Only Posting on Friday!
I have spoken with my wife, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, and she commands that, since I have a deadline looming with the editor for my next book, I can only post on Fridays for the next six weeks or so, albeit from time to time I may post a link.
A link like this one! http://www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets-447.html– with this must new info about exoplanets flooding into the scientific world, any sciffy writer who has to make up his own world rather than speculating about one of these is wasting a valuable resource. I, for one, would like to read a tale set on GJ 1214b, which is 6 times the size of earth, but not a gas giant; or HAT-P-11b which orbits every four days around his primary, and is larger than Neptune, a fire giant; or the planet in the globular cluster M4 which is only 2 billion years younger than the big bang; or SWEEPS-10 who orbits his star once every ten hours, at a distance of 740,000 miles — which sounds like a setting for an RA Lafferty story.
Sadly, my latest book is set on none of these real but fantastic worlds. For those of you who inquired, it is tentatively titled KUSHIEL’S BEAUTY AND THE FREE AMAZONS OF GOR, the seventeenth in my famous post-Rapture books about developmentally disadvantaged “The Left Way Behind” series.
In this book, the “Children of Light” or Whitecloaks finally have Harry Spotter, the Chosen One, cornered at Hogsworth school on the island of Rooke, and they mean to drag him before the Grand Inquisitor to be burnt as a warlock; but he is spirited away at the last minute by Tabitha Stephens of the Black Ajah and Glinda the Good of the Red Ajah, which are factions of the Bene Guessiwhat, because Glinda thinks Harry is the reincarnation of the Dragon, and the long-awaited Kumquat Haagen Daaz.
Harry Spotter the Chosen One is being aided by Biffy Somers, the Other Chosen One, kung-fu vampire huntress; and by Neon the kung-fu computer hacker messiah, who is Yet Another Chosen One; and by Anakeem Skygawker the Also a Chosen One, the psychic outerspace kung-fu guy, and by Liu Kang the Chosen One of Many Chosen Ones, who is just a straight-up kung-fu kung-fu guy. And the Emperor’s men have defeated the forces of Earth in nine straight mortal combats, and tainted the Source of the One Power!
Also along are Ash Catsup, a Chosen One who trains kung-fu pets for pit dog fighting, Lyre Belacque, who is a Chosen One with no kung-fu powers at all but she can read a magic pocketwatch and doesn’t believe in God. Even though He exists as a character in the background. Other Chosen Ones include, but are not limited to, Eregon, Usagi, Homer Simpson and Aang, and not to mention Chandler Jarrell, who is a social worker trying to find lost, missing, and exploited children. You see, in my story, everyone is a Chosen One! We are all special!
Naturally, all these Chosen Ones are too dangerous to fight in a face-to-face kung-fu battle, so Enro the Red will command his Sardaukar terror-troops aboard the Death Star merely to blast the planet they are on onto asteroids, so that the Seldon Plan can continue uninterrupted and the Second Galactic Empire can rise from the ashes of history. Try parrying THAT with your fancy wire-fu moves, Chosen Dudes!
Meanwhile, Prudence, Pfiffer and Phoebe Holywell help Gandalf and Sparrowhawk escape from the dungeons of the Inquisition via the land of the dead. Oddly, when Sparrowhawk returns from the underworld, he has lost all his powers, whereas Gandalf gets a promotion and a new hue. The Holywell sisters, being ‘Charmed Ones’ are not exactly ‘Chosen Ones’ and so escape the general massacre of Chosen Ones by the Sardaukar under General Order 66.
In any case, John Sheridan, Mr. Spock, Sha’uri, Dr. Strange, John Carter the Warlord of Mars, greet the wizards as they pop out of their graves, and explain the rules of the secret Illuminati group of those who have returned from the dead. Fu Manchu does not count, since he almost seemed to be dead, and of course, the Dread Pirate, Roberts, was only “mostly” dead.
Any way, as you can tell, the plot still needs a little work, since the bad guys blast the good guys into ions in chapter two, and only four of the Chosen Ones can come back from the dead via resurrection or reincarnation or friendly necromancy (Harry, Neon, Aang, Biffy).
So no more posts from me except on Fridays.
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ADDED LATER: Snarky comments in the comments box ask whether my wife dresses like Catwoman. Nonsense! Have I not made it clear that I am lord and master of my house, the paterfamilias, and that I keep my wife barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, as Darwin and St. Paul intended? But I hear chortles of doubt.
Fortunately, I happen to have tape from one of the security cameras operating in the buried throneroom and presence chamber of my wife’s fortress-mausoleum. You can recognize me as the man who approaches and speaks. Some people say I look like Count Dooku from that movie. Absurd! Clearly I look like Saruman the White. Let us listen in to the charming yet domestic conversation:
You will note a bit of romantic lovey-dovy talk while I flatter her. I am such a smoothie! I talk that way so she does not throw me in the lava pit.
I trust this puts any rumors about my true relationship with She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed to well deserved rest.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
