"Alan Dean Foster - Impossible Places" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

So we can let ourselves relax, and have fun in ways that we can’t with a novel. We can play, and
spout, and polemicize, and gibber, and even make funny faces if we want to. Because no editor is going
to ask for thousands of words of revision, and if the tale doesn’t sell, no one in the family is likely to
starve as a consequence of it. In the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s it was different. But today the novel reigns
supreme. Tomorrow it may be the on-line interactive story, or the video game.
No matter, though; there will always be a place for story. Especially for the fast-paced tale, the quick
yet brilliant idea, the build-up to a belly laugh. The literary bonbon that is also a bon mot. That’s why I
wrote the stories contained in this collection, which only go to prove a favorite aphorism.
Eat dessert first.

Alan Dean Foster
Prescott, Arizona




Lay Your Head on My Pilose


The deep Amazon is a wondrous and fearful place. I’m not talking about Iquitos or Manaus—
big cities that tourists fly into and out of in less than a week. I’m talking about the rain forest
primeval, where every step looks the same as the next, where giant lianas and buttress roots and
fallen trees rise out of the leaf litter to trip you up at every step and where the sweat pours off
your body in tiny rivers even if you stand still and don’t move a muscle.
Those whose visits to such places are restricted to watching National Geographic or the
Discovery Channel might be forgiven for thinking that in such jungles it’s the big predators who
rule; the jaguars and harpy eagles and anacondas. Don’t you believe it. It’s the insects who are
the kings of the green domain. The insects, the arthropods, and the even smaller parasites.
It’s the small creatures with the many legs and the sucking mouthparts who rule the rain forest,
and it’s they of whom visitors should most properly be terrified…


From the moment his tired survey of the town was interrupted by the glory of her passage, Carlos
knew he had to have her. Not with haste and indifference, as was usual with his women, but for all time.
For thirty years he had resisted any thought of a permanent liaison with a member of the opposite sex.
His relationships hitherto had consisted of intense moments of courtship and consummation that flared hot
as burning magnesium before expiring in the chill wash of boredom.
No longer. He had seen the mooring to which he intended to anchor his vessel. He could only hope
that she was mortal.
There were those in Puerto Maldonado who knew her. Her name was Nina. She was six feet tall, a
sultry genetic frisson of Spanish and Indian. The storekeeper said she was by nature quiet and reserved,
but Carlos knew better. Nothing that looked like that, no woman with a face of supernal beauty and a
body that cruised the cracked sidewalks like quicksilver, was by nature “quiet and reserved.” Repressed,
perhaps.
Their love would be monumental; a wild, hysterical paean to the hot selva. He would devote himself to
her and she to him. Bards would speak of their love for generations. That she was presently unaware of
his existence was a trifle easily remedied. She would not be able to resist him, nor would she want to.
What woman could?
There was only one possible problem. Awkward, but not insoluble.
His name was Max, and he was her husband.