"C M Kornbluth - Ms Found In A Chinese Fortune Cookie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

and children. Mr. C. is a retired brakeman with a pension and his wife insists on his making like a farmer
hi all weathers and every year he gets pneumonia and is pulled through with

antibiotics. All he wants is to sell the damned farm and retire with his wife to a little apartment in town.
All she wants is to mess around with her cows and horses and sub-marginal acreage.

I got to thinking that if you noised the story around with a comment based on The Answer, the situation
would automatically untangle. They'd get their apartment, sell the farm and everybody would be happy,
including Mrs. C. It would be interesting to write, I thought idly, and then I thought not so idly that it
would be interesting to try-and then I sat up sharply with a dry mouth and a systemful of adrenalin. //
would work. The Answer would work.

I ran rapidly down a list of other problems, ranging from the town drunk to the guided-missile race. The
Answer worked. Every tune.

I was quite sure I had turned paranoid, because I've seen so much of that kind of thing in science fiction.
Anybody can name a dozen writers, editors and fans who have suddenly seen the light and determined to
lead the human race onward and upward out of the old slough. Of course The Answer looked logical
and unassailable, but so no doubt did poor Charlie McGandress' project to unite mankind through
science fiction fandom, at least to him. So, no doubt, did [/ have here omitted several briefly sketched
case histories of science fiction personalities as yet uncommitted. The reason will be obvious to anyone
familiar with the law of libel. Suffice it to say that Corwin argues that science fiction attracts an unstable
type of mind and sometimes insidiously undermines its foundations on reality. CMK]

But I couldn't just throw it away without a test. I considered the wording carefully, picked up the
extension phone on my desk and dialed Jim Hewlett, the appliance dealer in town. He answered.
"Corwin, Jim," I told him. "I have an idea-oops! The samovar's boiling over. Call me back in a minute,
will you?" I hung up.

He called me back in a minute; I let our combination- two shorts and a long-ring three times before I
picked

up the phone. "What was that about a samovar?" he asked, baffled.

"Just kidding," I said. "Listen Jim, why don't you try a short story for a change of pace? Knock off the
novel for a while-" He's hopefully writing a big historical about the Sullivan Campaign of 1779, which is
our local chunk of the Revolutionary War; I'm helping him a little with advice. Anybody who wants as
badly as he does to get out of the appliance business is entitled to some help.

"Gee, I don't know," he said. As he spoke the volume of his voice dropped slightly but definitely, three
times. That meant we had an average quota of party line snoopers listening in. "What would I write
about?"

"Well, we have this situation with a neighbor, Mrs. Clonford," I began. I went through the problem and
made my comment based on The Answer. I heard one of the snoopers gasp. Jim said when I was
finished: "I don't really think it's for me, Cecil. Of course it was nice of you to call, but-"

Eventually a customer came into the store and he had to break off.

I went through an anxious crabby twenty-four hours.