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| - Fred Cassidy is a smart man. So smart he entered college early. He's been there for 13 years. Y'see, his late--that is to say, legally so; cryogenically preserved persons are considered dead by the law--lamented uncle's will contains a provision that not only pays his tuition but supports him in more than adequate style with a generous stipend, right up until he earns a degree. Being a clear-eyed fellow, Fred took a look at the situation, and quite rationally decided never to graduate. Since Fred is a Zelazny main character, he is glib, functionally immortal, and smokes like a chimney.
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| abstract
| - Fred Cassidy is a smart man. So smart he entered college early. He's been there for 13 years. Y'see, his late--that is to say, legally so; cryogenically preserved persons are considered dead by the law--lamented uncle's will contains a provision that not only pays his tuition but supports him in more than adequate style with a generous stipend, right up until he earns a degree. Being a clear-eyed fellow, Fred took a look at the situation, and quite rationally decided never to graduate. Since then, he's been locked in a struggle with a string of faculty advisers--him skipping from major to major, them attempting to trick him into taking the right credit-hours to complete a bachelor's degree. So far, he's emerged victorious, but it gets closer every semester. In between classes and battles with the administration, Fred indulges his acrophilia. Whether this is a genuine psychological condition, or, as his current adviser alleges, a fake diagnosis bought with his uncle's money to get him out of trouble for being caught atop various university structures, the fact remains that Fred really likes climbing things. Naturally, this couldn't last, and by the end of the book, Fred has been attacked, tortured, shot, inverted, stuck with a PhD, given a high-powered job with the State Department, subjected to having a sentient alien computer dissolved in his blood, and accidentally become the man who saved the Earth from being put on an interstellar blacklist. Since Fred is a Zelazny main character, he is glib, functionally immortal, and smokes like a chimney. Oh right I probably should have mentioned earlier: Fred has an alien computer named Speicus dissolved in his blood. This isn't terribly relevant to his day-to-day interactions, but it does mean he talks to himself rather more than the population average for a man of his age, education level, and sanity. It also means his pack-a-day habit is no longer going to kill him of a lung cancer-emphysema-COPD trifecta, because Speicus was nice enough to clean that shit up. (I imagine taking up residence inside Fred was like moving into a house where the previous owner was a heavy smoker and having to scrub the walls and replace all the carpets before the place is livable again.) More detail available on his app.
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