Jenny Everywhere: Second Date (commentary)

[scott_sanford]

Second Date was my first Jenny Everywhere story, all the way back in 2008. I'm unhappy with it in various ways but I'm reposting it as is anyway.

I didn't have a good grasp on the version of Jenny that I wanted to use and the story has rather more cute ideas than plot or character. But it's got the one great quality people look for in an art work: it exists; it's done.

I do remember that some of the cameo Jennies were ones for whom I had vague ideas, but all the notes on them from that era are long lost.

More commentary later, if I think of anything to say.

(12 Sept 2021) Because I was asked on the Discord channel: Yes, those unnamed fellows are meant to be the Fourth Doctor and Neil Gaiman's Morpheus. There aren't that many people - even using the word loosely - who are likely to wander into a room full of Jennies...

(18 Feb 2022) I'm pretty sure the early-20th century biker in this story isn't the high-tech 21st century biker in Paying it Forward parts six and seven; lots of Jennies ride motorcycles and they don't seem to have anything else in common. On the other hand the oracle is obviously Cha Ni, She Who Sees Everywhere, as seen in the first part of Paying it Forward. I hadn't planned that! It wasn't until well into the later story that I went back and looked at Second Date - and there she was in the prose, years earlier.

Comments

[scott_sanford]

Commentary found in a notes file from 2008:

Well, where to start? This was my first JE story, and while lacking in plot it‘s a pretty cute little vignette.

Also, since Jenny has special powers, conflict and drama arise in situations where those powers don’t help her, such as finding a decent boyfriend.

If you liked Second Date, try looking up Roger Zelazny’s short story ‘A Very Good Year,’ which has a certain thematic similarity which I won‘t spoil here. Under no circumstances read that story first, however, as Zelazny was a better writer than I am… I stumbled over it again by accident after getting my first draft of Second Date done and realized that I had indeed read something similar before. A strong overtone of Zelazny’s writing style can be seen in the opening to the next story, Parallax.

[scott_sanford]

(23 Feb 2022) I’ve remembered and typed out what I’d had planned for the buckskin clad Jenny at the restaurant in Second Date, though the original notes file is long gone. From the story: “A woman in buckskins was eating something he couldn’t identify, mostly meat. She had a fringed shawl over her shoulders and a lever-action rifle beside her, all of it straight out of the 19th Century.”

She is called Jenny Everywhere. As a child she received the White name Jenny from missionaries, who taught her to speak and read English. Among the People her skills in stealth and silent movement won her the name Everywhere – with enough time there was no place she could not go.

Both of these talents have helped her aid the People in their dealings with the Whites, but now rumors are swirling of a new thing coming.

Far to the east, they say, the Whites have built an Iron Horse that can run forever without tiring and will pull an entire train of wagons by itself, and that it will come to the plains soon. Impressive if true!

Already Jenny and the elders are making plans for this, if it comes. It might be lured into a large hole, or scared with fire, but that sounds too easy. Or men could hide ahead of it on its path, then suddenly spring up with a rope and trip it. Best would be to sneak in when everyone is sleeping and ride off on the Iron Horse, taking it for the People – a perfect challenge for Jenny Everywhere!