The Bloody Herring: A Gilbert & Sullivan Space Fantasy

By Phyllis Ann Karr

A Fantasy Historical Romance of the First Decade of Papa's Pride, by Clea Ortiz Newcome—but actually a Gilbert & Sullivan Fantasy in Space Opera Framework, by Phyllis Ann Karr!

Some have told me that the events of Ship Years 8 and 9 were far too terrible to use as underpinning for a light fantasy romance, and one that in any case can appeal chiefly to the hundred or so avid Savoyards in the ship's population. My response is that light treatment has been among humanity's most effective defense mechanisms for dealing with disaster, probably since our race became recognizably human back in Old Earth's paleolithic; and that Savoy enthusiasm is as precious in Papa's Pride as any other artifact of our Old Earth heritage.

In any case, these things lie more than half a century in our own past, and if half a century does not make them fair game for historical fantasy, what does? Is the past not the past, whether ten or ten thousand years ago, whether back on Old Earth or out here in our great colony starship of twenty-four pylons revolving around a vast central core?

While retaining the names of such entities as the Antique Terra Theater, which had not yet split into the Order-sponsored Old Earth Company and the committee-sponsored Players to the Stars, with their respective screenplay arms Universal Aspirations and Pride Productions, I have fictionalized the names and other aspects of individuals actually involved in Chuck Wang's crime -- the worst ever perpetrated and, we hope, ever to be perpetrated in Papa's Pride. I have added some completely fictional people to the cast, omitted many historical figures entirely, and somewhat condensed, even rearranged, certain of the events. There were never any deliberate murders connected with Wang's outrage, at least as far as we know. Shipnet will make it very easy for interested readers to collate my tale with as much as we have of the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Mar 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781479409211

Phyllis Ann Karr

Born 1944, death date not yet established. Lifelong fictioneer, primary publisher for the last few decades Wildside Press. Savoyard (fan only, non-singing), Droodophile, etc.Pictured with my beloved husband Clifton Alfred Hoyt, who among other things invented a means of measuring gas in tenths of a gallon when pumped into your car. He moved out of his body in 2005. (Note: that's ALFRED, not "Albert," as some places seem to have it erroneously.I once had a poor little website. It got eaten by some Japanese(?) concern peddling -- as nearly as I could make out -- cosmetics. As nearly as I could see, it had never profited me; and as of today, it seems as nearly as I can see to have vanished. Now I leave it all to Wikipedia (which may not always be reliable), Amazon, and Smashwords.Throughout my life (77 years and counting), every time I have tried to blow my own trumpet, somebody has thrown heavy lumps of discouragement into its bell. Now I am like someone shipwrecked on a desert island with several cases of pop, reams of paper, and sharpened pencils, who, after drinking up each bottle, puts in a message and tosses it into the ocean. A few of these messages may eventually be picked up; and, since it will probably be too late for the writer, at least let the message itself give a little enjoyment to the finder.in February 2022 I was appalled to find that somehow -- who was responsible for the goof may never be known -- the dollar ninety-nine cents I thought I had listed for my "Polifonix Poems" message-in-bottle had got transmogrified to a hundred and ninety-nine dollars!! I don't think there is any newly published and/or currently available volume of verse anywhere in the world worth that kind of asking price, unless perhaps it were privately printed on thin sheets of beaten gold and bound in unicorn hide. Apologies to anyone who may have glimpsed that absurd $199.00 and pictured me as endowed with an ego bigger than Mount Everest. Although leaving the price to the purchaser amounts to "free," that's much better than risking such a ridiculously out-of-line price tag by mistake; and I am, after all, pretty well just tossing out messages in bottles.

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