"14 - Fighting Slave of Gor v2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

"Of course not," I said. "Do not be absurd."

"There are too many details, too," she said, "small things that would not occur to a fictional writer to include, pointless things like the construction of a saddle and the method of minting coins. They are not things one would include who was concerned to construct spare, well-made pieces of fiction."

"They are more like the little things that might occur to one, not a writer, who had found them of interest, and wished to mention them."

"Yes," she said.

"Put it from your mind," I said. "Gor is fictional."

"I do not believe John Norman is the author of the Gor books," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I have been frightened about this sort of thing," she said. "I have met him, and talked with him. It seems his way of speaking, and his prose style, may not be that of the books."

"He has never claimed," I said, "to be more than the editor of the books. They purport, as I understand it, to be generally the work of others, usually of an individual called Tarl Cabot."

"There was a Cabot," she said, "who disappeared."

"Norman receives the manuscripts, does he not, from someone called Harrison Smith. He is probably the true author."

"Harrison Smith is not his true name," she said. "It was changed by Norman to protect his friend. But I have spoken with this 'Harrison Smith'. He receives the manuscripts, but he apparently knows as little as anyone else about their origin."

"I think you are taking this sort of thing too seriously," I said. "Surely Norman himself believes the manuscripts to be fiction."

"Yes," she said. "I am convinced of that."

"If he, who is their author or editor, believes them to be fiction, you should feel perfectly free, it seems to me, to do likewise."

"May I tell you something which happened to me, Jason?" she asked.

Suddenly I felt uneasy. "Surely," I said. I smiled. "Did you see a Gorean slaver?" I asked.

"Perhaps," she said.

I looked at her.

"I knew you would think me mad," she said.

"Go ahead," I said.

"Perhaps foolishly," she said, "I made no secret of my inquiry into these matters. Dozens of people, in one way or another, must have learned of my interest."

"Go on," I said.

"That explains, accordingly, the phone call I received," she said. "It was a man's voice. He told me to visit a certain address if I were interested in Gorean matters. I have the address here." She opened her purse and showed me an address. It was on 55th Street, on the East Side.

"Did you go to the address?" I asked.