First Among Sequels

6. The Great Library and Council of Genres

I found myself in a long, dark, wood-paneled corridor lined with bookshelves that reached from the richly carpeted floor to the vaulted ceiling. The carpet was elegantly patterned, and the ceiling was decorated with rich moldings that depicted scenes from the classics, each cornice supporting the marble bust of an author. High above me, spaced at regular intervals, were finely decorated circular apertures through which light gained entry and reflected off the polished wood, reinforcing the serious mood of the library. Running down the center of the corridor was a long row of reading tables, each with a green-shaded brass lamp. In both directions the corridor vanished into darkness with no de-finable end.

I had first entered the Great Library sixteen years ago, and the description of it hadn’t altered by so much as a word. Hundreds of miles of shelves containing not every single book but every single edition of every book. Anything that had been published in the real world had a counterpart logged somewhere within its endless corridors.

Thursday5 was nearby and joined me to walk along the corridor, making our way toward the crossover section right at the heart of the library. But the thing to realize was that it wasn’t in any sense of the word real, any more than the rest of the Book-World was. The library was as nebulous as the books it contained; its form was decided not only by the base description but my interpretation of what a Great Library might look like. Because of this the library was as subtly changeable as my moods. At times dark and somber, at others light and airy. Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work-the writer might have died long ago.

We approached another corridor perpendicular to the one we had just walked down. In the middle of the crossway was a large, circular void with a wrought-iron rail and a spiral staircase bolted securely to one side. We walked over to the handrail and peered down. Not more than thirty feet below us, I could see another floor, exactly like this one. In the middle of that floor was another circular void through which I could see another floor, and another and another, and so on to the depths of the library. It was the same above us.

“Twenty-six floors for the published works,” replied Thursday5 as I caught her eye and raised an eyebrow quizzically, “and twenty-six subbasements where books are actually constructed-the Well of Lost Plots.”

I beckoned her to the ornate wrought-iron elevator and pressed the call button. We got into the elevator, I drew the gates shut with a clatter, and the electric motors whined as we headed upward. Because there are very few authors whose names begin with Q, X and Z, floors seventeen, twenty-four and twenty-six were relatively empty and thus free for other purposes. The seventeenth floor housed the Mispeling Vyrus Farst Respons Groop, the twenty-fourth floor was used essentially for storage, and the twenty-sixth was where the legislative body that governs the BookWorld had taken up residence: the Council of Genres.

This was a floor unlike any other in the Great Library. Gone were the dark wood, molded plaster ceilings and busts of long-dead writers, and in their place was a light, airy working space with a roof of curved wrought iron covered in glass through which we could see the clouds and sky. I beckoned Thursday5 to a large picture window in an area to one side of the corridor. There were a few chairs scattered about, and it was a restful spot, designed so that overworked CofG employees could relax for a moment. I had stood here with my own mentor, the first Miss Havisham, almost sixteen years previously.

“The Great Library looks smaller from the outside,” observed Thursday5, staring out the window at the rain-streaked exterior.

She was right. The corridors in the library below could be as long as two hundred miles in each direction, expandable upon requirements, but from the outside the library looked more akin to the Chrysler Building, liberally decorated with stainless-steel statuary and measuring less than two hundred yards along each face. And even though we were only on the twenty-sixth floor, it looked a great deal higher. I had once been to the top of the 120-story Goliath Tower at Goliathopolis, and this seemed easily as high as that.

“The other towers?” she asked, still staring out the window. Far below us were the treetops of a deep forest flecked with mist, and scattered around at varying distances were other towers just like ours.

“The nearest one is German,” I said, “and behind those are French and Spanish. Arabic is just beyond them-and that one over there is Welsh.”

“Oh,” said Thursday5, staring at the green foliage far below.

“The Council of Genres looks after the Fictional Legislature,” I said, walking down the corridor to the main assembly chamber. It had become busier since we’d arrived, with various clerks moving around holding file folders, reports and so forth. I had thought red tape was bad in the real world, but in the paper world it was everything. I’d come to realize over the years that anything created by mankind had error, mischief and bureaucratic officialdom hardwired at inception, and the fictional world was no different.

“The council governs dramatic conventions, strictly controls the use of irony, legislates on word use and, through the Book Inspectorate, decides which novels are to be published and which ones scrapped.”

We had arrived at a viewing gallery overlooking the main debating chamber, which was a spacious hall of white marble with an arched roof suspended by riveted iron girders. There was a raised dais at the back surmounted by a central and ornately carved chair flanked on each side by four smaller ones. A lectern for the speaker was in front of that, and facing both the lectern and the dais was a horse shoe pattern of desks for the representatives of the various genres. The back wall of the chamber was decorated with a vast mosaic representing the theoretical positions of the genres as they hung in the Nothing. The only other item of note in the debating chamber was the Read-O-Meter, which gave us a continually updated figure of just how many books had been read over the previous twenty-four hours. This instrument was a constant reminder of the falling ReadRates that had troubled the BookWorld over the past five years, and every time the numbers flopped over-and they did every five seconds-the number went down. Sometimes in depressingly large amounts. There was someone speaking volubly at the lectern, and the debating chamber was less than a third full.

“The main genres are seated at the front,” I explained, “and the subgenres radiate out behind them, in order of importance and size. Although the CofG oversees broad legislative issues, each individual genre can make its own decision on a local level. They all field a senator to appear before the council and look after their own interests-sometimes the debating chamber resembles something less like a seat of democracy and more like plain old horse trading.”

“Who’s talking now?” she asked as a new member took the podium. He looked as though he hadn’t brushed his hair that morning, was handsome if a bit dim-looking, had no shoes and was wearing a shirt split open to the waist.

“That’ll be Speedy Muffler, the senator from the Racy Novel genre, although I suspect that might not be his real name.”

“They have a senator?”

“Of course. Every genre has at least one, and depending on the popularity of subgenres, they might have several. Thriller which is subgenred into political, Spy and Adventure, has three. Comedy at the last count had six; Crime has twelve.”

“I see. So what’s Racy Novel’s problem?”

“It’s a border dispute. Although each book exists on its own and is adrift in the intragenre space known as the Nothing, the books belonging to the various genres clump together for mutual protection, free trade of ideas and easy movement of characters.”

“I get it. Books of a feather flock together, yes?”

“Pretty much. Sensibly, Thriller was placed next door to Crime, which itself is bordered by Human Drama-a fine demonstration of inspired genreography for the very best mutual improvement of both.”

“And Racy Novel?”

“Some idiot placed it somewhat recklessly between Ecclesiastical and Feminist, with the tiny principality of Erotica to the far north and a buffer zone with Comedy to the south comprising the subcrossover genre of Bedroom Farce/Bawdy Romp. Racy Novel gets along with Comedy and Erotica fine, but Ecclesiastical and Feminist really don’t think Racy Novel is worthy of a genre at all and often fire salvos of long-winded intellectual dissent across the border, which might do more damage if anyone in Racy Novel could understand them. For its part, Racy Novel sends panty-raiding parties into its neighbors, which wasn’t welcome in Feminist and even less in Ecclesiastical-or was it the other way around? Anyway, the whole deal might have escalated into an all-out genre war without the Council of Genres stepping in and brokering a peace deal. The CofG would guarantee Racy Novel’s independence as long as it agreed to certain…sanctions.”

“Which were?”

“An import ban on metaphor, characterization and competent description. Speedy Muffler is a bit of a megalomaniac, and both Feminist and Ecclesiastical thought containment was better than out-and-out conflict. The problem is, Racy Novel claims that this is worse than a slow attritional war, as these sanctions deny it the potential of literary advancement beyond the limited scope of its work.”

“I can’t say I’m very sympathetic to that cause.”

“It’s not important that you are-your role in Jurisfiction is only to defend the status-”

I stopped talking, as something seemed to be going on down in the debating chamber. In a well-orchestrated lapse of protocol, delegates were throwing their ballot papers around, and among the jeering and catcalls Muffler was struggling to make himself heard. I shook my head sadly.

“What is it?”

“Something that Racy Novel has been threatening for some time-they’ve claimed to have developed and tested a…dirty bomb.”

“A what?”

“It’s a tightly packed mass of inappropriate plot devices, explicit suggestions and sexual scenes of an expressly gratuitous nature. The ‘dirty’ elements of the bomb fly apart at a preset time and attach themselves to any unshielded prose. Given the target, it has the potential for untold damage. A well-placed dirty bomb could scatter poorly described fornication all across drab theological debate or drop a wholly unwarranted scene of a sexually exploitative nature right into the middle of Mrs. Dalloway.”

Even Thursday5 could see this was not a good thing. “Would he do that?”

“He just might. Senator Muffler is as mad as a barrel of skunks, and the inclusion of Racy Novel in the Council of Genres’ definition of the ‘Axis of Unreadable’ along with Misery Memoirs and Pseudointellectual Drivel didn’t help matters a bit. It’ll be all over the BookWorld by nightfall, mark my words-the papers love this kind of combative, saber-rattling crap.”

“Ms. Next!” came an annoying, high-pitched voice.

I turned to find a small weasel of a man with pinched features, dressed in robes and with a goodly retinue of self-important assistants stacked up behind him.

“Good morning, Senator,” I said, bowing as protocol demanded. “May I introduce my apprentice, Thursday5? Thursday5, this is Senator Jobsworth, director-general of the CofG and head of the Pan-Genre Treaty Organization.”

“Sklub,” gulped Thursday5, trying to curtsy, bob and bow all at the same time. The senator nodded in her direction, then dismissed everyone before beckoning me to join him at the large picture window.

“Ms. Next,” he said in a quiet voice, “how are things down at Jurisfiction?”

“Underfunded as usual,” I replied, well used to Jobsworth’s manipulative ways.

“It needn’t be so,” he replied. “If I can count on your support for policy direction in the near future, I am sure we can rectify the situation.”

“You are too kind,” I replied, “but I will judge my decisions on what is best for the BookWorld as a whole, rather than the department I work in.”

His eyes flashed angrily. Despite his being the head of the council, policy decisions still had to be made by consensus-and it annoyed the hell out of him.

“With Outlander ReadRates almost in free fall,” continued Jobsworth with a snarl, “I’d have thought you’d be willing to compromise on those precious scruples of yours.”

“I don’t compromise,” I told him resolutely, repeating, “I base my decisions on what is best for the BookWorld.”

“Well,” said Jobsworth with an insincere smile, “let’s hope you don’t regret any of your decisions. Good day.”

And he swept off with his entourage at his heels. His threats didn’t frighten me; he’d been making them-and I’d been ignoring them-for almost as long as we’d known each other.

“I didn’t realize you were so close to Senator Jobsworth,” said Thursday5 as soon as she had rejoined me.

“I have a seat at the upper-level policy-directive meetings as the official LBOCS. Since I’m an Outlander, I have powers of abstract and long-term thought that most fictioneers can only dream about. The thing is, I don’t generally toe the line, and Jobsworth doesn’t like that.”

“Can I ask a question?” asked Thursday5 as we took the elevator back down into the heart of the Great Library.

“Of course.”

“I’m a little confused over how the whole imaginotransference technology works. I mean, how do books here get to be read out there?”

I sighed. Cadets were supposed to come to me for assessment when they already knew the basics. This one was as green as Brighton Rock. The elevator stopped on the third floor, and I pulled open the gates. We stepped out into one of the Great Library’s endless corridors, and I waved a hand in the direction of the bookshelves.

“Okay: imaginotransference. Did any of your tutors tell you even vaguely how the reader-writer thing actually works?”

“I think I might have been having a colonic that morning.”

I moved closer to the shelves and beckoned her to follow. As I came to within a yard of the books, I could feel their influence warm me like a hot radiator. But it wasn’t heat I was feeling; it was the warmth of a good story, well told. A potpourri of jumbled narrative, hovering just above of the books like morning mist on a lake. I could actually feel the emotions, hear the whispered snatches of conversation and see the images that momentarily broke free of the gravity that bound them to the story.

“Can you feel that?” I whispered.

“Feel what?”

I sighed. Fictional people were less attuned to story; it was rare indeed that anyone in the BookWorld actually read a book-unless the narrative called for it.

“Place your hands gently against the spines.”

She did as I asked, and after a moment’s puzzlement she smiled.

“I can hear voices,” she whispered back, trying not to break the moment, “and a waterfall. And joy, betrayal, laughter-and a young man who has lost his hat.”

“What you’re feeling is the raw imaginotransference energy, the method by which all books are dispersed into the reader’s imagination. The books we have in the Outland are no more similar to these than a photograph is to the subject-these books are alive, each one a small universe unto itself-and by throughputting some of that energy from here to their counterparts in the real world, we can transmit the story direct to the reader.”

Thursday took her hand from the books and experimented to see how far out she had to go before losing the energy. It was barely a few inches.

“Throughputting? Is that where Textual Sieves come into it?”

“No. I’ve got to go and look at something for Bradshaw, so we’ll check out core containment-it’s at the heart of the imaginotransference technology.”

We walked a few yards up the corridor, and after carefully consulting the note Bradshaw had given me, I selected a book from the bewildering array of the same title in all its various incarnations. I opened the volume and looked at the stats page, which blinked up a real-time Outland ReadRate, a total of the editions still in existence and much else besides.

“The 1929 book-club deluxe leatherbound edition with nine copies still in circulation from a total of twenty-five hundred,” I explained, “and with no readers actually making their way through it. An ideal choice for a bit of training.”

I rummaged in my bag and brought out what looked like a large-caliber flare pistol.

Thursday5 regarded me nervously.

“Are you expecting trouble?”

“I always expect trouble.”

“Isn’t that a TextMarker?” she asked, her confusion understandable, because this wasn’t officially a weapon at all. These were generally used to mark the text of a book from within so an agent could be extracted in an emergency. Once an essential piece of equiment, they were carried less and less as the mobilefootnoterphone had made such devices redundant.

“It was,” I replied, breaking open the stubby weapon and taking a single brass cartridge from a small leather pouch. “But I’ve modified it to take an eraserhead.”

I slipped the cartridge in, snapped the pistol shut and put it back in my bag. The eraserhead was just one of the many abstract technologies that JurisTech built for us. Designed to sever the bonds between letters in a word, it was a devastating weapon to anyone of textual origin-a single blast from one of these and the unlucky recipient would be nothing but a jumbled heap of letters and a bluish haze. Its use was strictly controlled-Jurisfiction agents only.

“Gosh,” said Thursday after I’d explained it to her. “I don’t carry any weapons at all.”

“I’d so love not to have to,” I told her, and with the taxi still nowhere in sight, I passed the volume across to her. “Here,” I said, “let’s see how good you are at taking a passenger into a book.”

She accepted the novel without demur, opened it and started to read. She had a good speaking voice, fruity and expressive, and she quickly began to fade from view. I grabbed hold of her cuff so as not to be left behind, and she instantly regained her solidity; it was the library that was now faded and indistinct. Within a few more words, we had traveled into our chosen book. The first thing I noticed as we arrived was that the chief protagonist’s feet were on fire. Worse still, he hadn’t noticed.