"Alan Dean Foster - With friends like these." - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

manual labor. M.A., Yale, 1932, Ph.D., Yale, 1935, doctoral dissertation, Some Inquiries into the
Nature of the Minor Religions of Southern Louisiana and Alabama, with emphasis on the Cajun
Peoples. (This work, I found, is still available to the interested scholar from the Yale
University Research Library, upon presentation of the proper credentials.) Member of American
Anthropological Society, Academie Francaise, etc., etc.... Married Emaline Henry of Boston, 1937.
Following her tragic death in 1960, moved to California and accepted full professorship with
UCLA... Author of numerous books on a wide range of subjects, including a famous essay on the
Atlantis-Lemurian myths.


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"Robert Nolan, Assistant Professor of Archeology. Born, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1944. B.A., M.A.,
University of California, Berkeley. Ph.D. thesis in preparation. Winner of numerous prizes for
originality of theory in the archeology of the Pacific area. Son of a wealthy Los Angeles lawyer."
As to more personal details regarding the two scholars, I was" able to gain some insight from
certain of their former students. This line of research was made necessary because the erudite
colleagues of the two men displayed a marked hostility toward any questions. Turner was a tall,
leonine individual equipped with a full spade beard and an unkempt shock of equally white hair. In
contrast, the much younger Nolan was squat and almost entirely bald. Built from the innocuous base
of a common interest in skindiving, the friendship of the two men grew rapidly despite the
difference in their respective ages.
In 1966, both men took their sabbatical leaves together. With the money Turner had saved and
Nolan's not inconsiderable resources of prize monies and family accounts, they purchased and
outfitted a small, powered schooner and announced their intention to sail to Easter Island and the
South American coasts. Turner had always wanted to visit the area, and Nolan was desirous of
carrying out some field work of an unspecified nature.
At this juncture information on the professors begins to grow sketchy and unreliable. It is known
that they returned to Los Angeles in September 1966, in excellent health and high good spirits.
Surprisingly, both men proceeded to resign their positions with the University. This, to the great
consternation of their respective department heads, who were understandably depressed at the
prospect of losing two such brilliant members of their faculties, one old and venerable, the other
a youngster of exceptional promise. But neither man could be dissuaded, and following the setting
in order of certain personal affairs, they announced then-intention to return once again to the
area of their former travels. It is also known that they brought back a number of well-preserved
and extremely eccentric specimens of carved hieroglyphs and statuettes. These, Nolan maintained,
had been found not on Isla de Pas-cua (Easter), but on its smaller and little-visited neighbor to
the west, Sala-y-Gomez. It is also reported that they consulted with a number of supposed
specialists in matters occult, among them a rather notorious and disreputable old bookseller in
the downtown section of San Diego. The man's shop is no longer there, the structure it was located
in having since been torn down and replaced by a multilevel parking lot, one section of which I am
able to report sags at the oddest angle, despite repeated attempts to correct it.
Due to the obvious sincerity with which his department deplored his resignation, Professor Nolan
agreed to keep in touch with his old friends by means of occasional letters which he would forward
whenever the opportunity presented itself. These are the missives which I was able to copy so
hurriedly at the anthropology library. On some, the postmark was stamped into the envelope with,
sufficient force to leave an impression on the letter within, and by judicious use of
fingerprinting materials, I have been able to bring them to a legible state. These dates vary from
February 3 to May 18, 1967. All are postmarked from Valparaiso, Chile, and one of them confides