Ask not for whom the admiral cooed

Belle is bedridden with a sinus infection, among other things, and reading bad sci-fi as comfort food for thought. She asked me to share a little something with all of you: the opening sentences of The Memory Bank (1951) by Wallace West.

"When I need your advice, Lieutenant Commander," cooed the admiral, "I shall send you a plascript!"

This sentence was obviously a big influence on Harlan Ellison's classic short story, "Repent Harlequin! Cooed the Ticktockman". I myself am planning on emitting dove-toned variations on it in everyday conversation. "Hey! Wait for the plascript!" "Do I have to send you a plascript?" "We don't need no stinking plascript!" And so forth.

"But sir," his husky, tow-headed aide ventured to protest ...

There ought to be a special critical term - if not a special place in hell - for the mad sin of shoehorning distinguishing physical characteristics (via Making Light) into sentences in which they have no proper business. (And exactly why have these specific terms - 'husky' and 'tow-headed' - fallen into such utter disuse in our day and age? Whither huskiness, eh?)

... "Lieutenant Pancrief can make it right in the lab. It's just a refinement of an ancient sniper-scope. Infra-red radiation from the bodies of the Siriuns - if they have bodies, of course - would register on microfilm. They need never know ..."

I guess I could quibble. Could you really know - concerning any creature that might, for all you know, lack a body - whether, in the event that it has a body, that body will ... oh, never mind. The admiral is in action again.

"Hah!" Admiral Mendez slammed a hairy fist on his empty desk top ...

I'm tempted to read the novel myself just to find out whose fist it was. But not, you know, that tempted.

Comments

[bryan]

it was Ha's fist, pay attention.

[bryan]

oops, I misspelled Hah's name.