Grass is a short story written by Lawrence Miles. Released in 2001 (specifically in the September issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction), it tells of a French explorer discovering mammoths in America. It was later reprinted in the Mad Norwegian reprint of Dead Romance.
Characters[]
- Lucia Cailloux
- Broken Nose
- Thomas Jefferson
- Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Publisher's summary[]
Grass marks Lawrence Miles's first appearance in our pages, although he notes that he has previously published work in various anthologies, magazines, comic books, and computer games. His recent work includes a board game concerning Imperial Rome.
Grass ruminates on American history and what might have been…
Plot[]
In the period between the Louisiana Purchase and expedition of Meriwether and Clark, a French woman named Lucia Cailloux and her Shoshone guide named "Broken Nose" (a name given due to him breaking the nose of a Frenchman) walk to a crater in the wilds of Montana which has mammoths within it.
Lucia literally stumbles into the crater and startles one of the mammoths - which rears up and then, exhausted, falls back down unto the earth. Lucia touches the mammoth for a brief moment before she is found by Broken Nose.
Some time later, Lucia presents a box to President Thomas Jefferson made of ivory (presumably the ivory of the mammoths) which has blades of grass (presumably from the crater) in it. Shortly after this, Jefferson sends Meriwether and Clark on their expedition. The two explorers find the crater - which has become an elephants' (or mammoths') graveyard. Not knowing about the existence of the mammoths, they assume that the graves are those of Native leaders and that the trails of the mammoth are an attempt by the French to desecrate the graves.
Worldbuilding[]
- By the 1800s, the French hold the Lance of Longinus.
Author's continuity[]
- Reference is made to Catherine the Great's mammoth gift to King George the Third, which later features in the Faction Paradox comic Political Animals and is mentioned in the Doctor Who novel The Adventuress of Henrietta Street (which also mentions the events of this story).
- The name "Cailloux" (or "Caillou") was first mentioned in the Doctor Who novel Christmas of the Rational Planet, where it was tied to the French Shadow Directory.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wing Finger | Helen Angove | 2013 | A Faction Paradox short story with a similar setting and plot |
| Burr | Gore Vidal | 1973 | A postmodernist novel about Thomas Jefferson |
| Undaunted Courage | Stephen E. Ambrose | 1996 | A biography of Lewis and Clark |
Sources[]
- TARDIS Wiki