The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes
Read The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes Online
Authors: Sterling E. Lanier
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Fantasy Fiction; American
Brigadier Ffellowes 02
(
1986
)
Sterling
E.
Lanier
Contents
AND T
H
E VOICE OF THE TURTLE ...
THE BRIGADIER IN CHECK AND MATE
-
If Old Lanier tells you he's his own role model for the Brigadier, don't you believe him!
I've known Lanier for fifteen years now the first ten of them through the mails with never a face-to-face meeting. In those ten years, I learned that he had gone to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton depending upon the man's particular needs, whims, or faulty memory and that he possessed doctorates in anthropology, archeology (oh hell, Sterling, have it your way, archaeology!), sociology, animal-husbandry, podiatry, geriatrics, criminology, herpetology (I believed that one), and gynecology. I also learned that he had traveled to Tibet, Afghanistan, the North and South Poles,
Pellucidar
, the
Ahbor
Valley, and
Kir
Asa
.
During the five years before we actually met, he described himself (glowingly) as a composite of Andy Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lord Nelson, insisting that they were presidents of those colleges he had attended. Then, I guess he remembered my fondness for George Fraser's writings, and he added Harry
Flashman
to the aforementioned trio. "Without the cowardice, of course.
Harumph
!"
Indeed, when I finally met the man he was dressed in a ragged, faded brigadier's uniform
that he had scrounged or stolen somewhere
. I
t didn't take me long (about eight belches and a few other
assundry
contributions to the peace of the land) to see a similarity between
Flashman
and Lanier. I was reminded that the Apaches had a name for
Flashman
(
*
Flashman
and the Redskins
.)
which, translated to its briefest form, came out as "breaker of wind."
Harumph
! yourself.
In person, however, Lanier admitted to me in
an unusual,
lucid moment that he had never been west of Philadelphia nor east of the Maryland shore, and that his role model for the Brigadier was probably a lot closer to me that it was to him. But lucid or not, Lanier never lost his braggadocio! (Alright, damn you, Sterling, I'll italicize it there:
braggadocio
!)
You may ask, and justifiably so, why a man of my reputation would involve himself with so disreputable a character. As a matter of fact, it is a question that I have asked myself many times. We have very little in common, and even a proximity to the man gives me the shudders. After all, Lanier is at least thirty years my senior,
(
*Mediator's note: Lanier and Grant were born in the same year. What Grant obviously refers to is physical appearance. Lanier appears to be much the older man.
)
and his reading tastes are generally quite abominable. Oddly, we do share a liking for that ancient and honorable subdivision of the fantasy genre called the "lost race" tale. But where my taste for this type of fiction includes such novels as The Face In the Abyss and The Sunbird, Lanier's great favorites are
Bomba
the Jungle Boy and the Lost City and The
Bobbsey
Twins in the Unknown Land: A Romance of the Polar Pit.
(
*Mediator's note: Published 1901. This novel is rumored to have been written by Lanier's younger brother employing a pseudonym.
)
What absolutely defies and mystifies me, though, is the man's writing. Lanier's
Hiero
books (he pronounces it "Hero," and woe to the uninitiated who chooses to call it "
Hyro
") are good, solid novels that have achieved no small degree of popularity, while his juvenile, The War for the Lot, is really a competent effort. Best of all his output, however, are the tales of the Brigadier Ffellowes, most of them first appearing in Ed
Ferman's
excellent Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Seven of these episodes were collected in one volume by Walker & Company, a New York publisher, in 1972, under the title of The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes. And while the book was reprinted in England shortly thereafter, it has been out of print for a number of years a highly sought-after book and most difficult to obtain.
The Peculiar Exploits is lauded in an introduction from no less an expert than Arthur C. Clarke, so I doubt that Lanier has somehow hypnotized me into liking these things without my knowledge. (That is not to say that he wouldn't try!) The first three stories - "His Only Safari," "The Kings of the Sea," and "His Coat So Gay," each one getting better and better as one progresses are enough to hook a person on the Brigadier tales. The final four are just frosting on the cake!
Not many writers can equal the delight afforded by these tales, but Lanier does it again with this new volume of six more tales The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes. As good as are the stories found in Exploits, I don't think that any of them can overshadow such gems as "Ghost of a Crown" or "A Father's Tale." Curious Quests is a real joy to read, and I hope there will be more
... many more
... before the series ends.
But something does not add up. The Brigadier stories are clever, well-plotted, well-written, and they display a broad knowledge that I have never been able to discover in Lanier himself. Indeed, the tales are such good fun that, from the first reading of the first book, I suspicioned the
involvement
of a second party. Is there a Francis Bacon who would perhaps forego the glory of authorship for the filthy lucre proffered from the purse of this wealthy rogue?
Enough of this! The play's the thing, and whoever planned the tales
...
whoever did the writing
...
did it competently; yes, even delightfully. If we give the devil his
dues
, that is to say if we allow that Lanier is the author of these tales, then certainly they are a breath of fresh air from the breaker of wind.
Donald M. Grant
-
Unaccustomed as I am to Public Writing, a word or two is necessary, if only in my defense.
When reading the average offerings to the trade of one D. M. Grant, I borrow the Apache name of the war chief, Geronimo:
Goyathlay
, or "He who constantly yawns." Crepitation also accompanies perusal of same.
My actual learning is somewhat scanted. The alleged "introduction" overlooks seismology, lycanthropy, ophiology, hagiology, telekinesis (and other ESP talents), metaphysics and cryptozoology among other studies.
Many of my venturesome field trips to little-known areas are ignored as well. To cite only one example, few know of my probe of the Islands of Langerhans, and the adjoining fringe of Gastroenteritis, a trip of some danger, since at the time I was badly infected with
Mopery
.
I must at this point, relate a true story, since it applies to a tale in this volume, a story unknown to either the publisher or to even any human being.
Many years ago, at age 14, when reading all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, I became perplexed over the mention of various Holmes adventures which were never written, at least in any book I could locate. A kindly English teacher explained that Sir Arthur mentioned many unwritten adventures simply to intrigue the reader and that they had no actual existence. A few months later, I heard the word pastiche and its explanation. Now, I had never intended to become a writer of any kind. But I swore to myself that I would write one story only, that of "The Giant Rat of Sumatra, for which the world is not yet prepared." I was going to write that one story for my own self and amusement. It never occurred to me at the age of 14 that I would ever write a real story that would be published! So that one story goes back a long way in my life. Whether it has any other distinction, I must leave to the readers.
I must now leave the aforesaid readers and return to a battle with the Internal Revenue Service. Since Mr. Grant pays me almost nothing and professes to be a charitable institution, founded for the vaguely literate, I have been struggling to get my miniscule royalties made "Tax Deductible." For some reason or other, the IRS professes not to believe the claims of this worthy man, a man who always tells the truth, despite his patent inability to run a publishing company of any significance or worth.
Remember that with the above statement goes another and much older one. "There's always one exception that proves the rule!"
Happy Reading.
S.
E.
Lanier 1986
P.S. In listing my favorite books, Grant skipped a famous wartime (Spanish American) thriller about himself, The Publisher Who Never Was.
N.B. Almost missed another
Granterror
(new word, but spreading).
Hiero
is properly pronounced "
Hee-ehro
," not "Hero."
-
"Ghost stories are passé in some circles, I suppose," said a new member. I didn't know his name, but he was a younger man, of what, I guess, could be called a bookish type. He had rather thick glasses and a thin, angular face. He was drinking Madeira, which is not much in vogue with most of my acquaintances, but I didn't hold that against him either.
It was a cold spring night, and the club library had a fire lit at one end of the long room. A group of us were sitting in one of the big bay window alcoves overlooking Fifth Avenue, and the park looked rather gloomy in the drifting mist below. Personally, I'd rather hit Omaha Beach alone than go into it at night.
"I like them myself," said Bryce. He was something important in the Bank of New York. "I read them in my office, that is, when my secretary is busy." This raised a mild laugh. "In fact," he went on, unperturbed, "I have a standing order with
Blackwells
, in England, to send me any new ones that look good. And I even put myself on the lists of some of these jobbers that deal in science fiction, horror stories, and such things, in case some of the old ones come in that sound good." He sipped his drink. "Actually, I've found that some of the best are long out of print, and damned hard to get hold of."