"Mike Resnick - Frankie the Spook" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

place. If I'd written the tragedies under my own name..."
"But you didn't."
"No, I didn't."
"And now," said Marvin carefully, "if you don't manage to
create a new literary _persona_, everything you write will always
be credited to Shakespeare's influence."
"This is intolerable!"
"I thought you might feel that way," said Marvin, "so I
signed another contract."
"No more fantasies or sex books," said Bacon. "It has to be
something totally different."
"A hard-boiled detective story," announced Marvin.
"I don't think I've ever read one of those."
"I'll run the scanner over some Hammett and Cain and Chandler
before I go to bed tonight."
"They are the three exemplars of the form?"
"No. They're three hard-boiled mystery writers."

* * *

_Boil and Bubble_ won the Edgar, the Shamus, the Marlowe, and
even the coveted Jacqueline Suzanne Memorial Trophy (for Positive
Contributions to the American Cultural Scene). It also sold 21
million copies, and was made into a feature film, a video series,
a computer game, a role-playing game, and a chain of soup
kitchens.
"'An almost perfect melding of high Shakespearean tragedy and
down-to-earth Chandleresque drama,'" read Marvin, holding up the
_New York Review of Books_.
"Again?" shrieked Bacon. "Am I never to be rid of that
meddlesome fool?"
"You're getting on my nerves," said Marvin. "I'm the best-
selling author of the decade, except maybe for Fritz Hauer, and
all you can do is complain."
"I've read Fritz Hauer's books," retorted Bacon. "They're
trifles, nothing but trifles. They can't begin to compare to what
I've written."
"Then why don't you relax and feel triumphant or something,
instead of harping about Shakespeare all the time?" complained
Marvin.
"Don't you understand? The credit should be _mine_, not his!
My work is revered throughout the world, but it is his name that
is worshipped, not mine. Don't you realize what that can do to a
sensitive artistic spirit?"
"_Boil and Bubble_ outsold his entire body of work five-to-one
last month. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Not if every word, every precise turn of phrase, every
poetic fantasy that I create, is to be credited to _his_
influence," responded Bacon.
"You are getting to be a regular pain in the ass," said