Freelance Traveller - Raconteurs' Rest

Funny Fish

by Andrea Vallance

Funny Fish is a set of stories about the Luriani War, early in the Imperium’s history. It is not, strictly speaking, a romance, and it does look frankly (though not graphically) at some unpleasant aspects of war.

Freelance Traveller’s editor inquired as to the reason for calling the stories Funny Fish. Andrea’s response was:

“How my mind finds titles is often odd. The most obvious ‘in story’ reason is the nickname of the narrator [of A Most Unfortunate War], ‘dinkir’, means ‘humorous fish.’ Slightly less obvious is the amphibious race (Luriani) who are ‘odd’ = funny fish. The personal reason is it’s how I've found most abuse survivors to be. What they’ve suffered forces them to adapt in truly creative and wonderful ways. They’re ‘funny fish’ (I’m not sure if that idiom is used in the US [It may be, regionally, as are ‘queer duck’ or ‘odd fish’ or several other similar idioms -Ed.]) in that they’re different, all of the most interesting people I’ve ever met are survivors. In the story there’s a section about how the human mind is amazing in its ability to protect itself. That’s what that means.”

There is much cultural information about the Luriani in these stories. Because of the way it is presented, it is strongly recommended that the stories be read in the order presented here.