《All Laced Up》作者： - A. Bertram Chandler【EPUB】

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All Laced Up BERTRAM CHANDLER To the science fiction writer, anything is grist to the mill. Even the simplest object can be made the basis of a story; sf is, after all, a tool rather than a literary form. In “All Laced Up”, Bertram Chandler takes as the subject of a story the cast iron “lace” so common around Sydney’s older suburbs and currently much admired by decorators. His approach to the story is witty and imaginative, and at its centre there is the same glow of insight which motivates the best sf. From now on, we can never take iron lace for granted—nor, for that matter, anything else, no matter how prosaic it may seem. Though born in Britain, Bertram Chandler has adopted Australia and been adopted by it. Captain of a freighter plying Australian coastal waters, he is undoubtedly the most successful writer of science fiction working in the country at the moment, with some dozens of novels to his credit and a career extending back to the early forties. Source: New Worlds, November 1961. * * * * She said, “We must get some iron lace ...” I looked up from the Sunday paper, regarded her. She was wearing the rather rapt expression that I have come to associate with inspiration. It becomes her—but it is an expression that I have learned almost to dread. “Iron lace?” I asked cautiously.