My favorite things

Gardening spiders Ungoliant, who took the form of a giant spider and, along with Dark Lord Melkor, destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor
And swords Elendil’s sword Narsil, called The Sword that was Broken after its damage in a battle against Sauron, and later carried by Aragorn (Strider). that are broken
Words In the Black Speech, written in Elvish letters on the One Ring: One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. in the Black Speech The Black Speech of Mordor is a language constructed by Sauron.
That must not be spoken
Unfaithful stewards Denethor, the 26th ruling Steward of Gondor.
Denethor, the 26th ruling Steward of Gondor. Who don’t want their kings Denethor, the 26th ruling Steward of Gondor, is unhappy about the arrival of Aragorn, the rightful king.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

When the orc An orc is a creature in The Lord of the Rings, first bred by Morgoth, the Dark Power of the North, and later used by Sauron and Saruman. bites,
When the probe A neuronic probe is a fictional device in The Currents of Space. stings
When I’m feeling bad
I simply remember
My favorite kings Aragorn, king of Gondor
And I don’t feel so bad.

Hobbits fall captive Merry and Pippin, captured by orcs of Saruman and of Mordor to
Former Saruman the White, head of the White Council, stripped of his rank by Gandalf Istari The order of wizards sent to Middle-earth to oppose Sauron; Saruman and Gandalf are both Istari. ,
Who anger Ents Tree-shepherds of Fangorn Forest, ancient and slow to anger. Treebeard, the oldest of the Ents and
Never say sorry,
Wormtongue A henchman of Saruman at Gandalf
A palantír flings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Rescuing Harold Shea and Heimdall are captured by fire giants and Shea bribes one of their jailers into letting them escape. Heimdall
For his roaring trumpet The trumpet Gjallarhorn, which Heimdall must blow to inaugurate Ragnarök.
The Blatant Beast , A character in Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene . The beast threatens to kill Harold Shea and his companions unless they ransom themselves with words (All jests are stale. I would an epic poem.) shocked by The beast, appalled by the bawdy and crude lyrics, leaves in disgust.
A fictional The beast already knows Beowulf, and Shea can't remember the words to The Sorcerer. In desperation Shea recites The Ballad of Eskimo Nell. strumpet Eskimo Nell in The Ballad of Eskimo Nell
A fantasy novel
That loud laughter brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Inch-high and snake-haired, Snulbug, a demon something under an inch tall, with snakes for hair, curling tusks and a sharp-tipped tail, called up by a homemade spell.
In matches he’s basking, He dives into each lit match like a man under a needle shower: his blood is salamander, though he was raised as an undine.
“Fetch me tomorrow’s Bill Hitchens, a biochemist, needs ten thousand dollars for a laboratory to develop his test for emboli.
Paper,” Bill’s asking, He lays three conditions on the demon to close every loophole, and asks for tomorrow’s newspaper.
“Snulbug,” he mumbles, The demon gives his name in a voice dropped almost too low to be heard.
The shame that it brings, I’ve got a cavity in one tusk, my snakes are falling out, I haven’t got troubles enough, I should be named Snulbug.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Mayor’s assassin, The paper’s headline: MAYOR ASSASSINATED. Bill Hitchens races to city hall to save the crusading mayor of Granton.
From chandeliers flying, A bull-necked plain-clothes man throws him about the office until he lowers himself nimbly from the chandelier, and then it all begins again.
Twenty to one, but At the racetrack Bill puts his last five hundred dollars on Alhazred, at twenty to one in the paper.
The odds change when buying, That much money on a long shot changes the parimutuel odds, so the paper would no longer be true.
Merry-go-rounding, Snulbug, from the bowl of Bill’s pipe: once the paper was brought into now, it became a fact. You can’t possibly make it untrue.
The circles it brings, Each try that would change the paper starts over again and again, until Bill makes up his mind to be sensible.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Sold to old Choatsby, Bill Hitchens sells the paper for fifteen thousand dollars to his old boss, Reuben Choatsby, an astrologer and pyramidologist, with Snulbug raging in the ash tray as proof.
To bank Bill has hurried, Snulbug hurries him to deposit the check; he makes it at three o’clock sharp.
Tuesday’s out Monday, A newsboy is crying the very same paper. Any dope knows that a Tuesday paper comes out Monday afternoon.
And laughing, unworried, Bill laughs: human psychology, not magic, made Choatsby endow the very research he had refused. You can’t lick Man.
“People!” he snorts, and Snulbug: People! You’ll find out.
The doom that he brings, He shakes his head with dismal satisfaction.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Gloria jilts him, Gloria Garton, a Metropolis starlet and once his student, turns down Professor Wolfe Wolf by telegram: Don’t be silly — Gloria.
A prof of Teutonic, Wolfe Wolf teaches German at Berkeley, and swears fluently in Middle High German.
Zombies for Woof-woof, His secretary, Emily, tells him that everyone calls him Woof-woof because his name is Wolfe Wolf. He goes off to drown his sorrows in zombies.
For Ozzy, gin-tonic, Ozymandias the Great, a retired magician with a fringe of beard, stands in for the bored bartender, carefully nursing a gin-and-tonic.
Meeting of eyebrows, Ozzy tells Wolf that he is a werewolf: his eyebrows meet, his index finger is as long as his middle finger, and his palms are hairy.
The signs that it brings, And then there is his name: every Smith has an ancestor who was a smith.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Temple on May Eve, Professor Oscar Fearing’s Temple of the Dark Truth holds its Walpurgis Night service on April thirtieth.
The Lower Lord rising, The congregation calls on the Lower Lord, Baal Zebub, and a man in a grotesque costume waits to appear on cue; instead a great gray wolf bites his hand.
Sanskrit from one to Fearing’s invocation is perfect Sanskrit, but consists solely of the numbers from one to eleven.
Eleven, disguising, There is always the danger that some scholar in this university town will recognize it. No one does.
Raspberry riper In the blue light stand Ozymandias the Great and Wolfe Wolf, now a splendid gray wolf. Ozzy utters the ripest, juiciest raspberry of his career,
Than Baal Zebub brings, and vanishes, wolf and all.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Trapped in his gray suit Next morning Wolfe Wolf says The Word fully dressed, and becomes a wolf hopelessly entangled in his conservative single-breasted gray suit.
At thirty-five dollars, Werewolf or no, he is still Professor Wolf, and the suit cost thirty-five dollars. As a wolf he cannot say Absarka, the word that changes him back.
Chalked up, Absarka, Shooed out of his hotel by a clerk under no spell, the wolf chalks A B S A R K A on his classroom blackboard and pulls down a chart to hide it.
For eight-o’clock scholars, When he lets the chart fly up, the blonde in the front row reads the word aloud.
Naked on stage, and His clothes are still at the hotel. Professor Wolf stands stark naked before his class.
The firing it brings, The dean of letters is chilly, the president of the university frigid, and Wolfe Wolf is unemployed.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Cast as a wolf dog, Metropolis Pictures is hunting a wolf dog to play Tookah in Fangs of the Forest. Wolfe Wolf auditions as Yoggoth, with Ozzy as his trainer, Mr. O. Z. Manders, and does every trick asked of him.
The beret a-flying, The casting director’s violet beret sails into the flies on his scream of joy: We’ve found Tookah!
Two drinks for Ozzy, Ozymandias the Great never takes two drinks: Two drinks in me and things start happening. Gloria Garton makes him take the second.
The rope trick he’s trying, He performs the Indian rope trick, climbs the rope, and is gone.
Stagehand strikes rope, and A stagehand clearing the stage coils up the rope.
The stranding it brings, The only man Wolf can trust to say Absarka for him is somewhere beyond the end of that rope.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Lipstick on mirrors, In Gloria Garton’s suite, Wolfe Wolf, still a wolf, scrawls ABSARKA across her mirror in her lipstick.
“Absarka” she’s reading, She reads it aloud, and he stands before her as a man. She seems to accept him, werewolf and all, and asks to see him change.
Wolfie, a good boy, Gloria has named the wolf Wolfie. Once he changes: Good boy, Wolfie. And now, darling, you can just damned well stay that way.
To Fearing she’s leading, She takes him in to meet her partner, Professor Oscar Fearing.
Temple of Dark Truth, Fearing’s Temple is the cover for a ring of spies.
The secrets it wrings, It extracts invaluable information from weary scientists who need the emotional release of a false religion.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Robby saved, tail crushed, Racing across Berkeley, Wolfe Wolf leaps to push Robby, the toddler he once led home, out of the path of a speeding jalopy. The car runs over his tail.
To Emily’s dwelling, Fearing has ordered Emily, the secretary, attended to. Wolf reaches her bungalow just as a gray sedan drives off with her, struggling, in the back.
Turret by ladder, At the Temple, the steeple is a revolving machine-gun turret. Wolf climbs the ladder by gripping each rung in his jaws.
The Ouija board spelling, Back below, he pushes the planchette around the Ouija board, and Emily reads out A, B, S, A, R, K, A.
Kissing and fainting, Wolfe Wolf, wrapped in a robe of the Dark Truth, kisses her thoroughly and faints.
The rescue it brings, Emily, bound hand and foot, had felled a guard with the Ouija board: Let’s say we saved our life.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Silver from Fergus, Fergus O’Breen, a private inquiry agent, fired the one silver bullet, thinking Wolf was on the spies’ side.
Who’s glad that he missed, then, I’m damned glad I missed.
Bulletproof wolf, so Strong, fast, invulnerable to bullets, able to overhear what no human could: Can you tell me better qualifications for a G-man?
A G-man? Enlist, then! Three days before, Wolf had despaired of winning Gloria Garton because he was not an actor or a G-man.
Office wife courted, Wolfe Wolf to Emily: Aren’t you tired of being an office wife?
Darjeeling’s rope swings, In the bazaar of Darjeeling, a boy who climbed a conjurer’s rope five minutes before comes down a hundred pounds heavier, with a curious fringe of beard.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Baby girls only, From September 1962 nearly every child born anywhere on Earth is a girl, and in December not one boy is born. From Fredric Brown’s Honeymoon in Hell.
The boys have gone missing, Only human beings are affected, and no laboratory can find out why.
Married by TV, Capt. Ray Carmody, a retired rocket pilot, is married by beam-television to Anna Borisovna, a Russian rocket pilot and cybernetics technician, one in America and one in Russia, as Junior, the giant cybernetics machine, foretold.
No bride for the kissing, He can’t kiss the bride, or even shake her hand; he signs off, See you in Hell, Anna.
Honeymoon trip to The newlyweds are sent to the Moon for their honeymoon, to find out whether boys can be conceived there.
The Hell Crater rings, They land, in separate rockets, in Hell Crater, named for Father Maximilian Hell, S.J., director of the Vienna Observatory.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Yellow and four-armed, In the story Carmody and Anna tell on their return, a ship lands in the crater and aliens seven feet tall, bright yellow and four-armed, take them prisoner.
With lidless eyes staring, The aliens’ eyes have no pupils and no lids; they never speak to their captives, and whistle among themselves.
Whisky for water Unable to tell water from whisky, the captors give them only whisky to drink for the first few days.
And Russian songs sharing, Singing in their separate cells, Carmody learns a lot of Russian songs. Back on Earth, the two powers join forces against the alien threat.
Phantoms from Junior Junior reveals that there were no aliens: it and the Moscow machine planted the memories, and a radio tube of its design caused the all-girl births, to give mankind a common enemy instead of a war.
And true wedding rings, What really happened was a thirteen-day honeymoon. Carmody and Anna fell in love and stay married, and she flies to meet him.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Pigs from the starways The Kanamit, visitors from the stars who look something like pigs and something like people, sit at a Plenary Session of the U.N. in green harness and modishly cut green shorts. From Damon Knight’s To Serve Man.
Who never were lying, Dr. Leveque’s lie detector jumps whenever a Kanama tells a deliberate falsehood, and stays still when he says their mission is to bring Earth the peace and plenty they enjoy themselves.
Power and plenty Their first gifts: little metal boxes giving more power than an atomic pile for next to nothing, and a device that raises the fertility of farmland.
And no bombs a-flying, The third gift: a field in which no explosive of any kind can detonate. There will be no more war.
“How to Serve Man” and Gregori, a U.N. translator who has distrusted the Kanamit on sight, works out with the narrator the title of a Kanamit handbook issued to new embassy staff.
Cuisine that it brings, Booked on the next exchange ship to the Kanamit home world, Gregori has read the first paragraph. It’s a cookbook.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Peddlers a zone agent of the Confederacy of Vega in the story The Second Night of Summer who drive their
Mysterious wagons
Petite young ladies Lessa, in the novel Dragonflight, is the last surviving member of the ruling family of Ruatha Hold.
Who can speak to Searched and trained as any candidate is, she Impresses the newly hatched queen Ramoth at the hatching — a sudden, lifelong bond, the same shape as a treecat bonding. dragons Large flying telepathic reptiles on the planet Pern.
Travelling the Cosmos Helva’s society trains people with such disabilities to operate machinery via a direct brain link. In Helva’s case, she is trained to operate a spaceship (brain ship).
In a ship who sings Helva is an intelligent girl born with a severely disabled body. She became known as The Ship Who Sings due to her habit of singing to herself.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Station of twenty, Frontier Station 563, on an asteroid at the edge of human space beyond Sirius, with a crew of twenty men signed on for ten years at fifty credits a day.
The Kid ever jeering, William Peterborough, called the Kid, fresh from Earth, rides old Clay Harbank for four years: he scoffs that Clay was ever a gambler, and mocks his birthplace.
Clay’s Lulungomeena Clay Harbank’s home, Lulungomeena on the little planet Tarsus, where he means to go back when his hitch is done.
Too often for hearing, To Clay it is the most wonderful spot in the Universe, and he cannot help saying so; the crew has grown weary of hearing it.
Gambler no longer, Clay won and lost several fortunes, but now he banks his pay.
For gain never clings, Money made by gambling, he says, never sticks, but runs away again like quicksilver.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Throat-aching longing, Lulungomeena is where Clay Harbank belongs, in the stomach-twisting, throat-aching way that sometimes only talk can relieve.
The talk that relieves it, Old age makes Mort, the station’s other old hand, garrulous too; he never minds Clay’s talk.
Bond to a home world, Mort, a Dorsai: no one should make fun of the bond tying a man to his home world.
Unseen, who believes it? It is as real as it is intangible; the Kid, contemptuous of emotion, is too young to know that yet.
Hixa or Tarsus, Dor Lassos, a visiting Hixabrod, describes his home planet, Hixa, and adds: One day I shall return there.
The yearning it brings, Mort has his own longing for the Dorsai Planets, though he tells Clay he will never go home.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Collie-faced envoy Dor Lassos, a Hixabrod: green-skinned, taller than any of the crew, with a face like a collie dog. Hixabrods are hired as mercenary ambassadors.
Who cannot be lying, A Hixabrod can be hired but never bribed, influenced or forced to come up with anything but the cold truth.
Bet all your savings At the dinner for the Hixabrod, the Kid calls Clay Harbank a champion liar. Clay throws his brandy glass in the Kid’s face; the Kid proposes a bet of all Clay’s savings against all his own.
On Tarsus relying, Dor Lassos has just come from Tarsus, which he helped map: let him judge whether Lulungomeena is the most wonderful place in the Universe.
Dorsai sign drawn, and Mort, finding that the Hixabrod’s last stop was Tarsus, draws the Dorsai sign against the Kid’s name on the station roster.
The gun that Mort brings, Then he checks his gun out of the arms locker and goes back to the dinner.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

“Yes, it is,” flatly, Tarsus, Dor Lassos tells the Kid, is not large, not rich, and he did not find it pretty. Is Lulungomeena the most wonderful place in the Universe? Yes, it is.
The claws at his eyes, then, My hands are clean. Claws slide from the Hixabrod’s fingertips to rest against the Kid’s face: Do you doubt the truthfulness of a Hixabrod?
Home for the Dorsai, A month later Mort boards a ship for the Dorsai Planets.
His freedom Clay buys, then, Clay Harbank won enough to buy out his friend as well as himself.
Lulungomeena, Clay’s sure thing: The Hixabrod loved his home.
The “home” that it brings, Lulungomeena is a word in the Tarsusian language. It means home.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Poisons he gobbles, Chief Dreiser hides half a dozen poisons, in doses fit for a regiment, in Lummox’s food; Lummox eats them all and is not even made sleepy.
a flood that won’t hurt him, Chief Dreiser has the reservoir filled overnight to drown Lummox, who stands up in the morning and says “Good morning.”
Boys who once sold him John Thomas Stuart XI is talked into selling Lummox, his family’s pet star beast, to the Museum, then calls the deal off.
but would not desert him, John Thomas rides Lummox out of town by night to hide him in the mountain wilderness.
“Come and get me!” Boxed in by search ships and armed only with a sheath knife, John Thomas shouts his defiance at the voice from the sky.
as the iron voice rings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Pets who eat Buicks Lummox once ate John Thomas’s second-hand Buick, and the iron set off an enormous growth spurt.
and prize-winning roses, On a stroll through town Lummox eats four or five of Mrs. Donahue’s prize rose bushes.
Owners who prove to be Lummox’s hobby, for generations, has been raising “John Thomases.”
pets—who supposes?
Folks with six sexes The Hroshii, Lummox’s people, come in six sexes.
and all that it brings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Hypnotized backward Grottwold Hanson, a psychology graduate student caught up in the Bridey Murphy craze, hypnotizes Angie Gilman back to the time of St. George and the Dragon. Her fiancé Jim Eckert goes after her.
Through Hanson’s mistaking, Hanson sends Angie back whole, but Jim lands centuries off and in the wrong shape.
Spirit, not body, Only Jim’s spirit arrives: Hanson, says the magician S. Carolinus, had no credit with the auditing department.
In Gorbash awaking, He wakes in the body of a dragon named Gorbash. Dragons call people georges, the Saint having made such an impression on them.
“Come back next Tuesday!” Carolinus opens the door to him: Sorry, not my day for dragons! Come back next Tuesday.
The door slam it brings, He slams the door.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Ulcer-plagued mage, so S. Carolinus suffers a perpetual stomach-ache; Jim Eckert, with no gold or rubies to pay his fee, diagnoses an ulcer.
A tankard for paying, The cure is a glass of milk every hour: The bovine nature of the milk quite smothers the ulcer-demon. Consider me paid.
Watch-beetle squeaking, Carolinus drips three drops of water from the Tinkling Spring on the sand, and up pops a watch-beetle.
“The Tower!” it’s saying, Gone to the Loathly Tower! Gone to the Loathly Tower! The renegade dragon Anark has carried Angie there.
Auditing Powers, Carolinus keeps accounts with an invisible bass voice from the auditing department of the Powers.
The price that it brings, The First Law of Magic: for every use of the Art and Science there is required a corresponding price. No credit! No credit!
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

“Just a mere-dragon,” Secoh, a starving mere-dragon of the fens: Just a little, unimportant mere-dragon, your highness, that’s all I am.
“Your worship,” he’s cringing, He calls Jim your worship, your honor, your excellency, and fears the Loathly Tower that blighted the mere-dragons five hundred years before.
Knight on the Causeway, On the Great Causeway through the fens rides Sir Reginald Nevile-Smythe, knight bachelor, who trees Jim-as-dragon.
Nevile-Smythe singing, The dragons of the mere shall find / What Nevile-Smythe can do!
“Gules, a typewriter,” Asked his arms, Jim Eckert improvises: gules, a typewriter argent, on a desk sable.
The arms that Jim brings, A typewriter, he explains, is a local beast of Riveroak, rather like a griffin.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Worm for the knight, and At the Loathly Tower wait a giant slug-like Worm, the renegade dragon Anark, and an ogre. S. Carolinus gives the Worm to Sir Reginald Nevile-Smythe.
For Smrgol, the traitor, Smrgol, the aged dragon who once slew the Ogre of Gormely Keep, takes Anark, with the mere-dragon Secoh to bring him to ground.
Ogre for Gorbash, Jim Eckert, in Gorbash’s body, must fight the ogre, twelve feet high with an idiot grin and a rusty iron-bound club.
Not next day or later, Smrgol: you got to fight your foes when you meet them, not the next day, or the day after that.
Elinor’s favor, Nevile-Smythe finds the kerchief of his lady, Elinor deChauncy, just in time, and Carolinus ties it to his arm.
The war cry it brings, A Nevile-Smythe! Elinor! Elinor!
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Broken spear driven, Pinned and losing, Jim Eckert gropes for the broken half of Nevile-Smythe’s spear and drives it deep into the ogre.
The ogre is falling, It screams, bites at the shaft like a wounded animal, and falls.
Smrgol, jaws locking, Old Smrgol, crippled by a stroke, gets his jaws on Anark’s throat.
His grip never stalling, Secoh: He got his grip—and then he never let go. Smrgol is dead, and Anark’s neck broken.
Scared or not, onward, What Jim learned: scared or not doesn’t matter; because you just go ahead, anyway.
To Howells he springs, Home again, he goes in to ask Dr. Howells, head of the English Department, for the instructorship he was promised.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Time traveling bar men ‘—All You Zombies—’ from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1959
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1959 Who are like no others The protagonist of ‘—All You Zombies—’ is a bartender who, with the aid of a time machine and a sex change operation, is his own father and own mother.
Who are their own fathers
And are their own mothers
Robert Anson Heinlein is known as the dean of science fiction authors Of all such stories
Know Heinlein’s Robert Anson Heinlein is known as the dean of science fiction authors; his stories By His Bootstraps and ‘—All You Zombies—’ are iconic in the time travel genre. are kings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Nostalgic time traveler, Don Benedict, a wooden-figure carver known as Dusty, has fled to 1880s New York with a stolen time-travel formula, staying to defend the trade against Demuth’s, a rival firm plotting to replace hand-carved wooden figures with mass-produced cast iron. From Avram Davidson’s Take Wooden Indians.
the past seeks to alter,
So industrial progress,
will slow down and falter,
to a business man, Walter, Dusty’s brother-in-law, has just heard that Demuth’s is finally making its move to replace wooden figures with cast iron—and, obliviously, sides with progress, sending Major Hennaberry into a rage.
A sea voyage Walter is carried aboard Bully Coyle’s ship unconscious to enjoy a regime of healthy exercise: a sea voyage to Amoy by way of the Straits, prescribed by the good doctor. brings, To head off the Major’s fury, Dusty suggests a drink—a Rat Nolan special. Walter cries To progress!, drains half his glass, and his face turns green, then white, as he slides sideways into Rat Nolan’s arms—mickeyed.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Ivan and Nelson, Two strangers in borrowed clothes whom Omar Kennicott, the moonshiner of Santiago, Idaho, brings to the Volunteer Fire Department Benefit Ball. They speak no language anyone there knows. From Avram Davidson’s Fair Trade.
one floating, one slicing, Ivan slices the necks off the moonshine jugs with a device like a nail file; Nelson, drunk, strips to patterned tights and floats eight feet in the air.
Nail-files for wristwatches, Lex Muller of the American Legion trades his wristwatch for one of the devices.
but no trade enticing, Lex’s plan is to give the spacemen something they would like and ask for a trade, but while they wait for their mother ship they want nothing the town can offer, not tractors, not phonographs.
Still for a privy The nail files soon run out of fuel, but the still they gave Omar, the size of a beer barrel, still works: corn in one end, the best liquor out the other.
the crescent moon brings, What they took in trade was Omar’s weather-beaten privy, with the crescent moon on the door. Omar has put in indoor plumbing.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Men with false noses On Guy Fawkes night a man wearing a false nose leads Dame Phillipa Garreck and her companion through a door that does not exist. From Avram Davidson’s What Strange Stars and Skies.
and faces gone hollow, Behind the false nose is a hollow where a nose should be; the creature the crimps serve has none either.
Phillipa Dame Phillipa Garreck, a philanthropist who walks the slums of the East End by night. singing, Underground, before a six-armed creature on an altar, Dame Phillipa sings the Doxology.
her scissors to follow, Singing, she cuts the ropes of the shanghaied captives with her scissors. A seaman and her companion escape; she does not.
Under strange stars Her cousin supposes that a strange craft went down the Thames and up into the sky, taking the captives and Dame Phillipa with it.
still the kit-bag she brings, On her rounds she carries an Army kit-bag of coins, bread and margarine, Gospels, toffees and Woodbines; her labors, the narrator trusts, still continue.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

A ducal detective Lord Darcy is the Chief Forensic Investigator for the Duke of Normandy in several stories by Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett (Randall Garrett).
Whose aide Master Sean O’Lochlainn is Lord Darcy’s magical aide. does the magic
Finds that their cases
Are often quite tragic
I hope that more stories
still lurk in the wings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Calvin In Henry Beam Piper’s novel Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Calvin Morrison is a Keystone cop who is accidentally taken into and stranded in an alternate universe by a paratime transporter: he later learns that the region is called the princedom of Hostigos. who knows his
Military history In Henry Beam Piper’s novel Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Calvin Morrison is a Keystone cop who is accidentally taken into and stranded in an alternate universe by a paratime transporter: he later learns that the region is called the princedom of Hostigos. The locals later have trouble with his American name and refer to him as Lord Kalvan.
Runs afoul of the great
Paratime mystery The existence of alternate universes and of paratime transporters has been kept a secret for thousands of years.
The hand of a lovely
Young princess Princess Rylla, the daughter of Prince Ptosphes of Hostigos. it brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Peasants are Calvin is eating dinner with a Hostigi family with whom he does not share a common language when they are interrupted by a small party of raiders from Nostor, a neighboring country. He helps his hosts fight off the raiders, taking their horses and weapons as spoils. fleeing Calvin and his hosts see smoke from a nearby village and a group of villagers fleeing from more raiders.
’Till Kalvan The locals later have trouble with Calvin Morrison’s American name and refer to him as Lord Kalvan. takes over Calvin rallies the villagers and leads them in a successful counterattack.
They win the fight but he’s
Shot Princess Rylla is leading a counterattack from the rear and shoots Calvin, mistaking him for a Nostori soldier. Upon discovering her error, she has him taken in and cared for. by his lover
A chance to win glory
And power it brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Some yell in terror
But he can yell louder
He teaches Prince Ptosphes
How to make gunpowder The making of fireseed (gunpowder) is a temple secret of Styphon’s House. Kalvan laughs.
To the priests of Styphon
A gauntlet he flings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

They thought they were lost Styphon’s House has decreed a ban on selling gunpowder to Hostigos and is supporting Nostor’s plan to conquer Hostigos. but
Their hopes When Kalvan teaches the Hostigi to make a superior grade of gunpowder, they become optimistic. he’s igniting
Yet he can’t keep Rylla his
Love from the fighting Rylla is assertive, and insists on participating in the defense of her homeland; Neither her father Ptosphes nor her fiancé Kalvan can dissuade her, even after she breaks her leg in battle.
He is a rival
To all the great kings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Oversized lizards Adzel is a reptilian alien partnered with the human David Falkayn in Trader Team by Poul Anderson.
With partners named David David Falkayn in Trader Team by Poul Anderson.
Who trade with sophonts
who sometimes are rabid
Finding new planets
With glorious rings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Operation Changeling (Part 1) from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1969 Operation Changeling (Part 2) from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1969 Witches and werewolves Werewolf Steven Matuchek and his wife Virginia (Ginny) Graylock
Whose babies are taken Agents of the Hell World have replaced their daughter Valeria with a changeling
Don’t take it lightly Steve and Ginny invade the Hell World to rescue Val.
The Hell World is shaken Steve and Ginny summon a whole pantheon of supernatural beings from other universes.
See angry parents
Operation Chaos Rescue their changelings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Ore train in darkness, Clearing a jam in a shaft of the Malabar Mine, the mining engineer Paul Formain is carried up into the dark on the last ore car.
Half-buried, unmoving, He comes out into the sunlight half-buried in the ore, and unmoving.
Losing his left arm, He loses his left arm.
A club, its strength proving, The right arm grows into a great living club of bone and muscle; in a hotel room it crumples a pewter vase.
Kantele singing Kantele Maki sings a song that Walter Blunt, Guildmaster of the Chantry Guild, wrote for her: In apple comfort, long I waited thee.
Of autumn and springs, Through lonely autumn and uncertain springtime, the singer’s longing is not sated.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Blunt’s cane for Malorn, Kevin Malorn, a drug addict, pulls a gun on Paul; the walking stick Blunt left behind leaps in Paul’s grasp and splits his skull.
Security closing, James Butler, security agent of the Koh-i-Nor Hotel, and his men hunt Paul through the hotel.
Sixty floors falling, Paul catches up Kantele and steps off a terrace sixty levels up, in a one-man parachute copter from her handbag.
With Kantele dozing, She lies against his shoulder, eyes closed, as if she had surrendered; Jase Warren, the Necromancer, opens a window just in time.
Lyke-wake dirge chanting, In a fog of incense, Jase in a hooded cloak and Kantele chant an old north-of-England corpse chant: Destruction take thee alle.
Through no-time he springs, A block of blasting jelly goes off. Jase and Kantele are gone, and Paul escapes the explosion into no-time.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Squirrels in ambush Hunting in the Wisconsin Dells, he lets the gray squirrels come close; three tip his rifle against his chest, and a fourth leaps for the trigger.
A squirrel’s neck breaking, He catches the leaper in midair and breaks its neck; it is like an amputation. Jase greets him: Congratulations—Necromancer.
Deep in the Complex, Down in the Super-Complex, the world’s great computer, the machine calls Paul insane.
The Supe’s voice is speaking, You are the destroyer of mankind. … I know you, Necromancer.
Hurled to the Dog Star, The accelerator flings him through no-time to New Earth, under Sirius and its companion, in a drone officially reported lost.
Where poison air clings, Outside is air choking with hydrogen sulphide, and Blunt’s cane leaning against a boulder. Paul breaks the window, seizes the cane, and dies.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Twenty full fathoms Evoking Ariel’s song: Full twenty-fathoms times five, thy body lies.
Times five, chain-wrapped, lying, Off La Jolla his bodiless identity hovers over a skeleton wrapped and weighted with chain, and is relieved to find it died a natural death.
Frozen, reborn, he He wakes frozen in a cold-storage drawer, in a new body with two good arms; a note from Blunt on the wall: join us in suite 1243.
Above the streets flying, On the Night of Destruct his body floats above the walks of the dark Complex, past a lamppost turned to candy cane, a melting monument and a roaring stone lion.
Doing just nothing, Blunt names Paul head of the Chantry Guild; Paul gives it to Jase: I’m going to do nothing. Mankind must fragment, so that each facet can grow.
He cuts all the strings, Blunt had plans for him. Who animated Paul Formain’s body, Blunt asks? Once, I was a professional soldier.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Cups and the sugar, Aboard the liner to Kultis, Lieutenant Colonel Cletus Grahame plays a shell game with three cups and a sugar cube for Dow deCastries, Outworlds Secretary for the Coalition.
Beneath all three hiding, deCastries finds the cube three times and will not lift the middle cup; Cletus had palmed two more, and there was one under every cup.
Fencing, a feint, then The tactics of mistake: as in fencing, lead the opponent through a series of small, easy errors.
Dow’s errors deciding, Cletus means to draw deCastries into larger and larger conflicts, until his own cumulative errors of judgment destroy him.
Playing dead, Cletus When guerrillas ambush the command car on the road to Bakhalla, Cletus lies in the ditch by the dead driver, letting them shoot away the dead man’s upflung hand.
The dally gun sings, Then the dally gun, a riot gun that can fire anything from a pellet to a canister shell, cuts down the rush on the car.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Seven at Etter’s At Etter’s Pass, Lieutenant Bill Athyer leaves Cletus Corporal Ed Jarnki and six men; with singleton mines, a cone rifle and an electric horse, Cletus herds three guerrilla columns to one ford.
Completely surrounded, Through a loudspeaker horn: You are completely surrounded. Forty-three guerrillas surrender to seven men.
Tide at the new moon, A new moon and an unusually high tide: Cletus takes Melissa Khan up the river in Commander Wefer Linet’s Mark V submarine dozer, where the crew address her as Colonel.
The launches all grounded, The dozer builds a ramp across the channel; twenty launches towing drogue pods run aground, and a wave from its blade drives the rest ashore.
Needed by Bat like General Bat Traynor had asked for a dozen jungle-breaker tanks, and got Cletus instead.
Like orchestra strings, He needs a book tactician, Bat says, like a hundred-piece symphony orchestra.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Locked in his office, As the Neulanders cross Etter’s Pass, Cletus lures Bat into his booby-trapped office and leaves him locked in for the weekend; to Colonel Dupleine’s orders he answers No.
The Dorsais are dropping, Dorsai jump troops drop upriver behind both Neulander forces.
Fathom of water Wefer’s Mark V’s raise an underwater ridge below Two Rivers until six feet of water stand above the town.
Through shallows, not stopping, Fewer than six hundred Dorsais charge six thousand through the flood; the Neulanders’ own energy beams raise a screen of steam over them, and the front ranks break.
Six thousand captured, As the water rises, the Neulanders climb the bluffs into Dorsai fire and surrender: seventy per cent of Neuland’s army.
And Eachan’s praise rings, Colonel Eachan Khan: Well done, sir. Brilliantly done.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Miracle healing, The leg must come off above the knee, and his body rejects grafts; with the Exotic Mondar’s exercises and a token graft from his right knee, the left knee grows back whole.
On Dorsai, the training, A Dorsai now, Cletus climbs, runs and swims at Foralie, and teaches his officers to tap hidden reserves: a man and a half.
Forced to the wedding, On the wedding day Melissa says she has changed her mind. Cletus straps on his sidearm; to keep him and her father from killing each other, she goes through with it.
No love, he’s explaining, As a Dorsai’s wife she has lost her Earth citizenship, so deCastries cannot draw her, and Eachan after her, to Earth. Then you never did love me? Did I ever say I did?
Fifty a day, through On Newton, Cletus and two hundred picked men cross the forest on foot, better than fifty miles a day for five days.
To Watershed springs, They drink from springs under the great flesh-colored leaves, and take the Brozan stibnite mines at Watershed.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Phantom battalions, On New Earth, two leased cargo ships, their crews locked away, deliver nothing but the sound of boots; the Central Combine believes a new division has landed.
With Lu May found napping, Old General Lu May chases what he thinks is Cletus’s army toward Armoy City, halts after midnight, and wakes to find his heavy weapons burning and Cletus by his bed.
Dow on the Dorsai, deCastries, now commander of a joint Alliance–Coalition Peace Force, lands fifteen shiploads of elite troops on the Dorsai.
Old women entrapping, The women, children and old men of the Dorsai, under Vice-Marshal Arvid Johnson and Battle Operator Bill Athyer, capture them all.
Never said love, but Melissa stayed, she says, because he told her he loved her.
She kisses, and clings, You magnificent, genius-idiot! Do you think I paid any attention to what you said?
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Donal, the odd one, The boy was odd. Donal Graeme, just graduated from the Dorsai Academy, has eyes of no definite color.
Recessional singing, He remembers singing the Dorsai Hymn, Kipling’s Recessional, in the Academy chapel, and at his youngest uncle’s burial.
Greatest of all, he Drunk at the family’s drinking, he declares: I’ll be the greatest general that ever was!
Declares, the cups ringing, His father, Eachan Khan Graeme, and the twin uncles, Ian and Kensie, drink with him.
Contract for William On the ship, frightened Anea Marlivana, Select of Kultis, gives him her contract with William, Prince of Ceta, to destroy; destroying a contract means death. He gives it back to William.
Her “Cheat!” how it stings, You traitor. You cheat!
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Lee smells an ambush, On Harmony, Groupman Tage Lee, an ex-miner, smells something—sour on the wind: Orthodox elite troops, gathering.
Up trees, they’re concealing, Force-Leader Donal gets his men a dozen meters up into the trees before dawn.
Orthodox charging, Elite troops of the United Orthodox Church charge the camp and are cut down from above. When a soldier shoots a wounded man: None of that!
Hugh’s absence revealing, Commandant Hugh Killien had left his command to meet Anea secretly in the moonlit ruins of the village.
“Article Four,” and Donal arrests him under Article Four of the Mercenaries Code: a false assurance, and a command neglected in the field, cost over half his men.
The court-martial brings, I regret it was necessary to shoot him, he tells William; the court-martial left me no alternative.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Phase shift on phase shift, Acting captain, Donal leads five ships against Newton in a feint bombardment, shifting phase every few minutes until the crews black out.
“Shai Dorsai!” replying, He calls for volunteers for one more run; the scarred Dorsai Coruna el Man answers Shai Dorsai!
Two for the last run, Only el Man’s ship and Donal’s make it.
Lee, bloodied but trying, Tied in his chair, Lee has bitten through the edge of his tongue trying to break loose and get to Donal. The battle of Newton is over.
Walking on air, he On Mara, Sayona the Bond offers him the Exotic way; Donal prefers Valhalla to Nirvana. I believe you can walk on air, says Sayona, and Donal walks across the sunken garden on nothing.
Falls back from such things, In his room he walks up to the ceiling, says Ridiculous! and falls; then laughs: No, no … I’m a Dorsai!
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Ceta in one night, Protector of Procyon and commander in chief, Donal takes William’s world of Ceta in a single night.
His brother Mor broken, In his residence outside Whitetown, William shows him what he has done to Donal’s brother Mor while he waited.
Told him to suffer, Donal told William to suffer. I was wrong.
Till kind words are spoken, In the Maran hospital he lays his hand on William’s rigid brow: It’ll be all right, now.
Hooding his light, he Donal tells Sayona he is an intuitional superman; Sayona laughs, and goes away relieved that Donal is merely intuitive. As Anea says, he hoods his light so as not to blind them.
Rejoins human things, He turns from the unknown stars and goes back in, for a little while again, into the habitation of Man.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Rochmont lords seeking to
Bring Dorsai disgrace
Dorsai whose vengeance leaves
Of Rochmont no trace
A pacifist warrior who
"Su madre" sings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Graduate students English major Matthew Mantrell, in Christopher Stasheff’s novel Her Majesty’s Wizard
Who feel they’re in Hades Mathew is transported by magic into an alternate universe.
Rescue from prison
Deposed royal ladies Princess Alisande, the daughter of the deposed king of Merovence.
Summoning dragons Mathew attempts to conjure a source of light for his cell; he inadvertently summons the dragon Stegoman instead.
With tears Stegoman’s tribe ripped holes in his wings to protect themselves from his erratic behavior. in their wings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Bean-nighes and bean sidhes
with their cheerful greeting
Portend that your pleasures
Are doomed to be fleeting
Bloody detergent in Esther Friesner’s novel "Gnome Man’s Land", a Bean-nighes washes her bloody clothes at a laundromat.
To your clothing clings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Thieves dressed as boys Kim, an adolescent girl who dresses as a boy because she is afraid of being forced into a brothel if her sex is discovered. She is hired to break into the wagon of Mairelon the Magician, who does a magic show, and to look for a silver bowl.
Who are caught and coopted Kim is caught by Mairelon and coopted into assisting him in an investigation into the theft of the Saltash set, which includes the silver bowl she was asked to look for,
Help solve a case Kim discovers that Mairelon is actually Richard Merrill, a real magician and member of an aristocratic family. Mairelon, his assistant Hunch and Kim have a series of comic encounters with various suspects.
And wind up adopted Towards the end of the investigation, Kim mentions that a spell she had deliberately interrupted looked bad, and Merrill explains to Kim that only people with magical talent can see magic being used. He then proposes making her his ward and teaching her magic.
Hide behind the table Kim shoves a heavy card table into Dan Laverham, breaking his concentration on a distorted, escalating spell he can no longer control, then ducks behind the overturned table as it breaks free in a chaotic backlash.
When a foe magic flings The freed spell flings sharp-edged magical debris in every direction; Mairelon, Renée D’Auber, and Lord St. Clair together cast a defensive counter-ward against it while Kim shelters behind the table.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Students of magic Merrill is teaching Kim multiple languages and assigning magical texts for her to read.
Weighed down by their reading Merrill is giving Kim magical reading assignments in multiple languages.
Who their decorum While Merrill is somewhat unconventional and neither he nor his mother Lady Wendall are unduly concerned with decorum, his paternal aunt Agatha Lowe, living in his brother Andrew’s house and acting as a chaperone for Kim, is very much a stickler for appropriate behavior.
Not always are heeding Merril’s aunt lectures both Kim and Merrill on what she perceives as inappropriate behavior. She does, however, make limited concessions to the demands of magical training.
Latin and Greek, too, Kim is learning Latin and Greek for her magic.
and grammar that stings, Her Latin and Greek are still rudimentary; she catches perhaps one word in twenty of Mairelon’s spellcasting.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Yellow for Fulton, Mr. Henry Fulton, a well-to-do Cit whom Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Hardcastle have chosen as a husband for Kim. Mrs. Hardcastle says he is partial to yellow, so Kim is put into a pale yellow walking dress.
A fishmonger's daughter, With her hair curled for the occasion, Kim thinks she looks like a fishmonger’s daughter trying to ape Quality.
Gammon and cant Kim answers Mr. Fulton’s compliment in thieves’ cant: Don’t go pitching me no gammon. for
The Cit who had sought her,
Smelling salts, Mrs. Hardcastle, shocked, resorts to her smelling salts. laughter, Instead of taking flight, Mr. Fulton laughs.
And blushes he brings, Miss Annabel Matthews calls Kim’s past the most romantic story she has ever heard; Mr. Fulton gives her an approving look, and she blushes.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

"Your so-called ward"; Mrs. Hardcastle, at tea, pointedly: I was speaking, sir, of your so-called ward.
the snub lands, cold and cutting,
Mairelon's smile Richard Merrill, whom Kim first met as Mairelon the Magician, a street conjurer, and who is now her guardian.
as he's calmly rebutting,
Holding his aunt back, Mrs. Lowe bristles in outrage on Kim’s behalf and starts to speak, but Mairelon holds up a restraining hand — he’ll handle this himself.
her temper's quick stings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Gently he answers, Mairelon replies to Mrs. Hardcastle in a deceptively gentle tone.
Her ball you'll not care for, Then you will certainly not wish to attend her come-out ball.
Sending no card, then, I must remember not to send you a card.
A bow she's not there for, Mairelon makes an elegant bow that pointedly excludes Mrs. Hardcastle while including the other ladies present, then ushers Kim and his thunderstruck aunt, Mrs. Lowe, from the room.
By her own malice hoist, Evoking the iconic hoist with his own petard (Shakespeare, Hamlet).
hark, bon ton Fashionable society. sings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Monkey loose, leaping, Maximillian, Lady Wendall’s monkey, escapes from his overturned wicker cage as her luggage is carried in.
A-shriek on the railing, He leaps onto the banister and shrieks defiance at his pursuers; Kim catches him, and he relieves himself on her skirt.
Footmen a-scramble,
A housemaid a-wailing,
Mairelon's mother Lady Wendall, Merrill’s mother: a tiny doll of a woman whose cheerful smile is the mirror of his.
And trunks that she brings, She has come to stay for the Season, without warning Mrs. Lowe.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Monkey brains, dainty, Pahari Singh, an old friend of Merrill’s father from India, sent Lady Wendall three monkeys; monkey brains are considered a delicacy in India.
But not to be eaten, Lady Wendall couldn’t bear to have Maximillian slaughtered.
Agatha's fork down, Mrs. Lowe, hearing that the monkey was meant as a serving, sets her fork down beside her unfinished breakfast.
Her appetite beaten,
Proper, but not her: I didn’t say it was inappropriate. I said it was unbecoming. Lady Wendall adds that Merrill has Kim rigged out like a greengrocer’s daughter.
New fashion she brings, Lady Wendall sends for Madame Chandelaine, the best dressmaker in London.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Auburn-haired wizard Mademoiselle Renée D’Auber, a French wizard and a friend of Merrill’s since Kim’s first adventure with him.
With Gallic precision,
Shun the debut and Kim doesn’t want a come-out; Renée tells her a wizard is expected to be entirely original.
You'll court their derision, If Kim is not presented, people will wonder why, and some will think she cannot truly be a wizard.
Out goes the yellow, At the dressmaker’s, Renée vetoes yellow: For Kim, it is a color entirely unbecoming.
And lilac she brings, The dressmaker turns to white sarcenet and lilac instead.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Grimly with poker Mrs. Lowe, grimly determined, wields the fireplace poker like a club.
She bats the book flying, A spell-driven book, Marie de Cambriol’s blue livre de mémoire, has been hurling itself about the library.
"Cricket?" he twits her, A nice flush hit! Have you ever thought of playing cricket, Aunt?
While Tess is a-crying, Tess, a housemaid, cowers behind Mrs. Lowe in the corner.
Slap for hysterics, When Tess has strong hysterics, Lady Wendall slaps her out of them.
And brandy she brings, Lady Wendall sends Tess and Harry the footman to the kitchen to settle their nerves. Mrs. Lowe: He’ll be into the brandy for certain. Lady Wendall: That is precisely what I intend.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Scandal, but usual: Lady Wendall warns Merrill that his reputation cannot stand another scandal, unless it is a more usual sort. She has not yet thought of the most usual sort of all.
Some other man's wife, dear, She would rather he didn’t lose his fortune at cards, but if he could contrive to fall in love with someone’s wife, that might answer.
Never a duel Dueling over the lady would be Much too far.
To cut short your life, dear,
Agatha's scandalized Mrs. Lowe would rather he were advised to behave with propriety.
By such usual things,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

"Quite enough of that!" As Mannering casts a spell to seize Kim’s magic, Mrs. Lowe steps in front of her.
His thievery foiling, Mannering’s spell takes other wizards’ magical power for his own.
Nothing to steal, so Mrs. Lowe is no wizard, so the spell has no power of hers to take.
The spell is recoiling, The spell recoils on Mannering, who clutches his head. Mrs. Lowe: I must say that I think he deserves it.
Years among wizards, I have not spent years as a member of a family rife with wizards without learning some of the basic principles involved in magic!
The theory it brings, One need not have the ability in order to understand the theory, after all.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Mannering preens; I cast all my spells in English, he says, proud to be an English wizard, and prouder still that he’s had his fellow conspirators do the same.
he's a fool who's not learning,
"Oaf!" You are a blithering idiot, Kim snarls — casting in English lets power spill in uncontrolled, a danger her own botched experiment had already taught her firsthand. Kim snaps back,
and your vanity's burning,
Crack When Mannering grabs her arm to stop her leaving, Kim answers with the heel of her palm to his chin, dropping him where he stands. of her palm,
and the pain that it brings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Mrs. Lowe jabs
with her sunshade, Not just yet, I think, Mrs. Lowe murmurs, and jabs the downed Mannering with the point of her sunshade — further proof that the prim chaperone is anything but a bystander. unblinking,
She bars the door, Mrs. Lowe scoops up the wooden shaft Mannering was lying on and bars the rear door herself, then goes to fetch Hunch the moment Kim tells her to.
from the fray she's not shrinking,
Trussed up Hunch binds and gags Mannering in seconds — he’s done it before, for Merrill’s wilder scrapes — and Mrs. Lowe rides the whole way back beside him, stiff with disapproval but never once objecting to what they’ve done. like roast pig,
she Mannering brings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Back to the ballroom, Kim races back to Grosvenor Square with Mannering trussed up in the coach.
the spell nearly ended, The Duchesse Delagardie is speaking the closing words; interrupting now would shatter the spell.
Into the star, she, Kim waves Mairelon out of the six-pointed star and steps into his place.
by power upended, The power crashes down on her, and she collapses into Mairelon’s arms.
Rescue their teacher Merrill stands at the center of the six-pointed star while six wizards cast the counterspell to restore his magic; Kim has learned that, linked through Mannering’s power-sharing spell, it will destroy his mind. She waves him out of the star and takes his place as the last word is spoken, and the power crashes down on her instead.
And get wedding rings Merrill proposes to Kim after she recovers from her participation in the spell. Lady Wendall, recalling her advice, finds marrying his ward exactly the sort of usual scandal she had in mind.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Kisses her senseless, The instant Kim comes to after the spell-trade, a panic-stricken Mairelon says Thank God! and kisses her.
and mother's delighted,
Not here, in public, Lady Wendall approves at once (Marrying your ward is exactly the sort of usual scandal I had in mind); Mrs. Lowe’s only complaint is timing — such things should wait until after the notice appears in the Gazette. And in private.
Aunt sniffs, unexcited,
Kim says just "Yes," Mairelon, misunderstanding, thinks Kim balks at marrying a toff like him; she corrects him — she meant the marquis she’d been offered, not him. Then you would? he asks. You’ve whiddled it, she tells him, in her old thieves’-cant way of saying he’s got it right.
and it's soon wedding rings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Small gentle Due to the native predators on Sphinx, treecats have evolved an impressive ability to defend themselves, and it would be a fatal error to assume due to their gentle nature that they are helpless. treecats Treecats are a highly social nonverbal species native to the planet Sphinx in the Manticore binary star system. While telepathic among themselves, they are only able to read human emotions.
With friends that are royal The House of Winton is a protector of treecats. The reigning Elizabeth Adrienne Samantha Annette Winton (Queen Elizabeth III) has bonded with a treecat.
Humans with treecats Stephanie Harrington was the first human to bond with a treecat; Honor Harrington’s own bond with Nimitz came generations later.
To whom they are loyal
Mess with their two-legs This refers to an assassination attempt against Grayson Planetary Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX at a banquet honoring Honor Harrington. Honor and her treecat Nimitz are severely injured while defending Mayhew.
And see what that brings This refers to the damage that Nimitz inflicts on the assassins.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Celery bandits Treecats raid human greenhouses on Sphinx for celery, a Terran import.
Who raid in the thunder, The thefts come at night in bad weather; Climbs Quickly raids the Harrington greenhouse during a thunderstorm.
Caught on a camera Stephanie Harrington, eleven, wires an ultraviolet alarm to her camera and films the thief at the greenhouse louver.
By eyes full of wonder, Stephanie is delighted to have found a new intelligent species, and Climbs Quickly senses her delight through her mind glow.
Cluster stalk The treecats’ name for celery, which sharpens their telepathic mind voices. carried
In nets Climbs Quickly carries two heads of celery home in a woven net slung on his back. that he slings,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Stephanie’s Stephanie Harrington, the first human to bond with a treecat. glider Flying her hang glider alone toward Climbs Quickly, Stephanie is overtaken by a squall and crashes into a treetop.
Is torn up and shattered; The glider is smashed; Stephanie breaks her left arm and a rib and gashes her knee.
Climbs Quickly, Climbs Quickly, a scout of Bright Water Clan and the treecat who raided the greenhouse. fighting
The death fang, The treecats’ name for the hexapuma, Sphinx’s six-legged apex predator; this one is a female with a new litter nearby. is battered; Climbs Quickly fights the hexapuma alone to draw it away from Stephanie, until a blow flings him against a tree with his right forelimb mangled.
Wounded, Stephanie has a broken arm, a broken rib, and a gashed knee. she slashes, Stephanie drives her vibro blade survival knife into the hexapuma’s flank and stands between it and Climbs Quickly.
And down his clan Bright Water Clan, summoned by Climbs Quickly through his sister Sings Truly, pours down from the trees and kills the hexapuma. springs,
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Stephanie Stephanie Harrington, eleven, with a broken arm of her own. binds him Stephanie ties a tourniquet on Climbs Quickly’s mangled forelimb with her jacket’s drawstring and a pocket stylus, and the bleeding stops.
And tucks him Stephanie lifts Climbs Quickly one-handed and holds him against her to fight his shock and blood loss. inside her
Jacket for warmth, Stephanie’s own body heat, through her unsealed flying jacket. with
His clansfolk More than two hundred treecats of Bright Water Clan ring Stephanie and Climbs Quickly, crooning, two of them pressed against her sides. beside her;
Homeward by air car, Stephanie’s parents find her by her com’s beacon; her father, a xeno-veterinarian, says Climbs Quickly will live but will probably lose the forelimb.
To sleep her love sings, Climbs Quickly falls asleep in the air car to the welcome and love of Stephanie’s mind glow.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Pavel cornered Honor,
alone in the shower Refers to Pavel Young’s attempted sexual assault on Honor Harrington in a Saganami Island Naval Academy shower room when both were cadets. ,
Though she broke his bones Honor, acting in self-defense, beat Young badly, and would later regard herself as having let him off too easily given what he attempted. ,
still she feared Honor never files a formal complaint over the assault — a silence that costs her later. the Youngs’ power
The sad consequences, Young’s desertion resurfaces at Basilisk Station: as senior officer of the picket, he takes his ship, HMS Warlock, off to Manticore for an unnecessary refit, abandoning Honor as the system’s sole defender and setting her up to take the blame.
that forbearance Years later, Honor challenges Young to a duel — legally sanctioned combat — after he hires a professional duelist to kill Tankersley rather than face him himself. brings, Young breaks dueling protocol and fires early, hitting her shoulder while her back is still turned; the neutral referee moves to shoot Young for the violation, but the text is explicit that Honor’s own return fire kills him first — the referee’s shots strike Young only after he is already dead.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Audubon dancers The Audubon Ballroom is an antislavery organization widely considered to be terrorist. who
Will not be chattels
Have strange bedfellows
To help with their battles
With secret agents
They sometimes have flings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Tinker Alexander Graham Bell (Tinker) is the title character in Wen Spencer’s novel Tinker the genius
Who’s brave, fierce and loyal
Twice saves Windwolf Wolf Who Rules Wind, the viceroy of the westernlands of Elfhome
Who is nearly royal
A very large magnet Tinker uses an electromagnet on a crane in her junkyard to disrupt the magically enlarged foo dogs attacking Windwolf, which she initially confuses with wargs.
That to foo dogs clings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Fake EIA Earth Interdimensional Agency agents
Who really are Oni Elves of the Skin clan and their creations.
Tinker unaware One might think that overhearing He is here. Laid out like the dead. Easy prey. ... Do them all. Quietly. would be a hint. that
The agents are phony
To her rescue mission
Stout courage she brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Tinker and Oilcan Orville John Wright (Oilcan) is sensitive about his real name. when
Crashing the border Oilcan, Tinker and Windwolf are pursued by Oni disguised as agents of the Earth Interdimensional Agency (EIA) while waiting for startup. At startup they crash through a barricade and proceed on to an elven hospice in search of medical care for the seriously injured Windwolf.
Elves at the hospice
Soon bring things to order Real EIA agents, unaware of the fake ones, pursue Tinker and Oilcan. When pursuing EIA agents arrest Tinker and Oilcan for crashing the barricade, the elves intervene. What’s he saying? ... He’s saying ‘Hands off the kids or we’ll break your face.’
Their care of the duo After Windwolf is treated, he notices that Tinker’s hand is infected and demands that the elves in the hospice treat her.
Recovery brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Tinker taken in by
Tooloo’s deceiving
Misunderstands Windwolf’s
We are not even
A lesson in linguistic
Details it brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Director Maynard Derek Maynard, director of the Earth Interdimensional Agency (EIA)
Averting a crisis If the elves believe that the EIA is trying to murder Windwolf, it could lead to a genocidal war.
Tinker telling Maynard Maynard has drafted Tinker to identify items in a batch of contraband.
What each strange device is
A bonus Maynard allows Tinker to take some of the contraband as compensation for her assistance that Tinker
To her junkyard brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Windwolf telling Tinker
It’s not you who owe me The elf Tooloo told Tinker that she owes a life debt to Windwolf, a lie of epic proportions; it is Windwolf who owes a life debt to Tinker.
You saved my life twice Tinker saved Windwolf once as a young girl from a saurus (a natural, dinosaur-like reptile) and once as an adult from the "wargs" — actually magically enlarged foo dogs; real wargs are a separate, genuinely engineered species in their own right, but not what attacked this time.
Brave Tinker ze domi A polite greeting recognizing Tinker as a member of the Domana caste.
A mark a blue triangle, called a dau, that Windwolf places on Tinker’s forehead after she accepts two ceremonial gifts from him, which he mistakenly assumes that she recognizes as betrothal gifts. on her forehead
That big changes The dau signifies that Tinker is adopted into the Domana caste, betrothed to Windwolf and under his personal protection. brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

NSA The National Security Agency, an intelligence agency tasked with protecting our communication and compromising enemy communication. The NSA does not have authority, experience, mandate, resources or training for the mission described in the novel, and any of CIA, DIA, FBI, would have been more plausible. agents with
No erudition Agents Corg Durrack and Hannah Briggs have not the faintest clue about the geography, laws, politics or treaty that affect their mission. Any real operative would have been briefed.
Kidnap Tinker on a
bungled mission.
Diplomatic tension is
What the pair brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Elves at Poppymeadow An enclave of Wind clan elves
Greet Tinker ze domi
Tinker in love asks After abandoning Nathan Czernowski for making aggressive and unwanted advances during a date that he had agreed would be low key, Tinker asks Windwolf to make love to her.
Windwolf, won’t you show me
A misunderstood spell Windwolf casts a spell on Tinker. Tinker misunderstands We are at a branching. ... To the left, every path leads to death. No matter which way you go, you will die. as referring to a disease, but it actually refers to being human and hence mortal.
Immortality brings The spell is intended to make Tinker an elf of Windwolf’s Domana caste.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Pony Nearing his majority, a sekasha may offer his oath to whomever he chooses. Windwolf expected the offer to come to him—Pony offered it to Tinker instead. offering service
To guard and protect her
For holding sekasha
The elves will respect her
The rise in her status Windwolf tells her plainly that this brings her honor, since not everyone can hold a sekasha; once accepted, the bond can’t be unmade. Tinker, true to form, says yes before she understands what she’s agreed to.
That his service brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Nathan unconcerned
That Tinker is younger After Windwolf’s spell remade Tinker as an elf, Nathan decides the transformation erased the years that had stopped him before.
Loses control and
Gives in to his hunger
Pony’s sharp sword Pony stops the assault before it goes further.
At his neck it brings
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

Strong women knowing Several of the women this song has sung of.
their worth and their measure,
A rifle, a dragon, Julie Sims’ scoped Remington; Lessa Impressing the newly hatched queen Ramoth — a sudden, lifelong bond, the same shape as a treecat bonding.
a hard-won treasure, The silver Balthazar Abrabanel was carrying: a chest of guilders belonging to Gustav Adolf, entrusted to him for delivery. Mackay, Gustav’s own captain, had been sent to collect it; Mike’s rescue is what kept it out of Tilly’s hands.
Read from Mishlei, Esheth chayil, in Mishlei (Proverbs).
recognition it brings, Reading it and recognizing these same women in it.
These are a few of
My favorite things.

[hook]

A woman of valor Proverbs 31:10. ,
her worth beyond measure, A closing nod to several of the women sung of here and in the companion songs My Favorite Harpers, My Favorite Shards and My Favorite Vors, not a claim that each one fits the Proverbs 31 mold specifically: among them Gretchen Richter, Rebecca Abrabanel, Julie Sims, Sharon Nichols, Cordelia Vorkosigan, Ekaterin Vorsoisson, Alys Vorpatril, Honor and Stephanie Harrington, Lessa, Tinker, Princess Rylla, Lady Wendall, Agatha Lowe, and Kim.
she girds on her strength,
and shields her whole treasure;
her hands to the needy,
whatever it brings —
These are a few of
My favorite things.