As previously promised, this particular post will provide background details on the genesis of the story, so if you haven't read it yet, go and do that now, as this contains SPOILERS!
So, back in the late 80's, when hair was big, shoulder pads were acceptable for both sexes and the height of fashion was the tea-bag t-shirt, I was a younger cove, prior to becoming all grown-up and semi-responsible. During this period, both myself and my group of friends were very much into role-playing, as in gathering around someones table, rolling dice and pretending to be something that we weren't, such as cool.
As I had no real financial responsibilities and fancied one of the girls who worked for TSR UK, I was a regular attendee at Euro GenCon, which was held in the ex-Prisoner of War camp known as Pontins at Camber Sands. Due to it's isolated location, once you were on site, your pretty much had to stay there, so evenings were spent playing games, eating chips and hanging around in the bar.
On one such evening, I was at a loose end, as the group I had come with were all involved in some kind of live role-play event (En Garde, I think) and as this involved prior knowledge of events that had been occurring since the beginning of the Con, I couldn't really get involved.
I was sitting nursing a pint in the bar on my own, with a notebook and pen and the idea for "A Bad Day for Murakh T'arr" just came to me. I started writing and a couple of hours later, the story was complete. What you've just read is almost exactly as it was written, bar a little tidying up.
As the majority of heroic fantasy is underpinned by coincidence, such as the right person being in the right (or wrong) place at the right time, the simple premise of this tale was what happens if the right person is in the right place, but at the wrong time? Initially, rather than the guards, I was going to have some kind of magical answering-machine, but the dialogue just sort of wrote itself.
Having recently re-read "Final Reward" by Terry Pratchett, from his collection of short stories A Blink of the Screen, I can see the influence that Mr Pratchett had on my earlier fiction, which is perhaps why my Dad referred to my writing as 'Pratchett Lite'. I can live with that. This story also has the distinction of being the first of my stories to be rejected, by Interzone, no less, who said "A bit too D&D-ish. Have you tried one of the gaming mags?" Ironically, in their very next issue, they published a story my a certain Mr Pratchett...
Yes, it's silly and a little daft, but it's supposed to be. Even now, it still makes me laugh and I know what's coming.
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