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

the simulacron inside his computer. "_The New York Times_ says,
'It's as if the Bard himself had taken pen to paper.'"
"I thought time was supposed to take care of critics,"
muttered Bacon. "All it really seems to do is compound their
ignorance."
"And the _Saturday Review_ says, 'There are a few turns of
phrase that Shakespeare himself might have envied,'" continued
Marvin.
"Shakespeare again!" snorted Bacon. "That dolt would envy a
phrase that concisely asked directions to the men's room!"
"Don't take it so personally."
"Five centuries later and he's _still_ getting credit for
_my_ work! How would _you_ take it?"
Marvin shrugged. "I don't know. Why don't you write something
that doesn't read like Shakespeare?"
"A complete, well-constructed sentence doesn't read like
Shakespeare!"
"Well, then, write something that doesn't read so much like
yourself."
"I'm never writing again, thank you."
"Well, if you don't think you can disguise your voice..."
"Of course I can disguise my voice," said Bacon defensively.
Marvin shook his head. "You wrote a smut book and a fantasy,
and the critics still compare you to Shakespeare."
"They are fools."
"They are your audience," Marvin corrected him. "And you
can't hide your identity from them."
"That's what I get for being a ghost writer in the first
place. If I'd written the tragedies under my own name..."
"But you didn't."
"No, I didn't."
"And now," said Marvin carefully, "if you don't manage to
create a new literary _persona_, everything you write will always
be credited to Shakespeare's influence."
"This is intolerable!"
"I thought you might feel that way," said Marvin, "so I
signed another contract."
"No more fantasies or sex books," said Bacon. "It has to be
something totally different."
"A hard-boiled detective story," announced Marvin.
"I don't think I've ever read one of those."
"I'll run the scanner over some Hammett and Cain and Chandler
before I go to bed tonight."


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"They are the three exemplars of the form?"
"No. They're three hard-boiled mystery writers."