Soa como a série Hogben por Henry Kuttner e C. L. Moore , que também foi a resposta à velha pergunta " Família do tipo caipira com poderes sobrenaturais ". Aqui está um anúncio em vídeo por Neil Gaiman para As Crônicas Hogben .
Você provavelmente leu a primeira história da série, "Exit the Professor" , originalmente publicado em Thrilling Wonder Stories , outubro de 1947 que está disponível no Arquivo da Internet (clique aqui para opções de download). Qualquer essas capas parecem familiares?
Eles eram de idades variadas, variando de relativamente jovens a milhares de anos de idade. Eles tinham vivido na Europa antes de imigrar para as colônias americanas.
Grandpaw's the oldest one of us all and he gets kinda mixed up in his language sometimes. I guess the lingo you learned when you're young sorta sticks with you. One thing, he can cuss better than anybody I've ever heard.
"Shucks," I said, "I was only trying to help."
"Thou puling brat," Grandpaw said. "'Tis thy fault and thy dam's. For building that device, I mean, that slew the Haley tribe. Hadst thou not, this scientist would never have come here."
"He's a perfesser," I said. "Name of Thomas Galbraith."
"I know. I read his thoughts through Little Sam's mind. A dangerous man. I never knew a sage who wasn't. Except perhaps Roger Bacon, and I had to bribe him to—but Roger was an exceptional man. Hearken:
"None of you may go to New York. The moment we leave this haven, the moment we are investigated, we are lost. The pack would tear and rend us. Nor could all thy addlepated flights skyward save thee, Lester—dost thou hear?"
[. . . .]
"How old is your grandfather?"
"Gosh, I dunno."
"Homunculi—mm-m. You mentioned that he was a miner once?"
"No, that was Grandpaw's paw," I said. "Tin mines, they were, in England. Only Grandpaw says it was called Britain then. That was during a sorta magic plague they had then. The people had to get the doctors—droons? Droods?"
"Druids?"
"Uh-huh. The Druids was the doctors then, Grandpaw says. Anyhow, all the miners started dying round Cornwall, so they closed up the mines."
"What sort of plague was it?"
I told him what I remembered from Grandpaw's talk, and the Perfesser got very excited and said something about radioactive emanations, as nearly as I could figger out. It made oncommon bad sense.
"Artificial mutations caused by radioactivity!" he said, getting real pink around the jowls. "Your grandfather was born a mutant! The genes and chromosomes were rearranged into a new pattern. Why, you may all be supermen!"
"Nope," I said. "We're Hogbens. That's all."
Eu acredito que o mais novo, chamado Baby, era o mais poderoso e menos humano, e vivia no sótão. Ele dormiu a maior parte do tempo.
O bebê foi chamado Little Sam:
Time we ran off the Haley boys with that shotgun gadget we rigged up—only we never could make out how it worked, somehow—that time, it all started because Rafe Haley come peeking and prying at the shed winder, trying to get a look at Little Sam. Then Rafe went round saying Little Sam had three haids or something.
Can't believe a word them Haley boys say. Three haids! It ain't natcheral, is it? Anyhow, Little Sam's only got two haids, and never had no more since the day he was born.
[. . . .]
"S'pose I go to New York with you, like you want," I said. "Will you leave the family alone?"
He halfway promised, though he didn't want to. But he knuckled under and crossed his heart, on account of I said I'd wake up Little Sam if he didn't. He sure wanted to see Little Sam, but I told him that was no good. Little Sam couldn't go to New York, anyhow. He's got to stay in his tank or he gets awful sick.