Sometimes I review niche self-published books. Sometimes I brag about writing terrible Star Trek parodies. Lucky you, check the archive for both!
“Day 73. The Arctic expedition goes poorly. Our provisions have reached such a desperate state, that I have been forced to eat the food that is already in my fucking bowl.”
Sometimes I review niche self-published books. Sometimes I brag about writing terrible Star Trek parodies. Lucky you, check the archive for both!
When I started spraying regurgitated Star Trek plots all over the internet, I did not anticipate that accessibility and mental health would become such a theme, but here we are. This is the ASD one.
I want to make clear that while I was writing the character of Extrusila, I asked my friends here on the fun half of the spectrum how to write her in a way that was respectful. They were unanymous on one point: for the love of the Budd Rail Diesel Car (Peace Be Upon It), do not make your autism avatar character an alien. Just make them a human. So I wrote her as a three-tentacled alien with a transparent brain dome. More engagement like that, and this series might actually take off.
In Episode IX: Does Any Here Know Me, the Resourceful crew contends with the tragedy of a recent death, and the more urgent problem of one of their number making what seem to be unfounded claims of missing crew members. Can Beverly Crusher convince Picard that Dr. Quaince is real, or- Wait, sorry, I’m reading from my notes. Can Extrusila convince the crew that what is happening in her mind is valid, and just as importantly, will she ever get the hang of hide-and-seek? Does Any Here Know Me is free to download for the next few days, and features special guest reference humor by Space, Above and Beyond.
Hot Off The Presses is a moribund creative writing project by a failed book reviewer, who has pivoted to being a failed short story writer. Check out the archive to see a hater cook.
If you are prone to obsessive compulsive behavior, I cannot stress this enough: stay away from self publishing. I can’t say how well Anthony Hopkins portrayed a person with autism in Rain Man, but it’s a spot-on depiction of my relationship with the refresh button when I’m staring at Amazon ad reports. Once I check one book to see if it has any new ratings or reviews, I have to check them all, and I’d better do it an even number of times, unless I want disaster to befall my house for a hundred generations.
One day I was performing a perfectly normal and psychologically healthy task of reading everything Amazon decided to show alongside one of my short stories, when something unusual caught my eye. In the “customers also purchased” section I found Eliot Bedingfield the man with two heads, and now I need to know which of you weirdos did this.
Eliot Bedingfield the man with two heads by Omer Arad is meandering but tight, thoughtful but incomprehensible. It exists solely for the author, yet remains unfinished. In many ways, it reminded me of Rutchit: The Adventure Begins in the way it never apologizes for your inability to make sense of it. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Who is, Eliot Bedingfield the man with two heads?
In the near future… OK, I should point out, this is one of those stories that started serialized on Wattpad and evolved into something you can read in one chunk on your Kindle, so some of the world building is not consistent and all I can say about the time is that it’s not the present, and it’s not Discovery season 3 future times either. Eliot Bedingfield is either one person with two heads, or two brothers who share a single body. If that seems to be a weird thing for the story to be ambiguous about, then I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry but you have to shut up it’s only page 1.
Eliot Bedingfield is/are a man/men who lives in Tel Aviv, a place which definitely, absolutely is going to exist just fine in the near future whydoyouask. He works at a toy factory, where he’s considered so disturbing to people that they make him paint “colored dolls for thinking games and sports activities” in the corner. After a brief spiritual orgasm nightmare and failure by a home robot to fix the shower, the Eliot(s) find their job taken by a sexbot. Now. If your first question was “a what nightmare?” Please proceed to paragraph A. If your first question was “why a sexbot,” please proceed to paragraph B.
A. There are some supernatural elements to the story, but I’ll be damned if I can explain what or why they are.
B. So she can shoot lasers from her tits later. It’s only page 2; please stop looking at me like that.
This kicks off Eliot(’s/s’) odyssey across the futuristic Israeli city, finding love, podcasting, and a flashback from the perspective of, and told by, a bed.
First thing’s first. There’s no prize for being the person who is annoyed by the most things, but allow me a victory lap anyway. I hate it, the way a medium sized town hates other nearby medium sized towns, when people say the setting is a character in the story. Oh, wow, Gladys. So glad you came to book club. What a thought-provoking insight that the place where a story takes place has features, characteristics, and an impact on the events of the story. Tell us more about your son’s “girlfriend who’s a boy.” A good setting will complement a good plot, and a fun setting may be enough reason on its own for me to read a book (looking at you, every queer YA romance set in Corset Times). But it’s not a character, and in a story so well stocked with insane character developments, we don’t need it to be.
I say that, because given… events, you know, current ones, the fact that the story takes place in Israel inevitably loitered in the front of my mind while I read this. Arad’s narrative presents a place defined by the boons and evils of technological progress more than anything else. Characters talk about “the civilized world,” and all the people and things that come from Europe or America. Eliot himself is a Jewish transplant from London. Religion doesn’t come up explicitly until more than halfway through the story, when Eliot says he came to Israel, “the land of tolerance,” to be treated like less of a freak. Since his plan did not work in the slightest, I have no idea if the author expects us to take the phrase “land of tolerance” at face value. This is not the only aspect of Eliot Bedingfield the man with two heads that had me scratching my singular head. Every chapter found a new way to make me wonder “why is this here, what is the artistic message?” Because there definitely is one. Whatever Omer Arad is shouting at me, he is having a great time shouting it.
Which brings me to the prose. English language self and indie publishing is full of ESL authors doing amazing things with a less than perfect grasp of a language which is, to put it charitably, ten pounds of contradictions in a five pound sack. So I’m not accustomed to judge a work by how many wavy blue lines it would have in a Word document. But I need to mention it here, because Omer Arad is the Neil Breen of written English. Through the mistakes, a kind of accidental mastery shines forth, both dazzling my senses and rendering me completely blind. Let me explain.
When a native speaker reads English, the process of what educators call “decoding” is largely automated. You didn’t sound out any words in this sentence, and you probably couldn’t say how many grammatical rules I followed when writing it. But if what I swapped two words? Or misspelled a wrod? This forces your brain to open the cobweb encrusted filing cabinet of third grade reading skills and fish out the folder on “proper spelling and word order.” It breaks automaticity, and brings your whole conscious mind down onto the page. Normally this is a thankless task that just makes me tired after a few pages, but not so when Omer Arad is in charge. Because sprinkled between the “take your sit, please” and “feet fingers” and “a sharp teeth” that force my brain to lean in, are cartoon extendo-boxing gloves in the form of phrases like “coal vomit” and “mixed trash salad.” What does “advanced canyons” mean? My mind would have glossed right over that if I hadn’t been working to parse “the robot wants to crash us.”
Every page of Eliot Bedingfield the man with two heads propelled me to the next, though I cannot say if it was because I was entertained, or because I wanted to know if it was going to suddenly make sense just around the corner. Whichever one of you bought this thing after my sci-fi comedy schlock, I don’t fully understand how you choose books, but please never change. Unfortunately, while I can certainly recommend the book to anyone looking for something different, I must warn you that Arad seems to have lost interest in his work around 2017, and we currently have no conclusion to the story. Perhaps if enough people take an interest, we can persuade him to give us more Eliot Bedington the man with two heads. You can read it on Wattpad, or buy it on Amazon.
Hot Off The Presses is a moribund creative writing project by a failed book reviewer, who has pivoted to being a failed short story writer. Check out the archive to see a hater cook.
Having a newborn really takes a rusty pipe to your work flow. It’s been six months since we last heard from the Resourceful crew. But they’re back, and more helpless in the face of forces they can barely comprehend than ever! In the latest installment, they face a moral conundrum when an accident causes unexpected consequences for the past. For those of you still holding on to your Star Trek ripoff bingo cards, time shenanigans with dubious scientific explanation that will probably never come up again is the center square. Bingo! Resourceful VII: The Covering Sky Is Nothing is free for the next few days, so check it out. The pendulum of my writing seems to oscilate between schmaltzy and whacky. This one is the former. The next one, Ill Met By Moonlight, is definitely the latter. Hopefully it won’t take six months to finish.
Use the archive to check out my reviews of indie self-published books. Lately it’s been monkey see monkey do since I am wrapping up my own self-published series.
The Resourceful series is receiving its last installment… for now. This story picks up where the last one left off: with the crew in the hands of the militaristic Sirius Fleet. Regaining their freedom requires them to pull together and act like a team, which is easier said than done when their cohesion is being actively undermined at every turn.
Also, do you like Ursula K LeGuin? Do you like amateurish attempts to parody Ursula K LeGuin? If you answered yes to both those questions, this one is for you. I’m not sure why you exist, but I’m glad you do. Let Slip The Dogs Of War is free for the next few days, so check it out.
This blog is where I try to hook unwitting rubes into reading my science fiction short stories. Before that I used to review indie books, so check the archive for that.
I know why you are all obsessed with the Dominion War. It’s not the battles, or technology, or the grand space opera setting. It’s the petty intrigue and touchy-feely personal drama. Actually, this installment steals (I mean borrows) less from DS9 than from the John Carpenter classic Dark Star. Hey look, I’m ripping off something other than Star Trek for once. This installment involves the plucky crew of the Resourceful trying to make a war less terrible, with the only obstacle being their own imcompetence. Let Slip The Dogs Of War is free to download for the next few days, so check it out. If you like it, leave a review on Amazon. If you hate it, give it five stars ironically, leaving me to question whether any positive feedback I get ever in my entire life is elaborate mockery. That’ll show me.
Check the archives to see my embarrassingly unfunny reviews of indie books. Lately this blog is mostly about hocking my sci fi short stories.
Like Bennie Russel, I am compelled to write derivative science fiction stories. But instead of a heroic tale of a better future for all, I lean more toward puerile comedy that steals more ideas than a brain slug. In the latest installment of the Resourceful series, the crew get up to diplomatic hijinks, with a dash of accessibility compliance failure. The Makers Of Manners is free for the next few days on Amazon. You should read it, and tell your friends to read it. Tell them to leave a review, and refuse to talk to them until they give it five stars. Really burn that bridge. Or don’t. Either way, I’m really proud of this one and I hope you enjoy it.
Hit the archive for my terrible indie book reviews. I mean the reviews are terrible, although sometimes they are terrible reviews of terrible books. Fun either way, check it out. In the mean time, I’m steaming ahead with a sci fi comedy short story series.
It’s time for our plagiarism-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off heroes to visit future Earth. Writing this one, I can see why they ignore it so much on actual Star Trek. Once you’ve established a space opera setting as table stakes, it’s hard to make boring old Earth interesting. But wait. There’s always corporate espionage! Every good series needs a bottle episode or two, and so does mine. Yet There Is Method In’t is free for the next few days on Amazon. And remember: those five stars count the same even if you’re doing it out of pity.
This is where I hawk my sci fi short stories, and check out the archive for the indie book reviews I used to write. Two unfunny products in one!
Well, I did it again. Like William Shatner, I have learned nothing from my previous failures, and wrote another short story in the Resourceful series. Let me walk you through my process. Step one, take an episode of TNG that I like. Step two, take another episode of TNG that I like, or DS9, or the Animated Series, or Futurama, or maybe a Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett story that I’ve forgotten I read and erroneously think I just came up with. Step three, smash them together and sprinkle in a few poorly thought out original ideas. Step four, shape the details around the needs of the main cast. Step five, behold what I have done and lament. But wait, you can lament too! And unlike me, you won’t have to lose your dignity, self esteem, or hard earned cash, because The Way To Dusty Death is free for the next few days.
In this latest installment, the crew of the Resourceful must overcome a disaster that has crippled the ship and isolated them in small groups. Will they find a way to work together to save the ship? Yes, of course they will because it’s a series and it doesn’t stop after two stories. But how will they do it? Does the cat survive? Is there a cat? These are questions that can only be answered by spending a couple hours of your life reading… The Way To Dusty Death!
UPDATE! It looks like someone pre-ordered The Way To Dusty Death. That’s fantastic for my ego, but I feel bad that someone paid $2.99 for a book immediately before I put it on free promotion. If that was you, you can return the book within seven days for a refund, and snag the free version by October 6.
Hot Off the Presses 