introduce the next. Eventually, the verbal torch was passed to the person who really mattered.
It was astonishing that this was, apparently, a female impersonator. Minerva studied him/her with one eye closed and then the other; either way, she beheld a lantern-jawed individual in a black wig and a voluminous evening gown. A muttered consultation with Jonnie rendered the information that this was, actually, the Chairperson of the Judging Panel. Whose name was Terri Paragus, Head of the Department of Enigmatical Hermeneutics at Cambridge, also the world’s leading authority on cabbalistic languages and the editor of
RIM
, a quarterly devoted to Religion, Imagination and Magic.
Doctor Paragus spoke for several minutes in a strangely modulating voice that resembled the upper register of an oboe. Other than the titles of the four shortlisted books and their authors, Minerva understood scarcely a word of what she said. Once or twice the Utopian professor responded to a phrase with a short snort of bitter appreciation. When the speech and its polite applause wereover, four black-clad persons – three men and a woman – trooped onto the stage, each carrying a book. Minerva was squiffily baffled; she thought for a moment or two that some sort of hideously sadistic joke had been played, and that these were the real shortlisted writers. But no; they were, it turned out, actors. Who now commenced to read extracts from the competing novels, beginning with Aaron Ashworth’s
Blood Bankers
. The extract from
Dark Entropy
was the third reading. The guy’s Pocket Wellfair voice was far superior to Philip’s (which she had always found a bit embarrassing, to be honest). It was breathy, light, fast; and the occasional coarseness of the vocabulary seemed entirely natural, with none of the nudge-nudge yokelism that the author himself too frequently indulged in.
When the fourth reading (from Melanie Zubranski’s
Reflections in a Griffon’s Eye
) was over there was protracted applause. The actors (all second-stringers from the RSC, so a bit of budget had been saved there) trooped off, and Doctor Paragus re-approached the rostrum.
Somewhat matter-of-factly she said, ‘It is now my great pleasure to announce that the winner of this year’s Nutwell Prize for Literary Fantasy is Philip Murdstone, for
Dark Entropy
.’
Cacophony ensued. Manual applause; vocal applause, led by Gorgon’s strategically placed whoopers and whistlers; one or two boos (Minerva sought to locate their sources, scowling); and a specially commissioned atonal fanfare that blared from hitherto unsuspected speakers.A spotlight played over the congregation and came to rest on their table.
‘Get up there, you bastard,’ smiling Minerva said into his ear.
He stood, to her surprise. She calculated the distance between her and the emergency exit.
Philip walked to the stage like someone in another person’s dream, and when he reached it he halted, apparently baffled, gazing at Doctor Paragus’s stout knees. After a moment or two she managed to draw his attention to the steps, which he mounted robotically. The applause, which had faltered, now swelled. Philip crossed the stage and, to Minerva’s relief, managed to place his hand in Paragus’s outstretched and outsized paw. A long scintillation of camera flash, and the applause died away.
Minerva then experienced one of those most unwelcome moments of lucidity that occur when terror changes gear. Between the shadow and the act. Just before the upraised axe descends, or the windscreen implodes. Or just before your star client reveals himself to be a hopeless shitwit.
She had long known, of course, that opposite extremes of passion tend to result in similar facial expressions. Certain of her lovers had appeared, in the climactic seconds of physical ecstasy, to have glimpsed the horrors of premature burial. But what she understood now, glancing about her, was that it was all about context. Expectation.
On stage,
It was astonishing that this was, apparently, a female impersonator. Minerva studied him/her with one eye closed and then the other; either way, she beheld a lantern-jawed individual in a black wig and a voluminous evening gown. A muttered consultation with Jonnie rendered the information that this was, actually, the Chairperson of the Judging Panel. Whose name was Terri Paragus, Head of the Department of Enigmatical Hermeneutics at Cambridge, also the world’s leading authority on cabbalistic languages and the editor of
RIM
, a quarterly devoted to Religion, Imagination and Magic.
Doctor Paragus spoke for several minutes in a strangely modulating voice that resembled the upper register of an oboe. Other than the titles of the four shortlisted books and their authors, Minerva understood scarcely a word of what she said. Once or twice the Utopian professor responded to a phrase with a short snort of bitter appreciation. When the speech and its polite applause wereover, four black-clad persons – three men and a woman – trooped onto the stage, each carrying a book. Minerva was squiffily baffled; she thought for a moment or two that some sort of hideously sadistic joke had been played, and that these were the real shortlisted writers. But no; they were, it turned out, actors. Who now commenced to read extracts from the competing novels, beginning with Aaron Ashworth’s
Blood Bankers
. The extract from
Dark Entropy
was the third reading. The guy’s Pocket Wellfair voice was far superior to Philip’s (which she had always found a bit embarrassing, to be honest). It was breathy, light, fast; and the occasional coarseness of the vocabulary seemed entirely natural, with none of the nudge-nudge yokelism that the author himself too frequently indulged in.
When the fourth reading (from Melanie Zubranski’s
Reflections in a Griffon’s Eye
) was over there was protracted applause. The actors (all second-stringers from the RSC, so a bit of budget had been saved there) trooped off, and Doctor Paragus re-approached the rostrum.
Somewhat matter-of-factly she said, ‘It is now my great pleasure to announce that the winner of this year’s Nutwell Prize for Literary Fantasy is Philip Murdstone, for
Dark Entropy
.’
Cacophony ensued. Manual applause; vocal applause, led by Gorgon’s strategically placed whoopers and whistlers; one or two boos (Minerva sought to locate their sources, scowling); and a specially commissioned atonal fanfare that blared from hitherto unsuspected speakers.A spotlight played over the congregation and came to rest on their table.
‘Get up there, you bastard,’ smiling Minerva said into his ear.
He stood, to her surprise. She calculated the distance between her and the emergency exit.
Philip walked to the stage like someone in another person’s dream, and when he reached it he halted, apparently baffled, gazing at Doctor Paragus’s stout knees. After a moment or two she managed to draw his attention to the steps, which he mounted robotically. The applause, which had faltered, now swelled. Philip crossed the stage and, to Minerva’s relief, managed to place his hand in Paragus’s outstretched and outsized paw. A long scintillation of camera flash, and the applause died away.
Minerva then experienced one of those most unwelcome moments of lucidity that occur when terror changes gear. Between the shadow and the act. Just before the upraised axe descends, or the windscreen implodes. Or just before your star client reveals himself to be a hopeless shitwit.
She had long known, of course, that opposite extremes of passion tend to result in similar facial expressions. Certain of her lovers had appeared, in the climactic seconds of physical ecstasy, to have glimpsed the horrors of premature burial. But what she understood now, glancing about her, was that it was all about context. Expectation.
On stage,
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