Comments on "Seford, Spiggot, and Jones: Voyage the Second" - Faerye Net

Re: Aubrey and Maturin wax critical (with apologies to Patrick O'Brian)

2004-03-16T18:21:02+00:00

I have to say I’m with Dr. Maturin on the ship vs. sloop thing. Who cares about proper naval terminology in a story about airships and pirates and pan-dimensional travel? For his part, Maturin was wholly satisfied with the terminology (although if you had thrown in a passage about birds or physicking, he might have grown more critical).

I’m sure Jack thought it was a fine story too; he was just manipulating the conversation so as to allow for his terribly, um, clever play on words.

Re: Aubrey and Maturin wax critical (with apologies to Patrick O'Brian)

2004-03-16T16:39:48+00:00

Bah, I forgotted sloops are little. I just wanted a sleek word. I will think about that.

I still can’t get used to seeing my name as “Mrs. Whelan.” “Mrs. Felicity Whelan” I get, but I have to read the former twice :) Properly formal and British verbiage there.

V. amusing, too, tho’ a little difficult for those of us wot has not read the books of wot you speak. I am glad you seem to have liked my airship story.

In case you CANNOT tell, Captain Bessa’s favorite fictional character has the middle name “Tiberius”. Of course, I thought a great many things about Seford, Spiggot, and Jones were veiled in mystery that Matt thinks are perfectly obvious.

Re: Aubrey and Maturin wax critical (with apologies to Patrick O'Brian)

2004-03-16T14:58:51+00:00

Um, “three points west of east” should have been “three points north of east”. Silly me.

Aubrey and Maturin wax critical (with apologies to Patrick O'Brian)

2004-03-16T14:01:27+00:00

Any mention of a bowsprit or a sloop or virtually any other nautical term automatically plunges me into Patrick O’Brian fanboy mode, and this was the result. I wondered what it would be like if Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey read Felicity’s stories. I apologize.

‘Which it’s the doctor to see you, sir,’ mumbled Killick; and under his breath: ‘Damned coffee’s been cooling since three bells, cold and solid as ice it is.’

‘Thank you, Killick. Ah, Maturin! You missed a prodigious fine albatross and a whole fleet of leviathans in the first watch. Pullings sent for you directly, but the boy said you was quite occupied and ejected him without a glance. Come, what is it keeps you belowdecks? Your coffee has grown quite cold.’

‘Why, I’ll tell you what it is, Aubrey: it’s this new letter from Mrs. Whelan. You remember Mrs. Whelan, don’t you? The writer? Lovely woman, if a bit prone to silliness.’

‘Yes yes, of course I remember her.’

‘In her letter she includes part of a fantastic new story she is writing; here you are, read it and tell me your thoughts.’

‘Why, this is absurd, doctor! She is playing you for a fool. See here, she writes of an airship and, ha ha, air pirates! A ship’s captain - a woman! - cracking wise and taking it in turn from a seaman! And this surely caps it all: in the space of two sentences she names the pirate vessel as both ship and sloop! My dear sir, I daresay she is making sport of you. I am surprised you did not smoke it!’

Stephen was reminded of his friend’s utter lack of literary patience. A prime seaman and a capable musician he was, and no fool in matters mathematical and even philosophical, but Jack read little else than his orders and the frequent letters from Sophie.

‘The point is,’ said the doctor, ‘that it is prodigious entertaining, not that all the facts line up. Why, see here, this is an airship! I daresay I or even you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a pirate airship and a pirate airsloop; that is, if such fantastical things even existed!’

‘Just so, Stephen, just so. But how am I to enjoy such a fantastical and, ha ha, irrelative tale when I cannot even relate to it? Ha ha! Do you smoke it? Eh? Relate! Ha ha.’

Stephen sighed and forced a smile, but was saved from having to say more by the distant but still audible cry of, ‘On deck there! Sail three points west of east, hull down!’

He resolved to keep Mrs. Whelan’s tales to himself in the future.