"Paul Di Filippo - Survival of the Fannish" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

under those mild conditions. And his parents were going plumb crazy with
worry and fear. But the facts of the matter are, Michael prolonged his own
troubles and made ‘em worse by his irresponsible actions. And they all
came out of his reading. Books! That’s what caused this whole dang
misadventure. Nothing but books!

“I was in charge of debriefing the boy, and I took extensive notes.
Notes which I’d like to share now with you all.

“First off, we got the reason why Michael wandered away from Camp
Wanna-Beah-Ledge-Un in the first place. He claimed he was looking to find
the Lost City of Opar. That’s some nonsense that comes straight outta
those Tarzan books, stuff that thankfully never got in no Tarzan movie I ever
seen. So right away you got him putting himself in harm’s way due to crazy
notions he picked up from a book.

“What’s he do next, when he gets a few miles into the woods and
can’t find his way home? He keeps on playing Tarzan and starts traveling
through the treetops. Lord knows how a butterball like him even did it
without breaking his fool neck. But through the treetops he went, making it
impossible for our dogs to find his scent.

“So after a day or two he’s miles from where we expected him to be.
Getting tired of Tarzan, he comes down out of the treetops. And what’s he
do next? He decides that he’s living in—and I quote the boy without quite
understanding what he’s talking about—’an S. M. Stirling post-apocalypse
novel.’

“Now, he’s right by the Big Bongwater River at this point. He could’ve
followed it downstream straight into Junction City. But does he? No. Instead
of using the common sense that God gave a grasshopper, he sets about
trying to make a crossbow, to protect himself from ‘the Lord Protector’s
soldiers.’

“As you can imagine, he didn’t get nowhere fast with that project, so
he switches to playing Conan the Dang Barbarian! The next thing we can
figure, he’s climbing a set of cliffs with a stick for a sword, heading for a
turkey vulture’s nest he’s seen, just so’s he can try’n bite the poor harmless
bird’s head off! That little maneuver throws the dogs off’n his trail even
worse. But he survives that climb and ends up on the Parched Plateau.

“By now it’s day three, but Michael Valentine Atreides ain’t done
playing yet.

“He was in a good spot to be found. The Parched Plateau is pretty
bare and wide-open. The aerial searchers would’ve spotted him right off.
But Michael decides now that he’s living in some book called Dune, that
he’s a ‘Fremen native,’ and has to hide from everyone, including
‘sandworms.’ He’s got a desert-pattern camo tarp with him. Did I mention
he’s been lugging a knapsack full of books and whatnot around with him all