The Sellamillion

by Adam Roberts

Genres: Fantasy

Synopsis

It’s no joke: parodies sellamillion! After the huge success (100,000 copies) of The Soddit, it’s time to poke more fun at Tolkien. So The Lord of the Rings swept the Oscars—all the more reason to continue to tweak, spoof, and lampoon the cult of Tolkien. Despite its title, The Sellamillion isn’t a satire of The Silmarillion; how could it be? Though every one of the author’s fans has a copy on the shelf, on the shelf is where it’s stayed; almost no one actually managed to read past page three. The fun here lies in the parody of everything Tolkien created as he worked on his famous trilogy: The History of the Elderly Days. Early missing drafts of the novels. Correspondence between the writer and publisher on whether the magic talisman should be a Bellybutton Stud of Doom rather than a Ring of Power. And, most hilarious of all, an experimental version of Lord of the Rings in the style of Dr. Seuss. Whether you love the original trilogy and (maybe especially) if you hate it, this will have you laughing non-stop.

Release date: September 1, 2004

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 320

Sample

My grand-uncle A. R. R. R. Roberts has achieved a globally world-wide famousness the world over for his celebrated Heroic Fighting Fantasy masterpieces: The Soddit, Lowered off the Rings and Farmer Giles of Yokel-Caricature. Now sadly deceased or ‘passed on’ as he himself put it, it falls to me to collect together his uncollected Fantasy writings and offer to the public these valuable sketches, designs, memoirs and other writings under the general title The Sella-million.

My grand-uncle’s full name was ‘Adam Robinson? Robertson? Robins? ah, Roberts I See Do Excuse Me I’m Dreadfully Sorry I Left My Spectacles In The Vestry’, which is how the Rev. Roland Adorno baptised him, reading from a chit given him by the organist. It was this full version of his name that was, for legal reasons, entered on the birth certificate. Accordingly, and although my grand-uncle was known to his myriad fans by the abbreviated form of his name, the full surname was required for all official arenae.1

His career at the University of Oxoford, where he sat in the Ikea Chair of Dead and Terminally Ill Languages, was lengthy and successful. He distinguished himself as a scholar and also as a member of the group known as ‘the oinklings’, the celebrated pork-themed writers’ group, who met Thursdays throughout term to discuss their various literary productions over bacon and chops.

His career at the University of Oxoford, where he sat in the Ikea Chair of Dead and Terminally Ill Languages, was lengthy and successful. He distinguished himself as a scholar and also as a member of the group known as ‘the oinklings’, the celebrated pork-themed writers’ group, who met Thursdays throughout term to discuss their various literary productions over bacon and chops.

It is sometimes said, with some justification, that there were actually two A. R. R. R. Robertses: A. R. R. R. Roberts, the noted and bestselling fantasy author, and Professor Roberts I See Do Excuse Me I’m Dreadfully Sorry I Left My Spectacles In The Vestry, the Oxoford scholar. Indeed, my grand-uncle himself declared that he was ‘split’ or ‘divided’ after this fashion. ‘There are two of me,’ he told the Oxoford Times in an interview late in his career. ‘The writer and the academic. Both, luckily, are called Roberts, and at the moment both live in the same town. It has not always been arranged so neatly. Two years ago the two were Geoff Kapitza, a Shrews-bury-based supplier of industrial ceramics, and Susan Eley, the author with David Blackbourn of The Peculiarities of German History. That was a rather awkward set-up, I don’t mind telling you.’

As one illustration of the sort of life my grand-uncle lived in the ivied halls and hallowed ives2 of Ballsiol College, Oxoford, I append this record of a conversation he had with his distinguished colleague Professor Sir Algernon Islwyn De Vere Hedgecock Twistleton Faineant Mainwaring Featherstonehaugh Jones. In common with many of the Fellows of Ballsiol, Professor Jones frequently congratulated my grand-uncle on what he considered a properly and unashamedly-hyphenated Traditional English surname. [The following excerpt is from Porter! A Porter’s Life, by Henry Porter, Porter of Saint Peter Hall, Oxoford]

I was sitting [writes Porter] in the Porter’s box at Saint Peter’s, drinking some Port and reading a local historical account of Portsmouth, when Professor A. R. R. R. Roberts entered the college, visiting a friend. In the course of his ingress he happened to bump into Professor Jones, who was exiting. ‘Well,’ cried Professor Jones, warmly, ‘if it isn’t my good friend Professor Roberts I See Do Excuse Me I’m Dreadfully Sorry I Left My Spectacles In The Vestry. A very good evening, anima dimidia mea.’

‘My dear Professor Sir Algernon Islwyn De Vere Hedgecock Twistleton Faineant Mainwaring Featherstonehaugh Jones,’ replied Professor Roberts, genially, ‘how wonderful to see you.’

Professor Jones’s face fell.

‘My dear Professor Roberts I See Do Excuse Me I’m Dreadfully Sorry I Left My Spectacles In The Vestry,’ he expostulated. ‘I fear I must correct you – it is pronounced “fanshaw”.’

Professor Roberts naturally looked abashed. ‘I am sorry, my friend. I thought I had pronounced it “fanshaw”.’

‘You did indeed pronounce the penultimate element of my surname “fanshaw” and most correctly. But you mispronounced the earlier element – it is pronounced “fanshaw”, and not “hedge-cock” as you said.’

‘I cannot apologise enough,’ declared Professor Roberts. ‘Allow me to address you again, my dear Professor Sir Algernon Islwyn De Vere Hedgecock Twistleton Faineant Mainwaring Featherstonehaugh Jones, in the hope of correcting my grievous error.’

Professor Jones shook his head. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘This time you got the first “fanshaw” right but monkeyed up the second one.’

‘I did? I said “fanshaw”, didn’t I?’

‘You said “farnshow”; quite, quite wrong.’

‘Professor Sir Algernon Islwyn De Vere Hedge-cock Twistleton Faineant—’

‘No, no,’ interrupted Professor Jones, becoming heated. ‘Faineant isn’t “fayno”, as you say it, it is pronounced “fanshaw”. Must I write it down in phonetic script?’

‘There is no need to be offensive,’ retorted Professor Roberts, bridling.

‘I’ll be offensive if I choose,’ returned Professor Jones, hotly.

‘A figo,’ said Professor Roberts.

‘A figo for you, sir.’

The two professors were forever falling out with one another in this fashion.

My grand-uncle first wrote his children’s classic The Soddit on the back (and later, when he ran out of space, on the front in thick black felt-tip) of certain student examination papers he was supposed to be marking. After its publication and unexpected success, his publishers pressed him for a sequel. As he wrote to his dear friend C John Lewis:

My publishers pressed me for a sequel again yesterday. I do wish they’d stop doing that. Always pressing, poking, can’t keep their hands to themselves. ‘We’ll keep on doing this,’ Stanley Nonwin told me, pressing a tender spot near my spleen, ‘until you deliver the sequel, you little jerk.’ Or at least that’s what I think he said. His editorial assistant, Hefty Jill, was sitting on my head and had my arms in a three-quarter nelson at the time. I fear I shall have to oblige them.

His three-volume gymnasium-set fantasy, Lowered Off the Rings, was written during the war, and published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. The acclaim was, as it happens, for a different book: Brass Rubbing by Juliana Nederlandia. But as Nonwin told my grand-uncle ‘That’s not the important thing – the important thing is that there is acclaim sloshing about. It creates the right sort of atmosphere into which to release a new book – means that people are favourably disposed towards books in general, you see.’

Nonwin’s optimism was duly rewarded when Lowered Off the Rings became a Hot Hundred Bestseller-List-Chaser Likely-to-Sell title in the Midlands Advertiser ‘What’s Up in Books?’ supplement. With great sales came great fame. ‘I find,’ my grand-uncle wrote to his friend Lewis, ‘that I am famous. It is not fanciful to say so. The fanfaronade of fandom treats me with frightening familiarity.’

The world created by A. R. R. R. Roberts was no mere fantasy flimflam or flapdoodle, believe you me. It was fully rounded, no, wait a mo, that doesn’t roll off the tongue right, not the fully rounded, that’s fine, the bit before. ‘Believe you me’. I’m not sure that that sounds right. Hmm, hm, um, how about, ‘You believe me’? Maybe that’s better. Or, even, ‘Believe me, you!’ Yes, that’s the best one. Vocative case. I say, Miriam, when you transcribe this bit into your word processor, could you please cut out my dithering and so on? Just cut straight to the – yes, right. Thanks.

So, hem, yes, Upper Middle Earth, no flapdoodle, on the contrary, where was I, yes – it was a lifetime’s work; a detailed land of many nations and languages. The present volume assembles the background myths and stories to the Soddit and to Lowered Off the Rings as well as much alternate material, early drafts, and the like. By the way Miriam, that’s a lovely chemise. No, really, a very nice purple.

The volume includes material relating to the ‘singing’ of the cosmos into being by the Ainu, the ‘souls’ or divine subordinates of the Creator, as well as The History of the Sellmi, a magical artefact stolen from the Undying Lands. Certain elements relating to the War of the Thing™ that also formed the basis of the Lowered Off the Rings trilogy.

Well, enough of my yakking! No, on second thoughts, Miriam, don’t put that, put something conventional like ‘I will not weary the reader with lengthy preliminaries, et cetera et cetera’. Oh, and we’d better say that we’re using some of the letters that C John Lewis exchanged with grand-uncle as a sort of preface to the volume. In addition to this preface. A postpreface preface. Post-preface, but pre the, um, face of the main text.

I’d like to thank my three research assistants, who have worked tirelessly helping me assemble this collection of disparate material: Gabriel Kay, Guy Bedevere and Adrian Ladyofthelake.

 

1 This I take to be the plural of arena. Although, actually, when I look at it written down like that, it may be that ‘arena’ is already the plural of ‘arenum.’ Is that right? If it is, then that would make ‘arenae’ the plural plural of arenum. I don’t mind admitting I’m nervous – it’s no easy thing writing an introduction to a collection of writings by a world-class philologist and grammatologist. I could so easily make a fool of myself. I’m anxious to get the grammar and such just so.

2 This should be ‘eaves’.

My dear AR

I’d be very grateful if you’d let me know your opinion of the following, which I found in the Library’s Casanova MSS archive yesterday. I hope to include it in my forthcoming Venetian Jokes:3

—I say I say I say, my Doge has no nose.

—No nose? How does he smell?

—Lacking a nose he cannot smell at all, which is if anything a boon when we consider the notoriously unpleasant odour associated with the Venetian canals.

By the way, how’s your Fantasy epic proceeding?

Best wishes,

C

Dear C John

Thank you for the joke. Very droll.

I’m glad you ask about the Fantasy epic. I confess I’m having a spot of bother with Nonwin about the follow-up to the Soddit and Lowered Off the Rings. He wants another of the same stamp, and won’t take no for an answer. Worse than that, he won’t take ‘yes, in a year or two’ for an answer either. I tried explaining to him that the conventions of academic publishing permit an author a dozen years to assemble material and another seven to write it up, but he spoke scornful words in reply.

Apparently the marketing department has a slot with the Fantasy Book Club – Not So Much A Club, More Thor’s Hammer!! (I give you the exact title of this organisation, down to the last exclamation mark) for February, and the sequel must be ready by then. What am I to do? My imagination is utterly mined out and exhausted. What shall I do?

Warmest regards, A

Dear AR

I advise prayer. In fact, I’ve just published the enclosed little book, The Joy of Grace and the Gracefulness of Joy, with Christian Publishing Inc. I make so bold as to send you a copy in the hope that it is of some devotional use. In particular, I’d like to direct your attention to Chapter 5 Those Who Say ‘Christ’ instead of ‘The Christ’ Will Go To Hell For Evermore and Chapter 11 God Was A Carpenter, which means that All Articles of Woodwork and/or Furniture Are Sacred, Therefore Anybody Defacing, Denting Or Mistreating Woodwork Will Go To Hell For Evermore. I hope it is of some use in your dealings with your publisher.

Best Wishes,

CJL

Dear Lewis

Thank you for the book, which I shall read at my earliest opportunity. I note with particular pleasure the topic of Chapter 14, God Created Man in His Image, but Some Men Look Exactly Like Monkeys For Crying Out Loud, Hairy Knuckle-Dragging Weirdos That They Are: a Paradox in the Conflict Between Christianity and Darwinism Addressed. It is about time somebody got to the bottom of that particular theological conundrum.

Here’s news: I’ve just had the strangest conversation, on the High Street. To be honest I’m not sure what to make of it. I was walking along on my way to college this morning when I was stopped by a tall, handsome blonde-haired chap wearing plenty of velvet and a monocle. He said ‘excuse me,’ and was most polite throughout; but he insisted that he had read my published Fantasy books and they were ‘often wrong’. He added that I had done very well, by and large; but that there were certain crucial errors in the text.

I demurred, obviously; and suggested that I might be permitted a little leeway with my own fictional inventions – hoping to imply that, as author of these fantasies, I can hardly be ‘wrong’. At this he gave me a very strange look, and thrust into my hand a sheaf of unbound manuscript. ‘You’ll perhaps find the following notes I have made on the genuine mythology of interest,’ he said. I thanked him and tried to decline the gift, but he wouldn’t take the papers back. When I asked to whom I owed thanks for this unusual gift, he replied that his name was Terry (I think), and that ‘no thanks were necessary’ beyond the correction of certain misapprehensions about the nature of Upper Middle Earth. Then he said goodbye, linked arms with a beautiful but vacant-looking young woman, and walked away.

And do you know the strangest thing of all? The beautiful young woman with whom he departed had only one hand. Is that not strange?

Better go and look at this manuscript. Best wishes,

A

 

3 Lewis’s Venetian Jokes was eventually published by the Oxford Open Press Syndicate in four volumes under the title Parlo Parlo Parlo: the Jokes of Venice. Unfortunately, Lewis’s policy of translating not only the jokes but also the surnames of the original creators of the jokes led to difficulties when an over-zealous copyeditor overapplied the system. Lewis wanted the name of the celebrated lover ‘Giacomo Casanova’ rendered as ‘Jack Newhouse’; but in the first edition it was instead rendered throughout as ‘Fuckall Barrethome’. The entire print run had to be pulped.

In the beginning, ’twas Emu, or Ainu, the one, that in Asdar is called Rhodhulsarm, and verily he ’twas, was rather, for he was without form and escheweth the vacancy of Chaos. Yea, verily, even unto the vacancy thereof. And He did call in veritude with Furious Wrath and a Mighty Wind, which did Blow Mightily, and He did Summon with Wormwood and Gall the Cornet, Flute, Harp, Sackbut, Psaltery, Dulcimer and a really pretty quite impressive variety of brazen instrumentation, actually. Then sayeth Emu, ‘Behold! I shall Spew Ye From My Belly and Devour you thereof, and cry in a big voice.’ And the Holy Spirits that are called valpac, gathered about Emu and th. . .