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Copyright 2024 James LaFond
A Crackpot Book
Lynn Lockhart Publisher
In association with Pulp Fiction Renaissance
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Dust Cover
Young Master Richard Barrett, whose Norman ancestors subdued England in 1066, who crushed Cromwell and saved King Charles in 1646, who, in 1776, hunted George Washington like the dog he was and had him drawn and quartered before the Continental Congress cringing upon their gallows, before they swung from the long Arm of King and Country—has a dilemma…
Since the guns of August roared in 1941 and Germany was crushed between Britannia and Russia, the Great Game had grown more bitter, and by fits and stops, had dithered, even withered. “Why,” wondered Young Master Rich to his faithful Color Sergeant Major, in the cold summer of 2024, “has not one technological improvement been brought from drawing board to factory to battlefield to finally permit the Russian Bear to be brought to heel?”
He had begun to suppose that only the Royal Theographical Society had a clue, and resolved to approach their secretive door.
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Dust Cover Continued
“And the Russians, clods that they are, have they not had a fresh mechanical idea since the telescopic dueling pistol depleted their officer corps beyond all recovery?”
As if the very walls had ears, the doorbell rang and O’Neal the Scotch coachman and LaFano the mongrel Irish-American footman, apparently having fought to a draw over who had the honor of delivering the post to their Master, stood, bruised, bleeding and tattered, in great shame, as the official post had been torn asunder, each holding half.
Color Sergeant Major, huffed, “Properly indented by ye loyal rabble, I see, Sir.”
“Young Master Rich,” winced O’Neal, sliding his eyes to his smaller fellow, who completed the announcement, according to some truce that must have been more awkward than the combat “Roil Social, pos’, Boss,” as they both, with surprising cooperation, extended their half of the official dispatch from that most noble fraternity of Truth Seekers, in service to Queen Gloria and Great Britain: The Royal Theographic Society.
Richard, a mere thirty years of age, recently discharged from service bearing the Victoria Cross from wounds sustained defending Mogadishu from the Fanatic Maddi Hordes, extended his one and only arm, his sword arm thank God!—and received that Gaelic indented letter with an ominous chill coursing up his spine. For Reeves “Colmarge” Barrett, his great, great grand sire, hero of the Great War, as well as Uncle Rodney “Rod” Barrett, hero of the Third Sepoy Rebellion, “Savior of the Raj,” had both vanished mysteriously, in their own time, in service to this secretive fraternity.
He could not bear to finish opening the envelope and letter and handed it to his faithful Color Sergeant Major, the both of them having retired with honors after the same mad, Somali affray. He feared news of one of these men, or of Father, that he must deliver to Mother, who had been inconsolable since Father, cartographer for the Royal Geographic Society, had failed to return from his survey of Antarctica.
Following the rustle of blood and snot stained paper, a hum of interest and a click of boot heels, the Color Sergeant Major—no one did really know his name, except perhaps his dear Mum, if he had one, yet it was opined that a mother could not bring such an automatonish fellow into this world—announced: “Sir, God surely interceded in the affray between your Loyal Beast and Savage Imp here, for they failed to tear the side note, appended upon the STATIONARY OF and with the dainty pen hand OF Her Majesty, Queen Gloria, who regrets to inform you, Captain, Sir, that you are to report for duty to The Royal Theographic Society, post haste, with such effects, equipment, adjutants—ahum, and if fit for duty, man servants—for business of the most urgent nature, Sir.”
Richard opened his eyes, feeling the assurance of his sergeant’s towering presence next to him, and saw before him his two man servants, doing their burly best to imitate a military salute. Recalling the last ragged line of godless crooks and brig rats he had led against the Maddi, and that victory had been theirs, Richard regained his characteristic confidence and saluted the only command he had:
“O’Neal, never mind the carriage, Color Sergeant will direct the domestics as to that. Attend me on the packing of my library and science instruments.
“Yes, Sir,” nodded O’Neal.
“LaFono: the gun locker, the sword rack, and the liquor cabinet—medicinal grade liquors only; we travel light; The Theographers prefer airship to steamer, weapons and liquor must not exceed the combined weight of us four—do you understand?”
“Yeah, boss,” mumbled LaFono.
The two brutes shuffled off, as apish as creatures bred to northern latitudes could appear, and Richard grinned up at his faithful companion and fellow medical retiree, whose left ear had been lost to a scimitar and his right eye to a lance, offset by his black pith helmet, “At it again, Color Sergeant Major!”
“Indeed, Captain, Sir, into the wind we sail again.”
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Inspired by a boxing bout with my friend Beast O’Neal and a conversation with young Richard Barrett of Pulp Fiction Renaissance, and two weeks spent living with the most terrible little bird of hell, Ripley the carnivorous parrot.
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Dedicated to Damien of Arkham Reporter.
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“When considering the words of the powerful, we should focus on their actions, not what they say.”
-Witeny Web
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Ether Ark Premise
What if the British Empire never fell?
This would be contingent, primarily on stopping the American Revolution. Such an event would have required intercession, by angels, time travelers, aliens or demons. As Benjamin Franklin opined, "If God takes notice of the death of a sparrow, he surely takes notice of the rise of a great empire."
Thinking back to conversations on British Empire pulp fiction with Young Richard Barrett, it occurred to me, that combining H.P. Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness concept with the idea of a giant avian race ruling humans through mind control at the center of a hollow earth, in an Antarctic setting, might supply such an interceding race. Many UFO and ancient alien theorists suspect that aliens were alerted by the nuclear blasts of 1945 and began interfering with humanity then.
In order to maintain a gaslight era, steampunk setting for pulp adventures, the author here supposes that beginning with the voyage of Drake, near to Antarctica in the 1580s, that ancestors of the protagonist, the storied Barretts, made contact with a terrestrial alien intelligence of ancient extraction. These evolved saurian scientists, similar in type to the villains in Harry Harrison’s West of Eden trilogy, and to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mahar villains of the Pellucidar novels, are raptors that retreated to an Antarctic sanctuary to escape the extinction event of some 60 millions years ago. Do note that ten foot tall, carnivorous, ax-beaked bird fossils have been found in Southern South America.
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The Royal Theographic Society
This world is conceived of by its more inquisitive theorists as an Ark, adrift in an Ether Universe and stalked by evils from other dimensions. These dissident minds, who suspect bankers in service to some dark powers of buying off and doing away with leading inventors and scientists, and of barring colonization of Antarctica in service to their alien masters, are The Royal Theographic Society, founded by the occult minds of Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, Jack London, and Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1913.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Mervin Peake, Eddison, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert. E. Howard, L. Sprague De Camp and C.S. Lewis, rather than being pulp fiction writers and fantasy authors, where instead recruited as early agents of Theography.
A Gaslight Knight is a refraction of the ideas of the above authors and Theographical Investigators into what is hoped to be a pleasingly disturbing fiction.
-James LaFond, Pittsburgh, PA, April 6, 2024
