My new book, a collection of my short stories entitled “Villains, Villainy & Villainpunk: Monstrous Microfictions”, is about to come out, unless you’re reading this in the future, in which case, it’s hopefully already come out, and you’ve hopefully bought it. Which you should not have done. Let me explain why.
WARNING: THIS ENTIRE BOOK IS A SCAM.
It’s true. This entire book, the whole book, pretty much all of it, with the exception of a couple of numbers, is nothing but a whole bunch of words. Seriously. I’m really trying to foist that off on you: a whole jumble of locutions, just smacking into each other in a way which might, at best, produce a series of semi-indefinable, oft-intangible responses, such as feelings, thoughts, or ideas.
What a colossal rip-off!
And it gets worse. If you’ve read your Lovecraft, you’ll note that there are generally two very, very important things about almost every single piece of writing he describes in his stories:
- They aren’t written by Lovecraft, and
- They either get you killed in horrible ways, or they drive you completely mad.
Here’s a hint: I guarantee you that this book wasn’t written by Lovecraft.
Need I say more?
I’m afraid I have to, because it gets worse:
I’m charging money for this book, even though everything inside of it is available for free.
That’s right. I’m charging you for something that’s free. Nearly all of this stuff is available on my blog at no cost to you. (This is even more ironic if you’re reading this piece on my blog right now.) Oh, it would be a pain in the neck to go and find and click on each story, and this is a slightly-more-final edit, but I’m still an independent author who does his own editing, so it’s not like we’re taking a whole lot of difference.
There’s even a very reasonable chance, if you’re reading this, that you’ve already read most, and perhaps all, of these stories. You’ve already put all the words into your head. Isn’t that enough?
No. It isn’t, is it?
Because there’s still something about books; no, wait, something about words. Something that hasn’t gone away, even though, in theory, the technologies of word-transportation have gone through fundamental alterations in their nature, not once, but many, many times. From stories spoken aloud, to pictograms carefully carved into rock, to manuscripts written out by hand and then copied slowly over lifetimes by rooms full of monks, to the printing press, to some kind of way the printing press probably changed that I don’t actually know about but which was probably really important, to electronic books—there’s still something that connects talesenders and talecatchers.
You shameful hoarders-of-words.
Face it. A certain percentage of those absorbing this information right now can’t stop gathering mountains and mountains of verbiage into your heads. Where does it stop? You’re worse than Dragons; Dragons collect shiny, beautiful gold, with, perhaps, some rubies and emeralds. When most of the world’s economy went electronic, did Dragons stop sitting on top of expensive metal and start metaphorically sitting on gigantic bank accounts? I don’t know; they might have. It’s not like they tell me these things. The point is, why are you still even reading this? This is a post full of words literally telling you to beware stuffing more words into your head and all you’re doing is stuffing more words into your head and WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
This Warning could end there, and it would, except that I am an honest huckster. And I should tell the whole truth:
I’m one of you. I’m a word-hoarder myself.
And I have some idea why.
There’s something about defining and refining and developing thought and meaning out of stacks of language and communication which makes me feel more whole. Not like I felt incomplete before, but like there is more of me to be found, and I’m finding it and making it out of the raw stuff of thought and dream.
That’s the conspiracy of writers: words are never free. Whether we are taking them in or putting the out or both, they cost us the skull-sweat and heartbeats and breath of constructing our inner landscapes, and for some of us, the more we add to those far-stretching inner highways and skyways, the more our outside life has potential and joy.
If you like words as much as I do, then this warning is already far, far too late. Acquire these stories, acquire all the stories in the world, if you can. Sit your mind upon a throne of readable wealth so massive that even a Dragon, tail sprawled lazily against a stack of emeralds each the size of skulls, haunches resting comfortable upon a bed of coins made from the treasure-troves of a dozen pirate-kings, would look at you, and envy your wealth.
Plunder and hoard, my ravenous story-kin. Plunder and hoard and good hunting to you all.
Here’s my novel, “There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN“.
And Evil Expo, the Villain Convention, is coming! Learn more!
