More deep dives into the future

Google's NotebookLM is my latest toy. I've been having a blast unleashing it on various books of mine, game write-ups, favourite novels, etc, and listening to the podcast discussions it generates. They're not perfect -- a bit repetitive, and sometimes the virtual hosts get the wrong end of the stick, but this is still in experimental mode. Imagine what it will be like in a couple of years. And NotebookLM also has a serious use as a tool for writers. That's my excuse for playing with it, anyway.

Here are a few of its analyses; you'll need a Google account to listen to them.

Can You Brexit (Without Breaking Britain)?

"Can You Brexit is a political thriller that follows a fictional British prime minister as they navigate the complexities of Brexit negotiations. The book explores a variety of potential Brexit outcomes, including a 'hard Brexit' where Britain leaves the European Union and the single market, a 'soft Brexit' where Britain leaves the EU but remains in the single market, and a 'Swiss model' where Britain has a more limited relationship with the EU. The book delves into the internal political pressures the player faces as they attempt to negotiate a Brexit deal that satisfies both their own party and the British public."

Listen to the Deep Dive discussion here.

The Conclave 

"The story follows a group of wizards on a quest to find a prismatic jewel in a labyrinth on the island of Tartuva. They are hunted by a powerful adversary named Pale, who seeks to erase all names in the world. The wizards are aided by various spirits, including Surma, a wizard who is worshipped as a god, and Wax, a shaman who can communicate with the dead. The story highlights the importance of names in the world, and the struggle between those who seek to control them and those who seek to preserve them."

Listen to the Deep Dive discussion (admittedly with a few hallucinations about the plot) here.

Dark Lord: The Early Years

"The story of Dirk Lloyd, a young boy who believes he is the Dark Lord transported to Earth by a magical mishap. While he grapples with his new reality, Dirk tries to adapt to life as a human child, and plots to reclaim his powers. The novel delves into themes of identity, power, friendship and good versus evil, with a darkly humorous tone."

Hear those puny mortal AIs talk about the great Dirk here.

Down Among the Dead Men

"The story follows the player-character as they navigate treacherous seas, battle pirates, face undead monsters and ancient demigods, and ultimately try to rescue Queen Titania from the clutches of the villainous Captain Skarvench."

Listen to the Deep Dive discussion here.

Dragon Warriors

"From the medieval-inspired kingdom of Albion to the exotic Ta’ashim lands, the game portrays a vibrant and diverse world with distinct societal structures, belief systems, and unique inhabitants."

Here are the automaton town criers to tell you all about it.

Florien

"Diana encounters a mysterious and alluring young man called Florien. The novel is characterised by a romantic and supernatural tone, with Florien appearing and disappearing at will, leaving Diana to wonder about his true nature and his relationship to the girl, Janice, who lives in a dark and forbidding manor house. It explores themes of obsession, captivity, and the allure of the dark and dangerous, particularly Diana's attraction to Florien and his mysterious and potentially sinister nature."

See what the Deep Dive hosts made of it here.

The Hammer of the Sun

"The Great River lies barren, its lifeblood drained by an ancient curse. Journey through scorching sands and forgotten ruins, where sphinxes guard lost secrets and skeletal Spartoi wage perpetual war. Explore a vast open world where brooding sphinxes, proud Amazons, and forgotten gods cross your path. Uncover the mysteries of Iskandria, a once-great city now lost to time, and face challenges that will test your courage and cunning. Seek out mythical creatures, confront deadly foes, and collect powerful artifacts as you race against time to restore balance to the land. Will you become a legend, or be forgotten beneath the relentless hammer of the Sun?"

Listen to the Deep Dive discussion here.

Lifeform Three

"The story of Paftoo, an artificial 'bod' in a dystopian future who works at Harkaway Hall, a nature reserve created from the ruins of a lost civilisation. Paftoo has no memory of his past, and his life is a constant cycle of work and night mode, where his mind is wiped clean. The novel explores themes of memory, identity, and the nature of reality as Paftoo tries to piece together fragments of his past and understand the true nature of the world he lives in."

Watch the bods discuss it on YouTube.

A Minotaur at the Savoy

"A series of letters sent to the Royal Mythological Society from individuals across the globe, detailing their encounters with fantastical creatures and events during the Year of Wonders, a period in which the lines between reality and imagination became blurred. The letters are a mixture of the mundane and the extraordinary, with correspondents reporting on everything from mischievous fairies and shape-shifting demons to giant birds carrying people off to ancient palaces. The letters serve as a humorous record of this extraordinary time, offering a glimpse into the impact of fantastical occurrences on everyday life."

Listen to the Deep Dive hosts talk about it here.

Necklace of Skulls

"The adventure involves the player taking on the role of a Mayan character searching for their lost brother in a fantastical mythological realm, encountering various challenges and finally confronting the semi-divine mage Necklace of Skulls, who may or may not be an aspect of the god of death."

Listen to the Deep Dive discussion here.

Richer source material typically inspires the AI to give a more interesting discussion. There's more depth to a novel like Lifeform Three than you'll find in any gamebook, even Heart of Ice. On the other hand, here's a case of our virtual hosts rising to a seemingly impossible challenge and acquitting themselves well.

Fantasy for the fireside

With the nights drawing in and Halloween approaching, it's time to think about reading matter for that snug little nook by the pub fireside. You're going to want a bit of fantasy, a bit of whimsy, some dry humour to wash down with a good pint, and just the occasional gust of spooky chill to make you appreciate the warmth indoors.

One of my favourites of my own books is A Minotaur at the Savoy. If that cuts no ice, let me just add that it's one of Jamie's favourites too, and he (along with Freya Hartas) won the Roald Dahl humour prize. You get fifty vignettes in the urbane fantasy genre in the form of correspondence to the Royal Mythological Society in the year 1901 -- when, as the cognoscenti know, a green comet stirred everything up by dissolving the boundary between the real and the imaginary. And that's no bull.

Previously documented incidents from the Year of Wonders include:

• Beach babes
• Buying a used car
• The Cerne Abbas giant
• Free wishes
• Gargoyle trouble
• A hand in a wood
• Indigestion
• Journey to the moon
• Martian government
• Mysterious footprints on the Strand
• That's amore
• Thor v Hercules
• Too much magic
• and the minotaur himself.

From Hercules to hermit

Talking of gods, and because I'm always partial to a bit of psychogeography, here's some news about the Cerne Abbas giant and his huge club. To save you reading the whole piece, the chalk outline version is that he began as an effigy of Hercules to rally the troops of Alfred the Great against those pesky Vikings. 

I realize it's fashionable these days to think of Vikings as peaceable multicultural traders, but that wasn't quite how the 9th century Anglo-Saxons thought of them. What's interesting is that Hercules was an ambiguous folk hero to the people of Wessex, who you'd think might have been sniffy about pagan demi-gods. But by the 11th century the local monks decided the big lad was actually their patron saint Eadwold. (Saints back then were obviously a bit more priapic and a bit less pudibund.)

The Giant shows another side of his nature in one of the Royal Mythological Society posts from Mirabilis: Year of Wonders. And if you're looking for a way to work chalk giants into a roleplaying game, take a look at my scenario "Wayland's Smithy" for Legend (the world of Dragon Warriors).

Commuting by catapult

Mirabilis, my fantasy graphic epic with Leo Hartas and the late Martin McKenna, originally appeared in The DFC, a short-lived forerunner of The Phoenix comic. A friend of mine read it on the sleeper train out of Moscow as he was travelling home just before Christmas -- pretty much the perfectly immersive experience.

You can read Mirabilis online here and dive into the background here and here and here. As you can probably tell, it was a labour of love and if I could finish it I would, only the world doesn't owe me a living. (Sadly.)

As part of the very extensive world-building for Mirabilis, I wrote the correspondence of the Royal Mythological Society in a little booklet called A Minotaur At The Savoy. So that's fifty whimsical vignettes of green comety weirdness that, if you're starting to think about gifts, would fit quite neatly into a stocking. But then, I would say that.

The stories range from a mysterious giant hand found in a wood in Yorkshire to the best way to deal with a dragon that's taken a shine to the gold reserves of Fort Knox, and although it's hard to pick one that can be described as typical, this will give you a taste of what to expect:

Dear human savants 

Following a motion of no confidence in the prime minister, I find that my Martian Party has enough seats in the House of Commons to form a new government in coalition with the Liberal Unionists. The only sticking point is that, as you may know, my prospective allies are committed to a very specific agenda. Their three-point plan entails establishing a minimum wage, giving women the vote, and maintaining the unity of the British Isles - whereas the Martian Party is pledged to subjugate the planet Earth, replace corn with red weed as the staple carbohydrate dietary supplement, and ship a million slaves to the helium mines of Phobos. 

As a compromise, I have agreed to defer mass enslavement for the term of the current Parliament, concentrating instead on domestic transport policy as an area of common ground on which our two parties can agree. For example, to alleviate the growing problem of “rush hour” congestion at the major London rail terminuses, we propose loading commuters onto massive catapults which will fling them across the city to land in collection nets near to their place of work. We estimate this would save at least seventy thousand man-months of labour per year. However, some of our advisors believe that it will not be a popular measure and could lose us votes at the next election. What do you counsel? 

Yours, the Right Honourable Xangovar the Merciless, OBE, c/o the Palace of Westminster

Prof Bromfield replies: It would be very popular with small boys. Unfortunately, they don’t have the vote. Might be a better world if they did, if you ask me. 

Dr Clattercut: Oh yes. Because resolving international disputes with conkers matches is obviously the way to go. Pulling girls’ pigtails when they demand enfranchisement. Declaring the whole of January a national tobogganing holiday. Making marbles the official currency of the Bank of England… 

Prof Bromfield: You think you’re being wittily scathing, Clattercut, but in fact you’re just proving my point. So that’s what I’d suggest, Mr – er, Xangovar: shake up the Cabinet a little. Bring in some schoolboys and artists and poets and whatnot. Be more radical with your reforms, if anything. This is the Year of Wonders, so what’s wrong with sprinkling a bit of magic on the tired old machinery of politics? Trust me, the electorate will thank you for it. 

Dr Clattercut: Those that land in the nets, anyway.

Have a great Samhain/Halloween! And if you're looking for strange stories in a very different vein from Mirabilis, don't forget to take a look at the Binscombe Tales.

Urbane fantasy free on Kindle

A universe away from the Gothic tragedy of Frankenstein, never mind the swashbuckling epic adventure of Fabled Lands, there is the tradition of urbane (sic) fantasy pioneered by Saki and Lord Dunsany. Such stories usually belong to the category that SF academic Farah Mendlesohn calls liminal, in that the weird elements are presented as matter-of-factly as waking up to find deer crossing your back lawn. That wyvern perched on the chimney pot opposite may be no less alarming than a tiger on the loose from the zoo, but it's no more peculiar either. We all know how easy it can be to stray over into the Twilight Zone.

If urbane fantasy is your cup of Earl Grey (dash of lemon if you don't mind, old chap) you can pick up a free Kindle copy of A Minotaur at the Savoy (US edition here) until midnight on Friday. This little volume, as regular readers will know, is a tie-in with the world of the Mirabilis graphic novel, fleshing out the background by means of fifty tall tales woven around the postbag of the Royal Mythological Society. For example:

Dear Prof Bromfield and Dr Clattercut

Recently I was taken by a friend to a restaurant in Fitzrovia. As we were settling down over whisky and cigars after the meal, I glanced at the menu and noticed that the à la carte listed Dodo Véronique. Intrigued as I was, I had by this time already put away a dozen oysters, the onion soup, a smoked haddock dish, two helpings of beef wellington, a lemon soufflé, a plate of almond biscuits, a bottle or two of Chateau Yquem and three large brandies. Also, I’d had a bit of a gyppy tummy earlier in the week, so at that stage I really didn’t feel up to fitting anything else in. I now rather wish I had, as I went for a bit of a walk to see if I could find the place again and there’s no sign of the street. I remember it had a little blue sconce of flame over the door, and a sort of curtain of ivory beads to keep the fog out. My friend has gone on a trip to Venezuela so no use asking him.

Sincerely, Edward Plunkett, The Attican Club, Pall Mall

Dr Clattercut replies: O rara avis in terris!

Prof Bromfield: Latin? You’ll have lost most of our readers right there, old man.

Dr Clattercut: I merely remarked on the pang of missed opportunity. Who knows how long before Mr Plunkett will again find himself in a restaurant with dodo on the menu?

Prof Bromfield: I doubt if there’s honestly any cause for regret. From what I hear, dodo is a tough, gamey sort of fowl. No use cooking it like chicken. Dodo meat is more like what you’d get on a year-old pheasant: tough if served pink, and dry if overcooked. Much more sensible to put it in a curry or a spicy Mexican dish. A Véronique sauce would be all wrong. There’s your explanation, Mr Plunkett – you can’t find the restaurant because it’s gone out of business.

Dr Clattercut: Perhaps the words of another rare bird, the Swan of Avon, will offer some consolation: “Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.”

A minotaur ate my saveloy

While setting up the Binscombe Tales books for Spark Furnace (Fabled Lands LLP's book imprint) I hatched a plan to turn my Royal Mythological Society stories into a little paperback using the same print-on-demand company, Lightning Source.

"What a perfect stocking filler for Christmas," said a voice on one shoulder. I've always been a bit hard of hearing on the nay-saying side, so I didn't catch what objection the other shoulder might raise. Hence the book is out this month on Amazon US, Barnes & Noble, Amazon UK and the Book Depository. The stocking itself is optional, but if you know anyone who likes fantasy/SF with a whimsical flavour, it's the perfect gift. Of course, I would say that.

Jamie has written a few RMS stories himself. Well, he's written the first part (that is, the letter which introduces each of the yarns) and when I get to rounding those off with Dr Clattercut's and Prof Bromfield's replies, I'll put them in the next edition. Here's a nice one of Jamie's that I'd completely forgotten about until he reminded me - a snippet with a pleasingly Dirk-like tone:

Effendis, peace be upon you,

Greetings from Ottoman Syria. I am privileged and honoured to have been made a minister by the Regency Council and put in charge of many building projects.

Recently, whilst digging the foundations of a new underground sewer system one of my workmen uncovered a curious copper jar, the lid of which appeared to be a complex clay seal. Being only an ignorant unlettered peasant, the unworthy workmen thought to open the jar, no doubt hoping to uncover gold or gems or some other great treasure but as soon as he picked it up the jar emitted a terrifying shriek. The poor workman fell dead instantly at the sound. Since then, I have taken charge of the jar. Our wisemen, scholars and philosophers are examining it. Some say the clay stopper is one of the Seals of Solomon, used to imprison demons and suchlike and must not be opened. Others say a djinn lies trapped inside. Free it and it will grant me three wishes. Still others say it is just an old jar from the days of the 9th century Caliph, Haroun al Rashid and should be put in a museum and treated like any other archaelogical find, and that the workman just happened to suffer a heart attack co-incidentally. What do you think?

Ibrahim Ismail Pasha

Public Works

Damascus

The above letter is followed a few days later by this:

Effendis,

There is no need to continue with your investigations into the copper jar. The seal is broken. And... I AM FREE! FREE AT LAST AFTER ELEVEN HUNDRED AND ELEVEN YEARS!!!! Nor need Ibrahim Pasha trouble your thoughts anymore. He will not be replying to any correspondence in the near future. It is hard to write a letter from the inside of a small copper jar after all. And I should know, let me tell you!

Zalam the Afrit

P.S. Your Society is of interest to me. It may be that I shall come and pay you a visit.

That's one of Jamie's pastiches, but you can also read some of the pieces that are in the actual book if you've a yen to. Previously in these pages we've told the story of how Dr Clattercut was kicked while collecting trilobytes, how a ship's captain found an Atlantean relic, how Merlin is modernizing the sleeping knights, a horticultural example of the pathetic fallacy in action, a cautionary tale not to treat unicorns as cuddly, the political manifesto of a Martian warlord, and a curious incident involving two disembodied feet. So all that should tell you if A Minotaur at the Savoy is your cup of tea, eh what?

Toffee-fuelled delirium

A guest post today by Jamie. After Franklin's recent wedding (see last post) we wound up with glasses of toffee vodka (don't ask) at 2am listening to my wife Roz read letters to the Royal Mythological Society on her new Kindle. (On waking later that day, I discovered to my horror that, despite the confectionary taste, toffee vodka actually is rather alcoholic. An easy mistake to make, I'm sure you'll agree.)

Despite remembering little of the evening's events, Jamie must have been entertained by the badinage of Clattercut and Bromfield as he had a crack at writing his own Mirabilian correspondence. The only snag is, he neglected to give the letter-writer any advice, as is usually the case; for example here and here. So - the floor is open. Over to you.

Sirs,

I am the curator of the Uttersnope Museum in Hartington Nether Quarter, Derbyshire. As you know, the Museum is dedicated to the works of that great 19th century Romantic artist, Obadiah Uttersnope.

Last week, I was working on cleaning up one of Uttersnopes pieces from his Gothic period, a large canvas entitled The Wanderer Amidst the Tombs. This dark and brooding work depicts a young mourner, rain-drenched, pale faced and grief stricken, wandering a wet and muddy cemetery of fog-shrouded tombs and ornate family crypts. Overhead storm clouds darken the sky. I left the work in my office overnight - the next morning I came to find a trail of muddy wet footprints leading from the outer door of my office to the painting, oddly formed, as if someone had walked backwards through the door toward the canvas and then seemingly disappeared. And this when we have had a dry period, without a drop of rain, for two weeks or more.

Also, I could have sworn that the painting had never before shown such a look of ghastly terror on the face of the young wanderer, and nor had it depicted one of the tombstones broken and cast aside, with the grave upon which it rested open to the rain-swept sky. How could I have missed that, after some ten years as curator? I must have viewed this painting a hundred times or more!

Yours in perplexity,

Sir Artorious Featherswill,

Curator, Uttersnope Museum.

Kicked while collecting trilobites

To mark the publication of two Mirabilis hardbacks in just a few weeks, here's an extract from the proceedings of the Royal Mythological Society that forms part of the backdrop to the Mirabilian universe. I've seen the first copy of the new books (FedExed to me from the printers in Bosnia) and traditionalists will be pleased to know that the quality is better than iPad. There, you never thought I'd say such a thing.

Dear Doctor Clattercut and Professor Bromfield

I would expect you to be familiar with our village, as it is famous in a small way for having a sunken twin a little way out to sea. When I was a girl, I could stand on the cliffs and, with the wind in the right direction, it was possible to hear the tolling of the submerged church bell coming up out of the waves.

Now that things are as they are, our submarine neighbours no longer content themselves with the occasional ringing of a bell. Walking my dog along the beach, as often as not I will encounter a group of mermaids riding there. Their manners are polite, but I think there is some teasing in their glance and their ponies are mean little beasts, all shaggy with kelp and very high and briny to the nose. You know the smell when the tide goes right out; it's like that.

My concern, however, is the mermaids’ effect on our village. Twice a week, or Wednesdays and Saturdays, they come and sit on the beach with trinkets to sell. And I know where they get those trinkets. One of them had an ivory pipe that I recognized. It belonged to my grandfather, who was drowned at sea on my first day at junior school.

Yours sincerely, Mabel Catchpole (Mrs), Dunwich

Dr Clattercut replies: An interesting case, Mrs Catchpole, and thank you for bringing it to our attention. I don’t know if I would consider what the mermaids are doing to be looting. Any knickknacks they find on the sea bed were, after all, irretrievably lost to us on dry land. One could argue they are performing a valuable service akin to marine salvage. Admittedly, however, there is a suggestion here of grave-robbing. What do you say, Bromfield?

Prof Bromfield: Hmm? Just thinking… Cabyll-ushteys, those sea ponies are called – that’s what they call them in the Isle of Man, anyway. They’re more than pesky. Get in trouble out swimming and they’ll drag you down and eat you up. All of you except the liver, funnily enough.

Dr Clattercut: I believe the Suffolk version is less outrightly murderous, though still a creature to be wary of. I was kicked by one while collecting trilobites at Aldeburgh two months ago and I still have a bruise. But just a moment – how do mermaids..?

Prof Bromfield: Side saddle, old chap.

You can get the complete Kindle book of Royal Mythological Society correspondence from Amazon or check out the Myebook preview here.

The Royal Mythological Society

Got a Kindle? If so, and if your taste for fantasy runs to the sometimes surreal whimsy of Lord Dunsany or John Collier, take a look at the latest Mirabilis ebook. This one isn't a comic, it's a collection of more than fifty fantasy vignettes presented in the form of letters to the Royal Mythological Society and answered with a mixture of oddball erudition, genteel peevishness, dry humor and extremely well-mannered infighting by Doctor Clattercut and Professor Bromfield.

Perhaps it'll make more sense if I quote from the blurb:

It is a little known fact of history, or myth, or both, that around the start of the twentieth century there existed a lost year. In this year, a green comet appeared in the sky. As it grew larger, things that would previously have been considered utterly fantastical began to seep into everyday life. By the height of summer, imagination and reality were so seamlessly merged that few recalled a time when the world had been otherwise.

Mermaids swam in the Mediterranean. Martians commuted by train from Woking. Greek gods gave lecture tours of the United States. And with this new way of life came a whole set of problems of etiquette and decorum (see reference to mermaids).

Fortunately, the solution was at hand. In the depths of the British Museum, intrepid academics Bampton “Bammy” Bromfield and Cyril Clattercut had long been cataloguing accounts of the uncanny from around the world on behalf of the Royal Mythological Society. The arrival of the green comet was about to give them the busiest year of their lives.

This book comprises more than fifty fantasy and SF tales in vignette form, from the mysterious giant hand found in a wood in Yorkshire to the best way to deal with a dragon that's taken a shine to the gold reserves of Fort Knox.

At only $1.13 (yes, you read that right, it's about 2 cents per story!) you'll think that the green comet really has turned reality upside-down. And if you want to try before you buy even at that crazy-low price, see the free preview on BookBuzzr or scroll down to the bottom of this very web page and click on the flipbook widget. Who spoils ya?

Shivery story

Jamie sent me this for inclusion on the blog today.

Messieurs,

A joyeux Noël from here in Les Andelys, on the river Seine in Haute Normandie. Our town is an ancient one that goes back many centuries. This winter has been so cold that parts of the river Seine have frozen over, and our old town has been carpeted in heavy snow. Recently I went out with my children to play in the snow in the old ruins of the Château-Gaillard (a castle built by your Richard the Lionheart in fact) and as is customary both in your land and mine, we built a rather large snowman, complete with a long carrotte for a nose and two coals for eyes. Later that evening, as we sat for dinner my smallest came running into the house, quivering in terror. For some time we could get nothing out of her, but after a tot of Armagnac she calmed down enough to tell us that someone had set the snowman's coals afire for his eyes were glowing redly in the evening twilight. But how could two coals, resting in the cold snow like that be set alight without melting the snowman at the very least? C'est impossible, non?

Worse was to come - she claimed the snowman's head turned towards her and whispered something she could not understand, though I think the latter is the fanciful imagining of a frightened child.

The next I day I went out to investigate - the snowman was no longer there. No trace of it was to be found except for some strange tracks nearby as if someone had dragged a large, round object across the snow. I followed it and it led me to a special site in our town, the Miraculous Spring of Sainte Clotilde, a site for Catholic pilgims since the times of King Clovis. There I found a carrot and two unburned coals amidst a pool of dirty, sleety water...

I ask you to accept, sirs, the expression of my respectful greetings,

Monsieur Albert L'Orybley, Caretaker, Chateau Gilliard

A hoax? An imaginary story? Has Mr Thomson been at the calvados again? Vraiment, mes amis, the truth is unknowable. Happy Christmas!

A rare vintage

For a long while over on the Mirabilis main website, Leo Hartas and I were busy putting up whimsical vignettes about life in a lost year when a green comet caused fantasy and reality to merge. And while Mirabilis belongs to a whole other lineage of fantasy than the dragons and heroes of Fabled Lands, some FL enthusiasts might enjoy the Royal Mythological Society correspondence, much of it in the style of discourse over sherry in a Dweomer college. For instance:

To the Fellows of the Royal Mythological Society

I have a curious incident to relate for your archives. I am a junior officer aboard a ship lately assigned to lay new telegraph cable between the British Isles and North America. Last month, as we were returning towards Ireland in the last stage of our work, the sky turned dark as night; and the sea, previously as flat as a sheet of glass, began to churn with thirty-foot waves. I looked down and saw great shoals of fish tossed helplessly up to the surface, like the catch you may see tipped from any fisherman’s nets, but multiplied as though caught in the nets of a titan. And along with the fish were pebbles dredged up from the sea bed, and shells, and other debris impossible to identify - mere leaves on a storm raging hundreds of fathoms below.

The cause was, as I understood at once, a submarine earthquake, an event I had never before witnessed but which is not uncommon in that part of the Atlantic. I recall that I turned to shout a warning to some men who were attempting to cross from the other rail as a large wave came awash of the deck. The next moment, I was freezing cold and soaked to the skin, and I realized that I had gone over the side.

There was almost no time for fear – but panic, of course, requires no thought. I fought the urge to draw breath, knowing that it would only fill my lungs with salt water. Having no idea of up or down, I struck out in any case with all my strength. Objects buffeted me and I caught glimpses of them in the murky water. They looked like fragments of bone, pieces of classical pottery and glass, the dull glint of green-rusted armour… Strange things, artifacts that you would more expect to see washed up on the beach at Pompeii than far out in mid-ocean. Then I found myself holding a life preserver and was being hauled up, as bedraggled as the proverbial drowned rat, to the safety of the deck.

When I came to my senses some time later, my shipmates pointed to an object I had been clutching when I was rescued. I must have caught hold of it under the water, and I am told that in those minutes when shock had bereaved me of my wits I would suffer no man to take it from me. Gentlemen, it was a stone amphora that must have lain preserved in the sand for centuries, for its glazed design was still clear enough to make out images of a city of concentric walls, and men and women clad in an ancient style walking in gardens beside a peaceful harbour. There was also an inscription (of which I append a copy) but no scholar of Greek or Latin has been able to make any sense of it.

Now, all of the above is what I can tell you for your own records, and I am glad to help out with your scientific researches, but I would appreciate your advice on a personal question. I kept the bottle sealed for several weeks, but today I gave in to curiosity and broke it open. A glass of wine that I poured from it stands beside me on the desk as I write this. In the firelight it is as rich as the rubies of India, and the scent is almost overpowering in its evocation of sunlit groves, soil, sweet rain, fresh wind and growing green abundance. I sit looking at it now and I ask you. Should I drink?

Faithfully, Lt George Sterling, SS Star Treader, Milford Haven

Dr Clattercut replies: I have not yet been able to decipher the inscription you were kind enough to send, but it resembles an ur-form of Eteocretan, leading me to dare suggest – But no, it would be unprofessional to speculate at this stage…

Prof Bromfield: Oh, come out and say it, in Heaven’s name. A wine from Atlantis.

Dr Clattercut: Possibly, possibly. I cannot help but think of those lines of Mr Ambrose Bierce: “When mountains were stained as with wine by the dawning of Time, and as wine were the seas.” There is indeed a strong likelihood of it being a relic from the sunken continent.

Prof Bromfield: And the chap wants to know if he should knock it back. Well, Lieutenant Sterling, if you don’t want it –

Dr Clattercut: Wait, this is very rash advice. Lieutenant Sterling, think carefully before you taste so much as one drop. This is the rarest vintage from an island paradise that was the marvel of the ancient world. You might find no earthly thing has flavour afterwards. And where would you get more?

Prof Bromfield: But, Clattercut, you could say the same of life itself. There is no more, so savour every drop!

Incidentally, what is the word for a devotee of the Fabled Lands? A Fabler? A Fablander? Any suggestions..?