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"Sam is also a multileveled pun on phonetically, orthographically, and semisemantically linked words. It is significant that young Wi
"I might point out that in this the group differs from others I've studied. The others expressed an infrequent and mild blasphemy in keeping with the mild, indeed pale, religious spirit prevalent nowadays. Strong blasphemers thrive only when strong believers thrive.
"Sam also stands for same, indicating the Radishes' subconscious desire to conform.
"Possibly, although this particular analysis may be invalid, Sam corresponds to Samekh, the fifteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (Sam! Ech!?) In the old style of English spelling, which the Radishes learned in their childhood, the fifteenth letter of the Roman alphabet is O. In the Alphabet Table of my dictionary, Webster's 128th New Collegiate, the Roman O is in the same horizontal column as the Arabic Dad. Also with the Hebrew Mem. So we get a double co
"I can make nothing out of the Greek Omicron, also in the same horizontal column. But give me time; this takes study.
"Omicron. The little O! The lower-case omicron has an egg shape. The little egg is their father's sperm fertilized? The womb? The basic shape of modem architecture?
"Sam Hill, an archaic euphemism for Hell. Uncle Sam is a Sam Hill of a father? Better strike that out, Tooney. It's possible that these highly educated youths have read about this obsolete phrase, but it's not confirmable. I don't want to suggest any co
"Let's see. Samisen. A Japanese musical instrument with three strings. The Triple Revolution document and the Trinity again. Trinity? Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Mother the thoroughly despised figure, hence, the Wholly Goose? Well, maybe not. Wipe that out, Tooney.
"Samisen. Son of Sam? Which leads naturally to Samson, who pulled down the temple of the Philistines on them and on himself. These boys talk of doing the same thing. Chuckle. Reminds me of myself when I was their age, before I matured. Strike out that last remark, Tooney.
"Samovar. The Russian word means, literally, self-boiler. There's no doubt the Radishes are boiling with revolutionary fervor. Yet their disturbed psyches know, deep down, that Uncle Sam is their ever-loving Father-Mother, that he has only their best interests at heart. But they force themselves to hate him, hence, they self-boil.
"A samlet is a young salmon. Cooked salmon is a yellowish pink or pale red, near to a radish in color, in their unconsciouses, anyway. Samlet equals Young Radish; they feel they're being cooked in the great pressure cooker of modem society.
"How's that for a trinely fumed phase -- I mean, finely turned phrase, Tooney? Run this off, edit as indicated, smooth it out, you know how, and send it off to the boss. I got to go. I'm late for lunch with Mother; she gets very upset if I'm not there on the dot.
"Oh, postscript! I recommend that the agents watch Wi
The Obscure Life and Hard Times of Kilgore Trout
A Skirmish in Biography
This is another specimen of the "biographical." It originally appeared in a fanzine, Moebius Trip, December, 1971 issue, edited and published by Ed Co
I identify strongly with Trout.
The editor and readers of Moebius Trip thought that the letter from Trout and the letter describing Trout's interview in the Peoria Journal Star were made up by me. No such thing. These letters actually appeared in the letter section of the editorial page of Peoria's only local newspaper, and I can prove it.
Since I wrote this, I have been fortunate enough to read the galleys of Vo
Internal evidence in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, the first book about Trout, implies that Trout was born in 1890 or 1898. Slaughterhouse Five, the second, implies that he was born in 1902. But Breakfast of Champions makes it clear that he was born in 1907.
There are other discrepancies. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater says that no two of Trout's books ever had the same publisher. In Breakfast of Champions the World Classics Library publishers have issued many of his books.
Rosewater states that Trout's works can only be found in disreputable bookstores dealing in pornography. Yet the same book has Eliot Rosewater picking up a Trout novel from a book rack in an airport.
Trout's novels are supposed to be extremely difficult to find. Rosewater is an avid collector of Trout (in fact, the only one), and he has only forty-one novels and sixty-three short stories. Yet the crooked lawyer, Mushari, goes into a Washington, D.C., smut dealer's and finds every one of Trout's eighty-seven novels.
Breakfast of Champions says that until Trout met a truck driver in 1972 he had never talked with anybody who'd read one of his stories. But Eliot Rosewater and Billy Pilgrim had read his stories and had met him some years before.
Trout's sole fan letter (from Rosewater) reached him in Cohoes, New York, according to Breakfast. But Rosewater says that Trout was living in Hya
The description of the extraterrestrial Tralfamadorians in The Sirens of Titan differs considerably from that in Slaughterhouse Five.
And so it goes.
Who is the greatest living science fiction author?
Some say he is Isaac Asimov. Many swear he's Robert A. Heinlein. Others nominate Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Brian Aldiss, or Kurt Vo
None of the above can equal Kilgore Trout -- if we can believe Eliot Rosewater, Indiana multimillionaire, war hero, philanthropist, fireman extraordinaire, and science fiction co
Rosewater, drunk as usual, once burst into a science fiction writers' convention at Milford, Pe