A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Well readers, it's certainly shaping up into an epic mystery, is it not?


Apologies for breaking in - your faithful editor here, and I must turn the glowing light-beam of scrutiny upon the mysterious “Devotees of Rakuu”, an organisation to which Augustus occasionally mentioned he was a member.

Very little is known of this most shadowy of shadowy Victorian cabals - even the usually verbose Mr Stigwood remained resolutely tight lipped - other than the following:

1. It was variously spelt Raku or Rakuu, although three u's and above was generally frowned upon.
2. At its peak its membership rose to fifty or sixty, all men, and all - intriguingly - mustachioed.
3. All records of the organisation seemed to peter out by the early 1880s.
4. It is not known what Raku/Rakuu was, although it is supposed (by myself) that it may have been a supremely intelligent alien life form which which the members communicated via an ancient crystal that had been dug up with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
5. The above theory was heartily postulated in my dream-cycle trilogy 'The Reconfiguration of Elmer Swervizor", which regardless of the comments made by 1986 Hugo Awards panel, shat all over anything by Isaac Asimov.
6. But I digress. The Devotees were known to meet in secret, at regular intervals, perhaps in ancient (or more modern) buildings, where they would practice their Devotion (or otherwise) together (or alone).

And as I turn my modern pen once more from older lands to newer futuristic ones (perhaps populated by tiny robots) I shall leave Augustus to continue with his own story.

What developments shall emerge when our hero consults with his fellow Devotees at The Porcupine?

JC Guthrey
Science fiction author