Monday, July 28, 2008

A Woman a Day

There's suggestive evidence that "A Woman a Day", generally attributed to Philip Jose Farmer, may have been a mash-up of a rough draft by Jeff Lint, with each of the (many) scenes in which all the characters gathered in a hill and screamed until they lost consciousness removed, and the waiter-dog protagonist pair transposed into a man-wife combo. The remaining references to both pasta and tentacles are now simply silly, where they were previously baffling, and the "man" occasionaly muttering "stick with me" no longer properly references Jack Marsden, the pointless and hostile hero of "The Caterer".

It's well known that Lint's first work was most likely published not on its (it is generally agreed) slender merits, but as a result of his decision to submit the manuscript under the name "Isaac Asimov". It appears that further obstacles confront the project of identifying the real Lint. On days like this I'm pleased not to be one of the editors of the planned scholarly edition of Lint's collected works.

More sleazy SF covers are available here.

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