VolusiusPart VII by Claudio Salvucci and Paolo Belzoni

XIV: Adprehendit et Ligavit eosLig Prut’s office was dimly lit and tastelessly decorated.

Stylistically speaking, its furnishings fell somewhere between theoverstuffed grandeur of 47th Wave Fluffitecture and the cold rigid-ity of the widely criticized Rhomboid Rhule of Pythagora. Thismeant that while the couches at first glance appeared invitinglycomfortable, the sitter soon discovered that they contained sharpangular objects which projected into the cushioning at variousunfortunate locations.

Perhaps even more distasteful than this, however, was Lig’s col-lection of stuffed and mounted carnivorous bacteriophages. Theseoccupied various alcoves throughout the room, some standing overseven feet high. Lig commonly told his guests that he had baggedthem himself, but in reality he had received them as a “gift” from aSconderbeg Irkutsk who had been arrested for treading on theshadow of a Transit Trooper. Most of these phages were discoveredburied at the core of Frigidus 3, a massive ball of ice at the far reach-es of the Larvon system, right after a snowball fight on Larva Primeescalated into Galaxy War VII.

Lig himself was a massive fat bastard. It was widely known thathe was lewd, crude, and frequently nude. He was lecherous, libidi-nous, licentious, loud, loquacious, and larcenous. He was the onlybeing ever booted out of the notorious Epicurean Fantasy Leaguebecause, as his letter of expulsion read, he “took the whole thing fartoo seriously.” He treated his friends like vermin, his associates likeexcrement, and his family like acid-spiked pickle brine. His ene-mies usually ended up living through multiple lifetimes as marketresearchers for cement shoe distributors—or worse. Yet despite all

of these utterly disqualifying flaws, there were those souls wholooked upon Lig with an almost pathological affection. In fact, theInterdimensional Scholarly Society for the Study of Whacked OutFreaks at its most recent millennial meeting termed this disorderLigolomania and deemed that its most obvious symptoms includedan intense desire to have one’s face stepped on and a mantra-likeutterance of the sentence: “He may be a rapacious pile of dogvomit, but he’s our rapacious pile of dog vomit.”

Julian and Feg had little idea what they were in for as they wereuntied and rudely ordered to sit in the antechamber to Prut’s office.From another door, Prut ambled in followed by the haughtily smil-ing faces of Miiro Urp and Lycra von Grossfrau.

“Viscerati,” Julian muttered, his spiritual fist clenching involun-tarily.

“I suppose there’s no need for introductions,” Urp began. “Youboth know Mr. Prut and thanks to us, he now knows the two ofyou quite well.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot, you bubbling fountain of bilge,” Julianfumed. “And as long as we’re all getting acquainted, perhaps thatrodent face of yours would like to be reunited with the old gangfrom Pummel U.” He held his hands up, fingers spread, thenclenched them menacingly.

Feg bit his tongue, preparing to go into full sycophant mode.“Dose is big woids for somebudy witta ten minit inta-life

waiva,” Prut belched. “But don choo werry abou’ dat, I fixed it sodat you won’ be leavin’ here unexpected-like, unnerstand?”

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to talk to you anyway, Mr. Prut,”Julian turned, addressing the union boss. “I’d like to report the theft

The Annals of Volusius Parts I-VI are available at www.nthzine.com Illustrations by Lori Kauffmann

April 2004 21

of a 4th Denoblian Junkuonese phollygog.”“Is zat so?” Prut responded menacingly. “You mean you don’t have it anymore?” von Grossfrau gasped.“Nope.”Miiro Urp was suddenly aghast. “Well… who’s got it?” he stam-

mered.“A charlatid named Alexander Egret!” shouted Feg, hoping that

this information might be enough of a distraction to get himselfand Julian out of this mess without incurring the continuing wrathof the TT or VISCERA.

“Egret! How in creation…?” Urp choked. Lycra von Grossfraumeanwhile had fainted into a blubberous heap on the floor.

“I told you, he stole it,” Julian rejoined.“But… but… you don’t understand…” Urp was now com-

pletely beside himself. “We need that device to complete ourresearch… for it to fall into the hands of someone like Egret… thisis a catastrophe! How could you let this happen, Myktat?”

“’Ey, shuddup alla yis. Whose office is dis, anyways?” Prutdemanded, his gravelly voice causing everyone else to fall silent. “IfAl Egret’s got yer gadget, dat’s no problem. My men’ll have no troublefindin’ dat little runt… As for da two a yous,” he continued motion-ing towards Feg and Julian with obvious disgust, “since yis ain’t gotMiiro’s toy no more, I got a friend I wanna introduce yis to.”

Feg and Julian gulped simultaneously and audibly.An airlock yawned open on the other side of the office, and out

slinked a very long and disturbingly attractive bouize attached to acurvaceous taparat.

“Dis is my seccaterry, Miss DiNawma. She ain’t too big aunnachit-chat, ya know; but ’ey…” Here he let out a half grunt, halfchuckle and added once more, while shrugging and waggling histhumbs suggestively, “…’ey…”

Whatever diabolic scheme Mr. Prut had in mind, Julian clungto a faint hope that Feg and his famed scholarship could extricatethem from the clutches of this madman. The sadistic tortures theywere about to endure, however, were apparently of a piece not evenFeg in his massive studies could ever conceive.

Miss DiNorma brought out a hideous looking black velvetsatchel, covered in ghastly brownish stains. She blithely zipped itopen, pulled something squarish from it and walked across theroom, where she handed the sweating Feg a rather pricey-lookingcalculator. Curiously, at this juncture Prut chose not remain in theroom to gaze upon the upcoming spectacle, as he was known to dowith a passion. He merely pawed a handful of his secretary’s poste-rior and, belching authoritatively, left without so much as a farewell.

“Ah, now here,” remarked Feg, distracted as always by his intel-lectual curiosity, “here is a splendid bit of machine.”

“Yes, Mr. Myktat, it is,” replied Miss DiNorma. “And asidefrom the four of you, no one outside our research division has seenthe equal of it.”

Julian was still wondering where all this was leading, when Fegunexpectedly gasped in recognition at the buttons on the machine,which read like so much unintelligible gibberish to poor Julian.

“Do mine eyes deceive?”“They do not,” said Urp. “You are holding in your hand a

precalculator.”Feg goggled for a moment or two, then went straight into

bafflement.“A theoretical absurdity, Urp! It cannot be!”“Nevertheless…” Urp trailed off pretentiously.But Feg’s bafflement veered off into disgust as he pressed a few

buttons. “This must be a fraud!” he chuckled. “Ah, what a fool Iwas, to think that the Fredine quotient had yielded its secrets to thelikes of VISCERA!”

To explain this exchange, it is necessary to review some complexmathematical theorems as they are understood in the Interlife. Thetale begins—as most such tales do—in the hazy mists of legend, ona planet unknown and in lifetimes that even the most diligentInterlife researchers have never been able to quite track down.

The legend told of a great college of learning in the Golden Ageof Reincarnation Station—back even before the Great Rule wasinscribed on the station wall—when the disparate beings aroundthe universe were just beginning to comprehend and master thetheories of reincarnation. It began with two brilliant young mathe-matical theorists who, drunk with the novelty of an infinity thatwas at last making itself available to living beings, came up with theentire field of Fredine mathematics—and, in the same stupendousnight, a delicious recipe for Orgok seeds, or so legend has it.

Fredine mathematics was, in essence, a very simple concept: thatevery mathematical quantity, formula, curve, area, volume, point, oreven idea, could be described by a single value known as Fred.

Simple as it was to explain, though, the theory had explosive andfar-reaching implications. Not the least of these was that every alge-braic equation was suddenly useless: a student merely added Fred toboth sides, and the answer was, invariably, Fred. Other mathemati-cal fields were similarly decimated by the new theory, and their old-school practitioners launched the most bitter and sustained polemi-cal attack on the Fredians that academia had ever seen. The originaltwo theorists—if they ever even existed—dropped out of the debatecompletely, and were rumored to continue their research far fromthe critical eyes of their peers on God-forsaken planetoids in thenether regions of the universe. Officially, they are known as “TheGuy who must have been named Fred” and “The Other Guy who

22 Nth Degree

must have been named Fred.” This was shortened in Fredian circlesto a reverential The Guy and the Other Guy. The only written lega-cy they left the world was an anonymous cryptic manuscript draw-ing for a machine they called a precalculator, which claimed toemploy the Fred continuum in its electronic architecture.

That manuscript had been pored over innumerable times bythe best minds in the business. The brightest engineers in weeklyconferences down through the millennia had repeatedly attemptedto realize those drawings into an actual working model. But not asoul—any soul—had ever been able to construct a functioningprecalculator.

Thus explains the amazement, and eventual scorn, which FegMyktat now plainly displayed. VISCERA, he concluded, hadbuilt a sham machine, with all the right buttons and none of theright brains.

Julian, less knowledgeable ofmathematical theory but betteracquainted with the likes of LigPrut, was wondering what sort ofobscenity this was all leading up to.

“Not quite a fraud, Myktat,”Miiro Urp responded contemptu-ously. “After millennia of research,experimentation, blood, sweat,bile, cranial fluid and gastricjuices, we at VISCERA have final-ly succeeded in creating a precal-culator which is an accurate repre-sentation of Fred theory in mate-rio-ethereal form. Surely evenyour addled brain can appreciatethe implications of such a feat.”

Feg nodded. His mouth was open, but not a word came out.After a long pause, he queried: “Then, you’ve found a way toaccommodate That Guy’s Paradox?”

“Indeed.”“And a way to calculate and plot infinite values using finite

materials and a finite energy source?”“Yes.”“And a method for arriving at the value of The Other Guy’s

Constant?”“Oh, that was an easy one.”Still incredulous, Feg punched a few buttons, entering a simple

equation. The precalculator announced the answer in a loud, bassovoice, “Quotient equals… FRED.”

Feg punched away again, this time with several dozen more key-

strokes. In response, the precalculator belched, “X equals… FRED.”Sweat was now clearly beading on Feg’s forehead as he feverish-

ly entered a titanically complex deconstructive quantum hypothet-ical. Pausing for a brief moment, Feg hit the execute button andthe precalculator bellowed instantly and insistently, “Resultequals… FRED!”

Feg was utterly flabbergasted.Julian was less so. “Give me that thing,” he interrupted rudely.

He entered 3 + 2 and then hit the execute key.The precalculator paused pregnantly, as if thinking. “Result is

greater than… less than… or… equal to… Fred?” it offered, sud-denly sounding very unsure of itself.

Julian looked up quickly and saw Miiro Urp turning purplewith rage. Feg was suddenly gleeful.

“Graaahhhh!” Urp explodedlike a petulant child. “Damn thisinfernal contraption! Damn it tothe Sub-basement of the Station!”he shrieked, grabbing the machinefrom Julian and shaking it roughly.

“Hey, knock it off, ddjurcc!”the precalculator objectedmechanically.

“So your little Fredine cre-ation still has a few, shall we say,bugs?” Feg taunted.

“That’s enough out of you,hunnybuns,” Miss DiNormainterrupted, smashing Feg on thehead with her bouize.

“A few bugs… yes, the precal-culator has ‘a few bugs’,” Urp

replied, recomposing himself.“Alas,” Professerin von Grossfrau interjected, just now regaining

consciousness and hauling her bloated carcass from the floor, “themodel is complete, perfect, and accurate to the tiniest sub-quarkicparticle, but it lacks the most important component of all before itwill function properly.”

“And that,” Urp burst in, “is a device which can accurately sep-arate fact from fiction, truth from falsehood at least 50.00001% ofthe time.”

“And you two calcium crystals had this device in your posses-sion…” Miss DiNorma added menacingly. Feg’s right ear thought itpicked up a dangerous edge to her voice, but his left ear vehementlydisagreed with this assessment. His eyes remained oblivious to allbut her bouize, while his nose rendered no comment—preferring to

April 2004 23

ignore the disgraceful odor emanating from Lig Prut’s couch.“…until you let that odious fiend Egret extract it from you,”

von Grossfrau finished.Miiro Urp turned the precalculator over to reveal a hollow inter-

face in the back, which in shape bore a distinct resemblance to asmall pig. “Ah, we were so close! This was to be the moment of ourtriumph, but instead…” the seething Urp placed the precalculatoron the coffee table, next to Lig Prut’s pencil and pen set shaped likeDisbolian Impaling Trees. “…instead, I am going to watch as MissDiNorma performs a spirituo-section on the two of you.”

“Urp, you barbarian!” Feg objected sharply.Julian, for whatever reason, was perfectly at ease.Miss DiNorma pushed a button on the Outercom. Seconds

later there was a loud knock on the door. In trooped an ill-cladlackey pulling a cart upon which was mounted the legendarySpiritual Disintegrator—an artifact which had been declared anath-ema back when the cornerstone of Reincarnation Station was laid.It had long been rumored that VISCERA ‘spirited’ away the origi-nal infernal machine and kept it hidden from prying eyes, using itfor ethics-free scientific experiments and on the ingrates who mis-takenly took their parking spaces at the lab. It was a massive pieceof automation which had originally been invented as a device forcounseling souls with low self-esteem. However, its merits as a tor-ture and elimination apparatus were soon made plain, as most ofthe souls subjected to its array of flashing lights, cognitive probes,and spiritual meat cleavers quickly dissolved of their own volition.

As the cart approached, it was clear to Feg that somethingdreadful was about to happen. What he didn’t expect was that thetop-heavy machine would suddenly lurch forward and crash to thefloor, taking the lackey and Miss DiNorma with it. Miiro Urp andLycra von Grossfrau were momentarily frozen with consternation.

Julian seized the opportunity. Jumping up, he snatched up theprecalculator, grabbed Feg by his flailing tentacle, and rushed outthe door. On the way out, he couldn’t help but notice the serenelook on the face of the fallen lackey. He came to one inescapableconclusion: “Stanley?!”

He stopped in his tracks.“Come now, Julian,” shouted Myktat, who had also realized

Stanley’s mangled form. “Leave him be!”Julian begrudgingly hurried after Feg, but his conscience got

the better of him. He slowed his gait again and shouted, “Wait!”“No, hasten!” said Feg tersely.A pack of Transit Troopers suddenly swarmed into the hall. The

escape route was cut off.“Retreat! Retreat!” shouted Feg, running back the way he came,

and using his one arm to fish in his jingling pocket. Julian turned

around, his eyes loaded with determined purpose, and ran backinto the Interrothanasia Chamber.

“Ah!” exclaimed Feg triumphantly, as he extracted a sealed tubeof leprocide gas from his jacket. As he reached the doorway, Fegheld it in the air for dramatic effect and let fly at the nearestTrooper. It burst into a rainbow cloud upon impact, and the mis-fortuned thug who inhaled it suddenly found his arms detach fromhis shoulder blades and drop to the floor. This understandablycaught him a bit off guard, but he had no occasion to grieve, for afew seconds later his disembodied hands crawled up his body suitand strangled him to death.

“Splendid,” commented Feg right before he closed the door.“Now, as for you two…” he turned and saw with something closeto disappointment that Julian was already master of the situation,mercilessly bludgeoning the representatives of VISCERA with theflat of Grossfrau’s clavicle brace. Outside the door, however, thereassuring sound of dropping limbs was beginning to wane as theleprocide wore off, and Julian’s animalistic retribution, thoughpointed and certainly deserved, was not doing much to extricatethem from this new predicament.

Feg leaped onto the fallen Spiritual Disintegrator and stretchedout his tentacle to the front of the machine, bending the delicatespiritual cleaving battery forward. He then threw all of his weightonto one corner of the massive apparatus and began slowly to rightit and turn it towards the door. This was not a task ordinarily accom-plishable by anyone of Feg’s build, but happily the side of themachine that had come to rest on the floor was especially well-lubri-cated from having been temporarily stored next to Lig’s prized set ofgrease-wrestling gynoids, and Stanley’s corporeal form (for whichFeg seemed unconcerned) was also providing a nice pivot point.

In seconds the device was upright and aimed at the door. WhileJulian was serving up hot knuckle sandwiches to Urp andGrossfrau, Feg lay in wait for the first of the Troopers to barge in.Predictably, the door flew open and Feg mashed the Start button.A blaze of light illuminated the room and a rapid-fire succession ofdeep booming thuds like a sub-bass machine gun shook the walls.

The flash and noise startled Julian out of decking his foes, and heturned his eyes just in time to witness the blast eradicating theTroopers in the hall, literally shaking their corporeal bodies to pieces.

“GRRK!” he gasped, “What in creation are you doing?!”“Keep at it old boy!” smiled Feg with delicious deviousness, “I

shall hold the portal!” As a few more brutes appeared at the door-way, Feg let fly another resounding barrage of bass-pounding thuds,and the hallway was again cleared of all its offending elements. Fegfound himself speculating out loud on the theoretical physicsbehind the spiritual cleaver’s action: “I wonder, can cleaving alone,

24 Nth Degree

uncoupled from the other processes inherent in the Disintegrator,eradicate ensouled beings permanently, or is there merely a disasso-ciative process occurring whereby the etheriality is rearranged?”

For his part, Julian had been shocked out of his blind rage, andhe suddenly refocused his attention to their escape. He cast thebattered Viscerati against the wall where they limply collapsed intoa pile.

“Feg! We gotta get outta here!”“Agreed! Follow me!” Feg shouted, parting somewhat reluctant-

ly with the high-octane super-weapon. Shockingly enough, he thor-oughly enjoyed making souls of such violence and evil go ‘poof ’.

Feg set the disintegrator onauto and an enormous salvo ofsound and fury effectively pinneddown the Transit Troopers that itdid not obliterate. The ensuingchaos would have been justenough time for Julian and Feg toescape, so long as Stanley’s man-gled form didn’t shift under theweight of the spiritual disintegra-tor as soon as Feg released it fromhis grasp. Since Stanley’s splat-tered remains did in fact shiftalmost immediately, the machine’sominous muzzle swung deliber-ately around and trained itselfright on the backs of the fleeingcaptives. A nano-instant later,both were toastified.

Feg’s recent musing upon thesubject of annihilated souls wasabout to be filled out with factualdata now that he and Julian hadbecome primary source material.Far from being destroyed, Julianand Feg found themselves onceagain in a familiar predicament—firmly lodged upon the uterinewall of a human female.Amazingly enough, both of themhad managed to retain their mem-ories this time—or at least asmuch of a memory as a blastulacan be expected to have. It seems

that one thing the incorrigibly materialistic inventors of theSpiritual Disintegrator had failed to take into account was the sim-ple fact that a soul itself is completely indestructible by definition.If it were somehow able to be destroyed, it simply wouldn’t be asoul at all, but something considerably less, like a Consciousness ora Lifestylite. Most of the beings composed of Consciousness haveincredibly tenuous grasps of their own existences and can be readilyidentified by their penchant for phrases such as, “How do I knowI’m not just a figment of someone else’s imagination?” Meanwhile,a Lifestylite is the most primitive and degenerate of all beingsbecause it believes its very existence is completely predicated upon

the ad nauseam performance of some idiotic activity, many ofwhich are unimaginably abhorrent. Since neither of these types ofbeings value their existence to any great degree or see any ultimatepurpose in it, they see no reason why anyone else would and oftensimply will themselves out of existence from sheer boredom.

Ensouled beings, like Feg and Julian, however, place preemi-nent value on their existence. It has been pointed out by more thanone philosophraud that ensouled beings guard their existence jeal-ously and always seem to have some sort of abstract goal in mind.“They’re always searching for something that’s simply not there,like the Black Bwama of Blisterweg’s endless quest for shade.”sneered Bargus Garply, the most highly renowned philosophraudand well known advocate for Consciousness. Fittingly, Garply waslater incarnated as a Black Bwama, and found this life to be so dis-agreeable that upon his death, he returned to ReincarnationStation and instantly committed spirituocide. His legacy as a far-sighted advocate for Consciousness, all but forgotten by more sen-sible souls, was kept alive only by a few overintellectualized nitwitswho, while rejecting his overall philosophy, found in some of hisprovocative arguments a source of motivation in their quest foruseless knowledge.

It was—somewhat strangely—among the Lifestylites that thepseudonymous and largely apocryphal “Garply Doctrine” wascodified. For Garply himself, an incorrigible skeptic, tight-fistedgrouch and all-around crab, despised Lifestylites, whom hefamously called “a fabulously moronic waste of antimony” andwhose philosophy he characterized as “an explosively ejectingemulsion of coprotic sludge.”

Why the primary targets of such invective would want to co-opt the ideas of their recently expired acid-tongued enemy isbeyond the scope of this tale. Let it suffice to say that by the timethe panocracy of Follylumber was voting to amend its constitution,Garply’s name (with its attendant unconquerable iconoclasm) hadbeen appropriated in full force by Lifestylites who were keen on rat-ifying a new piece of revolutionary legislation: the LifestyleFreedom Tolerance Amendment. Regrettably, the association stuck,and the “Garply Doctrine” came to represent something that he infact abhorred with slightly more than his entire being.

For when you stripped away all the amendment’s fluffy appealsto progress, privacy and “bridging the happiness gap”, the thrust ofit was to make it a crime to interfere with anyone in the process ofenjoying themselves—in any way. Its authors repeatedly haranguedan indifferent populace that one shouldn’t impose one’s values on,for example, someone who amused themselves by the piecemealdismembering of Brogdungian poison-jawed millipedes upsidedown in a Fiasfer League mega-privy. But they were more low-key

about the penalties for non-compliance: if one didn’t particularlycotton to someone else’s jollies, and chose to broach the subjectdirectly with that person rather than reporting it to their LifestyleHarmonization Counselor, they’d have their mouths permanentlystuffed with four pints of the tacky polymer Tolerine™.

Needless to say, even in the “enlightened” cities of Follylumberthis act was deemed entirely too ludicrous to take seriously. Allseemed to be going well until the planetary Senate had an emotion-al validation crisis and passed the bill overwhelmingly just to see ifpeople were paying attention.

Somebody was paying attention all right—the nauseatinglypro-Lifestylite truthpaper, The Weefuldja Red Giant, which crankedout editorials praising Follylumber’s farsightedness, and expandedtheir “Millipedes Seeking Torture” classifieds to two and half pages.It didn’t take long before Lifestylites from all over the galaxyswarmed into the system and the Glovnor Group had no less than284 branches up and running.

Having nothing to do with this disreputable episode was a greatitinerant prophet of Earth’s twenty-fourth century named Sini theArrogant. Sini was a soul of such profound humility that when sin-gled out and extolled for this virtue once too often, he gave himselfthe cautionary epithet that stuck with him all throughout history.

Sini ba Ningi of Mbongingwe was born to a wealthy familyduring the free-wheeling days of the Sixteenth Council. The storygoes that while playing beneath a baobab tree at the tender age ofsix, he had a vision of a heavenly messenger who commissionedhim to do penance, combat evil, correct error, and show all peoplesmercy and compassion.

He would however, find his saintliness severely tested by a cou-ple of twin children who were born to his sister Fina. First of all, hefound it difficult to adequately pronounce their very foreign-sounding names of Njula and Fengongo. Second of all, since Finahad entrusted these two ten year olds to his care, they had shown aremarkable penchant for getting in trouble. Fina had decided uponthis rather drastic course of action from sheer exasperation. So pre-cocious were the two young lads that it often seemed to Fina thatthey were speaking their own language as they constantly prattledabout such arcane and surely nonsensical subjects as mophonics,kerplonics, bodabingonics, and semiotics. Thus, it was her desper-ate hope that someone as virtuous, disciplined, and wise as Sini theArrogant would be able to turn her boys away from delinquency,toward honorable manhood.

Sini had planned to give the boys a rudimentary education. Hequickly abandoned this course of action when Fengongo demon-strated an unheard-of innate mastery of every subject, and Njula

April 2004 25

26 Nth Degree

consistently peppered him with questions he could not answer. Instead, Sini decided to take the boys to Dobongawanga, the

capital of Bantu. A sprawling megalopolis, Dobongawanga hadexperienced nearly all of its explosive growth in the past century. Ithad previously been no more than the terminus of a little-used spurof the Pan-African octorail system. Things quickly turned aroundwhen UranioJet Spaceways made the backwater hamlet into one ofits major hubs in the mid-twenty-third century. Pioneers in use ofclustered nuclear fission reactors to propel spaceliners, the companyboasted a six week passage from Earth to Titan, a popular destina-tion for cobalt prospectors and tourists looking to visit the MethaneMenagerie theme park. Safety concerns were voiced at once, butUranioJet scoffed—even going so far as to name their liners afterfamous disasters.

Although UranioJet had to close up shop a mere twenty yearslater, after the infamous crash of the Vesuvius, which blasted a 200mile wide crater into the surface of Ganymede, the people of Bantuhad already grown attached to economic prosperity. It was widelywhispered that they were among the hardest working and most eco-nomically savvy of free peoples. This reputation meant that othercommercial concerns were soon flocking to Dobongawanga to setup shop and the city grew by leaps and bounds. It also meant thatBantu earned the eternal disfavor and condemnation of the largelyimpotent United Socialist Commonwealth of Nations. However,most of Bantu’s citizens and leaders considered this more of anhonor than a threat.

It was Sini’s hope that the rough-and-tumble urban world ofDobongawanga would help the boys gain knowledge and experi-ence that no professor could teach. They were to be his novices,assisting him as he preached in the marketplaces, performed worksof charity, and rhetorically fought tooth and nail against the forcesof neo-idol worship and nihilocentrism, both of which had madesteady progress among the Bantu elite.

Thus it was that one day, after a particularly nasty encounterwith a group preaching the popular doctrine of hyena worship, Sinithe Arrogant led Fengongo and Njula to the small house in whichthey were to spend the next few days. As they were introduced tothe family, Njula felt a strange and immediate affinity towards theyoungest daughter, who bore the atypical name U’gusta. As forFengongo, his high-resolution photo-enhanced memory allowedfor immediate recognition.

“Hi,” she said discreetly, failing to recognize in that instant thesoul of an individual who had shared with her a few aborted life-times and been quite a pain in the rear.

“Oh… hi…” Njula happily but cautiously replied. Fengongowas merrily working out in his head a theoretical physics problem

involving Pizok’s quantum frogs.“Such smiling babes!” U’gusta’s mother Amba beamed, “What

simplicity is in them!”Sini laughed. “Dearest Amba! Fina would grow pale at such

words, so far do her children’s quick minds exceed their meageryears! But so God has blessed them.”

“Uncle Sini, may we go outside now?” Fengongo interrupted.Sini patted him on the head. “Go, child. Take U’gusta with

you, and see that you keep away from the marketplace. There aremany evils there.”

With that encouragement the two intrepid brothers left the house,encumbered by their all-too familiar female companion. As soon asthey were out of adult earshot, the questions started from Fengongo.

“Augusta,” began the impossibly erudite ten year old, “How didyou elude the wily Egret? And how did you contrive to disembarkat this point along the space-time continuum?”

She made a face at him.“My name’s U’gusta.”“Augusta, listen!” Julian chimed in, in a somewhat more reason-

able vernacular. “How’d you get here?”Her bright eyes narrowed.“You talk funny.”“My dear,” Feg replied, unable to process the fact that his erudi-

tion was not availing him with this young lady. “I assure you myDobongawangan is flawless, as well as my Mbongingwean, whichare separated in any case only by a mere piffle of phonetic diver-gence. I am fluent in Baffin Islander, Antarctican, and all eighteenlanguages of the Pacific seafloor. And I have moderate proficiency inthirty-seven extinct languages including Californian and French.”

“Forget it Feg,” Julian commanded. “She doesn’t rememberanything.”

“Hmm… yes.” Feg begrudgingly admitted. Augusta, sensingthese two would readily bore her to death, scampered behind thehouse to get her favorite doll. “It appears Mr. Egret’s hold on ourcompanion is loosed, but whether she has been duly programmedand sent on a missive at his behest, or whether she absconded fromhim by her own power are a matter which conjecture alone…”

At this point Julian let Feg ramble forward, dropping into theconversation only momentarily to nod in the affirmative. He wascompelled to participate once more, however, when he distinctlyheard Feg say that Augusta had cooties.

“WHAT!” he objected in a shrill young voice. “What was thatyou said?”

“You see,” Feg repeated, “I suspect Egret has opened a portalto the Qu Ti dimension and loosed some of its lower life forms onour poor Augusta. While completely imperceptible by three-

April 2004 27

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dimensional beings such as we are, the Qu Ti’s voltaic fields wouldbe able to intrude into our space-time to electrically manipulatethe action potentials of Augusta’s neurons, and thereby bring hercompletely under his control even while fully sentient. A deviousscheme, even for a charlatid! We must take great care with what wesay around her!”

Wisely ignoring much of the aforesaid which, at any rate, wascompletely incomprehensible to him, Julian merely covered hisignorance with: “I didn’t think he was that clever, frankly.”

“That’s the nub of it, friend,” as Augusta scampered back aroundthe house, “I fear our Mr. Alexander Egret is not acting alone.”

The words had hardly escaped Fengongo’s mouth whenAugusta came running towards the two boys clutching her doll.Without a second thought, she slammed Feg on the head with itlike a cloth-stuffed morning star and began laughing hysterically.Shocked by the unexpected impact, Fengongo stumbled backwardsand landed in a large stack of neatly piled garbage pods. This ofcourse only added to U’gusta’s mirth.

“You’re a smelly, stupid, ugly goatface!” she taunted.Feg groaned in disgust and exasperation. Julian smiled.

To Be Continued.

28 Nth Degree

V iruses are strange and daring things. Neither animal norplant nor fungus, but far more destructive than any ofthose, or even all combined. They can infect anything,

make them bend to the will of RNA strands that command “slashand burn!” It seems only right that a virus should bring the end toall life on Earth.

This timeline marks the end of the reign of man, that preciousbookkeeper whose records become the only applicable history. Ithappened as such during a long Indian Summer, a few years afterthe world assimilated the agony of menace against monoliths.Unlike the visions of writers or directors, the end of the world wasneither explosive nor complete, but the slow letting of air that flat-tens tires over a long road trip. A virus killed the inhabitants of aplanet that considered itself to be the only destination for intelli-gent life. That virus came from intelligence, or perhaps it was thegreatest intelligence of all. At least that’s what those dying humansneeded to think; that their downfall had come about through a sin-ister plan by a superior mind.

Billions of visits to doctors’ offices around the world signaledthe beginning. The vegetarians began to show first, wasting away

on wheat gluten and steamed broccoli. Thin, though they wouldcontinually eat, nothing would become energy, nothing absorbedinto the body. The commune members who would sneak hamburg-ers managed better, held the hands of their more headstrong friendsas they wasted into immortality, shoveling plates of God’s Bountybetween withered lips. It took nearly a year to discover the trouble,to locate the virus that prevented man from absorbing vegetablematter.

The university men should have seen it when the cows began tothin even with constant feeding, when the last hummingbird died.This virus chose a wide path, through man and beast and pest andfish. The oceans were lifeless in a year, the skies clear a few monthslater, save for the carrion that thrived and slowly faded as nothingwas left to die.

Human survived longer than cockroaches. Everywhere in thecities, where bodegas and supermarkets had been raided for cansof corned beef hash and abalone, millions of cockroaches hadwandered into the street. They tried to extend their lives by feed-ing on the dead birds, the dead men, their dead brothers. Afternineteen months, the last man in New York City starved to death,

Nutria by Johnny Eponymous Illustration by S.C. Watson

April 2004 29

a week after the last cockroach had gone on. Hong Kong hadalready been abandoned, and Berlin had become more desolatethan an Old West studio set when filming had wrapped. Europe’slast man, a cannibal named Henry DeGlane lasted three and ahalf years with the virus in him, dying of food poisoning after eat-ing a far rotten woman he found floating in the Seine. The lastnews reports had speculated that the virus came from comet dust,or Saddam’s pre-war biological labs. No answer ever came, no vac-cine, no solution other than the death that allowed worms tomake a run at some survival.

In Louisiana, the delta of the Mississippi outflow, an animalcalled the nutria splashed and swam and ate. A rodent like abeaver with a possum’s tail, introduced from South America, hadbeen eating the Bayou vegetation for decades. They had been pop-ular for alligator feeding at roadside five-dollars-a-photo farms.‘You can lead an alligator to water if you have nutria on a stick,’said the guides before they starved. The alligators still in thebayou had survived. The families that lived on the edge of theswamps survived as well.

The millions of nutria in Louisiana had made it through, eatingand digesting roots and shoots as they always had, unaffected andhappily multiplying faster than the alligators could bite them, thanthe traps could swing shut, than the women and children couldskin and gut and cook them. The last remaining proof that life hadonce run wild across the planet existed on the edges of dug-waters:a few cats and dogs, a couple of dozen humans, some vultures, ahundred or so alligators, small colonies of ants and worms, and sev-eral million nutria.

And of course, myself, watching it from the porch of an oldhunter who could never stomach the taste of nutria. ‘Off-chick-en,’ he called the flavor, even when sauced for days in his iron skil-let. I’d been watching since I found the gathering of my distantcousins, chewing on roots and shoots, not noticing the lack ofman on land. I may not have their advantages, but I’ve writtenthis and it will likely be the last telling of the fall of the world. Idoubt the folks of the White Lightning shacks would, or evencould, read my explanation for their position as Omega Men.Even with all my knowledge of the fall, I wonder why my coatisn’t as glossy as my swimming brethren; if there will be enoughfood for all of us once my superiors discover the ideal conditionsof Earth, the scent of the water.

It doesn’t matter much, but I take pause and stare back over mynotes. I’ll enter the water and take my fill, hoping that the virus inmy blood doesn’t finally make its way to the nutria, cutting off thelifeline to the few who remain.

Because, honestly, who wouldn’t feel guilty if they were listed asthe cause of death for every living thing on Earth?

Snuffing the Dragonby Mike Allen

Pity the harvester of dragon phlegm,

whose task is to collect those smoldering gobs—

’tis no surprise there are not more of them.

One molten glop worth more than any gem,

yet higher still the toll for these hot jobs.Pity the harvester of dragon phlegm.

This ever-burning undousable phlegm

lures merchants far and widein wheedling mobs.

Surprised, you say, there are not more of them?

To aim the snuff requires a stratagem

that lets one dodge the flaming, hurtling blobs,

(Pity the harvester of dragon phlegm!)

and dragons’ temperaments tend to condemn

to fiery death these enterprising squabs.

’Tis no surprise there are not more of them.

A phlegm-collector’s wife (Ai! Pauvre femme!)is known by her black veil and mournful sobs.

Pity the harvesters of dragon phlegm,

’tis no surprise there are not more of them.

30 Nth Degree

The Last Straw by Bob Kauffmann

COMICS

Bob the Angry Flower by Stephen Notley

April 2004 31

BelchBurger by Dan Fahs & Robert Balder

32 Nth Degree

Captain’s Songby J. W. Liotta

to the tune of “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred

Illustrations by Andy World

I’m too sexy for my ship, too sexy for my ship.Isn’t that a pip?

I’m too sexy for my mate, too sexy for my mate.“Number One” don’t rate!

Chorus A:I’m a captain, y’know what I mean?

And I give out my orders on the ship’s bridge.On the ship’s bridge, on the ship’s bridge.I give out my orders on the ship’s bridge.

I’m too sexy for my suit, too sexy for my suit.Isn’t that a hoot?

I’m too sexy for my chair, too sexy for my chair.With or without hair!

(Repeat Chorus A)

I’m too sexy for my crew, too sexy for my crew.What can you do?

I’m too sexy for Star Fleet, too sexy for Star Fleet.Isn’t that just neat?

Chorus B:I’m a captain, y’know what I mean?

And I shake my l’il tush in the “big chair.”On the ship’s bridge, on the ship’s bridge.I shake my l’il tush in the “big chair.”

I’m too sexy for this song…