Memory Lane

Courtesy of Sweet Sharon, TOF has been gifted with some old photos from my storied college years. People who know me now will gaze at them in wonder and ask, "Where is the rest of him?" And indeed it is true that I am now twice the man I was then.

Yes, that's TOF on the right

 Gadzooks, was I skinny. I'll have to clip the picture and tape it to the refrigerator as motivation.

l to r. your humble host, Sweet Sharon, FRXL, Cookie, Sterling.

The second picture was taken about the time of the annual Caisson Ball. A HS friend of mine, Sterling Carter, had come down as my guest. Sterling was in an infantry ROTC unit at U Scranton, whereas I was in the artillery -- "Caisson," right? -- at LaSalle. That made me a big shot, LOL. TOF learned how to call artillery fire down on your grid coordinates. You have been warned.

The fellow who appears in both pictures was Francis Raymond Xavier Lyons, known to all as FRXL (pronounced as spelled). I lost track of him over the years since graduation, alas; but the saga of the frijoles negros will live forever.

Mayerling

For the interested, the opening of "Mayerling", that alternate Austro-Hungarian yarn mentioned in Scribble, scribble, scribble, runs as follows.

Scribble, scribble, scribble... and scribble

There are several stories of sundry lengths in various stages of (in)completion in the Flynnish oeuvre.  For anyone interested, they run as follows.

I forgot one! So I have added 098e below, in the queue at Analog.

The opus number runs generally in the order in which they were started, except 098f. All the Journeyman stories are 098, with each installment getting a letter. The current word count is indicated in order to shame TOF into finishing them rather than starting another.

In process
079 Mayerling.....................4200

Short story. Alternate history. Crown Prince Rudolf is at his hunting lodge at Mayerling, contemplating suicide. Or not.

087 The Shipwrecks of Time..........92,786

A novel. Back in the early 1340s, Heinrich of Regensburg was brutally murdered over a now-lost manuscript known as "The Peruzzi Papers."  In the 1960s, an historical researcher in Milwaukee becomes interested in the contents.  What could have been so dangerous to know that the author was so brutally killed?  Why did the banking House of Peruzzi keep the papers secret for 600 years?  Inquiring minds want to know.  But maybe they should not be so inquiring?  Later, in Part II, a documentary film-maker in 1980s Denver and, in Part III, a small town police detective in the fictional 2010s Neston PA are also entangled in the mystery.  Some mss. are better left unread, it seems. However, we are already up to 93 kilowords and still in Part I. Damn. Don't know whether to cut it drastically by 2/3rd or to make each Part a separate book. Still plugging away.

098f The Journeyman: At the Heights of Iabran.......7973

Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand is leading a cavalry regiment he helped organize. They are setting up to take the enemy's capital. Problem is, Teo's commanding general is trying to get him killed, due to a small misunderstanding over the general's wife. There's this deep canyon penetrating the aforesaid Heights; but it is likely a dead-end, in more ways than one.

101 The Chieftain....................................16,421

A fantasy novel -- yes, you heard that right -- in the lackadaisical course of being rewritten from an old draft from TOF's youth. It was written long ago, in and shortly after college, as a straight historical, the market for which can best be described as multiples of SQRT(-1).  The writing sucks because I was just a kid; but it is as capable of rewrite as The January Dancer was.  The world has a shortage of medieval Celtic fantasies.  No, really.  It does. This one is set in Ireland in AD 1225.  A bit of medieval magic should pepper it right up.  Don't usually see prayers instead of spells, or saints instead of imps to answer them; so we shall see.  And calling on God may not be quite as simple as calling on gods....

107 Hunters Moon.................1063

Short story set in the Firestar milieu. The narrator is a troubleshooter for Phobos Port Authority, sent to audit the procedures used for aiming the Lunar catapult dedicated to sending cargo to Mars and finds a suspicious death when he gets there. Same narrator as "In Panic Town on the Backward Moon."

108 Adventures in Mythistory........5747

Fact article on how history is turned into myth, with special emphasis on Hypatia.

109 The Three Faces of Science........859

Fact article on the three phases of science in the Modern Age: Mathematical, Statistical, and Modeled.

111 The Singing City...............2200

A vignette set in the Firestar milieu. Flaco's grandson is about to leave for Saturn in a magnetic sail, and Flaco's son "Memo" (born at the end of Rogue Star) is having a crisis.

112 Moonrise at the Tatamy Book Barn...........2750

Short story. Jacinta Rosario, who never became a space pilot because the whole Firestar history never happened, is running away from home and finds herself taking shelter from a thunderstorm in the Tatamy Book Barn, where there are lots of books. Henry Berge, a neighbor who is storing his papers there for safekeeping, is also trapped by the storm. The store manager, whose name is Roberta Carson, invites them both to stay for pizza. Stuff happens.

Completed
In the queue at Analog:
098e  The Journeyman: Through Madness Gap...............................................14,765

Teodorq had crossed the ocean to Old Cuffy, where his sponsor expects him to organize a regiment of Savage Archers modeled after the Riders of the Great Grass. But a foreign country takes some getting used to.

102 Laminated Moose Zombies and Other Road Maintenance Problems........4786

Short story co-written with Son of TOF, Dennis. Zombies are getting to be a nuisance for the Anchorage DPW. It's a fungus-borne disease, and the narrator's girl friend is researching for a cure, or at least a treatment. Should appear in an upcoming issue.

110 Victor Frankenstein's Bar and Grill and Twenty-four Hour Roadside Emporium........1293

Everybody needs a place where "everyone knows your name." This is true even for nameless monsters who want to hoist a few. A deep psychological study.

Recently appeared
104 Nexus..............25,156

Novella. This was in Analog (Mar/Apr 2017). A concatenation of several science fiction tropes.