{"id":277,"date":"2021-01-12T13:34:35","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T13:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=277"},"modified":"2021-01-12T13:34:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T13:34:35","slug":"lunatic-at-large-by-ron-goulart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"Lunatic at Large by Ron Goulart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Lunatic at Large<\/em><\/strong> by Ron Goulart (<em>F&amp;SF<\/em>, February 1977) is one of his \u2018Jose Silvera\u2019 stories about the planet-hopping writer-for-hire. This one opens with him and a new client, the actress Mary Elizabeth Trowbridge, arriving at a film premiere on Barafunda naked in her aircar:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cAnd let\u2019s see who\u2019s in the aircar which is just now landing on the A-List landing yard!\u201d boomed a voice immediately outside their cabin windows.<br>Silvera found himself staring into the lens of a robot video camera and the bright blue eyes of a grinning lizard man in a purple dinner jacket. \u201cOops,\u201d said Silvera. \u201cBlack the windows, stupe.\u201d<br>\u201cMiss Trowbridge,\u201d replied the voice of the aircar, \u201chad earlier expressed a wish to see the myriad stars of the Barnum System night sky whilst being\u2014\u201d<br>\u201cThat was a prior mood,\u201d said Silvera. \u201cBlack the damn windows.\u201d<br>\u201cIt looks like our beloved novelist, Mary Elizabeth Trowbridge, spread-eagled under a dark saturnine man I don\u2019t recognize, folks,\u201d boomed the lizard announcer.\u00a0 p. 87<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The above gives you an idea of the tone of the story, which is mostly about Silvera attempting to recoup an overdue payment from a lizardman literary agent called Mazda. Mixed into this are the various manoeuvrings of the KAML (Kill All Monarchs League) and the possibility that the planet\u2019s ruler, Prince Lorenzo, may be an android. All this is mostly irrelevant though, as the plot is pretty much an excuse to string several amusing scenes together (my favourite is probably the fight scene that takes place in a pub after Silvera smirks at a dandy who \u201cplayfully inserted the lighted table candle into [the] handy orifice of yonder serving wench android.\u201d<br>Minor stuff but quite funny (if you don\u2019t mind the rude humour).<br>*** (Good). 5,550 words.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lunatic at Large by Ron Goulart (F&amp;SF, February 1977) is one of his \u2018Jose Silvera\u2019 stories about the planet-hopping writer-for-hire. This one opens with him and a new client, the actress Mary Elizabeth Trowbridge, arriving at a film premiere on Barafunda naked in her aircar: \u201cAnd let\u2019s see who\u2019s in the aircar which is just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[40,24,25,88,12],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ron-goulart","tag-40","tag-3-2","tag-fsf","tag-ron-goulart","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}