Blue Pencil #11: Empire of the BattleLord

When looking for a subject for this installment of Blue Pencil, I stumbled across Empire of the BattleLord, by Bradley C Hawthorne -- a novel whose synopsis reads like bad resume.

The BattleLord would never truly understand the combination of genetics and cosmic circumstances that had thrust him through the Veil that separates the Light from the Dark Matter Universe.

If you must list a personal weakness, always make sure that it's one that either isn't really a weakness ("I just work to darn hard!") or is one that the potential employer must admit they share ("Well, who does have a comprehensive understanding of both genetics and random cosmic mischance as it relates to the bifurcated universes?") Score one for the BattleLord!

His biological being is subsumed by symbiotic infections, restoring his youth and vitality, repairing a lifetime of damage to his body, rendering him impervious to all but the most horrific of wounds.

I'm not sure that an infection that makes you nigh invulnerable qualifies as "overcoming adversity and personal tragedy," but Legal says we have to give these types of claims the benefit of the doubt.

Discovered by the Dough Boys, his physical makeup is further enhanced by the inclusion of shields, weapons, and data organization devices.

"Discovered?" Come on, does he think he's Marilyn Monroe or something? And this sounds like he's bragging that he has his own PDA.

By utilizing his unique capabilities, he lives entire lifetimes on varied worlds and places throughout the natural universe.

Ugh. Buzzwords. Can't he just say he has a wide body of experience or something? God.

With loving guidance from the peoples of these worlds, he acquires the moral convictions that have since guided his every action.

Oh man. He sounds like an abortion clinic bomber. Probably leaves leaflets on co-workers' desks inviting them to Tuesday night Bible Study and smiles with strained tolerance when people talk about their weekends.

Driven to know the why of it all, he confronts the Maker, a being, entity, or machine that has existed since the very beginning of time.

I knew it.

Agreeing to accept the Maker's unconditional offer of ultimate knowledge, the BattleLord becomes subjected to a total reformation. He is rebuilt, atom by atom, to form a being that is no longer truly a product of either the Light Matter or the Dark, but a unique combination of both.

Does this guy actually have any experience, or am I supposed to hire him based entirely on his spiritual growth? And who wouldn't agree to an unconditional offer of ultimate knowledge? I hope it included knowledge of PowerPoint, at least.

Armed with the boon of immortality, The BattleLord explores new worlds to ensure the continuation of sentient life throughout the cosmos.

That's a pretty vague objective. I mean, we're all very keen on the continuation of sentient life and all that, but it really makes it sound like he's too lazy to write a resume for this specific position.

Sorry, BattleLord, in this economy you're up against people with a lot more experience and less goofy New Age crap on their CVs. Best of luck in your future endeavors!

Buy it here at AuthorHouse.com!

Blue Pencil #10: Dead World

Two posts in two days! You guys are so spoiled. The cover of Dead World, by Benjamin W. Schenk, made me hope briefly for a World War Z rip-off or something. No such luck. Turns out to be a post-apocalyptic novel about bomb shelters and hot daughters written in an exciting, exclamation point-heavy style. In Brief:

In the near future, a nuclear holocaust erupts, destroying 75% of the known world. Ward Sands thought it would happen and was prepared. He, his family, and friends get inside some bomb shelters built by him and a friend. The story is about the life inside of the bomb shelters and what they awaken to. After weeks inside of the bomb shelter, they fall into a suspended state. What they awaken to, on the outside world, is a completely different world of both wonder and danger! The story follows this man, his family, and their friends as they fight for survival against innumerable odds!

About the Author:

My name is Benjamin Schenk and this is my fifth science-fiction/fantasy novel. My four previous novels are called Second World, Invasion of the Planet Gods, The Seven and the Seven: The Second Invasion. I am a lover of science-fiction, fantasy and horror. My favorite authors are HG Wells, John Norman, JK Rowlings and numerous others in the field, both past and present.

Note #1: If someone is one of your favorite authors, you should be able to spell their name. Note #2: If John Norman is one of your favorite authors, I do not want to know you. (If you don't know who John Norman is, do yourself a favor and don't look him up. Note #3: If you're a fan of both J.K. Rowling and John Norman, I really shouldn't even be reading your work. That's just a little too creepy.

I also like comics, especially Superman, Batman, Green Arrow and the Justice League!

Wow, he likes those three superheroes and the team to which they all belong? Crazy! Excerpt:

Chapter 4 Deep underground, in a bomb shelter; Ward, Samantha and the five girls are in a larg room. The six females sit on two large king-sized beds and Ward sits on a leather desk chair. They are intently listening to a radio as it broadcasts reports of the bombs falling all over the world! The bomb shelter is brightly lit with both battery-powered and propane-powered lanterns. Overhead lights are working on a gasoline generator.

I am consistently surprised by the seeming lack of care these authors apply to their excerpts and bios. These are supposed to give people an impression of what your book will be like! From this paragraph, my impression will be that it is a sloppily-edited, poorly-puncutated story written in script-like present tense. If you're not a good enough writer to notice glaring errors in your excerpts, then you are certainly not good enough to write an entire story in present tense and not sound like an idiot.

Explosions go off from outside of their bomb shelter! Fressy and Brandy hurry from their bed to their father's side.

"Fressy and Brandy?" Death's too good for em.

He sympathetically hugs the two beautiful girls as they stare at the concrete ceiling above their heads!

Why is this exciting enough to warrant an exclamation point? "My God, the ceiling ... it's concrete! And it's above our heads!"

Ward looks over at where the beautiful, 22-year-old Jazmine is staring at the ceiling, as well. "Are you all right, princess?" Ward asks.

I am solidly on the side of the bombs, now.

Jazmine nods her head, never uttering a word. The sound of a huge explosion goes off, causing the petite blonde to spring to her feet.

There is a very creepy vibe here, no? His beautiful, petite, blonde daughter is getting an awful lot of porn-prep description. I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned her cup size yet. (The fact that they installed two king-sized beds in a bomb shelter also gives me pause.)

Sierra stands, putting her arms around her younger sister. The two sistes are staring at the ceiling.

Which two? Isn't everybody staring at he ceiling at this point?

"We're safe in here, Jazmine." Samantha says, taking hold of Jazmine's small right hand.

(Her left hand, I'm assuming, is normal.)

"But how do we know that for sure?" Jazmine asks, her voice filled with fear. "How do we know that Ward and the others made these things strong enough that a nuclear bomb won't destroy them?" "Princess, I wish I could be more positive but we did the best we could." Ward replies. "Truth is, there is no way to really test these shelters unless something like this happens and by then, it could be too late."

Way to go with the pep talk, Ward. I think we all feel a lot better now.

Jazmine nods her head. Sierra picks up a portable CD player and hands it to Jazmine. She is about to put the head-phones on when another huge explosion goes off! The radio broadcast ends, becoming nothing more than static.

Mr. Schenk's powers of description are truly mesmerizing. "Explosions going off" is so vivid, I almost feel like I'm in the bomb shelter with them, in the dim light of the flickering, low-watt flourescents, feeling each vibration of the earth pass through my body like a shudder as the bombs destroy the world I knew outside.

Chapter 37 The preachers step back from the two females. Sierra tearfully looks back at the tied and gagged Jazmine, as well as where Brandy and Fressy are tied up and standing beside of her. "We know what we lose." Sierra says. "What does she have to lose?" "Her life!" The preacher says. "And in the process, the Amazons lose their second queen within a month!"

Which preacher? You're going to have to be more specific.

Sierra walks back to Jazmine and tightly hugs her!

Oh my god! I expected her to tenderly hug her, maybe tearfully, but tightly? No way!

She kisses her younger sister on her gagged mouth. She kisses her cousins, as well. She looks into Jazmine's tear-filled blue eyes. "Remember, shrimp, no matter what happens, I will always love you!?" Sierra says. "Me, too." Jazmine says, through her gag. "Now kick her butt!"

Apparently they have a futuristic type of gag in the future through which one can talk clearly. I'm not sure that's an advancement in gag science.

Sierra turns back to the Amazon. The Amazon now holds a knife. Sierra looks over at the preachers, confused. "Wait a minute!" Sierra frightfully says. "I'm unarmed." "You may take a weapon if you like." The preacher says. "This is your home ground. Use whatever you can!" "Actually, this is the first time I've ever been here." Sierra nervously says. "Our home ground is a long ways away from here!" "Either find a weapon or fight her like you are!" The preacher demands. Sierra grabs a large rock!

A rock! Yes! Of course! This is thrill-a-minute stuff here. Totally out of left field.

She looks back at Jazmine and then at the Amazon. "My friends know me as this soft-hearted, caring person! My sister and my cousins look up to me as their role-model and their caretaker!" Sierra says, taking deep breaths as she talks.

Try saying that to yourself, with the exclamation points. She's a caring person, you sick bastards! Now do it with the deep breaths. Don't pass out or anything, I just think it's a funny. No doubt what follows is a battle royale that, to try to squeeze it into an excerpt, would spoil the entire book for us. I'm betting there's some girl-on-girl in there someplace, too, but he wants $18.30 for the paperback, which is kinda outrageous.

Blue Pencil #9: Mirror Image

I know it's been a long time, but I thought I'd do another Blue Pencil, just for the hell of it. So here's an insulting, cursory look at Mirror Image, by Richard Flewelling.

It is often said: "Everyone has a "double" out there, somewhere."

I'm pretty sure my double knows how to use quotation marks.

What would happen if a persons "double" actually interfaced with the "Other Doubles Peer Group" and do it so perfectly, no one could tell the difference?

I'm not "sure."

Nick Bogart is about to find out.

On a chilly afternoon in 1962, Nick Bogart found little amusement in his favorite Saloon across the state line of Iowa/South Dakota in North Sioux City.

He's about to find out ... 46 years ago?

Bogie wandered across the street to see if the entertainment quotient was any better over there.

The "entertainment quotient" = (number of attractive women) / (number of dudes present who are better looking than you). Modified by alchohol consumption, of course.

Somewhere in the distance of 150 feet, "Bogey" stepped into the world of "Gary Luther".

Somewhere in the very precise distance, apparently. And not only can he not use quotation marks, he's also a little shaky on the spelling of his own nickname. This bodes poorly for "Bogey(ie)."

It may just as well have been a pathway to a corner of Hell. It did not seem that way at first. When Gary Luther’s drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend climbed on to Bogey’s lap in a burst of passionate familiarity, Bogey decided it might be OK to stay as "Gary" for "just a little while".

Bogie stayed "Gary" too long.

There was "baggage" with this relationship.

God knows, anytime a drop-dead gorgeous woman who is a complete stranger leaps on my lap in a burst of "passionate familiarity," the last thing I suspect is that she may have issues.

This woman was woefully underage, and had a lunatic estranged husband chasing around looking for her.

How underage is "woefully?" And she's already married, to boot? Baggage indeed.

Gary also had enemies, and a mysterious existence. No one knew where he came from, or what he did for a living. All anyone knew about him was that he had lots of "Charm."

And a penchant for air-quotes that underage married girls found irresistible.

It is also a time of discovery of the differing depths and heights of romantic realities for Bogey, as well as the existance of worlds he is not familiar.

I'm gonna have to just let that one stand.

Things are happening he cannot explain, and people around Gary were disappearing, and dying out there.

Gary's doctor: Take it easy, Gary ... you're two-tense!

Bogey finds himself captured in an ever-tightening spiral of confusion, danger, passion, violence, mystery, the supernatural, and heartbreak; trying to understand what is going on, and trying to get back some semblance of normalicy in his life.

Wow, that is one drama-packed spiral.

And now, an excerpt:

As I pulled into the large bare dirt parking area of the "overlook", I remarked to myself as I saw her standing a short distance from her car looking out over the tri-state vista and then turning to me as she heard me pull up, what a enchanting creature this young woman truly was.

Dayam, but that is one helluva run-on sentence.

Daylight can usually uncover a lot of facial "camouflage", but this gal didn't really need any of that. She was incredibly beautiful. What make-up she wore only added highlights to what features she already had, and hers was about as good as it got.

As a reader, I am already picturing Bogey(ie) doing air quotes in every sentence. He's probably the kind of person who uses cliches like, "Get the ball rolling," and "Get our ducks in a row." God I hate him.

It was a pretty, sunny, early spring day. It was still cold outside, but aside from a bit of patch ice in the shaded areas coming up the hill, most of the roadway was clear of snow and in relatively good condition, as was the Overlook parking area.

Thanks, Gary. We'll keep you folks up to date on WeatherWatch 2009 if conditions change. And now, sports.

As I pulled up a short distance from Jenni's car, it was funny how I mentally thought how the DeVille she drove seemed to be much too big a car for such a small woman.

It would have been funnier if you'd physically thought it.

The remote location was one that had to be a "destination" as the road here was not a common route, and in addition, was a poor one. It could be confusing to someone who did not know the way. It was a perfect "lovers lane".

That's it! The next person who says something with air quotes is going to get punched in the face and I will have a copy of this excerpt handy to justify my rage.

Well, that's about as much as I can handle. You'd think, with subject matter like the blurb describes, he'd have picked a more interesting excerpt. Then again, stumbling this badly when describing a parking lot doesn't exactly lead me to expect titillating love scenes or gripping action.

Blue Pencil #8: The Horrors of Love

Technical Note: Xlibris having successfully thrown me off by clever website shittiness, I have moved on to authorhouse.com -- a website much more friendly to this endeavor than Xlibris, technically speaking. Unfortunately for us, authorHouse is a bit higher-profile as well, meaning that a smaller percentage of the content is laughably bad. Luckily, that percentage is still in the high 90s.

For our first foray into authorHouse's library, I have chosen The Horrors of Love, by Jeanne E. McComsey, summarized thus:

Gravesend Castle; six hundred and sixty-six times more beautiful than Westminster Abby, stood openly in Romania’s countryside with an imperceptible cemetery-like quietness; soft breezes ruffled the trees around the lake; Wolves were sporting in the water and a cougar was nuzzling his yellow fur below a weeping-willow tree, Victor, the Vampire, was talking to the animals; "Tis nice in the early evening; is it not, boys?"

That; my friends; is a lot of semicolons.

I had to double-check here, but this is not listed as humor, so I can't help but imagine the thought process that would go into building Gravesend Castle.

"We're going to build a castle here, and it will be beautiful."
"More beautiful than Westminster, Victor?"
"Yes, Abby, six hundred and sixty-six times more beautiful!"
"I see what you did there."
"We'll plant weeping willows and import cougars from the New World!"
"Cougars? Seriously?"
"Yes, they will love it here. And a lake for the wolves."
"Oh, how they will sport! Ravish me, creature of the night!"

The sky was darkening so fast it bruised itself. Love promises us a world made beautiful, then struggles to transform each ugly thing, and in its struggle it grows neurotic, always dreaming of better things, like betrayal or a handsome fanged raucous deceiver of death.

Um. Okay. Miss McComsey is making it very difficult for me to write anything funnier than her prose. Now I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be comedy after all. But is the grammar supposed to be comical in and of itself, or did she get her commas and semicolons at a clearance sale?

Horsemen cantered around the castle’s five-block perimeter, chasing away tourists, bug-infested beggars and homeless tramp-children wearing burlap sacks.

Now I'm totally confused, but I have to say that "homeless tramp-children wearing burlap sacks" is a phrase that I am determined to find daily use for.

"Lift up your throat to my lips and welcome the treasured kiss of an infamous amorous lover, there’s no pain; the Horrors of Love permit me to drain your blood!" Victor went into his basement, preparing to jump into his coffin and keep the Blonde Assassin’s daylight faraway.

Nice segues: Homeless tramp children, Horrors of Love, shitty metaphor for the sun. I don't even know who Victor is talking to, by the way.

He slumbered unbreathing wrapped in luxury ... Victor; the ancient one; slept the hot days away like a dead thing. He kills not for sport or profit, but to live. He finds his wives in New York City and wow’s them deeply with bitter divine passion; then takes them home to live a rich life they never dreamed of, but, with his inborn obsession to hurt and maim, he’ll forever be a night creature; a walking nightmare who frightens souls, wives, heroes and the Gods with the unleashed mayhem he alone knows; it was secretly said he wrote poetry, traveled, and aimed for the stars ... he’d be a tad more human if it wasn’t for the fact he’s related to the most dangerous beast ever; CERBERUS: the three-headed dog that guards the Gates of Hell!

Holy shit. It's ... it's the longest, worst-punctuated run-on sentence I have ever read. It hurts! Make it stop!

So I guess this is modern day, based on the pesky tourists and periodic wife-shopping in the Big Apple. Maybe an "About the Author" section will reveal that this is an intentional farce, with bad grammar used to wink at the reader slyly, letting one know that Miss McComsey is in on the joke. Ah yes:

Throughout my three year love affair with Victor the Vampire; and him, disappearing into the pleasures-unto-death, all I recall is the madness of the moonlight! He’s now orbiting through centuries in long deep sleeps ... is it permanent or am I nightmaring? Victor and I cared nothing about savoring memories, and now my hand is writing the real thing; He loved his life but I saw it as THE HORRORS OF LOVE. I loved more the terrible deaths and births occurring in his life; I even treasured the red spittle on his sharp teeth, it was the foam of love; he told me! But this can’t be true ... because I was never loved.

So much for that theory. I note here that this is McComsey's fifth book, so the idea that practice makes perfect clearly doesn't apply to punctuation. Browsing some of her other selections, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them appear here at some point.

Note to self: Remember to use the phrase "Foam of Love" when conversation gets dull.

Blue Pencil #7: Adios, Xlibris

This was a pretty frustrating column to cobble together, considering how many 404s and timeouts the Xlibris site seems to be giving me. If I didn't know better, I'd think they had started blocking me or something. Unfortunately, I do know better, and I rather doubt they know I exist. Their site just sucks. I'll be looking for a different source for these articles in the future. So, here, straight from Hell's Heart, is my last stab at Xlibris:

In the past, I have been guilty of cherry-picking truly goofy works from the obscure corners of Xlibris.com's bookstore. I have steadfastly ignored the link to the top ten royalty earning books of the quarter, since I figured they'd either be books about Jesus or cat calendars, and thus, need no effort to make them seem ludicrous.

Feeling a bit guilty (and having failed to find much humor in a book about UFOs that was merely stupid rather than breathtakingly idiotic as I'd hoped), I decided to at least take a look at the top ten this time. If you think something here is worth a review, let me know, but I kinda doubt it.

1 Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse, by James Wesley, Rawles

I'm not sure why there's a comma after Wesley, but I'm not fucking with a survivalist screed. Anyway, the excerpt is dull as dishwater.

2 I/T Architecture in Action, by Richard J. Reese

This was far too boring to read an excerpt of, though what I did manage to read told me that Mr. Reese isn't very good at math. He seems to think that 20 percent of 500 million is 10 million, which does not bode well for his treatise on managing costs.

3 Quilt Stories from Stadel Mountain, by Gloria Driscoll and Carol Gendle

These women don't screw around about quilts. Not only do they use the word "quilt" in every single sentence, but they also apparently lecture on quilts, are featured in quilt magazines, and, one would assume, quilt in their spare time. I couldn't get the excerpt to load, as it is a huge PDF file, which I have a funny feeling includes pictures of quilts in it.

4 The Legend of Fireball Fleming, by Pete Gagan

No synopsis, just a black and white picture of a guy on a motorcycle wearing a leather pilot's cap and goggles. It cannot possibly live up to that name/picture combo.

5 Healing the Harm Done, by Jennifer Y. Levy

A manual for helping parents of children who have been sexually abused. You try to make a joke. I can't think of one. Particularly when I can't even look up the author's page without a site failure.

6 Here Shall I Die Ashore, by Caleb Johnson

A biography of an actual historical figure (Stephen Hopkins).

By the time he turned forty, he had already survived a hurricane, been shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle, been written into a Shakespearean play, witnessed the famine and abandonment of Jamestown Colony, and participated in the marriage of Pocahontas.

Despite how unlikely it sounds, this is apparently an accurate description of his life. Those wacky non-Puritan Mayflower passengers!

7 Technology and Watch Design

No synopsis again. Damn the luck. This could be a comedy goldmine.

8 Norte ... Siempre Norte Novela, by Carlos Angulo Rivas

I'm assuming that this is a novel whose title is North ... Always North, which is a decent title, I guess. Since I don't speak Spanish beyond asking for my yellow pencil, I had to use Babelfish to translate the synopsis:

North... always to the north the uncertainty to reach profits common in the daily life - familiar well-being is narrated in episodes worthy to be analyzed and commented. The main personages of this suggestive story, one, sergeant major of the Peruvian army and, the other, Guatemalan farmer of high plateaus, converge in his I journey by Canada and the United States of outlandish and humorous, improbable and docile way, where the looked for happiness is hallucinating. The text describes of simple way the human soul, the greed and the loosening, in the vortex of integration to societies.

Goddamn you, Babelfish.

9 Stop Crying and Listen to the Music, by Gary Tannus Nassif

The first line of this autobiography speaks for itself:

This is the story of a wonderful, talented, normal American-Lebanese boy who became a flawed and dysfunctional individual who thought nothing of himself.

If only he had the courage to write about his experiences, maybe we, the readers, could become wonderful and talented, too.

10 Cuban Bread Crumbs, by Jack Espinosa

A memoir of growing up as a son of Spanish immigrants in Florida during World War II. No serious grammar errors and no obvious signs of insanity in the synopsis, so it's really a no-win scenario.

Blue Pencil #6: Into the Dragon's Maw

Sorry if I've left you jonesing for the comedy fix that only vanity publishing can provide.

By way of apology, I offer you Into the Dragon's Maw, by Timothy S. Robinson.

The saga begins ...

A warrior-monk is chosen for a final test, one that will propel him into a series of life-threatening situations time and time again.

While there may not be anything technically wrong with this sentence, I have to wonder why one would need to be propelled multiple times into multiple series of situations. Aren't you just propelled once, into a series of situations?

Along the way, the pacific martial artist develops some curious friendships with a little gnome thief you love to hate, and a stubborn old dwarf that has a way with words.

At the same time, a Herculean elf is searching for his roots and for the creature that slaughtered his friends and family. His perilous quest will unknowingly unite him with a beautiful half-elven druid and a host of magical creatures that help guide him along his dangerous journey.

Gnome thief ... check. Dwarf ... check. Elf ... check. Half-elf druid ... check. Hmm, no Half-Orcs or Halflings? What kind of D&D campaign is this?

Inevitably, these two parties unite and join forces to face a common threat -- one that will unlock the past for the monk, and unlock the secrets of the giant elf’s origins.

I'd be interested to learn about the origins of a giant elf. It's only a hair less oxymoronic than a giant dwarf or jumbo shimp.

By the way, if I gave these books ratings, I would give this one high marks for one thing: the excerpt is cut-and-pasteable. You wouldn't believe how much retyping I've had to do in these posts, and how traumatic it is for me to replicate the unique grammar, punctuation, and spelling they are so very fond of.

The ancient monastery sat atop the highest precipice of a cloud-cutting mountain in the remote northern region of Di Jow, an Asiatic peninsula acquired long ago in the Old War.

Acquired by who? And I think we can safely assume that the Old War didn't happen last week.

It took a minimum of ten days on horseback to reach the derelict mountain from the nearest village -- assuming the horse maintained its footing throughout the journey, and avoided any predators along the way.

Yes, assuming the horse didn't fall down and break a leg or get eaten by hyenas. That might cause delays. Your mileage may vary.

A cursory view of this foreboding place imparted the name of Dansu to the fleeing adventurer, or "death" in the Asian dialect.

Ah, to hear again the dulcet tones of the Asian dialect. Those Asians have a beautiful language. How I wish I'd learned to speak Asian! I am a bit confused as to how a cursory view of a place can impart a name, though, unless the name is on a big sign.

Throughout the ages, the mountain lived up to its name. Drawn by the prospect of untold riches and magic, many assailed it and disappeared without a trace.

How can you be drawn by the prospect of something untold? And if people are disappearing without a trace, who's telling the untold stories?

The ethereal monastery, even more mysterious than the mountain, was rumored at one time to house a handful of monks who possessed extraordinary powers. Legends were passed down from generation to generation on the abilities of these monks -- abilities that hinged on the supernatural. These legends had died off though, mainly due to the missing element of actually bearing witness to one of these monks. No one had actually seen such a monk . . . ever. The latest rumor was that the monastery never existed to begin with.

So ... at one time the legendary monastery that no one ever saw was rumored to house monks that no one ever saw, and those legends have since died off, but the non-existence of the monastery is now the most popular rumor? That is mysterious!

Isn't a rumor that a legend isn't true more of a lack of a rumor?

"You know what I hear? That Loch Ness Monster that nobody can prove exists? I hear that it doesn't exist!"

Xin was just a young boy when he had first heard the rumors about Dansu.

Wait, which rumors? That it doesn't exist, or that it does exist but no one's ever seen it?

Seeking to put an end to them, he had set out haphazardly to climb the mountain and discover the truth. The mountain had never faced an adversary quite like Xin before. The Asian youth hadn't come for magic or riches.

Oh, those plucky Asians!

He was there to conquer its heights and dispel the growing myths it hid.

If it actually hides something, isn't that something the thing that you're trying to dispel myths about? This is getting pretty goddamn convoluted.

Surprisingly, Xin finds out that the rumors are true! (Not the ones about there not being a legendary monastery, though -- those turn out to be false.)

We rejoin him twenty years later, as he is being sent away from the Monastery that May or May Not Exist for his "Final Test." This test mainly seems to involve finding a way out of the monastery that he took so much trouble to find.

The long corridor was like any other in the monastery: rough-hewn walls chiseled out of stone encompassing a smooth, gray marble floor. There was nothing in particular about the corridor, but Xin knew better.

How can there be "nothing in particular" about the corridor, when we've just been given the particulars of its construction, finish, and length?

He took an inexhaustible amount of time examining the floor, walls and ceiling, moving perhaps a foot every ten minutes.

If it was an inexhaustible amount of time, wouldn't that indicate that he was still looking today? Wait, how can you "exhaust" an amount of time?

In any case, he soon finds a magical door with a rather complex description:

The bolts were equidistant and equilateral to each other. The Master had said that when faced with a system in which forward and reverse reactions occur at equal rates, so that the concentration of the reactants do not change with time, whatever action that was chosen would change the balanced system and cause failure.

Wait a moment! The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side! Wait, no, that only applies in Ozian geometry, and doesn't take into account things like formulas and ... and compositions ... and ... uh ... things your primitive mind wouldn't understand!

Eventually, Xin comes to a strange room ...

The walls were not of ordinary stone - but of precious stone. Two walls came together and were made of obsidian, and in stark contrast, the opposite walls were made of pearl.

I don't know much about mineralogy, but I'm pretty sure that obsidian isn't precious and pearl isn't a stone.

Upon them were millions of sigils, glyphs, writings and drawings carved into each wall with infinite precision.

Millions? They must be pretty damn small. Hence the infinite precision, I guess.

I'm skipping a lot here, and becoming progressively more convinced that this is not so much an "excerpt" as a "free book."

Eventually, Xin comes upon a dragon who is black on the left side and white on the right side (Which, as all Star Trek fans will be happy to explain to you, is inferior to one which is white on the left side and black on the right side.)

Man, I can actually feel myself getting geekier for having made that joke.

This dragon tests Xin, tells him about his destiny, fetches him drinks, et cetera, while Xin spends his ample free time trying to read the indecipherable runes on the chamber walls.

I'm pretty sure other things happened here, but my eyes are starting to cross.

Blue Pencil #5: The Anger of Modbyedelig

When one peruses Xlibris's fine bookstore, it is not unheard of to encounter "creative" spelling, and the title of this novel initially struck me as one of these. I'm not even sure how to pronounce "Modbyedelig," but at first glance I thought it was supposed to be "Molybdenum" and, as I am a huge fan of transition metals with an electronegativity of 1.8 on the Pauling scale and an atomic mass of 95.9 g/mole, I just had to check it out.

To my dismay, it turned out that this was not a treatise on the emotional state of the element with the sixth-highest melting point at all, but rather a fantasy tale by Margie L. Lauritzen-Hussey about ... well, I'm not entirely sure, but here's the synopsis:

Intrigue! Terror! Modbyedelig, the evil one, will use any means to achieve it’s dominance of OtherWorld. It is the disruptive influence in an otherwise peaceful land. A young Lace, sent Cosmos to protect OtherWorld and its inhabitants, is unprepared for the demonic force waged against her.

Yikes! Intrigue! Terror! Molybdenum!

Without reading further, I'm guessing that Cosmos is the hero? Sent by someone named Lace? OtherWorld is clearly the land of the Noun people. Judging from the cover, Molybdenum is some kind of tree (or possibly it's just angry at trees -- I'm not sure).

Lynn, William and Sara, her young friends from Human-land join in the conflict. They, along with the Centaurs, Wonkies and the indomitable Elves, encounter the wickedness of Modbyedelig.

Wonkies? Centaurs and Elves (particularly the indomitable ones) I can get behind, but I'm not sure if an alliance with the Wonkies is in the best interests of OtherWorld. Thank god the coalition is strengthened by three human children, as any Narnia fan will tell you that children are dynamite on the battlefields of fantasyland.

Destruction of OtherWorld is imminent. A story of friendship, courage, and loyalty.

I thought Molybdenum wanted to achieve dominion over OtherWorld? Perhaps these Pixie-fairies, Wookies, and assorted fae riffraff would prefer annihilation over obedience to a silvery-white metal. (To be fair, Molybdenum is very hard, though it is somewhat more ductile than tungsten.)

Well, on to the excerpt! Let's see ...

An illustrated excerpt! Very classy.

I can only assume that these are the aforementioned Wonkies. Clearly the double-line of Wonkies is headed off to war against Molybdenum and the two in the lower-right corner are either deserters or conscientious objectors.

Probably deserters. I mean, I'd chicken out, too, if my unit was sent to fight a dragon on a stick, as these guys apparently are.

War is hell.

The Wonkies marched two by two past the gate. The A's came first: Alfred, Amy, Albert, Alfonso; then the B's: Bernard, Bobby, Barbara.

"Bernard?" "Amy?" These aren't exactly names I'd expect to see attached to exotic creatures like Wonkies.

Quickly, without giving notice, three groups of two scattered off to the underbrush, hardly breathing, as the others passed them.

Ah, so they're prisoners, I guess? It would make sense, then, that they didn't give notice to the guards before fleeing (Though that would have been the courteous thing to do, they are Wonkies, and thus can't really be held accountable for their manners).

The C's were driven past. Charles, Chester, Carl; not one escaped.

Come on, Cs! Half the As and Bs just took off and you're still too chicken to make a break for it? Grow a pair!

The D's, less organized, stumbled down the path. Dagmar, Don, and Doris crept to the side of the road, scooting through the brush into the dark forest. Dave paused, raised his hand to wave good-bye to his friends. The guard was on him in an instant.

"You wanna escape? Fine! But if I see you wave to anybody, your ass is grass!"

The author continues to regale us with the struggles of Frank, Gina, Harold, Irwin, June, Liz, Montgomery, Nathan, Oswald, Patricia, Quentin, Randall, Steve, Theresa, Uriah, Vincent, Walther, Xavier, Yancy, and Zebediah Wonkie, but sadly runs out of excerpt before she can completely bore me to death.

I did learn a thing or two about Wonkies -- they are short, have stubby little legs, and are covered in fur which provides them with no protection from brambles or stray twigs.

I bet Molybdenum quakes in fear at the thought of an army of Ewoks Wonkies marching in and kicking the ever living shit out of it, despite its low density and stable market price or its ability to withstand extreme temperatures without significantly expanding or softening.

Actually, I rather envision Cosmos (who gets surprisingly little attention in the synopsis or excerpt despite apparently being the main character) as being about as impressed with the Wonkies as I am.

"I've just received word that the Wonkies are with us, sir!"

"Oh? Er ... excellent. Well, uh ... any word from the Elves or Centaurs yet?"

Blue Pencil #4: The Last One Standing

At Xlibris, science fiction is almost as big as self-help books and collections of poems about cats. It is from this deep well of imagination that I draw the latest subject for my snarky dissection: The Last One Standing, by Anthony L. McLaughlin.

In the year 2085: the moon has been colonized and renamed Gaia and a conglomerate known as the Kage Ninja Tenkai has become known worldwide both on Gaia and on Earth.

Who but the sly and wily ninja would rename the moon after the goddess of the earth?

Within the same year a young man named Mac Karasagi joins the group and is immediately accepted in among its elite. However, one year later, Mac finds himself knee deep in the Kage Ninja Tenkai's dirty secrets and a large plot that is much deeper than anything he has ever been involved with. Now it is up to this young man to bring down the larges organization the world has ever seen, and it seems as if he must do it alone.

Wait, our fate is in the hands of Mac, who is involved in a plot which, while it is much deeper than anything he has ever been involved with, is nonetheless only knee deep?

Who checked this guy's references?

I suppose I'd better hit the excerpt and find out if this story is as riveting as its brief synopsis would suggest...

The Kage Ninja Tenkai Headquarters was a rather large building that stuck from the surrounding structures. The entrance hall, however, made up the bulk of the headquarters, about sixty five percent of it...

What? Oh, sorry. I must have fallen asleep. Where was I?

It was grandeur and perhaps the most memorable thing of the building.

More memorable than the fact that it's full of ninjas? That must be one hell of an entrance hall!

The floor was made of many large tiles, each cut out in measurements of three feet by three feet, all made of a very expensive granite-marble mixture. The texture was also very distinct, a large mass of dark swirls with the occasional calligraphy-like swoosh of white.

Ninja HQ also sports four bathrooms, spacious walk-in closets, and an attached garage.

Mac made his way across the large floor and up the grandeur staircase.

I'm beginning to suspect that Mr. McLaughlin doesn't know what "grandeur" means. He sure is fond of it, though.

Skipping a bit, as the author has established the impeccable eye for interior decoration that is the hallmark of the ninja, we find Marc approaching the receptionist:

She looked up behind her crescent spectacles, she wasn't an elderly lady but the glasses she wore made her seem a bit more elderly then she really was.

Wait, she's not elderly, but her glasses make her seem more elderly than she actually is? How does that even ... oh, wait. Ninja.

"Are there any more missions lined up for me?"

The receptionist looked back down at the monitor and clicked on a few things with the wireless mouse.

A wireless mouse? The future is even more awesome than I had imagined!

"Hmm, it doesn't seem so. We'll call on you when you're needed." Mac smiled and nodded to show thanks as he turned away and quickly headed out of the headquarters.

What the hell? A treatise on the aesthetics of ninja decor, a building full of ninjas, and we're leaving already?

Mac's house wasn't too far from here, he could easily make it from this distance.

Don't strain yourself, warrior of the future.

Mac waited for a red light to come up on one of the busy intersections and ran across the street so he could continue on to his house. Mac made a few more turns and crossed over one more street before he came to the street on which his home was.

I don't know about you, but in my imagination, ninjas frigging jaywalk. Any cop on the street will tell you that if you try to give a ninja a ticket, the ninja will kill you with it.

Despite the close distance his home was in a neighborhood that seemed like a suburban far away from any city. Neon City was well built like that, though, there were several neighborhoods that seemed like suburban areas which were blocked off by large concrete walls to reduce the sounds of the city.

Jesus. I wonder how the schools are.

Mac's house wasn't too large only one story but it seemed to make up for it with length.

Hehe.

As he approached it he could see that his wife wasn't at home, her car wasn't in the driveway.

A married ninja who lives in a nice suburban subdivision? They really don't make em like they used to. In the future, I mean. They don't, in the future, make them like they used to ... forget it.

And that's pretty much it for the excerpt. An exciting sampling of a science fiction ninja adventure, featuring neither ninjas nor anything resembling science fiction. It's right up there with the L.A. Times' home buyers supplement.

Blue Pencil #3: The Jihad:Islams[sic] War In The West

For the third installment of Blue Pencil, I have chosen to move away from science fiction/fantasy for a bit, and bring you the inimitable The Jihad:Islams[sic] War In The West, by Wylie Burnett and Alodi Annis:

FOR DECADES, GREAT SECRECY CLOAKED THE ACTIVITIES OF THE RADICAL FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC MUSLIMS AFTER THEIR 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY ARMED CAMPAIGNS AGAINST WESTERN SOCIETIES. RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS FROM THE MIDDLE-EAST AND WORLD WIDE MIGRATED LEGALLY AND ILLEGALLY TO THE INDUSTRIAL NATIONS OF THE WORLD TO FORM COALITIONS WITH TERRORIST GROUPS THROUGH RELIGIOUS AND FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS. IN THE UNITED STATES THESE DIVERSE GROUPS BUILT CHURCHES., MOSQUES AND FAMILY ORIENTED ASSOCIATIONS THAT SERVED AS CONTACT POINTS AND PROVIDED FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR DISGRUNTLED MINORITEIS AND ENEMIES OF THE CHRISTIAN MAJORITIES. THROUGH CAREFUL COORDINATION THE SHUR COUNCIL BROUGHT THE GROUPS TOGETHER WITH A PLAN TO SEIZE THREE WESTERN STATES. INTIMIDATION WAS BACKED BY MASSIVE WELL TRAINED GUERILLAS TO FORCE NEGOTIATION UPON A SADLY DIVIDED GOVERNMENT. THE STORY IS ABOUT THE FIVE ISLAMIC GENERALS AND MILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS WHO THROUGH YEARS OF PLANNING ARE NOW CAPTURING AND ISOLATING LOS ANGELES AND ORANGE COUNTIES IN SOUTHERR CALIFONRIA., TO FORCE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INTO A NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT FOR THE FREE ISLAM NATION.

Whoa, there, you don't have to shout! .

Judging from this blurb, I suspect that Xlibris charges extra for paragraph breaks and lowercase letters in the ad copy. Spell-checking seems a likely candidate for extra charges as well.

An intriguing aspect of this no-holds-barred assault on reality is the notion that the goal of radical Islam is not, as you might expect, the fiery destruction of infidel society, but rather a "NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT FOR THE FREE ISLAM NATION."

"Now that we have toppled the godless Americans from their position as a world power and seized key sites in Glendale, Irvine, and Norwalk, we will force the imperialist swine to NEGOTIATE! Yes, brothers, soon we will have brokered an amicable arrangement with the great Satan!"

I was surprised and alarmed to see this book classified as "Political Science," rather than "Fiction." If the forces of radical Islam are on the brink of seizing control of Los Angeles County, I really ought to buy my wife a Hijab.

Here's an excerpt:

The four Generals, three with bronze to deep brown skin and a black, sat silently absorbing the last words of a long and heated debate.

Amazingly, for non-fiction, the authors can actually describe in detail the proceedings of top-secret meetings of the radicals planning to overthrow America.

Then a concerned voice interrupted, "But the city is so vast, so spread out, it will take thousands of soldiers to be effective."

Considering that they apparently have "millions" of followers in Southern California, I don't see this as a big obstacle.

He studied each of the men's faces intently looking for support and acceptance but never doubting their commitment.

Whoa! They can even tell you what these people are thinking!

Thank God they're on our side.

Blue Pencil Addendum: Cringeworthy Titles

Just skimming Xlibris's bookstore, some of the titles are truly fascinating*:

• Downfall of America and Europe by Illegal Immigrants and Fanatic Religious
• The Superior Brain of Women and Calculus
• The Greatest Secrets Ever Revealed to Be Younger Every Day
• The Last and Only Solution to Overweight
• Forgotten Heartbeat of the Living Ancient
• Jasperado, Outlaw Cat of the West
• Was Achilles a Jew?
• God's Touchdowns!
• God's Holy Plan to Save Earth
• Vampires of the Future and the Planet of Bondage

Okay, that last one is pretty hard to top, so I'll just leave the list at 10.

*I should point out that the first four books on this list are all by the same author, who must be admired for publishing, unedited, in what can't possibly be her first language.

Blue Pencil #2: A Deerhunter meets T-Rex

After the nail-biting intensity of G.E.E.N.I.E in a Bottle, I felt I needed something a bit lighter from the world of vanity publication. Hmm ... How about A Deerhunter meets T-Rex, by Rex Downie, Jr.? Sounds pretty good to me:

The Piper Comanche bored along at 160 knots over the Canadian bush, over the Little Current River, it’s destination Okogi up toward James Bay. But it hit instead a cosmic flight plan that changed it landing point to a sandy beach on a lake that existed ten thousand years before. The pilot was slain by the tusk of a Mammoth, and the passenger Harry Spragg then slew the Mammoth.

Well, this synopsis certainly is specific. Most synopses would leave the reader wondering, "exactly how fast was that plane going?" or "yes, the pilot was killed, but which part of the mammoth killed him?" None of that here.

Spragg then endured the great wrenching force of paradox and lived with people native to the lake area for two years, entering into combat with Sabre Toothed Tigers, Mammoths, the vorple T-Rex and a few Velociraptors thrown in to boot.

I'm not sure whether this is an introduction to the story or a description of what happens in it. I am interested in whether a vorple T-Rex goes "snicker-snack," however.

What is the Achilles heel of the T-Rex? How are Velociraptors like deer? The answers to these questions lie within, and, moreover, if you wish to escape these times for a new world in a primeval wilderness, with some excitement thrown in to boot, this book is for you.

How is a velociraptor like a deer? Neither one can whistle!

I don't know about you, but I'd find escaping these times for a new world in a primeval wilderness pretty exciting, but this book throws even more excitement in! What kind of excitement, I wonder?

I know, let's look at an excerpt!

CHAPTER SIX

The last battle; our Hero fights hand to hand.

Wow, Chapter Six and he's already on the last battle? These are truly savage times!

Harry sensed as the months passed after the Trex hunt that Yarthu had something on his mind, but his pre-occupation with Bluebird engaged him wholly, for she wanted to know his language and they spent hours exchanging word and ideas, that often left him exhausted.

I don't know about you, but talking rarely leaves me exhausted. I'm pretty sure there's more going on here with "Bluebird."

Harry's not much of a friend if he knows his friend has had something on his mind for months but he can't separate himself from some babe for five minutes to talk it over. Bros before hos, man!

He had scrawled out an alphabet with charcoal on hide and thought she'd grasped the huge chasm that lay between spoken and written word. They went together to the village nightly fires and feasts, and gradually Harry regained enough strength to go on hunts, but he couldn't pull a heavy bow and felt for awhile that his shoulder was so damaged that he was permanently injured.

Now, don't get me wrong: There's nothing I like better than time travel stories involving prehistoric times that somehow place humans and dinosaurs in the same era, but where's the battle we were promised?

Oh, here we go:

They moved on, crouching, waiting, moving, crouching, butting the spears in, as the soft grunts drew closer on either hand.

(If I was there, I'd have done more crouching. Crouching is key.)

After the third move, soft coughs came from front and rear, and Yarthu said "They charge now".

"Ahem. Ahem!" The sabre-tooth cleared its throat, informing the humans that it was about to attack. It hated Yarthu for his poor punctuation.

This warning gave Harry the eye to see a shift of color and shadow not ten feet distant in the bush to his right, and he swung the spear point right just as the massive head and outstretched paws loomed above him, and he raised the spear point into the throat just below the gaping maw, released his grip and rolled away from the beast as it flew over him, its' left paw tearing into his left shoulder.

Holy run-on sentence, Batman!

Wait, the warning gave him the eye to see? Clearly there is a supernatural aspect to the story that I'm not picking up on from this excerpt.

Blue Pencil #1: G.E.E.N.I.E In A Bottle

After the admittedly weakly-sourced fun-poking I did on Wednesday, I decided to poke around and see what self-publishing was all about (note that ParaWorld Zero, by Matthew Peterson, is NOT self-published).

I came upon a site called Xlibris, publisher of To Live Without Warning, by Timothy LaBadie, and, for as little as $300, publisher of just about anything else you care to send them.

Rather than get into the nitty-gritty details of how self-publication works, I thought I'd take a look at some of the offerings in Xlibris's bookstore. I think this is now one of my favorite sites.

I'd like to share some of these wonderful tales with you, the reader. I do this partially because of the immense entertainment value this site holds, but mostly because it's easy pickins. In honor of the editors these works clearly lack, I'm going to call this series, "Blue Pencil."

For my first foray, I have chosen the intriguingly-named G.E.E.N.E.E. In A Bottle, by Theodore Ransburg and Patrick Codden, the (really, really long) synopsis of which reads as follows (my comments in blue):

Professor Jonothon Richardson is a brilliant scientist, haunted by the biggest mistake of his career: years ago, while in government employ, his research led to an accidental explosion that claimed the life of his wife and child.

Leaving aside the question of which of Richardson's lesser mistakes might have haunted him, I'm wondering how a guy who we learn is a computer researcher managed to blow up his wife and child with his work.

"This code ... it's not compiling ... it's ... OH MY GOD!!! The CPU is overheati-- BOOOM!!! "

Now, in a lonely lab on one of Saturn’s moons, he toils away, trying to sublimate his guilt by creating the next leap in technology. By combining both organic and technological materials, he creates a living computer, capable of massive storage and computation, far surpassing even the impressive technology of the 24th Century. Thus is created G.E.E.N.E.E., which stands for “Genetically Engineered Essence, for Neurologically Enhanced Encryption.” (It is probably just coincidence that his daughter’s name was “Jeannie”...).

Yes, an intriguing coincidence, that!

His assistant is the effeminate Max DeBlanc, who attends to the Professor’s needs in a manner both effecient and annoying.

"Effeminate?" And, er ... what needs are we talking about here?

Secretly, however, Max is an Operative of the branch of the government who employs the good Doctor. His purpose is to secure the technology and make sure it is delivered into the proper hands. What he ends up creating is far more than even he bargained for, as the Professor solves the problem of true artificial intelligence. Not only is the new technology capable of super-computer tasks, but he implants it with the personality profile of his deceased daughter, in an emotional attempt to restore the life he feels he took from her.

Wait a minute! I thought it was a coincidence? Ransburg and Codden, you tricky bastards!

Just as the Professor successfully installs and interacts with his new creation, he is greeted with the unexpected arrival of a pack of super-human thieves. Nearly alien in appearance, they exhibit a terrifying ability to mutate their bodies in various ways, from surviving the rigors of deep space to forming armor plated skin and deadly tentacles. Overpowering both the Professor and the government-trained Max, they make off with their prize, following the orders of their mysterious commander.

So much for "government-trained" Max. A subtle comment on the limitations of effeminism and effeminists.

They are unaware that the organic components of the G.E.E.N.E.E. unit require a nutrient bath, that needs re-charging every few days. Meanwhile the Government, eager to get its hands on the new technology, deploys one of their top Agents, Sasha Sikorski, to retrieve it. Fresh out of a mock-combat training exercise (in which she demonstrates, purely and lethally, why she is the best in her field), she receives her new orders. When she arrives at the deep space lab, under cover and aboard a junker / courier ship, she finds the invention stolen and Max and the Professor badly beaten up.

So ... they've just been sitting there, beaten up, waiting for the cops to show? Must be disappointing when the doorbell rings and it's only a courier ... OR IS IT?

No! It's Sasha Sikorski, mistress of mock-combat!

Quickly re-grouping, Sasha commandeers the junker ship (overpowering the Captain and winning the begrudging fealty of his crew) and takes off to recover the stolen unit.

"Well, you beat up our Captain, and we're none too happy about that. Buuuuuut ... you are a woman, and space is lonely, so just let us know how we can help."

Unfortunately, the ship’s crew is indebted to the Overlord of the black market, and they can’t proceed any further into space without the mid-range drive that he holds as ransom for their latest cargo.

"Wait, you want to go where? Nope, no can do. You see, if you wanted to go kinda close by, or really really far away, we could help you, but our mid-range drive is in hock. Damn the luck."

Against Sasha’s better judgement (and the Professor’s emotional outburst),
they must journey to the heart of the criminal world – the black market headquarters of Baldezar, hidden in the asteroid belt of the solar system.

Considering that they are near Saturn, if they can get to the asteroid belt on the drive the ship has, why don't they just go where they need to go? Oh, wait. It's probably somewhere closer than the asteroid belt but farther than the corner deli. Curse that missing mid-range drive!

Once there, the ship’s crew tries to negotiate the terms of their business agreement (without the help of their Captain), while Sasha, Max and Professor Richardson shop around and try not to get themselves killed.

Oh my god. If I was at the black market, I'd totally go shopping. I mean, it's like, how often do you make it out to the asteroid belt?

Acquiring some valuable technology – and making enemies with nearly every guard in the place – the rag-tag team makes a quick get-away and rejoins the search for G.E.E.N.E.E.. The race against time is on, as the Doc calculates that her nutrient bath will run out in a few short days.

"Hmm. Maybe we shouldn't have taken time to go shopping. And, really, making enemies with nearly every guard did take a long time. Some of them were pretty cool."

When they finally manage to trace the signal, they find themselves headed for the darkest of Uranus’ moons, Umbriel. An abandoned mining facility there seems a likely hideout for the thieves.

Especially since, you know, we traced the signal there.

The final confrontation pits the Professor and Sasha against the evil artificial intelligence which has kidnapped G.E.E.N.E.E., in his element: inside his own mainframe!

Wait, "mainframe?" What year is this set in?

Meanwhile, Max and HeadTrip confront a fresh obstacle in the "real world" – another wave of genetically enhanced Mutates that guard the laboratory.

Wouldn't this indicate that the previously-described "final confrontation" is, in fact, the "penultimate confrontation?"

Will good triumph over evil? Will man secure his dominance over machines? The final answer may surprise us all, but the trip will be worth every second.

The only way to answer this question is to check out the excerpt!

CHAPTER THREE:

MUTATES IN THE EQUATION

Max woke up about halfway through his rest cycle, with a desperate need to use the waste management facilities.

Um. Let's skip a bit ...

Maybe the guy is part machine himself, he quipped. He sighed, and continued on down the hallway to relieve his call of nature.

Er, a bit further, please ...

Max's eyes flickered quickly over the Professor's torso before coming to rest on the real target—his right bicep. The Professor was not a body-builder, by any means. His physical development had been helped, however, through vitamins and technologically enhanced exercise in varying gravity fields. He was, in short, reasonably developed without being grotesque.

FURTHER!

She was a young Caucasian girl, with blonde hair pulled into twin pigtails. She looked around with a calm, curious expression on her face. As she locked eyes with him, there was some sort of familiar spark in her gaze, but it was gone so quickly it might have just been imagination in the first place.

"Hello," he began, hesitantly regaining his composure.

"Hello." Her voice was high-pitched, but not whiny as so many children's voices are. She spoke slowly and matter-of-factly.

Well, at least it doesn't involve bodily functions or inappropriate workplace ogling. But "Slowly and matter-of-factly?" All she said was, "Hello!"

What Max saw on his monitor was an unimaginably huge stream of data and computer commands scroll by on the screens in front of him.

I'm sorry, I can't quite envision how huge that stream of data and computer commands is. However huge I imagine it is, I'm reminded by the text that, no, it's even bigger.


Alas, despite the fact that no one takes any more bathroom breaks during the course of this excerpt, we are left with no answers as to the eventual triumph of good or evil. The evil "Mutates" arrive and, admirably overcoming the fact that their name is a verb, steal G.E.E.N.I.E and whisk her away to the outer edges of the solar system.

One can only hope that the rag-tag band of heroes will be unable to enlist the aid of the government that is so keenly interested in the professor's invention, and that they will, by grit and determination alone, find some way of confronting the villain in his very lair.

(Well, actually, thanks to the very lengthy synopsis, we know that they will do precisely that.)

But who will truimph? That's the question only you, the reader, can answer. (Because I'm certainly not going to read it.)

Jesus, speaking of needing editors ... I think this is the longest thing I've ever posted. Oh well.