Episode 4: Blue Devils
1893.
Penelope is back in San Francisco, with two new travelling companions –
including Alan Macleod, a 20th century writer, very eager to meet
the great Ambrose Bierce in person! But the Time Lady soon discovers that mysterious
forces are at work in the Paris of the West, fourteen years after her last
visit. Her investigations lead to an unexpected reunion…
Episode 5: The Magic of Cities
Delving
further into the mystery of magus Thibaut de Castries’ transition from history
to fiction, Penelope uncovers the weirdest of timey-wimey conundrums. The trail
leads her from the 1978 Sci-Fi World Conn to a lonely cabin in the woods in
1928 and finally to a hotel room with a view on the Abyss. Featuring Fritz
Leiber, C.A. Smith and the unforgettable Donaldo!
This diptych continued and concluded my riff on Fritz Leiber's "Our Lady of Darkness" (started in episode 2), which proved to be a really fun ride, with Penelope going to and fro through different eras of San Francisco history (1893 then 1978 then 1928...) to solve the "timey-wilmey conundrum" mentioned above - the mystery of Thibaut de Castries' disappearance from History along with his elusive book on megapolisomancy - except from one single copy, which seemed to be miraculously protected from the ravages of time and the enigmatic aforementioned "erasing force"...
I realized afterwards that the whole thing had a somewhat Umberto Eco-esque vibe (well, if you replaced medieval Europe with XIX-XXth century San Francisco, Aristotle's lost tome on comedy with De Castrie's grimoire, the old, mad, blind librarian by an old, mad, almost undead De Castries and medieval monks by real-life fantasy writers - Ambrose Bierce (see the start of the season), Clark Ashton Smith and Fritz Leiber... well, okay, I guess that, in the end, all these unconscious "Name of the Rose" echoes probably seem a bit far-fetched but you know...).
Episode 5 included two very memorable meetings with historical personages: the aforementioned "unforgettable Donaldo" (more on him below) and a 1928 Clark Ashton Smith as a lonely, hermitic Dreamer in his famous cabin in the woods.
So who is Donaldo, you ask? His real name is Donald Sidney-Fryer - a larger-than-life (but completely authentic) individual - modern-day troubadour, scholar of poetry and fantasy fiction (the greatest authority on Clark Ashton Smith). He was the model for the character of "Donaldus" in Fritz Leiber's novel. I found out about Mr. Sidney-Fryer while researching historical details of Clark Ashton Smith's life and I was instantly fascinated. And so was Penelope, who met him in 1978.
These two episodes also provided some very funny interactions between Penelope and one of her new travelling companions, Alan Macleod, an obscure (and, for one, entirely fictional) writer of ghost stories in his early sixties named - their meeting with Fritz Leiber at the 36th World Science Fiction convention (in 1978 Phoenix) quickly turned into a neatly-packed, destined-to-be-remembered comedy scene, in which I (once again) marveled at Sylvie's gift for improvised witty dialogue.
At the end of episode 5, having defeated the De Castries menace, (once again) foiled the rebirth of Carcosa and ticked all the timey-wimey boxes, Lady Penelope decided to stay for a while in 1928 San Francisco... which will, of course, be the setting for our next episode!
