"Mike Resnick - Frankie the Spook (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

writings."
"Where that toad ghosted _my_ work?" repeated Bacon
incredulously. "This really is too much to bear!" Suddenly he
stared intently at Marvin. "Is _that_ what you propose to write?"
"No."
"You're quite sure?"
"Quite."
Bacon glared at him distrustfully. "What _is_ the subject of
your book, then?"
"Well, I had heard you mention it, and it was the first thing
that popped into my mind, and--"
"What is it?"
"The life of King Henry IX."
"That's not _my_ idea, you fool!" snapped Bacon. "It's that
idiot Shakespeare's."
"Well, if you feel you can't handle it..."
"It's not that I _can't_, it's that I _won't_." Bacon was
absolutely motionless for a moment, his eyes fixed on some distant
point that only he could see. "For one thing, I'd have to write
Queen Elizabeth out of the history books." He paused, and then
snickered. "I never did like her very much anyway." He seemed lost
in contemplation for a long moment. "Actually, I could turn it out
in less time than the last one, since I'd be working within my own
_millieu_..."
"Will you?"
"No."



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"You've got decades to spare, remember?" urged Marvin.
"What's a week between friends?"
"We are not friends."
"Collaborators, then."
"Collaborators?" snapped Bacon. "If you think I'd allow _you_
to write a single word of _Henry IX_, you subliterate
anthropoid..."

* * *

It sold seventeen million copies worldwide, and was made
into a megahit movie starring Charlton Heston III as Henry and
Bubbles Vancouver as Betty Jean Plantagenet (a role created
expressly for the film).
More to the point, it won the Hugo, the Nebula, the Nova, the
Supernova, the Pulitzer, and even the prestigious Harold Robbins
Award.
"Listen to this!" enthused Marvin as he read the reviews to