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Speaking Science Fiction—Out of Anxiety?
- Edited by Andy Sawyer, David Seed
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- Book:
- Speaking Science Fiction
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 04 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 31 December 2000, pp 32-39
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Summary
I was of course delighted when I got your invitation to attend this meeting. And because of its theme I thought that perhaps a case from my medical practice would interest you.
It was in the middle of the 1970s when a colleague from the clinic phoned my sanatorium in the country and invited me to visit him and see a patient whom I could help.
‘How?’ I asked, presuming that I could not be better than the professor and his colleagues.
‘By answering him. You know, he seems to be talking to you. He seems to be hearing the voices of your literary hero, Captain Feather, out of your story “The Planet Kirké”. Could you please come as soon as possible?’
My sanatorium was situated fifty kilometres from Prague and I did not get to the old building of our clinic until the next morning. My colleague led me to an isolation room. There I saw a young man who stood in the middle of the place, supporting his body with both hands and scratching his hair with the right now and then, as apes do in the zoo.
‘Captain Feather?’ he asked me. ‘I have returned from the planet Kirké.’ And he gave some ape-like grunts. Now I have to admit that I really did write a sequence of stories about the cosmic adventures of the Captain, whom I called ‘Feather’ to stress his non-heroism. One of them really took place on the planet called Kirké, which was so well automated that its inhabitants didn't need to work at all. Therefore they slowly devolved back to apes and later to pigs.
‘You certainly didn't read my story properly,’ I answered, trying to argue in accordance with his delusion. ‘Planet Kirké was destroyed by the same Captain at the end of the story.’ He only laughed. I began to recognize him. It was that same boy, George M., who had visited me several times in the 1960s with his first clumsy translations of various stories by van Vogt. He did not want to admit his mistakes at that time, and had insisted that his work was of paramount importance, as van Vogt was entirely unknown in Prague in the first years of that decade.
Captain Nemo's Last Adventure
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- By Josef Nesvadba, London
- Edited by Franz Rottensteiner
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- Book:
- View from Another Shore
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 04 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 31 December 1999, pp 143-166
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Summary
His real name was Feather. Lieutenant Feather. He was in charge of transport between the second lunar base and the airfields on Earth, both direct trips and transfers via Cosmic Station 36 or 38. It was a dull job, and the suggestion had been made that the pilots of these rockets be replaced altogether by automatic control, as the latter was capable of reporting dangerous meteorites or mechanical breakdowns sooner and with greater accuracy, and was not subject to fatigue.
But then there was the famous accident with Tanker Rocket 272 BF. Unable to land on Cosmic Station 6, it was in danger of exploding and destroying the whole station, which would have held up traffic between the Moon and the Earth for several weeks and brought the greatest factories on Earth to a standstill, dependent as they are on the supply of cheap top-quality Moon ore. How would the Moon crews carry on without supplies from Earth? Were their rations adequate? How long would they be cut off? Everyone asked the same questions; there wasn't a family on Earth who didn't have at least one close relative on one lunar station or another. The Supreme Office of Astronautics was criticized from all quarters, and it looked as though the chairman would have to resign.
Just then the news came through that an unknown officer, one Lieutenant Feather, had risked his life to land on the tanker rocket in a small Number Four Cosmic Bathtub (the nickname for the small squat rockets used for short journeys). After repairing the rocket controls, Feather had landed safely on one on the Moon bases. Afterwards he spent a few weeks in the hospital; apparently he had tackled the job in an astronautical training suit. On the day he was released, the chairman of the Supreme Office of Astronautics himself was waiting for him, to thank him personally for his heroic deed and to offer him a new job.
And so Lieutenant Feather became Captain Feather; and Captain Feather became Captain Nemo. The world press services couldn't get his Czech name right, and when news got out that Captain Feather was going to command the new Nautilus rocket to explore the secrets of Neptune, he was promptly rechristened Nemo (Jules Verne was en vogue just then).