"Paul Di Filippo - It's All Goodkind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

Rogers-esque voice of Commissioner Goodkine himself summoned me inside.
The office was decorated with many original paintings, both samples of the
Commissioner’s own amateur work—marine and wildlife studies—and canvases
from his second-favorite artist after himself, Thomas Kinkade.
Behind a broad expanse of mahogany sat Commissioner Goodkine, the
ultimate objectivist arbiter of the nation’s entertainment in prose form. His dense but
micrometer-thick beard, eerily perfect, reminded me of the flocking that used to
adorn the cheeks of the early G. I. Joe dolls, while his auburn pony tail invariably
brought thoughts of Naomi Judd to my mind.
Commissioner Goodkine did not arise, but offered me a seat in kindly tones.
His stern yet beatific face remained neutral. I tried to summon up some anger at
being called on the carpet in such a humiliating and potentially career-destroying
fashion, but couldn’t yet get fully aroused.
And Commissioner Goodkine’s next words disarmed me completely.
“Mr. Badway, you have the authorial potential to be a best-selling force for the
spiritual uplift of our glorious nation. That’s why I chose to consult with you
personally.”
“I—I do?”
Commissioner Goodkine steepled his fingers and allowed a small fatherly
smile to grace his lips. “Yes, you do, if you can only come to believe in the rightness
of the Goodkine method and principles, which the entire American publishing
establishment has seen fit to adopt, under legislative fiat accompanied by severe
penalties of jail time and monetary fines for contravention. Remember the
Wizard’s—I mean, the FBLNV’s Sixth Rule: ‘The only sovereign you can allow to
rule you is reason.’ And the Goodkine program is the essence of reason.”
“Can I—can I assume then that you’ve seen some merit in my manuscript?
That it might be published someday?”
“Indeed. But not as it stands. Please, bring out your novel. The copy you
provided to the Bureau is currently being examined by our third tier of vetters, that
group personally trained by me in objectivist rigor.”
I dug the mass of printout from my satchel and placed it before the
Commissioner. He rifled through it knowledgeably, before holding up a page.
“Here’s the kind of thing we’ll need to fix. Your protagonist, Rodolpho—at
one point he encourages a wounded man to chew on a root to assuage his pain.”
Commissioner Goodkine fell silent, obviously awaiting me to volunteer what
was wrong with that scene. But for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with any
response except, “And...?”
Now Commissioner Goodkine looked a little irritated. “Don’t you realize that
such a scene could be construed as advocating drug use, Mr. Badway? Do you
consider drug use a normative value?”
“No, no, of course not. Well, I suppose the wounded man could just suffer
stoically, especially if I make him hail from a culture that embraces such a
philosophy.”
“Excellent!” More pages were shuffled. “Now, how shall we interpret this
passage, where Rodolpho embraces his fellow soldiers before battle?”
I began to get the gist of what types of things would bother Commissioner
Goodkine. “Uh, I take it that perhaps that display of affection might be seen as
encouraging homo—”
Commissioner Goodkine held up a hand. “No need to actually use that word,
Mr. Badway, we understand each other perfectly. There are other Federal laws we