Phantasmorifica

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Okay, here’s the deal. This whole starving artist thing is getting really old now. It’s gotten to a point where I’m not even fully human anymore, but a ghoulish skeleton with small smatterings of flesh dripping from my bleaching bones. I walk down the street and children start crying, their parents yell for a priest and voodoo priestesses look up and wonder: “Did I do that?”

This must stop.

So since this is not a book I’m trying to write while keeping the entire universe from descending into a premature heat death (ala Monkey Boy), but one that I wrote many centuries ago, I have decided to post in in total, without interruption or delay… on Amazon for $4.99 (and probably Barnes and Noble later). So here we go: all 14-16 chapters of Phantasmorifica ready to go. Just follow the link.

Summary:

There is a pattern to these things. There is a routine of evil powers rising and laying waste to the world only to be vanquished at the last moment by a young hero, ennobled by his virtuous crusade.

And so it has always been in Phantasmorifica. When the Fire Giants waged merciless war against the Winter Wraiths in that primordial time before the Age of Flesh, they seared their foes into mist until that one day meek little Flake rose up and chilled the world in his fury; when the Empire of Trolls marched through the lands of the gnomes they were eventually quashed by the might of the great Figglesnort the Dauntless. Again and again, century after century, this pattern continued, so mechanically and so rotely that people eventually stopped caring and peace and ingenuity spread throughout the world.

But things are different this time, a new scent is in the air and no one can seem to deny the odd inkling, the slight nagging feeling, that there’s something weird about this apocalypse.

Oh sure, it still has an evil Dark Lord who is searching for the key to his ancient and all-powerful weapon, the tool with which he will purge all life from the world just because. But this time, there is no naive, but well-intentioned farm boy to stand against him, there is no Chosen One sent by the mighty and divine Twenty-Three-and-a-Half Spirits to overthrow him. There is only a drunken Default One, kicked off the sticky comfort of a barroom floor to go save the world because frankly everybody else has better things to do.

And he is joined on this quest not by boon and stalwart companions, but by a cowardly troll, a schizophrenic elf, an angry witch with power over the elements (specifically, boron, magnesium, californium, etc.) and a duck who cannot be felled.

So this is a journey mired in uncertainty, one that will take its heroes through volcanoes and casinos and holy grounds and Vole People and suburbs and slaver communes made of candy and through kingdoms where everybody sings at you for no apparent reason, all leading up to the inevitable conflict where Hero meets Villain and — with the fate of all lives, nations and peoples of Phantasmorifica hanging in the balance — hopefully, hopefully, says something other than:

What Others Have Theoretically Said:

“A brilliant parody of the fantasy genre that pokes fun at all the usual conventions and even reserves a few laughs for some very real world absurdities.” — The New York Times (at least in my fantasies).

“OH…MY…GAWD! This is like the greatest book evers! No, really. Not only is it funny and good and long, but it also cured my erectile dysfunction.” — A Person Who Is Definitely, Seriously Real.

“I liked it.” — God.

Originally Written in 2005

Click Here to Buy this Kindle Book and Feed the Hungry (Because I’m Hungry)