Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 72

THE. COVER. IS. DONE!!!

The cover for Blue Ghosts, the next Exiles story, due out October 2012. IT IS FINISHED.

It at my lunch guys and girls. IT SO VERY MUCH ATE MY LUNCH. My working method with painting is usually a lot smoother. Though it didn't help that the day after I posted that WIP? THE COMPUTER ATE THE MASTER FILE. And I had to start over. THANK GOD I POSTED THE WIP is all I can say.

So here you are. Look upon it. Feast your eyes upon this glorious cover. And be ready for Blue Ghosts in October! First week of October, boys and girls, very first week!

(BTW her name is Abbey. Just FYI.)

This is gonna be SO MUCH FUN!

Mission Earth One AND DONE

You know you just have those days when the very LAST thing you want to do is look at garbage? Yeah, this weekend was kind of shot for me. Anyhoo...

...right. back to the garbage. And actually, it's not gonna be much of a review. 'Cause this book and this reviewer have both run out of steam.

So Soltan wastes a little time making sure that he can hear/see everything that Jet hears/sees via the bugs he had surgically implanted into Jet-boy. And I have decided that Jettero Heller is, no shit? The best spy ever. Because there is no way anybody on any planet could be that much boyscout and yet still manage to fuck with our delightful emo narrator quite so much.

Then he goes to meet with his boss, where he is given:

1. enough info to make his boss disappear for good, thus saving everybody from the next nine terrible books. Sadly, Soltan does not do this.

and

2. a bottle of meth. Which Soltan does most emphatically do.

See, he's tired and in dread of the party and stressed out because HOLY SHIT, SECRET MISSION GOING AWAY PARTY GOING ON THE NEWS, so he does half a tab of meth.

Having never done any amphetimine at all.

And you know that scene in Transformers 2 (I only read about this. I know better than to watch most Micheal Bay movies) where the Beef's mom eats a pot brownie? That's the end of the book. Only with fireworks and camera crews and Jet naming his tug boat Prince Calcasia after his racist fairy tale, and that's the end of the story.

And it's time for me to make a confession: I don't get these books at all.

Seriously. I don't. Half the time I am positive that we have an unreliable narrator, that Soltan is the embodiment of every aspect of humanity that Hubbard hates, thus making his misogyny, homophobia and racism a commentary on the negative power of the human race, and if this were true I'd have to say these books are, no shit, brilliant and almost beautiful. And then he fucks it up, and I consider that maybe he's dead serious in all this nonsense, except that Soltan is the villian of this series, not the hero, and it wouldn't make sense to have your bad guy agree with you.

But I knew Hubbard had to have a point with all this. I knew that he couldn't just be pulling random shit out of his ass and throwing it at a typewriter. He's a major religious leader. He's writing these books to edify mankind, right? There's a point to this beyond evil-murder-evil-evil psychology and racism and random homophobic slurs? right?

Then we get to Earth and every female name is a joke. There is a mob boss named "Babe Corleone", a prostitute name Harlotta and Soltan gets a dancing girl named Utanc, which I thought was a sane name until I unscrambled the letter and got "a cunt" out of it, which pretty much describes Utanc.

But weirdly, I still had some kind of faith in Hubbard as a writer. Because even Twilight had something at its core. Something Mormon, but something. Even Fifty Shades of Gray  (Yes. I read it. No. I'm not doing it on the blog) had a heart, mind and soul to build the porn around. And Hubbard had things that neither S. Meyer nor E.L. James had (other than a common story, because 50=fanfic) like a sense of plot and timing and when to make things happen so we're not CAMPING IN THE FUCKING WOODS AGAIN (sorry. Old Harry Potter scars)
 
And then in the fifth book (yes. I've read that far.) Hubbard gives Soltan a ten inch penis.



And has him rape two lesbians into straightness with it. While Jet boy is winning out every casino in Atlantic city and snogging out with a smuggled in Countess Krak. 

 Also? He states that homosexuality is "Psychiatric Birth Control" because gay people don't make babies. Got that guys? Gay people don't make babies. 

Right?
 So at this point, I think he was just writing books, and he legitimately thought throwing all that shit at the reader was a good plan. That it was entertaining, that everyone agreed with him, that rape could work as a comedic device (this is a thing in these books) that plot threads could dangle unresolved (I have NO PLANS on reading further, so as far as I'm concerned all the threads in the universe are dangling in the abyss that is Jettero Heller) and that screaming PSYCHIATRY at the reader would make the villians look like A Thing and not A WIMP.

All that said, Mission Earth: The Invaders Plan is not the worst book I've ever read, or the worst PUBLISHED book I've ever read...hell. It's not even the worst book in the series. And even if you take the whole series as one book, It's not even the worst Hubbard book I've ever read. What is?

Taken from here In his defense, the movie is much, much better.And stay tuned boys and girls, because we start Captive of Gor NEXT WEEK. Is it worse? Oh god, yes. Is it better written? Oh, God, yes! WILL WE HAVE FUN? I think so, my children. I really think so.

Also, do not forget the "review my books" CONTEST that is still going on, and last but CERTAINLY not least, Blue Ghosts comes out first week in October, so BE HERE WHEN IT DOES.

Peace. Out.

Book Bitch Mission Earth END PART ONE

Okay, I'm going to blow through the rest of this book in two big chunks. But first...BUSINESS, boys and girls. BUSINESS.

ITEM THE FIRST: CONTEST! Yes, this is still going until October first. PLEASE guys. I know at least SOME of you have either purchased/...you know, I just realized there is no match word for "getting something for free"...anyway, SOME of you have either read one of my little books because it's ALL I TALK ABOUT on the blog, or you're here because I've been giving books away on Amazon (Um, yeah. I've given away over three hundred copies of things in the last five days) and you want to know who I am. ANYWAY! REVIEW MY BOOK AND WIN AN ART POSTER! OF ART! YES! I do not expect there to be more than ten entries (Okay, I expect there to be ONE entry, maybe, and you know who you are). If there are more than ten entries I will do something so that everybody gets a thing anyway. It'll probably be a wallpaper of something. Maybe even non-book related art. Because my jaw, boys and girls, my jaw will be on the FLOOR if there are more than ten entries.

ENTER THE CONTEST! REVIEW ONE OF MY DUMB LITTLE BOOKS! INSULT IT IF YOU HAVE TO! JUST PUT SOMETHING THERE PLEASE FOR MY SANITY'S SAKE!

Okay, got that out of the way.

ITEM THE SECOND: The Next Book I Bitch. Right now I have a vote for Captive of Gor. Let me remind you that this is the book John Norman wrote from the female perspective. Which means we will most likely be doing that one, as it has been sitting on my harddrive FOR MONTHS, along with copious copious notes on the fail that is the Gor series.

But there are still other options! There is still time to turn the tide if you do not want to drown in a myre of mysogyny and purple prose! Remember, these are the options:

1. Captive of Gor
2. City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare
3. Eternal Prey, Nina Bangs (Yes, indeed it is a blissful vacation of stupid)
4. Mission Earth: Black Genesis. By the way? My love of teh stupid has me reading the third book because it is there and I am frequently bored. I got to a point where I literally shouted "What the FUCK am I reading?" in the living room. My stepfather gave me a very bizzare look.

VOTE, my loyal blog readers! Vote!

ITEM! THE! THIRD!: You know what would really make my day, loyal blog-readers? More than reviews on my books or votes for the next book I tear into? Comments. Talk to me, sports fans. I'm all ears. Make comments. It will put me on the MOON, guys and girls. the very MOON.

And last, but not least:

THE END OF MISSION EARTH! PART ONE!

Oh, god this is going to suck.  Where were we?

Right about... Here. The drug macguffins. So after revealing the dastardly dastardly plan of the dastards (I just managed to make that stop looking like a word) in the dastardly CIA, Soltan Gris commits random murder of side character we never really gave a fuck about. Right. He then picks up the bug he's going to have *snicker* Prahd Bittlestiffender (WHO WILL BE IN THE THIRD BOOK TOO! YAY!) implant into Jettero Heller. And then he murders the clerk who gives him the bug. And crashes an air car into a hospital because bugs, I guess. I don't know. It's great that our narrator finally grew a spine after five hundred pages, but it is a murder spine, and after the first three that kind of gets a little boring.

Then he checks in on Prahd and the Widow Tayl.

They're having post-surgery post-sex cookies. Meaning that Prahd and the fine madam Tayl had surgery to remove such terrible disfigurements as warts (in a futuristic society) and saggy boobs (Because this is a sign of evil in women, according to Hubbard). And then had sex.

Wait. scratch the parentheses for a second. Having read three books in this series I think I can say the following without shaming his good name. First, the books? Do not get better. Oh god do they not get better. I am now reading the ones published after he died. GOOD. FUCKING. GOD. Second, Jet-boy and Soltan are equally shit-stains, in my book. Third: SATIRE. WHY DO YOU USE THIS WORD? I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS. Fourth: Hubbard does not have a Virgin/Whore complex. He has a Virgin AND Whore complex. As in the evil women? Are whores. And the good women? Are virginal whores. It makes no sense, but that's the only way I can explain this "I am the Madonna sans child, so let's go fuck in that corner" attitude every girl has in this book.  Hubbard makes a BIG DEAL out of how horny the Widow Tayl is, but honestly? I don't see a difference between her and every other woman in these books.

Also? In the third book? There is heavily implied pedophilia. And that was still not the part that made me scream what the fuck am I reading. At some point Hubbard went way, way past OH, JOHN RINGO, NO! and right into face-melting territory. All the hugs in the world will not make it okay.

Okay, back to book.

So first Soltan scares the shit out of Prahd. Which is okay, the dude doesn't have much of a spine. And then Soltan and the Widow Tayl have an "interview." And by interview I mean this:

(Widow Tayl) was saying "And Prahd and I had the most wonderful night. In fact we had the most wonderful...wonderful...wonderful...wonderful..." The cupid was really rocking! (MM:TIV pg 521)But there is one great quote in this chapter:

There is nothing quite so discouraging as going through this sort of thing with a woman telling you how great another man is. Wearing.

One: Best. Writer. Ever. Second: Ron, it's one word. Three letters. Sex. If you're going to use the voices you can describe the actual act. Also, I am beginning to think you are permanently thirteen.

Next chapter! Lombar inspects the ship! And he finds what Jettero is planning to do on Earth! And he disables it! And it is exactly as exciting as it sounds!

However, in trying to get Lombar out of the ship without Jet-boy noticing, Soltan agrees to Jettero's going away party. It will have:

-rainbow booze (aka "yellow, pink and purple bubblebrew")
-flowers
-blue skinned party favors ("blue skinned dancing girls for the contractors and their crews." Thanks a fucking million, Ron. The cause of feminism is set back thirty years every time you touched a pen)
-Dance bands
-Dancing bears
-fireworks (TO SEE OFF A TOP-SECRET MISSION SHIP)

And will, frankly, be the best part of all time, forever. You know that Katy Perry video? Last Friday Night? Yeah. It's that party.

To see off a top secret mission. That should have already left over a month ago.

Then he manages to get Jettero to the Widow's secret hospital, where Prahd sees to implanting the bug, and the Widow Tayl sees Jet!

"When I first saw him...I thought he was some woods God. So strong, so powerful." The lamp in her ceiling began to swing and the music took on a throb. "he stepped out of the airbus so smoothly...so smoothly...so smoothly..." A huge multipetaled blossom by the door seemed to get larger. "Oh. Oh. Oh. OH!" Cried (Tayl) and the blossom burst like an explosion!

Two things I want to point out. Apparently if you orgasm on Voltar things randomly explode. Also, you'll note the (Tayl) I put in a couple of places. This is because, like the Countess, Widow Tayl has spontaneously developed a non-insulting name: Pratia. Right around the time that she becomes attracted to Jet.

Jet can purify women. With his penis.

This happens three more times, and Soltan is stunned. She isn't even touching him. Honest-to-God, this book does not imply masturbation. It implies that The Widow Tayl is having spontaneous orgasms just by repeating Jet's name. And this drives Soltan to swear more eternal vengeance against Heller, that EVIL man lying unconscious in the hospital under the care of the doctor Soltan basically conned out of life. 

Our hero, boys and girls.

Come back tomorrow to see the party, AND BE DONE WITH THIS FUCKING TERRIBLE BOOK!

Book Bitch: Mission Earth One

Almost there. Almost there. THE END IS IN SIGHT. WE ARE ALMOST DONE WITH THIS TERRIBLE TERRIBLE BOOK.

Soltan, having conned a doctor and knocked boots with a woman named the Widow Tayl, Soltan checks the tug boat. Jettero is now zooming along, because his future bride's freedom is hanging in the balance. All is good here. Soltan moves on to his TRUE purpose in life: Graft.

He needs medical supplies for the clandestine operation on Jet-boy. So he goes to a medical supply depo and buys it. ALL OF IT. He begins inventing things to buy...and then for some reason he says to double the order and send most of the doubled cash to Lombar, because...cops? I don't know. Why things must be done this way is never very clear. But Soltan takes some of the money and mails stuff to Lombar to prove that he's giving Lombar money.

Am I giving you the impression that this plot is moving? Oh, I'm sorry. This whole thing is done item by item. We get a full list of everything Soltan is buying.

Also? He lets Lombar know he's stolen half a mil from the government through the most transparent code possible. This might shock you this deep in the book, but these guys SUCK at being spies.

Soltan does do something smart, though. He goes to the metal yards and buys as much gold as he possibly can. Apparently the value of gold is compounded on Earth--you know, America uses a gold standard and no other country really exists--so once Soltan gets to Earth, he'll be an all powerful millionare, Jettero will be poor and abandoned, and...Yeah. I'm just going to bring this out again and get it over with:

Moving on. Soltan goes BACK to the hanger, sees that Jet is redoing the paint coat on the tug boat and...

...oh boy. OOOOOOOOOOOH GUYS! WE ARE AT THIS PART! YAY!

If you can't tell by now (unless this is the first time you've been at my blog, in which case, sorry and fair warning and welcome, I hope you'll stick around a while) I'm a bitch. And nothing warms my bitchy little heart as much as watching somebody's plot swivel around and shoot the whole story in the face. It takes a lot of work, a lot of stupid, and a pretty good amount of talent to make this happen, and when it does, it is a thing of beauty.

Soltan goes over to a ship that has just arrived from Earth. We are about to find out why Jettero has to go to earth and fail to save it, why Lombar hit the fucking roof when Jet-boy's report came in. We are about to find out how Lombar is going to become Emperor of the Voltarian Empire. We are about to find out why Earth is so goddamned important. 

It is because Lombar and Soltan are importing drugs and alcohol.


The dasterdly plan of the dasterdly evil murder evil evil CIA is to import drugs and alcohol from Earth to Voltan. They're going to first addict the entire population to heroin, meth and scotch, and then control the supply, undermining the Empire's sanity and allowing Lombar to seize the throne.

Meth. Heroin. And Johnny Walker Gold Label Scotch.



Hubbard is serious. He seriously thinks this is a good plot. Aliens are using unaltered Earth drugs to control their own population. And scotch! Don't forget the scotch!

Guys, there are a few things that I like to think I know a lot about, due to my upbringing. Collective works of C.S. Lewis, basic theology, the large number of ways one can discover scorpions upon one's person (long story) and drugs. See, my dad? He's a drug and alcohol abuse counselor. I know how these things work. I know how they're developed. I know that heroin>morphene>opium, and that the more technology you have? The bigger, badder and nastier drugs you start to develop. Part of it is you have a greater facility for creating new chemicals, and part of it is you have access to things like lithium batteries and matchheads (two prime ingredients in meth. Part of the reason why I've never done drugs is, I know where they come from)

Now, this is not a drug-and-booze-less society. Earlier we had a scene where Soltan Gris tries to talk logic into Lombar, and Lombar replies with:

"Have a chank-pop." 

And the effect of a chank-pop? Is not something earth drugs can do easy. There's another scene not too long ago, after the nightclub, where Soltan is sitting and being miserable because he is hungover as fuck.

Hubbard seriously wants me to believe that, in a universe where trailer trash can make methamphetamine in a two liter coke bottle out of batteries, matches and cold medicine (among other things. You're better off drinking the battery acid, kids. Trust me) the Voltarians haven't come up with something worse for you? With a stronger high?

Or let me put it another way. This is like your local drug dealer discovering a magical portal back to the era of vikings, and bringing back mead and unrefined opium to addict the modern world to. These things are, I am sure, very nice, very addictive, and not something you ought to abuse. But we have Everclear and Vicodin. It's not like we need it.

THIS is what the whole book is resting on. THIS CONCEPT. RIGHT HERE. That the drugs a primitive society (this being ours) is capable of making are SO MUCH BETTER than the drugs a high-tech society is capable of making (and remember, kids, Voltan does have drugs to use) that people plotting to overthrow the empire can use them for leverage.

The plot of this book is all about scotch, smack and meth. THESE THINGS ARE THE MACGUFFINS DRIVING THE PLOT.


 I got nothin, guys. This is a level of stupid even I cannot compete with. See you tomorrow.

Oh, and hey? If you're enjoying this (Thirty people are visiting this page EVERY DAY right now. I KNOW YOU ARE THERE, PEOPLE) you can help me out.

I am pretty sure we're going to be finished with this book (oh god oh god we are almost done) in probably the next two days. SO! You lot can help me pick out the next one. Here are our options:

1. Mission Earth Two. (Honestly? You guys are gonna have to TELL ME you want this one, otherwise I am taking a break from El-Ron for a while)

2. Captive of Gor, John Norman. This is one of the books he wrote from a female perspective. You have no idea how bad it is.

3. Eternal Prey, Nina Bangs. First, it is a paranormal romance novel written by a woman named Nina Bangs. Second, it is a book about men who are posessed by the ghosts of dead dinosaurs. IT IS FULL OF STARS.

4. City of Bones, Cassandra Clare. I read it, it was boring as hell, but for some reason the author's history has been washing up on my internets a lot, and there will be a movie of it soon.

All of these, I have avoided doing because I could not think of how to summerize it.

My pick right now is City of Bones. Second choice, Captive of Gor. HOWEVER, If I find out one of you has a preference, I'll switch over to that one. But it will take more than one of you to get me to do Mission Earth Two. It sucks. It sucks in a way that I'll have trouble making it funny. It is Manos, the Hand of Books. 

 So COMMENT, my loyal blog readers. COMMENT! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO!  AND YES THIS DOES MEAN YOU.

Blue Ghosts Update (PICTURE!) + CONTEST!

EVERYTHING about this story has eaten my lunch. I think it's awesome, I think you guys are going to love the ever-loving crap out of it, and I will be very happy when it is all DONE.

I've handed it over to the proofreader/beta reader (...aka my mother. Because this is what she does for a living and she is good at it) and so the text itself should be TOTALLY DONE by this time next week.

I've begun working on the cover art. You'll see a WIP below. After we get a little more business out of the way.

I've been playing with Amazon's promotional options. I'm not in love with them, but they've been doing pretty well. And this means I'm going to make a tactical decision regarding how we'll release Blue Ghosts.

First I WILL release it on Smashwords, for free...for a week. After the week is over, I'm enrolling it in Kindle Select, which requires that it be exclusive. I am doing this first, just to see what will happen, and second...I know a few of you hate the Kindle cold, and I want you guys to have your copies of the book.

After that...we will see what happens.

Alright. Contest.

So what is the contest, you ask? Well, as some of you MIGHT know, I'm also an artist. I do all my own covers, I did a webcomic for a while, yadda yadda yadda. And through my Deviant art site, I sell PRINTS. Big pretty fluffy prints of my own work.

What does this have to do with Contests and books and whatnot? I want to hold a drawing, let's say, October 1st, in which I will use a random number generator to pick A Person. This Person will get their choice of print from my Deviant Art Gallery. How will this Person get picked?

Review one of my books. That's all. Review a book, link back to the review, let me see it and I'll give you a number and do the drawing on October 1st.

So. RULES FOR THE BLUE GHOSTS RELEASE CONTEST:

1. Review one of my Amazon titles. (Starbleached is on a promotional give away right now FYI if you want to pick up a copy)

2. BE HONEST. I don't want glory glory happy happy praise and worship here. I just want reviews. Four stars, two stars, three stars, one star, I don't care. I want to know your opinion of my books. If you say it's shit and you never want to read another one, that's fine. You'll still go in the drawing. There are no reprocussions on giving me a bad review. Trust me. I'm harder on me than you'll ever be.

3. LINK TO THE REVIEW in the comments section of this post.

4. PICK OUT YOUR PICTURE You'll get the largest approved size. Usually this is twenty inches by thirty. It won't be framed, but these are damned good quality prints.

I'll generate the number October 1st. You'll have about 24 hours to contact me with your mailing address, otherwise I pick somebody else.

Okay? Okay. PICTURE TIME:

This is gonna look awesome, trust me.

Book Bitch Mission Earth part one billion

This will never end. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. I will be here forever. This book is slowly driving me insane.

Let's keep going! Why not! I don't need the braincells Ron's killing! What happened yesterday?

...right. Soltan now has an excuse for why he's been sitting on his ASS for three hundred pages. What will he do now?

Well, Doctor Cuttysmark here tries to blackmail Soltan, incidentally confirming that Jet's friends in Spiteos are dead (OUR PROTAGONIST, boys and girls. POISONS HELPLESS STARVING MEN AND RAPE VICTIMS). How does Soltan respond (and Ron show that his protagonist now has a spine?)

He straight up murders the doctor.

OUR PROTAGONIST. MURDERS PEOPLE WHO TRY TO HELP HIM.

We also get this gem of a quote from Soltan:

Hells have no demon as full of hate as a man covertly hypnotized. 

You know, I didn't think I'd get to use this so soon...

L. Ron Hubbard. Best selling novelist. Cliche butcherer.

So now Soltan has to get his REVENGE! (Pronounce it like Megamind, and you'd have the right mentality) And also get Jet off the planet in one piece. (And Hubbard has to fix the fact that ALL THE ACTION is going to be happening with JET, and not our Narrator. DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE? BECAUSE I SURE DO) HOW! WILL! HE! DO! IT!

Actually, by being smart for a change.

He goes and has a couple documents forged, as if coming from the EMPEROR HIMSELF, and then shows them to the Countess. One of them pulls Jet off front-line dangerous type stuff and sticks him on the Emperor's own staff. The other one gives the Countess a full pardon from the crimes she didn't commit, and permission to marry Space Elvis. Suddenly blissfully happy, she promises Soltan she'll get Jet moving as soon as humanly Voltarianly possible.

Why this could not be done THREE HUNDRED PAGES AGO I will never know. Also, Soltan moans some more about how terrible it was, being hypnotised by the Countess. Hey, Soltan?

Moving on...

Soltan goes and finds a stupid female clerk (I really need to stop expecting better of Ron. I really do) to tell him who the best "cellologist" on Voltan is. He's pointed to a young kid, desperate for work. He recurits this kid by disguising himself as the kid's idol and promising the kid a job with the Emperor. The kid promptly falls all over himself to do the job that Soltan wants done. Soltan has another victory! Wow! And even better...the plot is moving. 

 Now all he needs is the equiptment, a hosptial and some personal money. Where is he going to get that from?

Via RAMPANT MISOGYNY, of course! With a side dish of homophobia.

Oh, god guys. OOOOOOOOH God. I thought this was a few more chapters away. Soltan remembers a woman who killed her invalid husband, who he blackmailed for things, who he didn't really have to blackmail for anything because this woman would literally fuck a doorknob. As in, I'm pretty sure she does, in this book, on camera and more than once. Her name?

The Widow Tayl.

This is the second female name that I have to desperately pretend is not a direct reference to her butt. and it's a lot harder with this one.

What does he tell her about the top secret operation that will happen in her tiny hosptial room? A Lord bribed Soltan into providing operating space because he had a son that HATED women, and said son needs to be lobotomized so that said son will make babies. She agrees, of course, and then...

OH NOES! Hubbard has to write a sex scene. HUBBARD HAS TO WRITE A SEX SCENE! L RON HUBBARD IS ABOUT TO WRITE A SEX SCENE!

Tayl's robe hit the floor.

 My right boot hit the far wall and fell with a thud.

A standing lamp began to reel. 

A table of instruments was shaking, and every instrument on it clattered.

 The lamp crashed to the floor.

The double window blew open inward with a terrific blast of wind.

The outer door looked solid. I got to it and put my hand on it to steady myself. I was totally shot.

The sybarite (The hell if I know. CW) looked like he was laughing as he sprayed out water into the pool.


Thank you, Ron. Thank you SO MUCH for that image of a cherubic statue's ejaculate. I'll treasure it always. And for once, FOR ONCE, Hubbard has a long chapter. OH MY GOD, it's more than three pages! What happens next? Well, having helped the Widow Tayl scratch an itch, he now introduces himself to Dr...

Really, Ron? Really? You're really naming a character that? For reals, this is not some crude joke you're preforming with just my copy? You, a grown-ass man, actually thought naming a character this was a good idea?

Ladies and gentlemen, meet doctor Prahd Bittlestiffender. This is not a typo. This is his name in the book. Prahd Bittlestiffender.

PRAHD BITTLESTIFFENDER.
 
And the kid is hungry, depserate and absolutely WORSHIPS the guy Soltan is posing as. Yadda yadda, a repeat of before. I think the new, spine-filled Soltan kicks puppies, too. Chapter closes with Soltan gleefully wringing his hands, thinking of all the fun Widow Tayl and Prahd Bittlestiffender will be having together. Because ,you know. He's Bittle. Stiff. End. 'er.

Sadly, this picture is ten times funnier than Ron can ever hope to be.


See you tomorrow, kids.

Book Bitch: Mission Earth (kill me now please) One

Okay, we are FINALLY two thirds of the way through this book. Joy! But I have to keep going. Boo. In fact, I feel kind of like this:

So when we last left our heroes: Jettero Heller is Space Elvis, El-Ron H fails at naming women, gay men and dances, Humanity must be Rescued from Ourselves and Space Elvis is just the guy to do it IF HE EVER GETS OFF HIS FREAKING ALIEN WORLD. And even in space, on far distant planets, everybody good is white.

I'm not joking about that last part.

So WHAT! HAPPENS! NEXT!?!

Soltan wakes up with a hangover from all the fun the night before. This is not an important plot point, but it's another thing I want you to remember for the payoff in a few more recaps. Because the plot? Oh, my lovely blog-readers, the plot is about to go OFF THE RAILS.

So Soltan is glaring at Jet-Boy's tugboat, while the Countess (who, remember, is an evil murderess being let out illegally so she and Jettero can screw. I'm dead serious. That's the only reason she is here) does things in front of it. In broad daylight. After being on camera the night before.

Guys, lemme point out something real quick? This book? Is offically Mission Earth: The Invader's Plan. I'm sorry. I have yet to notice a plan that wouldn't result in a pancake when Jet-boy and Soltan crash directly into the nearest mountain. Even Space Elvis is letting me down.

Oh! And they're in the paper! FRONT PAGE! Jet gets mentioned by name! And Hightee Heller says this:

"Please assure my billions of fans that I am perfectly alright." 

Billions of fans, kids. Billions. You know, I once read an article about how much work it would actually take to spend a billion dollars. It kind of shows you how truly large that word is. 

So Soltan nurses his hangover and sense of impending doom--remember, Jet was supposed to have left Voltan well over a month ago--and then his boss shows up.

Is Lombar Hisst mad because Soltan has blown the mission? Oh, no. Remember, they want the mission to fail. No. He's mad because he thinks Soltan has been getting kickbacks for the construction of Tug One and hasn't been sending anything to Lombar. He needs to give Lombar money. Otherwise Lombar will kill him.

Every time I type the word Lombar I want to add the word Puncture immediately after it. I have no idea why.

The point of the whole chapter is, they have more money but Soltan is not to take any of it for himself. Thanks, Ron, for sharing with us the anxiety of a millionare who still wants more money. I love spending time with your subconsious, but can we please get back to the story now? PLEASE?

Yes? Yippee.

Soltan goes to tell Jet what a low-down-nasty-no-good-cheating-murdering whore the Countess is, which is probably not the smartest way to get the guy you kidnapped to leave the woman he intends to marry. And Jet then points out the following:

-The Countess, who we were told tortured people with electroshock to train them, never tortured people with electroshock to train them. The equipment for doing this had been broken for years

-The Countess, who we were told trained children to murder, never trained children for murder. She did train them to rob banks, but only because her sainted mother was being held hostage by a corrupt official, who then arranged for her mother to be killed anyway.

In other words, she is innocent of the charges that have kept her in Spiteos, the hell-prison where she and Jett met! And this perfect virginal bride (who is still murderously psychotic from being held in hell-prison with nothing but a leather jacket and heels) will be vindicated by none other than Space Elvis. And Jet has no intention of leaving Voltan without her. And now Soltan's arm is paralyzed after trying to hit Jet! And he can't move it! Oh Noes! What to do?

Go see a doctor. Who tells Our Protagonist (meh) that he has a psychosomatic block against moving that arm. Which is weird because why would a society without psychologists have a diagonisis of a psychological illness. Hey, Ron? I am losing my faith in your Strawman here.

Anyway, the doctor figures out that Soltan Gris has been hypnotized. So Soltan goes to another doctor specializing in hypnotism (Because hypnotism is a legit thing, but psychology is not.) and tries to find out who and how. From a doctor named "Cutswitz".

I think Ron had these name bags with words written on random strips of paper, and he sorted them by profession, race and gender. that's the only way I can figure on a doctor named "Crobe" as in microbe, and now a doctor named Cutswitz. Either it's a jewish slur or it's "Cuts with" and either way I don't want Ron to name another thing ever ever ever ever ever. Trust me, kids. At this point I am longing for something as sane as Xenu. (ooooooooooooh SNAP!)

All the anatomical jokes went into the bag labled "Girls".

Dr. Cutter regresses Soltan to the point of the hypnotic implant, which happened when the Countess Krak gave Soltan a brush up on his English. She told him:

-If you think about hurting Jet you will be violently sick
-if you think about hitting Jet you will go paralyzed
-if you hurt his career, you will go insane.

Oh, so the reason this story has been stalled out for OVER A HUNDRED FIFTY PAGES is because the Countess hypnotized the bad guy? And not because Ron didn't know where to go with it? (hint: EARTH. TAKE IT TO EARTH. THE PLACE WHERE THE MISSION IS.)

Okay, I'll go with it.

So now free of his hypnotized bonds, Soltan goes out to face the world. Jettero Heller Will Get His, and Soltan Gris will triumph!

Or not. Because we're about to see what he plans like when he isn't in hypnotic bondage, and it really ain't all that different.

Book Bitch: Mission Earth One

Okay, gang. OBLIGATORY PLUGS FIRST.

Silver Bullet is still cheap. As in free. You'll also notice I've mixed things up a little bit. I'm playing with Amazon's options (and getting really frustrated with them, but they're still the best platform I've used so far) and have split off one of the stories in Silver Bullet into it's own thing. It will be free today and tomorrow. You've probably already read it, so I'm not going to go OMG GO GET IT, but if you wanted to have a copy knock around on your Kindle for a while, it'd probably help me out.

And if you don't have it, definately go get Silver Bullet, because Blue Ghosts comes out in October and it picks right up where it left off. Can you follow the story without it? Probably. But you might want to introduce yourselves pronto.

(And if you have any questions about what I'm doing, comment. I like comments. I like comments a lot. Also? I hate begging, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review the books if you've read them. Preferably on Amazon, but anywhere would be nice. Please guys. It'd help a lot.)

Okay, so today? We get to watch Soltan Gris fail at everything.

Not all that different. Soltan has been failing at everything since this book started, but he's been doing so in a painfully obvious way that accomplishes nothing for us, the readers forced to watch him fail instead of watch Jettero Heller be awesome. Because yes, he is a Mary Sue and horrifically boring, BUT AT LEAST HE ISN'T A RACIST, SEXIST SHIT LIKE SOLTAN. And the only thing worse than watching a Mary Sue be Mary-Sue-ly awesome? Is watching a Mary Sue fail.

So what happens next???

Soltan makes it back to the tug (next chapter:) and has another arguement with the computer, which he fails at. Also, we get to overhear Hubbard's homophobia as a kid is told to go seduce someone they hate so that the narrator gets the news. Isn't it wonderful how disgusting that is once gender is removed?

Next Chapter:

JETTERO HELLER HUMILIATES SOLTAN GRIS.

See, as Soltan has reminded us six billion times in the last four days, HE HAS NO MONEY. And as per Fleet tradition, someone with a new promotion has to take all his buddies out to the nearest nightclub and pay for it. And Jet is calling in this debit right now.

He, the Countess Krak (and I can no longer pretend this is not another name for the Countess's ass. Thanks, Ron) and Jettero's beautiful famous sister, Hightee Heller (OH MY GOD. A WOMAN WITH A NICE NAME. STOP THE PRESSES) all go to a nightclub where you have to preform in public, otherwise they double the bill.

These guys are on a secret mission to Earth that should have left ages ago, and Soltan Gris allows his prisoner Jet, the Countess, who is also his prisoner, and the sister that is more famous than Space Elvis, to take him to a restaurant HE CANNOT AFFORD TO GO TO, where they will all have to preform in public.

He is suffering. It is beautiful. There is a running list of exactly how expensive all the things they are buying are, Soltan is whimpering at how much things are. And then the lights flash! SOLTAN GRIS HAS TO PREFORM IN PUBLIC.

HE DOES BIRD CALLS! WHISTLING BIRD CALLS. AND FAILS AT IT, HARD. YES!!! I AM ENJOYING THE VICARIOUS SUFFERING OF L. RON HUBBARD'S GUILTY SUBCONSIOUS AND I DO NOT CARE!

And then! Soltan notices that there are cameras here. And if any member of the table does something exceptional, they will be on the news and everyone will know that Jet has not left Voltan for Earth, yet. Because they are still to go to Earth and help us be Rescued From Ourselves, children. And as Hubbard has NAILED INTO OUR HEADS, the three most exceptional people in all the universe are sitting at this very table!

First! Jet and the Countess preform the Manco Mancho (STOP NAMING THINGS, RON!) and then the Countess does magic tricks. And then Hightee Heller preforms, and it's like Taylor Swift just dropped into your local bar for a drink and decided to do a set with Uncle Hal's garage band just for giggles.

AND THEN SOLTAN SEES THE BILL! AND SHOOTS OUT THE LIGHTS! BECAUSE HE CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY! And there is PANDAMONIUM, loyal blog-readers. PANDAMONIUM, as people fling their bodies before Hightee Heller's gentle form, willing to die to save her from RANDOM BULLETS, and all four escape the nightclub with their lives intact, and their names gaurenteed a spot in tonight's headline news, BECAUSE SOMEONE (this being Soltan) SHOT AT HIGHTEE HELLER. WHILE SHE WAS PREFORMING IN A NIGHTCLUB WITH UNCLE HAL'S GARAGE BAND.

And then Jet reveals that he'd paid the bill himself, because he knew the whole fucking time, Soltan had no money.

The whole mission has been blown for absolutely nada.

Oh, Hubbard's going to ruin all this tomorrow, and I don't care. For right now Soltan Gris suffered as I have suffered, and the whole world is rainbows, my loyal blog-readers. FUCKING RAINBOWS.


TOMORROW: Soltan finds out why he's been so sick to his stomach lately. And no, sadly. It is not M-preg.

BOOK SAMPLE!!!

(We interrupt this program to show off a lil' bit. Blue Ghosts comes out in October 2012. Here's a sample for your reading pleasure)


           Dinner with an Elf. You don’t do that every day. Casey Winter straightened the skirt on her very best dress, which was about six hundred dollars too cheap for her surroundings, and tried not to worry about what her dinner date would wear. Corpus Christi, Texas, wasn’t exactly a cultural hub, but it did have several nice restaurants. Marco Creed, the elf in question, had invited her to the nicest.            The Republic of Texas. By God, was it ritzy. Dark wood and burgundy trim glowed under expensive lighting. Cut crystal glasses full of aged scotch sat at elbows. Lush greenery curled around brass fixtures. Wait staff moved with the collective grace of cranes, and with the sharp eyes of hawks spying rodents in the grass. Empty glasses were filled, plates were whisked away the moment knife and fork hit four o’clock. Complicated telepathy kept questions to a minimum. Here’s a salad, a soda, the entrée, your scotch. Plate clink, silverware song, mummer of voices under soft, slow jazz. Casey felt six inches tall when she asked the hostess about Marco’s table. It wasn’t ready yet, they said, and handed her an expensive glass of champagne.            Good God in heaven, girl. What am I getting into? She wondered. A whole bottle of this stuff probably equaled her next royalty check. No way Marco made this kind of money on a mechanic’s salary. Oh, I’m sorry. He’s a car modifier. He’s still not pulling this kind of cash. Unless he actually did. When your dinner date is immortal, nothing is guaranteed.            She wasn’t waiting long. A throat cleared behind her, and when she turned her nerves—well, around this man, they definitely didn’t settle.           Elves are handsome. Marco Creed was also hot. Every time she met his eyes she thought about Chippendale dancers and underwear models and the large number of games you can play with ice cubes. Peach skin, eyes in almost luminescent blue, long gold hair in a braid he pulled off about as well as a lion in a circus tutu. And—this made her feel so much better—his well muscled chest was hidden by a suit about fifty bucks cheaper than her dress.           He took her hand and ran his thumb across her knuckles. Shivers raced up her spine. “Ms. Winter.” He kissed the back of her wrist, then turned the charm on the amused hostess. “Table for Creed.”           “Right this way.” The Republic of Texas sat on top of the Omni Hotel, and the hostess carried two menus towards a small table near a window. It had a breathtaking view of the moonlit ocean. Small boats and buoys floated through silver currents. The American Bank towers rose to the right, sides hit by spotlights. Falcons nested on the window ledges, spreading wing to spiral down to the pavement below. Light Wednesday evening traffic motored through the streets. Marco pulled her chair out for her, then sat in his own chair with effortless grace and dignity.           Which he promptly blew by scraping his chair up that extra half inch. Nobody looks dignified doing the scoot-and-jump boogie.            A waiter arrived with a bottle of champagne, the same brand as her first glass of bubbly, and he poured it with the majesty of a ritualistic magician. Marco thanked him, and checked the label as soon as his back was turned. Air was sucked through clenched teeth. “Pricy?” Casey whispered.            “Yep.” He jammed it back into the ice. “Thank God, I’m not paying the tab.”            “You’re not?” Casey was perpetually broke and currently unemployed. So was she relieved Marco wasn’t blowing hard earned cash on her, or disappointed?            “I intended to,” he said, quickly. “But I told Razeil about our plans, and she had the manager bill her. A reward, she said.” He rolled his eyes.           “You don’t think so?” Casey picked up the menu. Oh, my god, orange glazed quail. Sounded like one hell of a reward to her.            “Raziel’s gifts come with strings—no—steel cables with thousand-volt generators attached. She’s up to something, and it bothers me that she’s involved you.” He brushed stray hair out of his eyes, drawing her attention to something that should have been there, and wasn’t.            “Your ears,” She said. They’d been pointed three days ago. Now they were human blunt.             “I’m splurging.” A shy kind of sheepishness spread across his features. “Magically, I mean. It takes relatively little power for me and Raziel to hide ourselves—especially for me, where there isn’t much to hide—but the others…not so much. I wind up donating most of my personal magic so they can have a normal life…or something like it.”            “And it takes so much, you can’t hide your ears all the time?” She asked. The waiter returned, and Casey ordered the quail. Marco ordered steak and lobster, and waited for the waiter to retreat before he answered.           “Baseball caps work just as well. I’d rather not waste the power. I’ve got a lot, mind, but I’m not Sidhe, or even Elestrin. The well, in my case, ain’t bottomless. And magic on Earth is limited. Back in Ambercross, we could draw power from the trees, from the sky, from the Earth herself.” He looked at the vase in the center of their table and touched a daisy. “Everything was so…alive.” Roots curled out of the flower stem, and sudden pea green shoots curled around Marco’s fingers. Three more daisies flowered while she watched. “Alive on a level that you can’t even imagine. It sang to us, colored our every waking moment. But here…” he took his hand away. The daisies tried to cling to him at first. Then they withered, petals falling, leaves turning brown and disintegrating onto the table cloth.           “Our world is dead?” She asked, horrified.            He shook his head. “Sleeping. And like a dragon with a sore tooth, it’s a good thing it sleeps. The undercurrents I can touch are…angry.           “But its slumber affects us. The sources a Merrow would use to shape shift, for example, are closed to her, and they have no personal reserves of power. Raziel and I, however, we’ve got big resources. Finite, but profound. That’s why we’re the leaders. Piss one of us off…” he pointed at the withered daisy. “No magic for you.”            Seinfeld fan. She thought. Aloud, she said, “I thought it was because you could hurt them if you had to. Elves and Elestrin are big time scary when they want to be.”           “Well, yeah. But it’s more effective to lead with a carrot than a stick.” Their salads arrived, and Marco smiled politely until the waiter retreated again. He picked up the pepper and shook it over the lobster. “Okay, your turn.”           “What?”           “Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.”           She tried to wipe the deer-in-the-headlights look off her face. “Um…what is there to know? Between Facebook, Twitter, and that blog my agent makes me update once a blue moon, my life is an open book.”           “In Ambercross you would be tortured to death for that pun. We’d shove wooden splinters under your fingernails until you relented.”           “That’s kind of the point.” She grinned and took a bite of salad.           Casey had been marginally successful writing about elves and magic and a world named Ambercross…and had been flabbergasted three days ago to learn that it was, more or less, a real place. Neighbor-world to Earth. The kind that borrows your lawnmower and never returns it. She had some bizarre, unconscious connection to it, something even Marco couldn’t explain. He didn’t understand it any better than she did. But he claimed that, more often than not, when she wrote about Ambercross she was describing something real.           Earth had Faerie population, too. Exiles from Ambercross, they’d latched onto her books as if they were a direct line to home…which, she supposed, they were. Most of the Exiles were immortals born in Ambercross, but even the Earthborn liked to read tales of their grandparents’ world. As for the Faerie-born…they missed their home world passionately. They clung to Casey’s literary straw, hoping against hope it would turn into gold.           And that was a lot of heavy to put on her shoulders.            It could have gone straight to her head—hey, she was a magical newscaster!—but it hadn’t. Mostly because her only benefit so far had been books that barely sold and getting shot at when a Faerie twisted off. Marco had saved her life that time, first by taking a bullet for her, and then by tangling with a fully shifted Merrow whose great goal in life was murder. Not bad for somebody who should work for Calvin Klein.            She owed him something for it, but, well…“You know every part of me, Marco. There’s nothing to share.”           “Not every part.” He waggled his eyebrows seductively and she underhanded an ice-cube at his lap. He deflected it with one smooth hand. Then the watts in his smile dipped. “What about your marriage?”            He might as well dump ice water over her head. She shrugged, super casual. “I was married, he was an ass, he broke my leg and I divorced him.”           “If he was an ass, why’d you marry him?”           She flicked hair out of her eyes and took the last bite of her salad. The waiter whisked her plate away. Damn it, he was watching her too expectantly. He could probably out-wait her, too. She sighed. “You’ve told me world-shattering secrets about yourself. I suppose it’s only fair.” Her entrée arrived and she picked half-heartedly at the quail. Marco poured them both champagne, and Casey downed her entire glass before she spoke again. “He wasn’t an ass when I met him. He wasn’t even abusive. Jack was…God. Jack was great.”           Noises rose around them. Someone laughed, high and long, as the jazz gave over to a live pianist. Whoever it was had skill, she thought. It was one of those heartrending melodies guaranteed to put tears in your beer.            “He was the artist for my book covers,” she said, at last. “And he flew down to Houston for a convention. We met at this Irish bar. The Mucky Duck.” She laughed a little bit. “He had long hair and he tied it back with a zip tie. There was red paint on every single part of his body. And he--” she stopped, her eyes distant and dreamy. The memory had barely faded. Smell of old cigarette smoke. Warm wood bar and tables and stools, neon beer signs advertising Harp and Guinness. A slender young man with sharp blue eyes and long black hair smiling over the lip of his beer. Within twenty four hours his warm lips would be exploring more than personal history. “He was perfect.”           “Love at first sight?”           She shrugged. “Lust, I think. The love came later, when he…” She dropped her head because her eyes were stinging. “Our second date, we go out dancing. After about an hour he spots this little girl in a corner, crying her eyes out. She’s sixteen, she had Downs Syndrome, she was crying her eyes out, her mom was trying to comfort her. I would have kept going and let them do whatever. But Jack…he went right over and asked what was wrong.           “He asked her, you understand. Not her mother. He asked the little girl.            “Turned out, the most popular boy in school had asked the girl out as a joke. She’d had her hopes raised and then shattered because he and his sick buddies thought it’d be funny. And you know what Jack did? He took that little girl out on the dance floor and danced with her. He’s bumping around on the dance floor, I don’t know what the hell he’s doing, the girl’s doing something completely different…Marco, her smile lit up the whole world. All her mom could say was thank you. ‘Thank you both.’” Casey sniffed. “That’s when I saw that he was beautiful.”           “And then he hit you,” Marco said, dryly.           Sharp intake of breath, like a punch to the gut. She closed her eyes and nodded. “He got sick. Brain cancer. Then he had a stroke, and when he recovered…” she trailed off. At some point she’d begun rubbing her right knee. The deep, ridged scars from her last surgery could be felt through her panty-hose. She put both hands on the table. “He didn’t know who I was. Who he was. Anything. I thought if I were good enough, if I did enough, if I worked hard enough, I could fix him. I could bring my Jack back.”            “And what happened?” Marco asked.           “I burned dinner, and he beat me with a rolling pin. Three times in the face,” hand on right cheek, where six surgical pins held the bone together, “then the shoulder,” right collarbone snapped in two, “chest,” two broken ribs that still ached in cold weather, “and then my right knee.” Her right little finger began tapping her water glass over. And over. And over. “They said the bone looked like marbles in a sack. When I woke up all the way, I asked to be moved so this new version of Jack couldn’t find me. If I had stayed another day, I think he would have killed me.”            Marco was quiet while he tried his steak and she ate a bite of quail. It had a strong citrus flavor, and was dreamily tender.           “So that’s why you were working at a convenience store?” he asked.           She nodded. “Yeah. The medical bills are pretty big. Reconstructive surgery. Physical Therapy.”            “Wouldn’t Jack have to pay for part of it, at least?” He sounded outraged.            Casey shrugged, feeling like a microbe on a telescope. “Texas is a no-fault divorce state. It was easier not to fight. I just wanted him out of my life.” She paused, and then a little of the old vitriol came out. “It was nasty. I don’t get alimony, I couldn’t keep any of his paintings. In one year he went from being the best human being I ever knew, to being this…vindictive, dangerous child.”           “And he broke you.” Marco said.           “He did.” She looked away and took another bite of quail. Outside the window, the hawks were settling in for the night. She shivered.           Marco’s beeper went off.            “Jesus. Who even has those anymore?” she said.            Marco sighed, extruding long-suffering from every pore. “Raziel got one in the nineties and fell in love with it. I’d buy her a cell phone, but she’d use it for target practice.” He studied the number, then pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m sorry—”                   “—but you have to take it. I understand.” And she did. Something told her a relationship with Marco Creed would be a little bit like dating a cop. Nice to know her instincts worked at least some of the time.           After two rings, Marco flinched. He didn’t identify himself either, just listened for several minutes. “Wait,” he said, “Wait a second. She’s not—” more time passed as words flew across land lines and the atmosphere. Then finally, he sighed. “Alright. I’m making no promises. And if you hurt her—fine. Fine.” He hung up. Storm clouds brooded in his eyes. Storm clouds, and a bone-deep fear that put shivers up Casey’s spine. He sighed, then stood and put his napkin on the table.            “Raziel wants to meet you.”
           “Trust me, Casey. This is not a good thing.” Marco turned his truck down Rod Field Road. The stereotype said Marco should have driven a pretty silver environmentally friendly Prius; this truck could have eaten five of them. The inside was pure white, not one scratch on the vinyl, not one smear on the dashboard. The outside was fire-engine red with metal flake and emblems from his home world airbrushed on the hood. He also liked heavy metal and the Black Eyed-Peas. She had yet to forgive him for the latter. He clicked his blinkers on and pulled into an apartment complex. Casey frowned.           “She lives here?”           “Yep.”           “But…this is all student housing.” The apartment blocks were stark white and framed with palm trees and hibiscus, as if to argue that this was not some form of industrialized storage system disguised as living quarters. It didn’t really work.            “It’s government supplied housing.” Marco paused a long time, then sighed. “She doesn’t work for a living.”           “So she lives off the government?” Casey said, a definite edge to her voice. Though maybe she should reconsider. Being magical could be damn near crippling in this day and age, right? Elestrin were technically humanoid, the way unicorns were tangentially related to horses. Maybe government assistance was the best she could do.            But Marco kept talking. “We pay her dues, and she keeps us out of trouble. Bails us out, keeps a separate apartment in case one of us needs to lay low for a few days. She’s not a bad person.” Marco said. It sounded more like he was convincing himself than Casey as he pulled into the main parking lot.           Nighttime shrouded the buildings, turning soft yellow stucco to shallow off-blue. Cars occupied most of the spaces, including one incredibly shiny Jag with a Spectraflare paint job. It threw rainbows even in the moonlight. A lawn chair and board blocked off the space beside it. Marco stopped the car, got out, shoved the board and chair up onto the lawn, and then parked.            “Raziel blocks this space off.”           “Oh, so she’s one of those. Entitled to a parking space, so she takes one even though she doesn’t have a car.”            “No. She has a car. Specifically, that one.” He pointed at the shiny monster parked beside them.            No job, she lived off her charges, and she owned a Jag. Casey’s opinion of this woman was sinking fast. “You give her money for gas and insurance, too?” She said, climbing out of the car. “Or does she panhandle in her spare time?”           “She does a lot of good things for us, Case. Exiles need a leader, and Raziel is better than most.”           “Right. You know, David Koresh was awful nice to his cash cows, too.” They started up the stairs. “Is anyone else going to be here?”            “Tim, maybe. Ero. Maybe everyone. I don’t know. The last time we introduced a human to our society she dragged people from Victoria down. She’s not predictable.”           “And yet you’re expecting trouble,” Casey sighed.            “Some things are more predictable than others.” He knocked on Raziel’s front door.
           The woman that answered the door was gray. Not the genteel tones of an old lady, but the deep steel of hurricane clouds. Her hair and skin were the same color, her eyes a slightly deeper oil smoke. She was tall like a lightning strike, narrow waist, almost flat-chested, and every seam of her perfect blue suit had been mathematically calculated to remind you that this was a razor blade masquerading as a person.           “Marciaus.” The gray eyes tracked to her. “Winter. Karoline with a K. Come in.” She turned and walked back.           Danger, Will Robinson. Casey thought. Danger. Danger. She walked into the house.            You can tell a lot about a person by their house, and Razielara the Elestrin warrior-maiden had a front room straight out of Better Homes and Gardens. Gardenias in vases, sofa cushions in alternating shades of shale. Cutesy scrapbook dioramas. It felt like icing on a plastic cake, so Casey was relieved when Raziel lead her guests through the window dressing without pause. But the ruffles and gumdrops in cut crystal bowls left her very unprepared for the room they entered next.            No frou-frou. No flowers. Almost no furniture at all. The heavy desk in one corner was almost a medieval throne. Its surface was mathematically neat, papers here, pens here, lamp emphatically there. And the centerpiece was a knife in a stand, the blade bare, razor sharp, and turned so that if you stumbled against her desk, you’d lose your hand. A starburst of swords, arrows and axes hung on the wall behind her chair, each blade rippling with skill and definitely sharp enough to kill. In one corner a full suit of armor, complete with a fox-shaped helm, stood guard over a display of six-shooters, each with their ammo lined beneath the barrel in a neat row. The bullets were polished, too.           This was not an office. This was an armory run by a psychotic.           Raziel sat behind the desk. There were no chairs for Casey or Marco. Her bad knee was aching already.            “You have caused me a lot of trouble, Mrs. Winter,” Raziel said.            “Ms. Please. I’m no longer married.”           The tiny bit of good humor in those cold, gray eyes died. “You have killed a person who was under my protection.”           Casey felt equally as cold. “I defended myself and Marco from a crazy woman and her boyfriend.”           “You destroyed a creature of Faerie. This is not something that can pass without consequence.”           Great. Casey was on the defensive in a room made of knives. Not the best place to be. “We didn’t have another option, ma’am. If you had been here—”           “She would have gone quietly, and I would have another trophy. So not only did you destroy one of my people, you denied me the pleasure of a hunt.” Her smile was very dark.           “What else should I have done?” Casey asked.           Raziel laughed, beautifully, and nails on a chalkboard would be more calming. “You have made one disastrous assumption, Mrs. Winter, in coming here. You assumed that I care for the humans in this city. I don’t. You assumed that I would have protected you because you deserved it, or because you are famous, or because you can provide my people with a hope for return to Ambercross. I would not. What matters to me is that you have done something that cannot be undone. By our laws your life could be forfeit, and if I thought for a moment you could give me fair sport I would take it. A legal kill does not often come my way.”           “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Casey said. Marco gave her a warning look.           “But,” continued the gray woman, “You preserved the life of Marcaius as well as your own. And you are one that our people would listen to. And you have an extraordinary knowledge about us, thanks to your Gifting. You’ve potential to be a useful tool, and I don’t discard my tools without purpose.”            “Raziel,” Marco interrupted, “No one holds to the old laws these days.”           “The McHally family does. Lyrene was the daughter of their patriarch. They have already petitioned for your life, Marcaius. I have denied them the privilege as attacking your leader for sport is not a just kill. For now, they do not know about Mrs. Winter’s involvement, so they cannot petition her life. If this were to change, I would not give either her or you more than a few days. They would not go through me. By our laws, they do not have to.”           “You’re threatening me,” Casey said. And doing a damn good job of it. “What do you want?”           Another cold, knife-edge smile. “I need a problem-solver who will keep my secrets without worrying about her own. Preferably, because she has none, save the ones I give her.” She looked down for a moment, then back up. “Marcaius has told you about our problem child, yes? The missing Phooka, Prix.”           “Yes.” Casey nodded.           “You are to find her and bring her to me.”           Marco exploded. “Wait a minute. She’s human, Raziel. She can’t stand up to--”
                        Raziel waved a hand. That was all, just one motion. But Marco went silent as if he were choked. He turned an alarming shade of red while Raziel watched, amused. When he stopped fighting, she looked back at Casey. “A human, indeed, but with magical gifts.”           “I don’t know how to use them.” Casey said.           “And even if you could, Portal power is no kind of a defense.” Raziel nodded. “But tools prove their usefulness outside of their intended purpose. Consider it a test of your abilities. I expect you will have Marco’s help, which means you will have the aid of those loyal to him. You will have five days to find Prix and bring her back to me.”           “I don’t even know where to start.” She said. “And why five days? Why such a big hurry?”           Raziel folded her hands on her blotter. It did not seem very surprising that she was the type who had a blotter. She probably used it to catch the blood of her victims. “Four people have been injured on the Lexington. Two tourists, two workers. All injured either at night or during a black out, with no sign of how they were injured or why. One of our people visited the site, and claimed to have found the scent of magic and fear. The Phooka seems an obvious conclusion.”           Not to Casey, it didn’t, but she decided not to argue the point. “You’re not worried because people are getting hurt. What’s the real problem?”           The look in Raziel’s eyes could have blistered nail polish. “People think the Lex is haunted. A reality show wants to investigate. They’ll be here on Friday. There will be cameras, tape recorders and many people to witness Prix’s violence. Publicity of our kind must be avoided. If Prix, or any Faerie, were to appear on camera, the lives of all witnesses become lawful prey. Something you and Marcaius would want to avoid, yes?”           “I’d think that’d be your idea of the perfect day,” Casey said. Marco actually hit her.           Raziel smiled, looking more and more like a great white shark. “She’s spunky, Marcius. From what passed in the tabloids I expected a little mouse, and instead I get a spitfire. A hunt would be very interesting, Ms. Winter, very interesting indeed with you at its end. You and whomever Marcaius can pry out of hiding will pose as a second group of investigators. And you, you alone, will bring Prix in…or kill her. Succeed, we’ll call the books even and your future assistance will result in reward. Fail…” the gray woman smiled. “Well, you will probably be dead, so it won’t matter.”            “And if I refuse to help at all?” Casey asked.           “I will tell the MacHallys that you killed their daughter, and you will die.”           Casey closed her eyes. Three days ago she had been shot at by a crazy mermaid, and the responding officer had been a hard-assed no nonsense bad boy. He’d retreated from Raziel’s business card like it were made of snakes and not card stock. Casey now found this a testament to the man’s nerves. Raziel favored mahogany lipstick and brown-gold eye shadow. She looked like a storm cloud inches from a tornado. “We have a ghost problem, Mrs. Winter. Who you gonna call?”            “Somebody with better taste in movies.” She took the papers out of Raziel’s hands. “I’m in.”
(And if you liked that, check out my other books on Smashwords)

Book Bitch: Mission Earth 1

Guys! GUYS! GUYS! This is a thing! Look at it. LOOK AT IT! PEGASUS VS. CHIMERA. HOW CAN THIS BE A THING? This is simultaneously the most terrible and WONDERFUL thing I have ever seen! And the suck part is, I will be working the night that it shows (is a saturday. I will always be working) BUT I WILL FIND A WAY TO WATCH IT ANYWAY. OH. MY. GOD. This is going to be blogged. This is SO totally going to be blogged. OH MY GOD.

Right. Where were we?

...oh. Right. Mission Earth. 

So as I said earlier, I've read the second Mission Earth book, and two things became IMMEDIATELY apparent:

1. Hubbard did not edit as carefully in '85 as he did in 84.

2. HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT. IT SUCKS.

I have been cutting Hubbard a lot of slack, both for being a dying lonely old man (read one of his unofficial biographies. Is sad) for being a product of the pulp era of sci fi and for being a product of the fifties. I am not cutting that slack for him any more. I still haven't figured out what the FUCK is up with the gay guys (unless it's just blatant homophobia) but women? His attitude towards women goes WAY past virgin/whore complex. WAY past. As in there is not one, NOT ONE female name that doesn't make me want to hurt something. THERE IS A WHORE IN THE SECOND BOOK NAMED HARLOTTA. HARLOTTA.

RON NEEDS TO STOP NAMING THINGS.

But we're doing the first book. What happens?

Soltan Gris (Who is L. Ron Hubbard. OH MY GOD is he totally LRH. IN EVERY POSSIBLE VIABLE WAY) having gone three days without eating or drinking (DO THEY NOT HAVE PUBLIC WATER FOUNTAINS HERE?) halucinates:

1. Satan, who interrogates him on the things he does not know he does not know, and no, I did not just fucking repeat myself.

2. the crew of the space shuttle they dissappeared way back in the first chapter, and

3. Jet-boy's tug boat.

I would elaborate, but the plot thread this event kicks off goes fucking nowhere. Jet, being Space Elvis, figures out that Soltan hasn't eaten in three days and sends up a case of Perrier and cinnimon rolls. Oh, sorry. "Sparklewater". Soltan eats. The reason why Soltan has not eaten is Soltan has no money. The reason why Soltan has no money is Soltan tried to cheat Jet out of his cash and lost all of his paychecks for the next year, because somehow this is a thing.

Soltan decides to apply evil evil psychology to his problem and does the kind of bullshit connect the dots reasoning that makes dream analysis give me a headache. The devil is a father figure and the space shuttle crew are phallic symbols, and HELLO STRAWMAN, I guess you're hanging around for a while. For the record, I do think that Jungian dream analysis has SOME merit because our brains are smarter than we are, but it's more "the tornado represents your fear of loss of control because tornado" and less "THIS IS THE UNIVERSAL SYMBOL OF A PENIS."

Also, given the number of gay guys and Perfectly Platonic Man Love (TM!) there is in this series, I think that Hubbard was really religious that Freud got there first.

Anyway, Soltan decides that the meaning of his halucination is not his stomach saying FEED ME SEYMORE STUPID, but rather his subconsious telling him to go interrogate Jet's last crew, because they know what Soltan doesn't know he doesn't know.

Next Chapter: Soltan decides to go blackmail somebody into helping him. See, he watched a man murder a woman and took many many pictures on the off chance he could use that info.

By the rules of narration, this guy is the protagonist of the book. WHY? PLEASE GOD, WHY. Realize that at this very moment we could be following Jet around Voltan. We could be listening to his lady love tell him not to trust that dasterdly evil Soltan, we could see the plot through his eyes, THERE WOULD BE SO MUCH LESS TELLING.

Sigh. Blackmail murder guy gives Soltan what he asks for: counterfit money and poisoned food, so that Soltan can bribe Jet's old buddies into telling him what he needs to know that he doesn't know that he doesn't know (Thank you Ron, for making me type like an invalid).

He also picks up a girl. The way you'd pick up a squash from the grocery store. Poisoned food, counterfit cash, and a prison camp whore. And this sequence of events contains these wonderful gems:

A lot of riffraff will do anything for a female.

 "There are a lot of men involved. She could get pretty used up."

It dawned on me that I had been swindled. This was one of those non-compliant, won't types the customers reject.

In the roster office, the half naked yellow man clerk (emphasis mine--CW) spent a long time going over the records. 

Let me un-Ron that language up there: He went to pick up a whore for a gang-bang and got a rape victim instead. Also? That bolded part? Yo, Ron?

THAT'S RACIST

Why am I harping on this stuff? Because it's not part of the plot. It's not something the plot needs. It's little side stuff Hubbard threw in there because he needed to pad the book. Most authors reach for fight scenes, intrigue, romance, humor, Hunger Games usually reached for food, Sunshine, my favorite book in the whole world, reached for Stuff That Goes On In Restaurants That Also Involve Baking.

Hubbard reaches for racism, sexism and homophobia.

Could it be a portrayal of how nasty those behaviors are? No. First, because there is not one. single. positive. female character. in this book. Or in the next book. There isn't one positive portrayal of someone who isn't blatantly white. IN A NOVEL WHERE THE PROTAGONIST AND THE ANTAGONIST ARE BOTH ALIENS, THE HERO IS A WHITE CAUCASIAN SUPERMAN. And so far none of the gay guys have been anything other than pitiful victims, or just plain gross. And lesbians haven't existed yet, but I hear that changes much later in the series and it's not a change for the better.

It's the same garbage that makes Twilight so repellant. It's not the god awful plot, the sparkling (in Twilight's case) the adjenda of either book. It's the casual dismissal of real issues of substance. And it's fucking damning in Mission Earth, not because it's written by the founder of a major religion, but because of the nature of sci-fi.

Science Fiction is written in the spirit of "This is where we are going". That's why technology figures so predominantly. We're taking where we are, right now, and projecting it into the unknown future as far as we can see, and in doing so we're placing our hopes and fears for the future there, too. That's why IMHO sci-fi right now is very dismal. We've lost hope in our future, lost the optimism we had in the seventies and eighties.

There's nothing forward-looking about this book. It's a stagnant, drippy, self-fulfilling fantasy dressed up in a space helmet just because. The deeper you go, the worse it gets. It's the ugly parts of humanity shown bare, with no hope or solution offered beyond a half-hearted attempt at Space Jesus that Hubbard wished he could have been. The message of this book is not "Solve humanity's problems". It's "Gather at the feet of the redeemer."

Which is probably what Hubbard intended all along. Too bad he couldn't pull it off worth a damn.

So what happens when Soltan bribes Jet's best buddies?

"When Heller gets word of what has happened to us, he will kill you with his bare hands. Run like mad and maybe it will save your life!"

Do they show up again? Given that they have poisoned food and haven't appeared in book two? Probably not.

Next three chapters: Soltan gets lost on his way back to Jet's tug boat! For three weeks! AND NOBODY NOTICES! AND IT TAKES UP THREE CHAPTERS. You know what?

BOOK FUCKING REVIEWED.


TOMORROW: We get our vicarious revenge. Sort of. It's complicated.