*****

"You want me to what?" [junior field anthropologist] said.

"You must be adopted into the Tribe," [elder field anthropologist] said. He smiled, as if he knew the punchline to some secret joke. Elder smiled like that a lot. To [junior], he seemed the very figure of the eccentric English gentlemen he had studied in school. The kind they had sent out to govern their brief empire on their small planet. The kind that always seemed to be laughing at the world around them. He even dressed the part...shorts, shirt, a helment that might have graced an Englishman in a tropical climate like this, where the sun beat down mercilessly.

But the last English gentlemen had died when there ceased to be an England, or an Earth, or any distinct ethnic stereotype based

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 17, 2006).]
 

Phil

"You want me to do what?" Junior spat.

"You must be adopted into the Tribe," Elder replied. He smiled, as if he knew the punchline to some hideous joke. Elder smiled like that a lot. He seemed the very figure of the eccentric English Gentleman Junior had studied in school. But the last English Gentleman had died when there ceased to be an England or a small backwater planet called Earth.

 

I'd be fascinated by seeing a Westerner adopted into a tribe, to study them.

Get right into some in-the-moment action, I think.

Does this need to be SF? You'd know, because you know what's going to happen. But if it's a primitive tribe, you could make a fictitious one in New Guinea (present day) or Africa (Livingstone era).

...and I'm having trouble with Kipling-era British explorers, pith helmets and all, in the *future*. The image is already outdated; nobody's like that any more. If it's future, I think you need a new image.
 

Right now, you're trying to do that but it just doesn't come across that this outfit is as ridiculous as a modern day university professor dressing up as Socrates to do his lectures.
 

(1) Yes, it's SF---I wouldn't mind it not being SF, but I really can't think of where to work it in.

(2) No, I'm not so in love with the "English gentlemen" image, that I wouldn't consider dropping it---if I could come up with something better.

(2) It's really an extended---and, in my opinion, unoriginal---joke about a tribe that eats any outsiders, but only at night. I have to rationalize *that*, plus make the characters work (Elder and Junior and maybe someone from the tribe).

(3) And I want to do it in somewhere between one and two thousand words---I don't think the joke will go much further.

Probably I'll toss it in my file after I take it through a couple of drafts...I need the practice, though...