[From the desk of Timothy the Talking Cat]
As the foremost editor in Science Fiction, I was once again shocked not to win the Locus Award for Best Editor despite my impressive track record of not just editing books but also editing small wildlife into a variety of interesting shapes. I immediately cancelled my subscription to Small Arms for Small Felines Monthly in protest as I don't have a subscription to Locus but, let's face it, they are all in on it, they are all part of the Big Magazine cabal controlling the media and if we don't all chip in and send a message that the ordinary folk will not put up with this kind of nonsense then where will be? In my case, I'd be in the drawing room with nothing to read because those spiteful wretches at Small Arms for Small Felines Monthly refused to send me this month's edition on the spurious grounds that I hadn't paid them. It is cancel culture gone mad when publishers start boycotting tax-payers just for having opinions.
Without my normal reading matter, I was forced by the invisible hand of woke capitalism to search among the piles of physical books holding up the shelves in the shed where we store the bricks. The subsequent collapse of the jenga-like storage method caused by the removal of a load-bearing book can not reasonably be called "my fault" given the systemic flaws in the crumbling edifice of Western Civilisation that led me to the shed in the first place. Trapped underneath the rubble with nothing but three dead rats and a dynamo flashlight proved to be the ideal circumstances in which to indulge in some well-needed "me time".
Luckily, my papery companion was from one of my favourite authors, Dan Simmons, whose work I have loved for many years, with such hits as that TV show where a magic polar bear kills Victorian sailors and that time he got mad at Greta Thunberg. I was amazed to find his books hidden in the shed, as this was specifically the place where I had moved several novels that my indolent lodger had identified as being "really good". That man's taste is frankly a crime against God, a implacable algorithm that inexorably seeks out what is weak, distraught and contrary to nature and in act of cognitive and aesthetic perversity pronounces it "good". Surely we can all agree that what is Good must, by its very nature, serve the purpose of leading us toward a supreme and ultimate conception of inherent goodness? But just as the lodestone points inevitably towards Polaris, so must its lodestonian buttocks point southwards and thus such addled minds as my shambling tenant exist as a psychic counterweight to the unerring compass of truth and goodness.
Yet, here was a mystery, a book which by my own paws I had cast into the outer darkness to be corrupted by damp, infested with mold and consumed by mice on the sure knowledge that if it came with a recommendation from Camisole Flugelhorn it must be vilest of stories, the very antithesis of edification? Had I, the foremost literary critic of the twenty-first century erred? No! For there was empirical confirmation of my past assessment on the cover: "Winner Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel". Truly fate had contrived to bring me to this conjunction of events. Some deeper truth was at play here, some collision of circumstance touched by divine hand to bring me to a deeper understanding of the universal will.
I flicked through the pages, expecting to find that this was a work by some other Dan Simmons, or perhaps some early work in which a confused young man still sought to appease the corrupted power of our broken world. But no! As I skimmed through the book I find characters such as a virtuous Catholic priest, a loyal and competent soldier, a dutiful poet who serves his King, a man of faith on a pilgrimage to save his daughter!
I was sorely vexed. To be honest I was sore all over what with the bricks and the shelving and a surprisingly sharp-edged copy of "Make Room! Make Room!" that had hit me on the noggin during the collapse of, the on-reflection, poor choice of brick storage system that had once occupied one side of the shed.
It was only after several days of reading and contemplation that the answer became clear to me. The resolution of the paradox of how and why a writer such as Dan Simmons who is clearly on the side of the Angels could have written a book containing so much that is right and good AND YET be a book extolled by wastrels and scoundrels and scoundrel wastrels.
The manuscript which Mr Simmons had no doubt carefully crafted had fallen into the hands of one of those appalling New York editors. The evidence was manifest! The chopping back and forth in time, the under explained connections between characters, the wild shifts in style and setting! Simply, this was a good, uplifting novel that had been re-cut, rearranged and distorted. This was an anagram of a novel, a velon if you will and only a villain could have constructed it. Above all else, where was the ending? Where was the resolution? When would the characters find their faith vindicated?
Trapped under the remains of our own brick shelving avatar of the tower of babel with both food and water running short, I realised I needed to set to work! Carefully I tore out each page of the false novel named "Hyperion", a name replete with the hep irony of its editor. Using what strength I had length I rebuilt the novel from the ground up, assembling the pieces, page by page into something that would edify rather than corrupt.
When all the pages had achieved their true order I was heartbroken for, despite all my efforts, the novel was no complete. It lacked an ending still! Furiously with nothing but brick dust and rainwater, I manufactured a rudimentary ink and began writing upon the torn surface of a plank of shelving....
Lenar Hoyt looked around. "Seems like we've reached our destination. I wonder what will happen next." Suddenly The Shrike walked in. Everybody looked at The Shrike and said "Oh no, here comes trouble!"
"Calm yourselves," said The Shrike, pointedly, "I'm not here to kill you but to explain what has been going on."
"Oh good," said Martin Silenus, "we all had been wondering even after this kind cat but the story in a more sensible order."
"Yes, you all owe that cat a big debt of gratitude," said The Shrike sharply. Everybody waited patiently for The Shrike to continue. "I shall continue," said The Shrike ornithophily.
"I don't think you are using the word 'ornithophily' correctly there," said Martin Silenus, "and I should know because I'm a poet."
"I was trying to write 'thornily' like The Shrike's tone was very thorny but the spell check changed it," explained the cat.
"And that is the heart of the problem," explained The Shrike, "You see, computers run everything now including all the teleporters and reanimated versions of dead poets. There is a wider point I'd like to make about architecture, creativity and the human spirit but the main thing is I have to kill lots of people to save humanity."
"I guessed we misjudged you all along," said the assembled characters.
"Yes you did," explained The Shrike, stellatedly,"I only killed people infected with the WOKE MIND VIRUS and it was for their own good and they all thanked me later in heaven."
"But if you weren't the bad guy then who was the bad guy?" asked another character whose name I forgot.
The Shrike pointed one pointy finger at The Consul.
"Yes, it is true," said the Consul, consulatorily,"It was me. I was the bad guy."
With that The Shrike killed him.
THE END
And this why I am the best editor of not just the 21st Century but the 20th Century as well.
[Addendum: The "bricks" were lego bricks. The cat is fine. ]
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