who picked that up at the Morrow booth at the fair would finish the story, and I’d decide who did the best job. Well, I was in the middle of writing
Isle of View
then, but I said I’d do it when I finished the novel. So now the novel is done, awaiting only your word on how your name should be in the Author’s Note, so I wrote the story. It’s titled “Baby,” and it’s about this newspaper reporter who does a feature on black-market baby adoptions, and discovers that no matter what race or sex the babies are, they are all the same age, weight and length, and look like twins. What could account for this? That’s it—the contestants will finish the story, and I dare say some will have it turn out that the babies are really BEMs in disguise, waiting to take over the world. Oh, you don’t know what a BEM is? It’s a Bug-Eyed Monster, a standard item in cheap science fiction. BEMs are always chasing after femmes, which are—oh, you already know that. So my letter was to go with the story. Now aren’t you sorry you were so curious? You should have taken my word that it was dull.
I’m enclosing a few things: last Sunday’s Curtis comic, an item on saving a baby whale—you know, I just decided to join an organization called Greenpeace, that works to preserve aquatic creatures from extinction. Man does horrendous damage to the water folk, as he does to the air folk and the land folk, and if it doesn’t stop soon, there’ll be nothing much left on earth but man, and then man will set about exterminating himself too. I am disgusted. But I try to help save creatures in various ways, and this is one of them. I’m also joining an organization that fights censorship, because that’s something I hate. But I’m wandering from the subject. I’m also enclosing a picture I don’t like, which made me think of you—stop that, I didn’t say I don’t like you. It’s a picture of about six girls seeing the body of a friend appear in the water, their horror manifest. I thought of your friends when that car hit you, and I think that’s the way they looked. In this case, it was a drunken boat driver who ran over another boat and killed five young folk. Yes, they caught him. Our drunk drivers are just as bad as yours, more’s the pity. There’s also another letter enclosed for someone else; if your mother reads “Dear Andrea,” tell her she’s in the wrong letter, and to get on to this one. While you’re telling her things, tell her to do what I do about saving computer files: to program one key for an instant save, and hit that key compulsively every time she pauses. I do that in addition to having an automatic save feature. I’m ornery about problems; I don’t let the same one happen to me twice.
Your mother tells me about your days, which strike me as not much fun. I suspect you are a lot better patient than I would be. Are you able to read, if the book is in front of your face? I mean, I know you can’t just pick it up and hold it there, or move your head around much, but if it were right, could you read, or do your eyes not focus well enough for the small print? I go crazy when I don’t have my glasses on and then I have to read something; all I can see is the general shape of the words, like blocks lined up in rows. But if I wear the glasses, then I get seasick when I look beyond eighteen inches. So I’m forever putting them on and off, unless I’m wearing my half-glasses that I can peer over. A funny thing happened when the writer Jody Lynn Nye was here. I call Jody the Nymph, because she looks just like a nymph, only she wears clothes. She writes the Xanth Gamebooks, such as
Ghost of a Chance
; I don’t know if you’ve read those. They are where all the puns of Xanth have gone. She and I collaborated on the
Visual Guide to Xanth
, which is to be published this NoRemember. So she was here, last OctOgre, along with her husband and the artist, and we were talking. Every time I looked at her and put my
Isle of View
then, but I said I’d do it when I finished the novel. So now the novel is done, awaiting only your word on how your name should be in the Author’s Note, so I wrote the story. It’s titled “Baby,” and it’s about this newspaper reporter who does a feature on black-market baby adoptions, and discovers that no matter what race or sex the babies are, they are all the same age, weight and length, and look like twins. What could account for this? That’s it—the contestants will finish the story, and I dare say some will have it turn out that the babies are really BEMs in disguise, waiting to take over the world. Oh, you don’t know what a BEM is? It’s a Bug-Eyed Monster, a standard item in cheap science fiction. BEMs are always chasing after femmes, which are—oh, you already know that. So my letter was to go with the story. Now aren’t you sorry you were so curious? You should have taken my word that it was dull.
I’m enclosing a few things: last Sunday’s Curtis comic, an item on saving a baby whale—you know, I just decided to join an organization called Greenpeace, that works to preserve aquatic creatures from extinction. Man does horrendous damage to the water folk, as he does to the air folk and the land folk, and if it doesn’t stop soon, there’ll be nothing much left on earth but man, and then man will set about exterminating himself too. I am disgusted. But I try to help save creatures in various ways, and this is one of them. I’m also joining an organization that fights censorship, because that’s something I hate. But I’m wandering from the subject. I’m also enclosing a picture I don’t like, which made me think of you—stop that, I didn’t say I don’t like you. It’s a picture of about six girls seeing the body of a friend appear in the water, their horror manifest. I thought of your friends when that car hit you, and I think that’s the way they looked. In this case, it was a drunken boat driver who ran over another boat and killed five young folk. Yes, they caught him. Our drunk drivers are just as bad as yours, more’s the pity. There’s also another letter enclosed for someone else; if your mother reads “Dear Andrea,” tell her she’s in the wrong letter, and to get on to this one. While you’re telling her things, tell her to do what I do about saving computer files: to program one key for an instant save, and hit that key compulsively every time she pauses. I do that in addition to having an automatic save feature. I’m ornery about problems; I don’t let the same one happen to me twice.
Your mother tells me about your days, which strike me as not much fun. I suspect you are a lot better patient than I would be. Are you able to read, if the book is in front of your face? I mean, I know you can’t just pick it up and hold it there, or move your head around much, but if it were right, could you read, or do your eyes not focus well enough for the small print? I go crazy when I don’t have my glasses on and then I have to read something; all I can see is the general shape of the words, like blocks lined up in rows. But if I wear the glasses, then I get seasick when I look beyond eighteen inches. So I’m forever putting them on and off, unless I’m wearing my half-glasses that I can peer over. A funny thing happened when the writer Jody Lynn Nye was here. I call Jody the Nymph, because she looks just like a nymph, only she wears clothes. She writes the Xanth Gamebooks, such as
Ghost of a Chance
; I don’t know if you’ve read those. They are where all the puns of Xanth have gone. She and I collaborated on the
Visual Guide to Xanth
, which is to be published this NoRemember. So she was here, last OctOgre, along with her husband and the artist, and we were talking. Every time I looked at her and put my
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