Another story in short order from Gerrold, after his excellent ‘Entanglements‘ in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
As with that story, he’s a bit reflective her, but in the guise of an Alternate History, set on a the flagship helium-powered airship Liberty. The Alternate History elements are a means to an end, which is to get a whole bunch of characters together for the protagonist, a crew member, to engage with.
Some of the characters deployed by Benchley I am more than aware of, but Benchley and the ‘Algonquin Round Table’ meant nothing to me, so I may have missed some of the nuances of the story, which revolves around said protagonist, a tyro writer, observing the rich and famous and being unimpressed at their dilettante and inebriated behaviour, and Gerrold reflects on the nature of the muse.
More from this issue here.
