Margaret Ball - Tales From The Slushpile

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Tales from the Slushpile

Margaret Ball

« ^ »

Halfway through the SalamanderCon panel On Thud and Blunder, the stuffy hotel air was

likely to put me to sleep before my demo came up. Right now Brian Spooner was droning on

about how the sociology of most sword-and-sorcery novels was completely off base, they

didn't begin to understand how many peasants it took to support one fighting man (man,

naturally; this was one of the Spooner-Upshaw Gang talking). He had all kinds of numbers and

charts to support his contention. He was also way off base, not having actually lived in a

society where personal combat was a way of life. One thing he hadn't taken into account was

how many swordspersons (to be non-sexist about it, Paper-Pushers style) it took to protect a

string of farms in border territory. Another thing he didn't consider was the effect of motivation

on productivity. Those tests about how long it took English students to build a replica of an

early Norman castle were completely irrelevant. I've supervised quick fortifications out on the

boundaries of Duke Zolkir's territory, and I can promise you those kids would've worked a lot

faster given the encouragement of a swordswoman behind them and Baron Rodo's roughs just

over the hill, raring to skewer them for brunch.

But I wasn't here to argue with Brian Spooner's book-based theories of how agrarian

societies actually worked, or even to enjoy Susan Crescent's wickedly funny comments on

writers who thought a horse was a kind of four-legged sports car requiring no daily

maintenance. I was supposedly here to demonstrate my military expertise to D. McConnell.

Who had still not put in an appearance.

"But now," the moderator interrupted Brian, as the audiences coughs and shuffles threatened

to overwhelm his reedy voice, "before we run out of time, let's hear from our martial arts

expert! Riva Konneva, author of several delightful stories in the Sword and Sorcery genre and

a recent SFWA member, has kindly consented to give us a demonstration of just what's wrong

with the fighting passages in some of the books we've been discussing."

Sigh. Even if D. McConnell wasn't here, I had a responsibility to do my part of the Thud and

Blunder panel. I stood up and laid out some of my demo props on the table, around the stack of

books my fellow panelists had been tearing to shreds. The thirty-pound sword had been a real

pain to put together, but I'd found an SCA blacksmith who reluctantly agreed to subvert his

craft long enough to add an inconspicuous line of lead weighting along the blade of one of his

failed swords. The morningstar had been easier; all that had cost me was a quick Call

Trans-Forwarding to a wizard in my home reality of Dazau and an exorbitant Inter-Universal

Express fee for sending some standard Bronze Bra Guild equipment to me here on the Planet of

the Paper-Pushers. And Sasulau, my own personal sword, hadn't cost me anything at all… yet.

The barely perceptible humming as I drew her from the scabbard warned me that she would

expect to taste blood before she was sheathed again. "Not this time, Sasulau," I muttered to her.

This was a peaceful talkfest of science fiction writers and fans, a place where the only blood

shed was psychic as writers' dearest creations were ripped apart by self-appointed editors and

critics.

Like me.

"Could you talk into the mike, Riva?" the moderator asked. "We couldn't quite hear that."

I waved the mike away. The audience and other panelists hadn't been meant to hear my

comment to Sasulau; and what I did want them to hear I could convey without the aid of one of

those squawking Paper-Pushers toys. After whipping a troop of Bronze Bra recruits into shape,

making my voice heard across this medium-sized hotel room full of fans was child's play.

"Let's start with weapons," I said. "Brian, have you noticed how many of these books have

their barbarian hero wielding a twenty-kilo mace or a fifty-pound sword or something equally

impressive?" I knew he hadn't, but I needed to get around the fact that I hadn't actually gone

through the stack of assigned reading and made the notes I'd meant to make. I just couldn't get

through all the pages of Cant the Conqueror, Blunt the Barbarian, Warrior Priests of Guck, and

the other colorful paperbacks we were supposed to be discussing. The only book I'd actually

read was a slim volume published by some local house nobody here had ever heard of.

Because the cover was plain yellow paper instead of a painting of somebody with thews like

Vordokaunneviko the Great, I'd thought it wouldn't be as silly as the other books; and because it

was only half an inch thick, I'd thought it would be easier to skim through.

Wrong on both counts. Dwight Mihlhauser's opus was so dumb I didn't really want to make

fun of it here; seemed unsporting, like spearing a sleeping wizard.

Brian didn't let me down, though. I knew I could count on a guy not to admit ignorance. "Oh,

yeah, sure," he said, nodding wisely. "That bothered me, too, but I thought I would let you

speak to that point, Riva."

Susan Crescent, bless the lady, flipped through Cant the Conqueror. "You mean like this?

With one slash of his mighty sword, weighing as much as a tub of butter, Cant hewed through

his adversary's armor-plated shoulder and clove him to the waist."

"Exactly! A tub of butter-well, you know how small one of those one-pound blocks of butter

you get at the supermarket is? You got to figure at least twenty of those to make a decent-sized

tub," I said, "and then this is a preindustrial society, the tub is wood and adds another five

pounds minimum. So old Cant is swinging around a twenty-five pound sword. I had this one

made up for demo purposes. Who wants to heft it?"

I stepped down from the small dais on which the table sat and offered the sword to a

volunteer in the front row of the audience who obligingly made my point by dropping it,

staggering under the weight, and even tottering around the front of the room trying to swish the

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