First Person Peculiar
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Wizard of West 34th Street
The Gifilte Fish Girl
The Revealed Truth
Me and My Shadow
The Adventure of the Pearly Gates
A Little Night Music
Down Memory Lane
Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?
The Kemosabe
Old MacDonald Had a Farm
Mrs. Hood Unloads
Blue
Catastrophe Baker and a Canticle for Leibowitz
How I Wrote the New Testament, Ushered in the Renaissance, and Birdied the 17th Hole at Pebble Beach
The Sacred Tree
The Evening Line
Cobbling Together a Solution
Beachcomber
The Enhancement
Society’s Goy
Me
Here’s Looking at You Kid
A Princess of Earth
About the Author
Mike Resnick
Book Description
Some writing classes caution their students to avoid first-person stories—too traditional, too dated, too difficult to sell. We’ve convinced 5-time Hugo Award winner Mike Resnick to show you how it’s done with two dozen of his best first-person stories.
You want Hugo nominees? We got ’em.
Humor? Them, too.
Award winners and nominees? Yep.
Fantasy? But, of course.
Science fiction? Absolutely.
Sherlock Holmes? We’ve even got one of them.
Mike Resnick is, according to Locus magazine, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short fiction. First Person Peculiar will explain why.
***
Smashwords Edition - 2014
WordFire Press
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ISBN: 978-1-61475-151-9
Entire contents copyright (c) 2014 Kirinyaga, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
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***
First Person Peculiar
Copyright Data
Entire contents copyright © 2014 Kirinyaga, Inc.
Introduction
Copyright Gregory Benford 2014
The Wizard of West 34th Street
Copyright © 2012 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the December, 2012 Asimov’s
The Gefilte Fish Girl
Copyright © 1997 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the April, 1997 F&SF
The Revealed Truth
Copyright © 2013 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Dark Faith: Invocations
Me and My Shadow
Copyright © 1984 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Unauthorized Autobiographies
The Adventure of the Pearly Gates
Copyright © 1995 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Sherlock Holmes in Space
A Little Night Music
Copyright © 1991 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in The Ultimate Dracula
Down Memory Lane
Copyright © 2005 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the April, 2005 Asimov’s
Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut off the Sun?
Copyright © 1992 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?
The Kemosabee
Copyright © 1994 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Tales of the Great Turtle
Old MacDonald Had a Farm
Copyright © 2001 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the September, 2001 Asimov’s
Mrs. Hood Unloads
Copyright © 1991 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in The Fantastic Robin Hood
Blue
Copyright © 1978 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in 1978 Hunting Dog Magazine
Catastrophe Baker and a Canticle for Leibowitz
Copyright © 2009 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in The New Space Opera II
How I Wrote the New Testament, Brought Forth the Renaissance, and Birdied the 17th Hole at Pebble Beach
Copyright © 1990 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in June/July 1990 Aboriginal SF
The Sacred Tree
Copyright © 2012 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the March, 2012 Daily Science Fiction
The Evening Line
Copyright © 2013 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Rip-Off
Cobbling Together a Solution
Copyright © 2004 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the October, 2004 Amazing Stories
Beachcomber
Copyright © 1980 by Mike
Resnick First appeared in Chrysalis 8
The Enhancement
Copyright © 2013 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Impossible Futures
Society’s Goy
Copyright © 2003 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Stars
Stalking the Zombie
Copyright ©2012 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Stalking the Zombie
Me
Copyright © 2005 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in I, Alien
Here’s Looking at You, Kid
Copyright © 2003 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the April, 2003 Asimov’s
A Princess of Earth
Copyright © 2004 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the December, 2004 Asimov’s
***
Dedication
To Carol, as always
And to fellow members of the Old White Guys Club:
Robert Silverberg
Gregory Benford
Jack McDevitt
Barry N. Malzberg
David Brin
Eric Flint
Kevin J. Anderson
Larry Niven
Jerry Pournelle
Gene Wolfe
Norman Spinrad
Jack Dann
***
Introduction
by Gregory Benford
First person seems the natural way to tell a story, but it has traps for the unwary. This collection shows how to avoid the snares and still use the assets of the big I.
First person has its advantages, all on display in these trademark Resnick stories. For example, the literary term for a dominant character is “first person major,” the character who tells the tale and is the principal actor. Think about Philip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s great noir novels.
(Resnick echoes this very well, somewhat tongue in cheek.)
Since the narrator is within the story, he or she may not have knowledge of all the events. Since the piece is spoken directly in the character’s voice, it is automatically strong, allowing the reader to decide whether they can relate to the protagonist’s position or not. The style limits the ability for description, though.
A “first person minor” point of view stands at a distance from events, but is not the primary actor. The point of view voice gives us perspective, though limited to just his or hers. Try The Great Gatsby, an American classic narrated by a friend of Gatsby. A good rule: If you’re going to kill the lead character, best not make him the point of view. The story ends when he does, unless you’re taking the reader into the afterlife. (But you can do that, in fantasy. To show you how that works, see “The Adventure of the Pearly Gates” with its remarkable opening, “It was most disconcerting. One moment I was tumbling over the falls at Reichenbach, my arms locked around Professor Moriarty, and the next moment I seemed to be standing by myself in a bleak, gray, featureless landscape.” Now that’s an opening.)
Most of the time, the first person guarantees that at least the narrating I is telling us the truth as he/she sees it. But sometimes, not so.
Real people are unreliable narrators all the time, even if they try to be trustworthy. To my taste, though, that I should not lie to me; I get enough of that in real life, thank you.
Of course, that I could be a we instead—the first-person-plural point of view. This occurs rarely, but can be used effectively, sometimes as a means to increase the concentration on the character or characters the story is about. Example: Fred Pohl’s Man Plus. One well-known and convoluted example of a multi-level narrative structure, using various first person voices, is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Even within this nested story, we learn that another character, Kurtz, told Marlow a lengthy story. We don’t directly get told anything about its content. So we have an “I” narrator introducing a storyteller as “he” (Marlow), who talks about himself as “I” and introduces another storyteller as “he” (Kurtz), who in turn presumably told his story from the perspective of “I”. It has a double framework: an unidentified “I” (first person singular) narrator relates a boating trip during which another character, Marlow, tells in the first person the story that comprises the majority of the work. Confusing, if you stop to think about it. The genius of Conrad is that you don’t. The story sweeps you along.
Mike Resnick knows all this theory. This collection shows it. For fast dialog that must be in first person, look at “The Gefilte Fish Girl.” For sheer audacity, consult “How I Wrote The New Testament, Ushered In The Renaissance, And Birdied The 17th Hole At Pebble Beach”:
So how was I to know that after all the false Messiahs the Romans nailed up, he would turn out to be the real one?
Or dip into the simply titled “Me”:
In the beginning I created the heavens and the Earth.
Well, not really.
He leaves you with a deft comedy that wrenches your head around, though agreeably, in “Here’s Looking At You, Kid”:
“I came to Casablanca for the waters.”
I defy you to not read on, after that. Resnick knows what he’s doing. You don’t need to look into the gearbox, though. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
***
I wrote this because I heard a couple of kids talking about how great it would be to be the Wizard of Oz, and thinking that no job, no matter how interesting or powerful, is ever quite what it’s cracked up to be. Go ask George W. Bush or Barack Obama—or the Wizard of West 34th Street.
The Wizard of West 34th Street
I’m sitting at my desk, pretty much minding my own business and wondering how the Knicks will do when they go up against the Celtics in a few hours, when Milt Kaplan starts muttering into his phone about fifteen feet away from me. I try not to pay attention, but he gets louder and louder, and there is a desperate tone in his voice, and it becomes clear that he is being harassed for rent money or a credit card bill or a phone bill or (knowing Milt) probably a combination of all three.
Finally he slams the phone down and stares at the wall. For almost three minutes, which is a long time to stare at anything except a pretty girl. I am afraid he might be getting suicidal, so I figure a funny remark will bring him back to Earth, and I tell him that he can only stare at his half of the wall, if I see his eyes darting to the right I’m going to charge him the standard fee for staring at my half.
He doesn’t crack a smile, but when he speaks his voice is soft and strained.
“I think I’m gonna have to see the Wiz,” he says.
“Of Oz?” I ask with a smile.
He shakes his head and doesn’t return the smile. “Not unless Oz has moved to the West Thirties.”
So now I figure he has gone off the deep end, he’s just being quiet about it.
He checks his watch. It’s a quarter to noon.
“What the hell,” he says. “They’re not gonna fire me for taking an early lunch. If he’s in the usual spot, I’ll be back by one. If not, cover for me.”
I don’t want to let him go walking through noontime traffic in this state of mind, so I get to my feet.
“Want a little company?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “It’s chilly out, and if there’s a line waiting to see him, it’ll be nice to have someone to talk with.”
We put our coats on, take the elevator down from the 27th floor, walk through the lobby, and out the main entrance.
“I hope the import/export business doesn’t grind to a halt because we left a little early,” I say,
“I was arranging for two gross of Bermuda shorts for what we call extra-large women,” he replies. “I think the country can survive an extra hour and a quarter without them.”
We walk south a few blocks, then turn right when we come to 34th Street.
“Six or seven cross-city blocks and we’re there,” he announces, heading off.
“We’re where?” I ask.
“Where we’re going,” he says.
“Is it a building, or a restaurant, or what?”
“That all depends.”
Now I know he’s crazy, because locations don’t change from one thing to another on a whim. It’s getting chilly, so I figure if I can get him to admit we’re on a wild goose chase, maybe we can stop at a coffee shop, warm up, and go back to work at a quarter to one, before anyone gets too mad at us. So I ask: “What does it all depend on?”
“Where he’s at, of course,” says Milt.
“Where who’s at?” I ask in exasperation.
“The Wiz,” he explains as if to a child. “Where the hell did you think we were going?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say, because there is a story circulating around that whenever Milt Kaplan gets lost he can usually be found in Passaic with a blonde named Bernice. He doesn’t seem inclined to expand upon his answer, so finally I ask where we are going.
“West 34th, of course,” he answers. “Where else would we be going?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” I say. I’d shrug, but it’s too damned cold out.
“I mean,” Milt continues, “he is the Wizard of West 34th Street. Why would I look for him anywhere else?”
“The Wizard of West 34th Street?” I repeat. “I never heard of him.”
“He doesn’t advertise.”
“An understatement,” I say.
“My wife hates it when I go to him. She always thinks he’s going to want to be paid with my soul instead of with money.” He snorts. “As if anyone could find the damned thing.” He shakes his head. “I’ve got no choice. We could lose the apartment—and trying to get a place after you’ve been living a dozen years with rent control …” He lets his voice tail off.
“Tell me about this Wizard,” I say. “Does he wear a pointed hat and a robe with all the signs of the Zodiac?”
Mi
lt shakes his head. “He dresses just like anyone else.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Maybe a little worse.” Another pause. “And he usually needs a shave.”
“Goes with having a long white beard,” I suggest.
“Nah,” says Milt. “Usually it’s just stubble. Kind of the way Clint Eastwood used to look in those spaghetti Westerns, only gray.”
“And this is a guy you think is a wizard?”
“I don’t think it, I know it,” replies Milt. “We all know it.”
“Who all knows it?” I ask.
“All the guys who use him.”
“Sound like he’s got a hell of a sweet racket going,” I say. “I’m surprised the cops haven’t busted him.”
“Why should they?” he shoots back. “There’s never been a complaint against him. Hell, sometimes the cops use him too.”
“I’ve got to see this wonder worker,” I say.
“You will,” he promises as we cross Sixth Avenue. “He’s usually somewhere between Eighth and Tenth.”
“He must be freezing his ass off.”
Milt chuckles. “We’ll find him in a bar, or perhaps a sandwich shop, either on 34th itself or maybe two or three buildings north or south on one of the cross streets. He doesn’t like being outside except in the summer.”
So we walk, and I try to guess which brownstone Rex Stout pretended that Nero Wolfe lived in, and we peek into the windows of a couple of bars, but Milt shakes his head after a moment and we keep on, and finally come to a deli.
“Yeah, there he is,” says Milt without much enthusiasm. “Damn, I hate this!”
“So let’s turn around and go back to the office,” I say.
“I can’t,” he responds unhappily. “I need the money.”
“What is he really?” I ask. “Some kind of loan shark?”
He shakes his head again. “You coming in with me?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I say, falling into step behind him as he enters the place. We make a beeline for a table where this middle-aged guy is sitting. His clothes clearly came off the bargain rack to begin with, and have all seen better days and better years, and the shoes have probably seen better decades. He’s got a bowtie beneath his unbuttoned collar, but it’s just hanging down, and I get the feeling that the next time he ties it into a bow will be the first time. There’s a patch on his jacket’s elbow, and he could use a haircut or, failing that, at least a comb.