{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3215",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3215,
    "subject": "Slippery Gene",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-05-05T16:47:20+00:00",
    "last": "2002-05-05T16:47:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0205-864@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nigel Price",
        "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net"
      },
      "date": "2002-05-05T16:47:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Slippery Gene",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Taking a brief and guilty break from the world of literary SF, I'm currently\nzipping my way through a cheerfully trashy volume misleadingly entitled\n\"Roger Zelazny's Alien Speedway Book 1\", which is in fact written by someone\ncalled Jeffrey A. Carver. As a devoted reader and hoarder of the works of\nthe late Mr Z., I picked up the paperback in question in order to fill in\none of the few remaining gaps in my collection. I have had books 2 and 3 in\nthis series for years, but had never been able to track down the missing\nvolume 1. The only bits by Zelazny in each book are the introductions, which\nare fun. The stories themselves are hack work by various young hopefuls set\nin a world apparently devised by the aforementioned author. So, ones to file\nunder Minor Works, Apochcryphal Writings and Pseudoepigraphia, but\nmoderately interesting for obsessive completists like myself.\n\nI mention all this because early in Book 1, which is entitled \"Clypsis\", the\nteenage runaway hero encounters a stout and mysterious stranger while vainly\nseeking for work on some grimy spacedocks. Here is the unflattering\ndescription of this stranger:\n\n\t\"Facing him was a stocky man - no, pudgy he decided instantly and\nuncharitably - dressed in faded blue spacer clothes. The man had dark\neyebrows and thinning black hair, and he wore smoked glasses. As he shifted\nhis weight to gaze at Mike face to face, it was obvious that he moved with a\nlimp.\"\n\nInterestingly, the man gives his name as \"Slippery Gene\".\n\n(\"Don't worry about it, kid. It's just a nickname.\")\n\nGood grief - could it be? Surely not? It can't be!\n\nIs Our Favourite Author really making an unwitting cameo appearance as a\nminor character in a decidely minor work? I wouldn't have taken the idea\nseriously but for that limp - it's mentioned several times. I've no idea\nwhether GW limps, but so many of his characters do.\n\nNigel (who is now even beginning to wonder whether the Monkees were making\nsly lupine digs in that song of theirs...)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}