Page 71 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Lost in the Jungle

Fred Feghootsky banged on the table before Rutger could
respond beyond a monosyllabic expletive.
“People! Cool down! Dramatic unity in a short story demands
trimming off a lot of external situations and complications. Granted
that times have changed, and the field of science fiction has
expanded to include voices formerly unheard—for whatever
reason!—Rutger’s got a right to trot out tropes you dislike. None of
us are magazine editors: either we seek to conform to their
perceptions of what will sell, or we are writing for an audience of
one, whether we know it or not. Maxwell’s Daemon’s would not
exist were we not all on the same page, as it were. Yet, as I said, the
range of acceptable plots and characters does change over time:
sometimes slowly, at others reflecting rapid social change. In either
event, older- and newer-style stories inevitably will coexist. There: I
hope my fanning the breeze has lowered the temperature enough
for us to proceed calmly. Yes, I know we can be a prickly bunch,
with hot buttons hidden all over our psyches. Sorry.”
“Okay,” grumbled Rutger Schlager. “I guess I’m on my own
with this one. I think there is a constituency for ‘Lost in the Jungle’,
and I will definitely submit it to Freakish Fantasies; once I beat it into
shape. The only ironic ending I would consider is for penicillin to
have been introduced as part of the battlefield materia medica during
the mission to Africa, rendering the watengi mbasira plant superfluous
and the American lives lost in obtaining it all for naught. There’s no
hero like a doomed man on an impossible mission.”

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