"Geoffrey A. Landis - The Singular Habits of Wasps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

The Singular Habits of
Wasps
GEOFFREY A. LANDIS


GEOFFREY LANDIS lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with a calico cat and
twenty-six goldfish. In addition to writing, he works on solar energy
research at NASA Lewis Research Center. His current project is to develop
instruments to fly on an upcoming unmanned probe to Mars.

Dr Landis' first story, "Elemental", was written while he was a graduate
student in physics at Brown University, and earned him a Hugo Award
nomination in 1985. Since then his stories have appeared regularly in all
the science fiction magazines, and have been translated into twelve
languages.

His story "A Walk in the Sun" won the Hugo Award in 1992, and
"Ripples in the Dirac Sea" won the Nebula Award in 1989. A short story
collection, Myths, Legends and True History, appeared as part of
Pulphouse Publishing's Author's Choice Monthly series.

About "The Singular Habits of Wasps" (which was nominated for both
the Nebula and Hugo Awards), he says: "I recall reading 'The Adventure of
the Speckled Band' as a child, and it made quite an impression on me; in
particular the image of an unknown but terrifyingly deadly menace,
slithering in the dark down a bell-rope into the bedchamber of our
adventurers. I can assure you that, at least for children of some ages, many
of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes are not so much mysteries as horror.
This story skirts that ill-defined territory which lies at the boundary
between mystery, science fiction, horror and historical. A territory, of
course, which was not unfamiliar to Sir Arthur himself."

"In researching the story, I came across several interesting facts,
including the fact that in the summer of 1888, the stage adaptation of
Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was the hit of London's Lyceum
Theatre, and that in the only one of the Jack the Ripper killings in which
the presumed murderer was seen with the victim, the suspect was
described as a tall man wearing a deerstalker hatтАж"


OF THE MANY ADVENTURES in which I have participated with my
friend Mr Sherlock Holmes, none has been more singularly horrifying than
the case of the Whitechapel killings, nor ever had I previously had cause to
doubt the sanity of my friend. I need but close my eyes to see again the
horror of that night; the awful sight of my friend, his arms red to the
elbow, his knife still dripping gore, and to recall in every detail the
gruesome horrors that followed.

The tale of this adventure is far too awful to allow any hint of the true
course of the affair to be known. Although I dare never let this account be