“The Portuguese Widow” follows the misadventures of charming, half-Portuguese Nan Baldaya Benedict, twice widowed at barely 21 years of age. Regency Bath is taken aback by Nan’s cosmopolitan household: the retinue of faithful Indian ayahs and bhais, Kentish maids and footmen, and the French chef. Then, horrors! Her late mother’s scandalous history is raked up. A move to London results in the fortune hunters discovering her nabob’s fortune, the grandes dames looking down their noses at her, and an encounter with the wicked Lord Curwellion, a notorious rake.

Inevitably, the warm-hearted Nan becomes embroiled in other people’s lives: the gentlemen include the fashionable baronet Sir Noël Amory, the handsome diplomat Lord Keywes, and the grim-visaged Colonel Vane. The ladies range from the shy, sweet Cherry Chalfont to the hilariously eccentric Mrs Urqhart, who describes herself as “the widder of an India man.” Proper English ladies have nothing to do with theatrical persons, but Nan plunges herself into a theatrical venture led by the stout and fruity-voiced Mr Perseus Brentwood and the lugubrious Mr Emmanuel Everett. Few of these encounters are likely to do anything for the reputation of a lady anxious to establish herself creditably. And of course, there’s the unfortunate episode of the duel…

MY SF ONLINE

The SCIENCE FICTION stories combine fun and adventure as a trio of space traders hyper round the two galaxies and then head off to the third.

Tales From The Third Moon: Stuck on the third moon of Pkqwrd waiting for his ship to be re-blobbed, the xathpyroid BrTl meets a friendly Thwurbullerian affine who encourages the beings they encounter to tell stories to while the time away. There are folk tales, hunting ballads, ancient legends, romances, adventure stories… As the series of travellers’ tales proceeds, the audience finds aspects of them oddly familiar. Perhaps, as Philosopher P’ll Vt Mgly-w’llah of Whtyll once remarked, “There is nothing new in the Known Universe,” after all. As for how true they might be… The female mammalian humanoid, Dohra, tells an exciting romantic adventure about her mission to Gr’mmeaya disguised as a candidate for the ruler’s hareem, but did any of it really happen? BrTl’s Captain, Jhl Smt Wong, a humanoid, is off on a Wavey-Spacey secondment to a diplo junket. If only she’d hurry up and get here, maybe she could sort out fact from fiction! Not to say, with her mind-powers, stop that plasmo-blasted Thwurbullerian in its tracks before something disastrous happens!

Two Galaxies Lost Cause: The space traders’ mission to Old Rthfrdia for Fleet Commander Shank’yar Vt R’aam rapidly begins to feel like a Lost Cause, as Captain Jhl Smt Wong, having traversed the x’nb web and World Shield while comatose under the influence of klupf, sinks into the personality of a Playfair Pleasure Girl. Meanwhile her trusty ship-companions, the xathpyroid BrTl and the it-being Trff, unable to join her until Old Rthfrdia’s official F-Day celebrations begin, realise uneasily that she’s fallen for one, or maybe both, of the chief mammalian humanoid protagonists she meets on the primmo dump… Then there’s the complication of the pwld muck. Are their jobs as space traders—along with the rest of the intergalactic freight haulage industry—about to vanish? And is Jhl’s personality going to be permanently altered by the combined effects of the pleasuring-blob and the klupf? As complication piles on complication and Jhl becomes immersed in the humanoid mok shit going on on Old Rthfrdia, BrTl begins to suspect that maybe this is the devious Fleet Commander’s ultimate goal… 

The Admirable Clone: It’s over 30 IG years since the two galaxies’ Expedition Fleet took off for the Third Galaxy. Intergalactic travel has now vastly improved and the trip’s been reduced from 20 IG years to just over 3 IG months in the special ships called “PBTTs”. Tourists can now travel back and forth. So Su Vt R’aam, Shank’yar’s and Jhl’s youngest child, sets off for the two galaxies, accompanied by the household’s most responsible servant, Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two. Su’s adventures and misadventures on the very varied worlds of the two galaxies combine with an edgy tale of failing blob technology, as it begins to look as if this is the end of intergalactic society as sentient beings know it.

    As the youngest Vt R’aam child, with her mother now middle-aged and her father elderly but still spry, Su is pretty much the pet of the household, and so when trouble arises Jhl’s old ship-companions BrTl and Trff immediately get involved. In fact, if Trff hadn’t got involved— Well, read on!

Food & Drink of the Two Galaxies: Selections from the famous “Morpo's Pocket Dictionaries” of Intergalactic Foods and Intergalactic Beverages. The popular, the unusual, the tempting from the many worlds of the two galaxies. Find the description & a colourful illustration here: from staples to cocktails, & many more! Over 100 entries, all verified by “Morpo’s.” If you came across it in the stories of the two galaxies, here’s where to find out what it is!


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