"David Langford - The Motivation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Langford David)

The Motivation
by David Langford


Born in 1953 in South Wales, David Longford has been a bit of gadfly and a
bit of Monty Python to the science fiction community for some years now through
his fanzine, Ansible, and through his satirical novels and stories. His horror fiction
runs from clever parody to grim nightmare. "The Motivation" is one of the latter.

Asked to account for his whereabouts since his last appearance here (The
Year's Best Horror Stories: XIII), Langford reports: "Ansible quietly folded, not
before picking up a Hugo. Monthly SFIfantasy review column in the British games
(God knows why) magazines White Dwarf (to 1988) and GM (1988 onward).
Published Earthdoom! with John Grant (1987), a spoof disaster novel in which
every disaster happens from polar slippage to invading aliens, and the parody
collection The Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge:
Odyssey Two (1988), including 'The Thing in the Bedroom' of XIII fame. Sold and
collected full payment for another Grant collaboration, Guts, which does for
horror what Earthdoom! did for public toilets, but in the end the publishers were
too terrified to print it (we keep the money and are selling it elsewhere)." Hope
Langford remembered the zombies.



The shop was a rich stew of smells, dry rot and cigarettes and sweat. Its
buzzing fluorescent light couldn't cut through the staleness, and the August sun was
not allowed to penetrate. As with every branch of this exclusive chain, the display
window was painted dead black; the invisibility of its promised BOOKS AND
MAGAZINES was full and sufficient advertisement of the stock.
Peter Edgell reminded himself regularly that he was slumming, that this wasn't
his true niche in the literary world. An observer, which was it, scanning the
customers who fingered BOOKS AND MAGAZINES through their aseptic plastic
film. From behind the counter Peter read the customers and savored the emotions
that burned as pungently as the shop's smell. Businessmen brimmed with a synthetic
heartiness, wielding it like a charm against limp fears. Younger nondescripts let off
their little firecrackers of defensive aggression. Those too young were allowed a brief
ration of giggles before being chased away; most pitiful were the fossil emotions of
the very old, who from long habit cringed furtively and offered token mumbles of
"Just getting it for a mate, see?"
Peter welcomed them all, not only because each swing of the door wafted
fresh, clean exhaust fumes through the sweaty closeness: with his half a talent, he
saw the pornophiles as raw material. One day his special insight would pin them
down in some astonishing piece of journalism, a cancellation of his failures at
university and everywhere else. Jessica Mitford, Tom Wolfe, what-sis-name in
Private Eye -- he'd be with them one day. The thought was so thumbed and worn
that it skidded past like an overly familiar quotation.
Minor hubbub arose as old Benson ejected a gaggle of browsers from the
small back room. He swept them managerially before him, exuding a steady dribble
of apology and exhortation, as though dealing with drunks or kids where the secret
was to keep talking and keep calm. Peter was checking a wad of magazines being