Space Vixen Trek Series

In this epic tale of thud and blunder, eight youths are wasting a beautiful summer afternoon pretending to be adventurers in a generic medieval-style fantasy world, frequently interrupted by arguing about the role-playing game's prissy rules and driving each other up the wall. When one of them casts a spell for real, what happens next makes one of those corny 1980s books warning about the "dangers" of role-playing games seem like a walk in the park. *** Who says it isn't real? The smoke began to clear, and they all looked around in amazement. They were inside a dank and dimly lit corridor, with several passages connecting. Finally, Bartholomew broke the silence. "Yes! It's real! I knew it! I was right all along!" Nobody laughed at him now. They all realized that the floor plan was the same as that of the dungeon in the game. A green corpse in chainmail was assuming room temperature next to Jethro. *** Visiting their beloved fantasy world is a dream come true She reached to her hair. Rather than a two inch crop teased into black spikes, she found long braids the same hue as the mirror's polished copper. "I can't believe I'm back to my natural color, and it's all the way down to my butt. This totally sucks! And no piercings? How's anybody going to know that I'm, you know, an individual? I am so losing this hairdo. Long hair is such a bother to manage! And after I dyed it six months ago, I promised myself I was never going back to natural! I wonder if they have any Miss Clairol here?" "At least you're still human...!" whined Ludwig. Dudley began to sob anew. Smoky cursed bitterly. Bart turned to Spike and quipped, "Isn't this something? Three of us are complaining about not being human, and you have your panties all in a bunch because you look the part finally." That drew him some sour gazes. *** Going native is a piece of cake Two hours later, they were in a little clearing amidst a forest. The sky was becoming very dark. Their trek was punctuated by percussive slaps; they were losing a war of attrition with a horde of mosquitoes. Finally, somebody spoke. "Hey Galdor," said Mongo, "Do you remember a forest on the map near that village?" "Well, no." "Oh really? Then what the hell are we still doin' in the woods?" Galdor replied with artificial cheeriness, "Gee, I think Pixel said something about a shortcut?" *** Fortunately, the locals are very friendly and hospitable The other patron stood up and drew his sword. "As Shire-Reeve of this county, I bid ye to depart!" Shorty stood and brandished his pink battle axe. "Shorty, no!" exclaimed Raven. "Don't even think about it!" "Are you trying to get us killed?" gasped Galdor. *** Literary standards will be mocked Ralph said, "Who would have thought - gamers getting zapped into the game? That sounds like the plot for some cheesy story." Galdor replied, "Well, that's the truth, isn't it? Come to think of it, this sort of premise has been done before. It's nothing groundbreaking, but at least we know the concept works. Kind of like Tron, right? Hopefully, this book will be a big hit, cheesiness notwithstanding." Pixel giggled. "You're breaking the Fourth Wall!" "Don't worry, guys," said Mongo. "I bet all this junk is going to get blue penciled." *** Our intrepid adventurers discover that they're in a fantasy / science fiction crossover "I understand not these 'aliens'. I have gathered that they dwell in the Empyrean, and thus they must breathe aether as we breathe air." Pixel interjected, "So you blokes still believe in the Aether Bunny?"

A dorky genius, struggling financially and under his little wifey's thumb, goes for a quick trip to space with his best friend the knuckle-headed linebacker. They take a prototype spaceplane out for a spin. Their plans for a three hour tour are interrupted when the navigational computer gets the Blue Tickertape of Death. They're hopelessly stranded. Worse, the jock ate too many beans. At least the nerd is nowhere near his greedy creditors and especially his control freak wife. Then he discovers the horrifying reason why he hasn't made a plug nickel from his super duper invention. In this thrillingly cheesy tale, they must not fail, they must not falter, and especially they must not be late for supper. Other than that, space pirates - enough said! *** The young engineer's friend drops by. "Butch came in a day early, and I just wanted to let you know that we're probably going to be a teensy bit late, maybe..." Harsh noises emitted from the receiver of the telephone. Albert held the handset away and winced. Butch grinned broadly and swung his arm with a wrist flourish as if he were cracking a whip. "Yes, darling, I know you wanted to see me soon, but I was hoping to hang out with my old pal here... No, this doesn't mean I like him better; it's just that I haven't seen him in ages... No, dear, we're not funny, as you put it; we both happen to like women. Oh yeah, and I specifically like you. Anyway, I'll let Butch know that today might not be the best time." The athlete sighed. "Come on, Pardner, can't you spare a few hours for your best pal? Be a little assertive, for the love of Mike!" *** They take his spaceship out for a joyride, but end up nowhere. Albert reached to the console, and noticed that a piece of ticker tape was hanging out of a slot on the console. It was blue with black edges; this was not a good sign. He ripped it off, looked at it, and frowned. "You can read them weird computer dots?" "Of course. It says STOP 0x00000041 (0x00001000, 0x0000adfe, 0x00004000, 0x0004678f)." "Wuzzat? Huh? Huh?" The nerd sighed, reached under his chair, and retrieved a volume that rivaled the size of the Manhattan telephone directory. He thumbed through the error reference guide. "MUST_SUCCEED_POOL_EMPTY - the parameters are the size of the request that coughed up a hairball, number of pages used from nonpaged pool, number of requests big enough to make it blow chunks, and the number of pages available. We got gremlins in one of the kernel space drivers, and since it runs in Ring 0, the whole computer bugchecks, just because somebody wrote lousy code." "You know I don't speak Swahili." "It means we're up the crick without a paddle." *** Yet, through an incredibly improbable plot crowbar, they find that the utter void is filled with danger. "They pirated my original design, the prototype I've been trying to patent! They stole my thunder! Those - those damn dirty apes!" "Avast!" said a loud voice. They turned around. Two men confronted them, dressed in motley, both sporting scruffy beards and earrings. The one on the port side had a prosthetic hand in the form of a hook and a black three cornered hat with a skull and crossbones design at the peak. The one on the starboard side had a scarf tied behind his head and a peg leg. Albert noticed that this spaceship had handicap plates, so he turned to the one on the starboard side. "Excuse me, is this your bucket of bolts here?" "Aye. And a stiff price ye'll pay for messin' with me ship!" The other one crouched down, looked fierce, and said, pithily, "Arrrr!" *** Will our brave protagonists prevail in battling the buccaneers from beyond, so they can get home before the hotdish gets cold?

Two best friends travel to Jerusalem. Religious bickering and romantic rivalry heat things up early on. Then their goofy classmate, traveling with a Christian tour group, goes off the rails and declares himself to be the Second Coming. Then things get much weirder than that on this highly irreverent and politically incorrect adventure. Finally, when evil aliens hell-bent on galactic domination start behaving unpleasantly, the fragile regional peace is in grave danger. Will the friends end up broke and stranded abroad? Will the "Messiah" get the tour group following him, or will he get himself lynched? Can nuclear war be averted? *** The missionaries came by "After a few more rounds, they showed me how to do the secret handshakes from the Mormon Temple. They even showed off their magic underwear." "Ain't that a hoot! So what happened after that?" "Well, as we finished my stash, Elder Berry announced that he had a crush on his companion. Elder Bush said he doesn't swing that way, but Elder Johnson offered him a BJ once, so he should be DTF. Elder Berry was delighted to find out, and wondered how his gaydar didn't ping Elder Johnson from the beginning." *** The nerd discovers his Jewish roots "Look on the bright side. Now that you're Jewish, you have a chance with Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman." Karl snapped out of his guilt fit. "Awesome!" He smiled broadly. "And Roseanne Barr too." *** His jock friend becomes a Muslim fundamentalist "The problem with the Christians is they don't realize that Issa, peace be upon him, was a prophet and no more. But y'all got the worst part of the bargain there. Muhammad, peace be upon him, said the Jews were like a donkey carryin' a load of priceless books but didn't have no use for 'em." Karl glanced at him crossly. "I wouldn't be making statements like that too loudly if I were you." "You suppose someone might rat me out to that there Anti-Defecation League or somethin'?" "So, are you a Shi'ite, or are you just being the same thing with two fewer vowels? If so, maybe you'd better visit the Ayatoilet." *** Their classmate is off his meds "All this hoopla about the two thousand year old dead Jew on a stick!" exclaimed Ludwig. That got him some shocked stares. "He wasn't one of us!" insisted Karl. "That's like saying Martin Luther was a good Catholic all along." "So what was he then? Not that I really give a toss." "Jesus was Italian!" "Like Julius Caesar, the original JC?" Ludwig smirked. "Yes indeed. Jesus was as Italian as fettuccini Alfredo. It says so in one of our ancient writings, the Toledoth Yeshu. That's sort of like the Gospel According to Lenny Bruce." The pudgy kid quipped, "So maybe Communion wafers should have a slice of pepperoni and some mozzarella sprinkles on top?" *** What's gotten into him? "I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself. Would that I could tell who I am! Would that I could tell what I know! But I would be called a blasphemer, and they would take my life." "You sound like some kind of a prophet!" the girl said reverently, gazing at him dreamily with wide eyes. He reached out and touched her soft, delicate hand with his sweaty paw. Jethro said, "Uh oh, that's the Doggy Dinner Bowl Look." "This has got to stop," replied Karl. "What if he breeds?"

In 1978, a professor and two wacky Midwestern teens witness a remarkable finding. A worldwide computer network delivers an image from their new space telescope, and they discover proof that aliens once visited our solar system. Soon, they're in more trouble than a gopher at a rattlesnake convention. Little did they know that these sneaky extraterrestrials are back again. Their Open Mankind Foundation Governance is plotting to prepare the world for the "New Galactic Arrangement". Worse, they're not the only spacefaring schemers out to subvert our unsuspecting planet. The professor disappears, a victim of a mysterious kidnapping. The FBI hunts down the prime suspects, the nerdy junior scientist and Pleasantville High's star linebacker. A task force of Russian commandoes tracks down the jock's girlfriends. However, things aren't quite what they seem. The teens become embroiled in a web of conspiracies, beginning a deplorably politically incorrect cosmic adventure. Who can be trusted? Which scheming aliens will spring the trap first, imposing their brand of despotism upon the world like the humans they've exploited before? Can the youths get back home before the history exam? --- Alternate history was never wackier Inside the disguised paddy wagon, the boys could hear the gas station attendant grumbling. "What a cheapskate! I try upsell more octanes, and al kelibah get all women's liberation on me. Everybody tell me, streets are paved with gold here. Was a lie! I hate America!" Ozzy banged on the side. "Help us! Please! We're Ozzy Cerebrum and Biff Holzhauer, from Pleasantville, Nebraska." "And I am Saddam Hussein from Tikrit, Iraq. So what?" --- The heat is on "When I come back, you better be ready to tell me everything. Time's running out. Oh, Biff also thinks you iced a couple of girls from school today. If you have something to get off your chest about them, you might want to do that before you get the death penalty. Do the names Elizabeth and Bernice ring a bell? "Jeepers! I wonder what Franz Kafka would have to say about this?" He wrote down the name. "We'll be investigating him too. Now look - if your fellow conspirators kill Thornberg before we can find him, then you're gonna get an accessory charge. That, my friend, is a ticket straight to Old Sparky." --- Will the nerd survive the cute little maneater from space? He heard a honeyed voice from the other side. "Ozzy? Are you in?" He kept silent. Then there was a click as the lock disengaged. Chills went up his spine. La belle dame sans merci peered in at the doorway. He gasped; Lilly was more beautiful than ever, positively radiant. She was wearing a diaphanous negligée, scarlet with black fringes. He greeted her nervously, "Oh, hi." --- Behold the 1970s at its cheesiest "Normally I'm not much for wild speculations, but I've heard some interesting stories about them." "I'm not sure. I'm probably imagining things about the G-men, but those kids seemed a little strange. I noticed that their breath wasn't foggy in the cold weather like ours. They seemed really stiff too. What's even screwier is that their van was the same model as the one at the scene of the crime." "I saw that too. It didn't have 'Fish' written on the side. Instead it was marked 'Baloney'. How about that?" John Holmes nodded. "This is one weird smuggling outfit. Anyway, I wonder why Wallace is having so much trouble cracking down on high-level corruption. Back in the day, Nixon was doing a better job dealing with organized crime. It seems there's some funny stuff happening at the top levels of government. What do you think?" "Tell you what. I say we take the Chief's advice and forget all this happened. There's no dead Arab, no pond with a couple of cadavers, no fish truck, and the only thing hauling baloney is your trousers." "Come on, must we? I feel so objectified