The Green Rabbit from S'Rian
Publication(s)
- First publication
- Liavek, ed. Will Shetterly and Emma Bull, 1985
- Wolfe collection(s)
- Storeys from the Old Hotel (1988)
Wolfe's comments from the Introduction to Storeys from the Old Hotel
"'The Green Rabbit from S'Rian' was written for the Liavek series edited by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull. The idea was to make up a fictional city-state (Liavek) with its surrounding geography, technology, religions, laws of magic, and so on and so forth, and to persuade a variety of authors to submit stories laid there; compilations of this rather freakish kind are called shared-world anthologies. 'The Green Rabbit from S'Rian' was my first contribution and appeared in the first book in the series.
"It was not well received. A great part of the fun of these anthologies lies in shared jokes; in this one, for example, a vicious camel was featured in one story, shot in another, cooked and eaten in a third, appeared as a ghost in a fourth, and so on. I was told about this serial camel and urged to include it somehow in my own story, but I couldn't see how it could be made to fit. I hope that you will enjoy my story anyway -- a magical jade rabbit should be fun enough, I think, without a resurrected camel for company."
Summary
Naval captain Tev Noen recruits a gang of mysterious nomads to make up his crew, and is assigned a lucrative mission retrieving a jade rabbit, found in the ruins of an ancient city and subsequently stolen. The rabbit is suspected to have powers of conferring or enhancing fertility. Noen pursues the enemy ship suspected of carrying the thief, and battle ensues. The enemies have a magician, and the nomads turn out to be descended from the old city and also after the rabbit for themselves. Eventually the rabbit falls in the sea, to the expected benefit of fisherfolk.
Analysis
- "Villainous saltpetre" is from Shakespeare (Henry IV Pt. 1) and refers to gunpowder.