I’ve always thought Gardner’s idea spot-on. A story should coax the reader into a dream and then float him along on a smooth current of other worlds, other times, grand adventures, sights and sounds woven directly into the imagination.

One of the main difficulties with the fictive dream is that you never know exactly what lulls people to sleep (and then into dreams) these days. Not that you should be writing things deliberately tailored to the audience. You should be simply writing a good story. However, our modern times is notorious for its splintered sensibilities. If you select any random dozen people off the street, you very well might end up with several nihilists, an evangelical christian, one dazed Occupy Wall Streeter, two Dutch tourists, and an IRS agent. What lulls one person into a dream will not necessarily work for the next person.

Our collective mind’s eye is splintered. The internal lens is shattered and each shard is looking at the universe from a different angle. The focal lengths do not match up. The really good stories, I think, somehow transcend that impediment. They are few and far a between.

There are, of course, those people who can never be lulled into the fictive dream, but that’s because they never dream at all. Rather, they have nightmares.

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I’m becoming more and more convinced that life and the universe and everything in existence around and under and behind those two things is an immense jigsaw puzzle. Trillions upon quadrillions of tiny pieces scattered across time. A nearly infinite set of puzzle bits floating in a nearly infinite ocean of dark matter.

I think most people figure out how to put a few of the puzzle pieces together without realizing that’s what they’re doing. Certain rare people, the Einsteins and Da Vincis and Buffets and Jobs of the world, they suss out how to put together a whole lot more than the rest of us, but it still is only a drop in the proverbial bucket.

The problem is, I don’t think it’s just a jigsaw puzzle. I think it’s a jigsaw puzzle of a deadly serious game. A working, living, breathing game. Once some of the pieces get put together, you can play that part of the game. Something akin to Monopoly, perhaps, but you’re not playing for money or possessions. You’re playing for something else.

I’m not into all that secret knowledge, Masonic, Rosicrucian, Dan Brown sort of stuff. Rather, I suspect this is a secret that is so out there, actually an anti-secret, that we’re all too blind and self-focused to even see it. There’s not just an elephant in the room; there’s a whole universe in the room.

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I’ve noticed a trend in modern thrillers. And when I say “thrillers” I’m referring to the genre (sub-genre?) of private detectives, police, criminal cases… all that sort of thing, as opposed to the Robert Ludlum or Helen MacInnes style thriller of espionage and spies suavely dropping $50,000 at the roulette wheel in Monte Carlo, etc etc etc.

What’s the trend? The trend is brutal serial killers with weird sexual twists. Most of the books feature an antagonist who is a psychotic serial killer fond of dispatching his victims in painful ways that typically involve some kind of hideous sexual component. The frequency of this antagonist makes me wonder if writers automatically go for the biggest shock value they can dream up (nightmare up). Perhaps they do this because they thing, wrongly or rightly, that readers are jaded and can only be hooked with extreme shock value. The crack addict needs an even bigger hit in order to experience the intensity of the last high.

At any rate, it’s a safe bet that the antagonist of whichever new thriller you pick up will fit neatly into that psychotic mold. And that, my dear penguins, is rather yawn-worthy.

I wish thriller writers would break the mold and write some counter-intuitive antagonists. How about pacifist bank-robbers or artful pickpockets? Shoplifters? Cat burglars? Forgers? Where is the next Flambeau? Even Agatha Christie’s murderers tended to have much more going for them rather than plain old vanilla-flavored psychotic, deviant craziness (yes, that’s redundant, but you get my point…redundancy to the maximum numbness).

Granted, these more modest types of criminals don’t have the gross-out power of a Hannibal Lecter, but they very well might force the writer to get more creative, to rely more on skill rather than bloody cookie cutter stereotypes. After all, when you’ve read one psychotic killer, you’ve pretty much read them all.

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Shudder. Gag me with a peacock feather.

The critic over at the Observer doesn’t sound that impressed, wrapping up his critique with a nasty uppercut to Luhrmann’s glass jaw: “…overwrought, asinine, exaggerated and boring. But in the end, about as romantic as a pet rock.”

Ah, romance and pet rocks. Ever a thrilling subject. Oh, pet rock, how shall I count the ways? I shall save my seven dollars from ending up in Baz’s pocket and, instead, invest it in several ice cream cones (Cherry and Double Chocolate Fudge).

To be honest, I never enjoyed Fitzgerald’s book from the first time it was inflicted on me in high school. Yeah, he’s a good writer and he knows how to draw characters, but who really cares about another story about angst? Angst is over-rated. At least his story is better than all the new angst-dreck coming out these days. Hot Girl becomes pool of angst due to Hot Guy ignoring her. Hot Angel Girl becomes pool of angst due to falling in love with Hot Demon (Hot Demon? Is that redundant or what?). Hot Girl becomes pool of angst due to falling in love with Hot Vampire Dude or Hot Werewolf Dude or Hot Biker Dude with lots of Hot Tattoos. Hot Girl achieves amazing abs of tanned steel while simultaneously melting into a pool of angst.

Which leads me to the other thought bubbling in my head: it is time to start the Grand Project: the secret demolition of the public school. I don’t mean the actual physical demolition of public schools (in case there are Homeland Security commissars reading this blog [buy my books, you Homeland Security commissars]). I mean the destruction of the idea, the anti-intellectual construct, the false god of public education.

Let’s face it. Other than a few isolated exceptions here and there, public school churns out illiterate worker drones addicted to entertainment, social media and Snickers bars. Public school no longer teaches the art of critical thinking. It teaches nonsense like diversity and tolerance (though, only when tolerance falls in line with politically correct sludge) and herd behavior.

So…it’s high time we set about undermining public school. How shall we begin? Much more on this later (though, I’m certainly going to draw inspiration from Geoffrey Searle’s fabulous classic Down With Skool–despite the fact he was targeting English private schools, there’s a great deal of energy that can be ported over into the public school arena).

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2 million dollar budget. Releasing simultaneously in theaters, iTunes and video-on-demand. You don’t need to sell a lot of movies to turn a profit at that budget.

Heck, if you can pull of an indie film for $100,000, then you can skip the theater release. Foreign TV sales, iTunes, video-on-demand, DVD sales.

Speaking of the entertainment biz, what’s with all the Hollywood types who want ambassadorships due to forking over money to the President’s campaign? Do we really need some overly-tanned Los Angelesite swanning around Belgium, accompanied by his entourage (expensive toupee, psychiatrist, third wife)? Nyet. Stay in LA and make another bad film.

Or another season of Project Runway. My wife, the repressed clothing designer, checked out the latest season from the library. Designing clothes is not my thing. I would rather get blown up by a several megaton nuclear bomb than design clothes. Well, maybe I don’t feel that strongly about it, but you get my radiation drift. That said, I find the show darn compelling due to the raw creativity some of those budding Michael Kors throw around. They’re crazier than bedbugs in June and they could all use several months in a padded cell, but their creativity is admirable. I don’t care if you’re designing haute couture or writing books or whipping up a twelve-course meal for the Sultan of Brunei. Creativity is creativity.

Though, I’m still not impressed with Eli Roth’s gorefests.

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But, enough of that. I’m going to post an excerpt from Greater Treasures below. If it piques your curiosity, head on over to the DragonEye site for other tales.

—

Given the day I was having, it came as no surprise that when I got home, I found the dogs sprawled in a drugged sleep and the sounds of things being overturned from within the warehouse. I decided not to bother with subtlety, but I did resist the urge to burst in with flames going full-blast. I had questions first.

Naturally, I walked straight in to find an automatic weapon—yep, a bona fide black-market AK-47—and I thought only Faerie lived their clichés—and six other weapons of various types pointed at me. I didn’t stop, just closed the door with my tail while I strolled in slow and placid-like. My visitors had shaved heads, faces painted white with clown paint, and black t-shirts with swastikas in white circles.

“If you’re the housekeeping service, you’re fired.”

“You stay right there, or we gonna fire you!” said one guy from the sidelines as he held his nunchucks at the ready.

What’d he think he would do—whack me on the nose? I turned to the one holding the assault rifle. “Scraping the bottom of the barrel with that one, weren’t you?”

“He’s right. You just stay still while we search the place.”

“The place” was a ten-thousand square foot warehouse with offices on the upper floor. Boxes I still hadn’t opened line the walls and made a maze in the second warehouse room. I settled myself on the floor and rested my head on my crossed arms. “Go ahead. I get half of anything you find.”

They stared at me, unbelieving. I smiled back. Mr. Cooperation, that’s me. Finally, Big Gun snarled for the others to get to work. As he turned his back on me, Nunchucks muttered, “I got your half. Don’t think I don’t.” Guess he learned such witty repartee in Hitler Youth Summer Camp.

I watched and listened and waited. With eight teenage skinheads trashing my place, it was only a matter of time.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” I suggested as Nunchucks made a grab for the doorknob to Grace’s workshop.

“You gonna stop me?” He turned the knob.

“Nope,” I said as I closed my ears and my eyes. Even so, I saw the otherworldly light and heard the harmonious roar of Divine Vengeance followed by Mundane screams.

“The Heavenly Host on the other hand…”

I waited until the screams died down to whimpers before opening my eyes and rising.

Four of the skinheads were unconscious. Three may as well have been; they were curled up in the fetal position, whimpering. Nunchucks was actually crying for his mommy. Big Guns had collapsed to the floor as well, the gun thrown away from him. He was sitting and rocking and making high-pitched keening through the roof of his mouth.

I’d tell Grace to tone down her wards some, except that the effect is directly proportional to the evilness of the intent. Suddenly, I was feeling a little shaky about my earlier entrance.

Knights out of the armor now. I went around, collecting weapons in the office trash can and poking through pockets. I found the usual stuff—driver’s licenses, credit cards, petty cash… One kid had a condom; wishful thinking on his part, I knew. Another had a report card. MLK High. Wonder if he was the one beating up Faerie kids? Honor roll grades, too. Of all the years I’ve battled evil, there were still some things I didn’t understand.

As I was returning Big Guns’ (aka Rick Matherston’s) wallet back into his jacket pocket, he blinked and focused on me.

“What was that?”

“Angels, kid.” Actually a kind of magical shadow of the real thing, but close enough.
“But I thought angels were—”

“There’s a reason why their first words are usually ‘Fear not!’ whenever they meet a human.”

His eyes returned to their unfocused stare. I almost felt sorry for him. Then I noticed the letters FARISLAR tattooed on his knuckles. Faerie slayer.

—

The winner of the 2010 INDIE for best Fantasy (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem), Karina Fabian has imagination that takes quirky twists that keep her–and her fans–amused. Nuns working in space, a down-and-out Faerie dragon working off a geas from St. George, zombie exterminators—there’s always a surprise in Fabian’s worlds. Mrs. Fabian teaches writing and book marketing seminars, but mostly is concerned with supporting her husband, Rob Fabian as he makes the exciting leap from military officer to civilian executive, getting her kids through high school and college, and surviving daily circuit torture…er, circuit training.  Read about her adventures at http://fabianspace.com.

Website: http://fabianspace.com, http://dragoneyepi.net
Blog:  http://fabianspace.blogspot.com
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Anyway, back to the story in question. It was the late 80s and I found myself running a post office in a refugee camp in southeast Thailand. The Thai military and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees bossed the place, but setups like that are always parceled out to various NGOs–aid outfits, mission agencies, charities, etc. So, while the military runs the camp security and the UN runs overall funding and oversight, the different NGOs run the day-to-day operations, whether that be the schools, the clinics, food distribution, clothing distribution, the internal banks, and, last but not least, the post offices.

I ran the post office in the non-Vietnamese side of the camp. Our population was mostly Khmer, Hmong, Meun, and Lao, bounded on four sides by barbed wire, watch towers, the relentless furnace blast of the sun, rice fields on three sides, and a cracked asphalt road on the fourth side, stretching away north and south to Bangkok in one direction and Cambodia in the other.

My postal boss partner, a pleasant Thai fellow who had the curious knack of happily and healthily existing on several hours of sleep each night, and I had about thirty refugees who worked for us in the post office. We were deluged with mail each day from all corners of the globe. Each piece had to be recorded and then the details posted on long lists on the bamboo billboards just outside our windows. Refugees would hopefully gather, anxious to see if they had received a letter from relatives in Canada or Sweden or perhaps even a crumpled bit of news from someone in their long deserted home back in Cambodia or Laos. The adults would crowd in front of the billboards while their children would flutter about in the dust, hopping and skipping and still finding something in life to be hopeful for. They always reminded me of Solomon’s birds, cheerful and unconcerned with the day’s woes, while their parents read and re-read the lists, desperate for a familiar name.

Just as important as news from afar was the possibility of a letter containing money. Money meant a more adequate survival in camp. Even though the United Nations was supposed to provide sufficient food for their upkeep, things never worked out that way. Funds raised in the west had a habit of diminishing in quantity by the time they reached the refugee camps in the form of food. I don’t say that with any animosity against the UN. It just was the way things were.

At lunch time, I would lock up and head to the gate, show my pass to the bored Thai soldiers, and then head across the asphalt road to the Vietnamese half of the camp. There, in an open bamboo thatched pavilion, several enterprising cooks held sway over some open-air kitchens, busily cooking up rice and noodles, eggs and fish and meat. A dollar or so would buy a good meal for lunch.

I worked that job for six months and, even after all these years, my head is full of stories from that short time. I’ve only written one, a particularly sad and painfully true one, but I’ve misplaced it somehow. Blast it all. Do we misplace a great deal of our lives, through choice or absent-mindedness? I’m afraid so.

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Speaking of modes, I just got my brand new Apogee Duet up and running. The Duet, for you non-audiophiles, is an external audio recording interface. Very nice little unit. However, I’ve discovered that the slightly oldish keyboard I was using does not talk with my new Mac. Pity. Now I have to find a newish keyboard. Darn you, Roland, for crushing my dreams of recording! It’s only a temporary setback, of course. I’m anxious to get to work on my album of children’s songs about famous generals (or dictators). What child doesn’t long to march around the house singing about Josef Stalin? Actually, I think I’m going to tackle the generals first. I already have Napoleon’s song written (two birds there–general AND dictator).

“Napoleon Bonaparte was born on Corsica, the 15th of August, 1769…he went to France, to the military academy, where he learned about war and how to fight…tumtitum..hum hum…”

Not exactly Rogers and Hammerstein, but maybe I’ll get there one day.

I’d forgotten how absolutely dry and golden brown California already is by the end of April. This state is a desert. That’s the real reason why it’s called the golden state. Dead grass. Not because of dreams coming true in piles of gold coins. Don’t believe that for a second. If you want to live the dream of entrepreneurship and start the next GoogleFacebookAppleWhatever, go to Texas.

Go southeast, young man, and leave California to the dodo birds who want to tax drinks containing more than 25 calories of sugar. Sorry. I should not be maligning the poor dodo birds.

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MAYHEM, MAGIC AND MANIAC DWARVES
Malix Shandy, the best-looking scoundrel in the kingdom, sets off on a hopeless quest to find the dreaded Fury Clock. If he doesn’t find it in seven days, he’ll suffer a fate worse than death. Teamed up with a fairly enormous ogre and a psychotic dwarf, Shandy starts to think maybe death would be restful after a week in such company.

Brimming with romance, exciting elves in tight pants, dirty farmboys out to save the world, and tasty roast boar, The Fury Clock will tick-tock your universe into goat-flavored, literary utopia. After all, it isn’t every day you discover the shocking truth about gnomes, dragon eggs or Instant Boots.

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