The Reluctant Famulus 107 November/December 2015 Thomas D. Sadler, Editor/Publisher, etc. 305 Gill Branch Road, Owenton, KY 40359 Phone: 502-484-3766 E-mail: [email protected] Contents Introduction, Editor 3 Rat Stew, Gene Stewart 8, His Name Was Lulu, Sheryl Birkhead 11 Children of the Flood Alfred D. Byrd 13 New Ancient Earthlings, Gayle Perry 18 The Crotchety Critic, Michaele Jordan 25 A bit of fatuousness, Editor 26 The Guts Of Starship Troopers, Robin Bright 27 Letters 33 Dark Matter, Editor 44 Pyramids, Editor 45 Conclusion, Editor 45 Artwork/Photos Sheryl Birkhead Front cover, Back cover Brad Foster 12, 43, 45 Teddy Harvia 10, 32, 41 A. B. Kynock 35, 39 Spore 33, 37 The Reluctant Famulus is a product of Strange Dwarf Publications. Some of the comments expressed herein are solely those of the Editor/Publisher and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of any sane, rational persons who know what they are doing and have carefully thought out beforehand what they wanted to say. Material not written or produced by the Editor/Publisher is printed by permission of the various writers and artists and is copyright by them and remains their sole prop- erty and reverts to them after publication. TRF maybe obtained for The Usual but, in return for written material and artwork, postage costs, The Meaning of Life, and Editorial Whim. 2 The Reluctant Famulus Introduction: A State of Puzzlement (Well, maybe not.) What’d I do wrong? The responses to the last the last one of my harping on typos. After all, fan- issue was a bit smaller than usual. There was one zines are notorious for containing typos. Which, comment from Taral Wayne which wasn’t actu- in spite of my diligence, will definitely occur in ally a loc; a loc, from Sheryl Birkhead, locs from this issue—as seems inevitable. I’m slightly em- Jerry Kaufman, Alexis Gilliland, and Kim barrassed to admit it but I finally discovered that Neidigh and Milt Stevens, Lloyd Penney, Brad the word processing program I use the most has Foster, John Purcell, and Dave Rowe. That’s it. I an automatic underline feature that flags misspell- haven’t heard anything from Al Byrd who usually ings as I type away, as do the three other word sends a loc. Neither has Joe Major who is having processors I have and the MS Publisher program. various problems of his own. Other than that, it’s So that might—no guarantees—drastically de- copacetic so far. crease the number of typos. I’ll probably still I must admit that all you folks—and espe- find a way to commit them. Unfortunately, that cially those of you who aren’t retired—are busy won’t do much good when it come to including with real world activities and obligations that the same articles in an issue. can’t be ignored. That’s understandable. In all But wait. Here’s an idea. Maybe if I kill off honesty I can’t really complain and I’m being my typo obsession, drive a stake through its heart greedy for expecting more. Shame on me. and bury it by a crossroads at midnight perform- Take a deep breath and calm yourself down. ing strange, arcane and obscure rituals from an- There. The usual stalwarts provided me with their cient incunabula and reciting archaic enchant- thoughts and that’s greatly appreciated. ments to insure success. Maybe I can finally get it Fortunately, I have a Rat Stew column, The out of my system and concentrate on everything second part of Al Byrd’s Children of the Flood, but typos. another NEA, the latest installment of Michaele Although I might develop some other obses- Jordan’s Crotchety Critic, an article by Sheryl sion. I hope not. That probably wouldn’t be any Birkhead, plus some odds and ends which might better in the end. be of some interest to somebody. Back to the first sentence of the preceding Let’s leave that subject and move on to more paragraph and the matter of “A new Spaceship” important matters—whatever they may be. appearing twice in TRF 107, of which I was Such as my latest screw-up (Something I quickly notified. No excuses. It happened and seem to be good at whether I like it or not.) and what’s done is done. For some strange reason, presenting the article on the new kind of space- even though I keep committing typos and other craft twice. mistakes for readers to find and point out, the I’m beginning to wonder if maybe 27 years of Earth continues its course around the Sun and life publishing TRF are enough and it’s time to retire goes on as always. The GOP will continue trying the fanzine after the 27th anniversary in Decem- to self-destruct (which now seems natural for ber. But then I’ve been known to threaten to stop them), especially since the Speaker of the House publishing The Reluctant Famulus only to turn will be retiring from the post and his office at the around and produce another issue anyway. So end of October. People’s lives will go on nor- I’ve shown I can’t keep a promise—at least in mally and the nitpickers (thankfully a small num- regard to TRF. ber) are still able to nitpick as usual and chortle For whatever it’s worth I plan this issue to be with glee—or something. So, to those who will 3 nitpick, go ahead and have your laugh. I realize something out of a cheap horror movie about now that those errors and the responses to them loathsome, strange looking humans doing nasty, are really very minor matters, and should be eas- distasteful things to hapless travelers. I think I’d ily forgotten. better quit with this thread before I start having We all have our own better, truer pleasures: a nightmares involving all the above in some way. beautiful sunrise or sunset, a newborn baby, the Some observations from unknown sources: happy look on a child’s face, a pet dog or cat, a “America’s a great country. It allows people painting or sculpture by an old master or a con- to believe whatever they want no matter how stu- temporary one, a good book, one’s spouse, good pid, crazy or ignorant it may be.” Anonymous friends, the awesome scenery in America, and on “It’s too bad they’re allowed to breed.” and on. (And fanzines, maybe?) Those are posi- Anonymous tive pleasures and welcome ones. It’s too bad “Even worse, some of them get elected to there seem to be others which aren’t in the same Congress.” Anonymous category. *Which we’re not likely to see unless we’re But humans do have their dark sides. Unfortu- underwater where they live. Or Sponge Bob nately. Among those, many people possess a cer- square pants. tain irrational obsession unintentionally caused There are conspiracy theories and then there by our “Founding Fathers” when they conceived Are CONSPIRACY THEORIES. and wrote the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and According to certain sources, this particular the subsequent 10 (with more having been added theory, which, believe it or not, somehow in- over the years) amendments, one of them being volves President Obama, works like this. In Mon- the Second Amendment in particular. It’s amazing tana there are plans to move all the people out of how many ways that has been interpreted every the inter-mountain west to make way for a grizzly which way to reflect personal viewpoints and jus- bear corridor (which stretches from the Yellow- tify their need to own weaponry of all kinds. Now stone to Yukon ecosystem). Included are UN sol- I’ll drop that subject like a red hot hunk of steel. diers amassed but hidden in Glacier and Yellow- NASA says there’s good evidence of [salt] stone National Parks, from other countries includ- water on Mars. On the other hand, according to ing Croatia, Wales, and who knows where else. extremist Rightwinger Rush Limbaugh, it’s a There are tunnels under the mountains between conspiracy hoax created by NASA. As for signs Glacier and Thompson Falls, Montana, which, of life, that’ll have to wait for who knows how theorists think is where train cars are being stored long. That is, if we’ll be able to recognize it when that “people” have seen that have shackles in we see it. Other kinds of life wouldn’t necessarily them and guillotines. This is where President walk upright on two legs like us humans. After Obama is involved. He had allegedly ordered the all, just to name a few, snakes are life forms. So purchase of 30,000 guillotines. They’re the trains are snails and slugs, starfish* (or Sea stars since westerners are supposedly going to be piled into they’re not actually fish), seals and walruses, when the time comes to move them out to make amoebas, paramecia and even slime molds. Can way for the endangered grizzly bear. It looks as if you picture a human-sized amoeba or parame- we’re not dealing with just plain old evil or ordi- cium and ones with human-level intelligence? nary nutjobs here, we’re dealing with some sort Then there are Republicans, entirely different of severe mental illness. This is in addition to creatures pretending to be intelligent. Oops. That President Obama’s alleged diabolical plot to turn wasn’t a nice thing to write.