My Novel

Hey all, I've been busy writing a novel lately, and I would like to know what you think. Just a warning, I've been told that the prologue is too boring, but the rest is supposed to be funny. Sorry at how insanely long it is, but hey, it is going to be a novel

Memoirs from a Place That Isn’t Here

Preface: A Boring Start to Not Boring Stuff.

Isn’t it remarkable how few books in the English language begin with the Greek words for hello? Certainly, there must be a few Greek books that do, but they don’t count. This of course is going to be no exception to the general rule of English language books being in English.
This possibly interesting novel is a tribute to the inhabitants of a planet called Arimea. This is a tale of mice and men. Well, a tale of men anyways. And, for equality’s sake, a tale of women also. And of several of whose gender I am uncertain of. These men, women, and its live out their lives on the aforementioned planet of Arimea.
This planet is located somewhere in all of space and time, and it is not Earth. Unfortunately, our top scientists could not work out it’s location any more precisely, as the coordinates they had received from the planet were recorded in completely random characters from the Swahili alphabet. This was of course, easy to understand to all Arimeans, but causes quite a few problems to anyone somewhat normal.
Arimea is home to four major nations and several smaller offspring nations. These nations have a basic understanding of ‘I don’t like you and you don’t like me, so let’s kill each other’. These four nations, I will now describe in brief here:

The Fascist Junta of Boltz is an anarchocapitalist society. This means that the CEO of the largest company in the nation is the President, and vice versa. This makes Boltz rather like a communism, in that they have state run businesses. This is incorrect, and as such, The Fascist Junta of Boltz have sworn to destroy communism so there can be nothing to liken them to.
The name, The Fascist Junta of Boltz, is derived from the overt control that the leaders have over their population. Boltz itself is incorrectly derived from the archaic Boltz term for ‘One who is almighty’. The actual term is Btol, and would, in the native tongue of the country, have been pronounced China. This obvious perversion of a classical language was easily possible because the only person alive who could speak the language was an 80 year old man who also happened to be in a coma.
Boltz armed forces is split into five parts. The Boltz Imperial Army (BIA) takes care of the majority of land incursions. They have to follow a strict code of honor as set forth in the Boltz Constitution. The Boltz Imperial Navy (BIN) is the largest and most up to date navy in the world and, thanks to a typo in the final draft of the constitution, does not have to follow ANY code of honor. This is naturally the most popular of the armed forces. The Boltz Imperial Air Force (BIAF), in stark contrast to the BIN, consists of four un-flyable, broken down helicopters, and a converted passenger airplane (The conversion process removed the words ‘Passenger Airplane’ and replaced them with the words ‘Military Airplane’). The Boltz Imperial Space Forces (BISF) is the newest branch of the Boltz armed forces, and is meant to target the increasing threat of extra-arimean military involvement. Finally, the Boltz Imperial Special Forces (BISforces) is an ancient military tradition, older than even the BIA, consisting of several secret agents, and their outrageously expensive gadgets. When the BISF was first formed, major confusion was caused, as BISforces was known as BISF at the time. This problem caused a fair amount of special agents to be sent into space without space suits and a number of bulky suited, brightly dressed spacemen to be sent on high profile, clandestine missions. As such, a name had to be changed, and as seemed logical, the older and more set in stone organization changed its name.
Aside from military, Boltz exhibits one more extraordinary talent. Politics. In the Fascist Junta, politics is made so deliberately complex that less than 0.00000231% of the country’s 3.5 billion citizens understand it. This may seem like a large number considering the population’s vast size, but one must consider that because of the tight relations between common business practice and politics in an anarchocapitalism, the percentage of the population that deals in politics is 73.342%.
In many ways, their society is not unlike our own.

The second nation to declare itself to the lands of Arimea is the highly democratic and much loathed Independent Republic of Telosia. This country is so sickeningly democratic that it holds a vote on every decision made by anybody of any importance. This includes who should be president, what bills should be passed, and what color socks the First Lady should wear. This naturally upset two classes of people; the voting booth operators, who worked virtually non-stop, and the leaders of rival nations, for the friendliest of them appear to be totalitarian fascist dictatorships by comparison. Because of this, Telosia is the most despised place on earth.
Telosia’s army is small, but secure in its knowledge that they are the best because their leaders say it all the time. It is sin fact, a defensive army only, acting as a heavy duty border patrol. The reason the most despised nation with the smallest army Arimea has ever seen is not yet vanquished is two-fold; first, the peace loving nation is home to the largest nuclear arsenal that could ever be devised. Secondly, they have insane luck. Entire armies marching to Telosia have been struck down by superflu in minutes. Proud fleets of ultra-battleships sailing for Telosia have had their weapon’s caches simultaneously and spontaneously explode in brilliant yellow fire.
Most scientists today postulate that during the next century, a meteor large enough to wipe an entire country from the face of Arimea into the vacuum of space in a tremendous cascade of molten rock and cute little knick knacks from souvenir stores will strike home. From this point, there are two trains of thought on the subject. There are those who believe that, with the law of averages combined with the fact that God simply could not exist if they were not right, the extinction class meteor will strike Telosia. The other party believes, far more rationally, that such a thing could not happen to Telosia.
These experts believe that, should such an object strike Telosia, the colossal object would collide with a serene, flower covered hill in the scenic Telosian countryside and bounce off breaking into four pieces. This would only damage the single flower that it miraculously hit and disturb the gentle summer breeze for a moment. Three of the four pieces however would then come back down on the other three super-powers’ capitols, wiping them off of the maps, and that the fourth one would strike the one unusable acre of Telosia, uncovering a valuable resource of the power source, Helium-3.

The Sod are and always have been a militaristic people. This is true to such an extent that their first invention to make it to the history books was not the wheel like it’s (slightly) more peaceful neighbors; it was the assault rifle.
Incidentally, even the name Sod is peculiar; only one man on the face of the planet is allowed to know the meaning of the name at a time. As such, the name, which otherwise would be an acronym, has come to be known as the actual name of the place. Also on the subject of nomenclature, the capitol of Sod is Usele (yoo-seel), which is in fact, a massive city. When I say massive, I mean MASSIVE. This one city holds 62% of the country’s population, and 48% of the land. Over many millennia of international xenophobia, general ignorance, and lack of interest in getting the facts straight, all of the citizens of Sod are believed to also be citizens of Usele. Because of this misunderstanding, the population of Sod are known as Useless Sods. This would frustrate them- if they could be bothered to investigate this oversight.
As such a warmongering nation could be expected, the longest stint of peace this country has ever enjoyed was 9.43 seconds- and that was simply because the president-elect of Sod did not understand what the peace negotiator for the Fascist Junta of Boltz gad said about his childhood pet turtles, Mike and Sam. This is okay, since the Sod have been far too busy designing weapons of mass destruction to learn the coordinates of their enemies’ lands.

Last, but not least, the Astro Federation looms over Arimea. 10,000 miles over Arimea to be exact.
The Astro Federation (AF) is the fourth and final Arimean superpower, yet it owns not a single inch of Arimean soil. So advanced are these people, that they founded- and maintained- their empire on the cold, dead Arimean moon, The.
According to the holy scriptures of AF, they herald from a distant planet, remembered only as Florida. In the beginning, so says the holy writs, the lord Nasa sent the chosen ones, known as the children of Gagarin, from a good but tainted [Florida]. The deity of fortune [Houston] helped guide these fortunate ‘cosmonauts’ to their new home, where they would use their superior intellect to control the indigenous populations without them even knowing it.
The AF are a highly religious people, and take their beliefs very seriously. There are three major sects in AF religious orders: Christism, Jewology, and Islamianism. Christism is by far the most common belief, but the differences between the three are only superficial. Back on Florida, religious wars between the three continued almost continuously, and with the exodus to The, they decided to stop the petty squabbling and focus on the greater threat, the new religions. Thanks to this racism, the AF is renowned for its bottled up, almost polite discord with the other nations of Arimea.
The AF usually tends to serve as the deus ex machina in most surface conflicts, providing assistance to whatever country has the greatest odds of eliminating its heretical neighbor. One less blasphemer is one more righteous Floridian.

Also on this planet, are three small sub-nations. These are somewhat weaker, formerly autocratic regimes that were conquered by another superpower, and rather than hand over the country, the leaders at the time capitulated to their military superiors. In essence, they are puppet states, with little or no self governing capacity.

Setvia is a formerly proud empire. Its leader’s lineage could be traced back a whole several years to a bloody coup. Its leader before that had seized power only months earlier, when the leader before him (Who had taken over when the country capitulated) was assassinated.
Despite the odd militant revolution and the hideously limiting fact that it is a puppet of the Fascist Junta of Boltz, this communist nation and founding patron of the Arimean Communist League is almost painfully arrogant. Despite being a slave state to a superior power, Setvia has a burgeoning nuclear arms project, a large army of underpaid, under-equipped soldiers, and vast amounts of cheap and ineffectively produced tanks and jet aircraft. This is of course hidden to everyone. Except Telosia. And Sod. And Boltz. And the AF. And everyone except that comatose Boltzian we mentioned earlier. Other nations have often questioned why their superiors allow this, and, being so infinitely wise, Boltz officials stated quite coolly that “There has been no infringement of the rules set down on the peace treaty with Setvia”, and that “all is as it should be”, and “everyone should just relax and take down their border defenses with Setvia”.
When the other nations heard that it was okay, they willingly obliged. This was just days before the infamous but totally unrelated military invasion of neighboring countries by peaceful and well-meaning Setvian and Boltz troops, simply wishing to bring good tidings of peace and hope on what also happened to be World Peace Day.

Upon seeing how happy the people of Setvia were made by their conquest, Telosia had to have its own ‘pet’ country. This country, conquered by the indestructible forces of democracy, is called Endorce.
Endorce was once a small, eternally neutral and somewhat inoffensive democracy. Upon being conquered, its people decided pacifism had done nothing to save them, and started its own nuclear weapons program, and, just to test its master, became a totalitarian communist state.
With its being communist and such, its trade based economy has suffered astronomically, with 1 BIP (Boltz Imperial Pound) being equal to 9.7 trillion ED (Endorce Dollars) on a good day. This is not quite as pathetic as Setvia’s economy. Setvia’s entire buying power is equal 2.57 BIP.

Last and most certainly least, there are the Fian Islands. This is another puppet of the Fascist Junta of Boltz, and is its least proud achievement. This small nation is spread out over an archipelago south-southeast of Boltz’ Main Island.
It is an insane collection of native islanders, famed for being technologically deficient. These natives still believe in sun gods and the like, and the most advanced technology they have is the square, a predecessor to the wheel.
The one positive thing about this relationship is the extreme malleability such a simple society has. They have no military use whatsoever, but are fantastic scapegoats and can be told to believe any ideology their masters tell them to.
It is also somewhat positive that they are a monarchy; they can negotiate with Telosia and Sod with more ease than the highly secretive and often sinister Boltz. Many wars have been avoided thanks to the combination of malleability and friendliness that the Fians exude, and none could be happier about it than the Fians themselves- after all, they were told that they enjoyed it.

On this crazy planet in this crazy universe, many men, women, and its live out their lives and deaths. Many are boring and pointless like yours. Many are filled with tragedy like your friend’s. But, there are a few- those like that friend of a friend’s- that are filled with good fortune and excitement. Those who you would never really meet, but constantly envy.
What follows are the collected tales of these few freaks of nature whose lives are not flops. These are the memoirs from a place that isn’t here…

So, let me know what you think. Any comments are welcome as long as they allow me to better myself as an author! Thanks

And here's chapter 1. This is where it gets amusing.

Chapter One: The Man with 23 Cases of Bad Luck

It was quarter past two in the afternoon, and the sun was still high over the South Telosian Sea. It would be anyways, if the thick cloud cover did not hide the sun with the effectiveness of night.
Passing under this sunless sky, not glistening in the sun that wasn’t there, the polished black bow of the BIN Independence broke wave after crashing wave. This mighty Uber class battleship was the brainchild of Dr. Ivan D. Johnsen, the foremost military specialist in the BIN. This perfectly black ship was constructed based on the doctor’s basic stealth principle, known as ‘That which must not be seen should be painted black’. This was his latest and greatest innovation in stealth technology, but it was unfortunately his last; the day after he got the Independence’s plans authorized he was run over by his black limousine, which he could not see screaming at him at the speed of two miles per hour. With him the secrets to this technology died- but all was not lost! The government still had the plans for the Independence and fully intended to live out the late doctor’s plans to the letter.
Thus was born the terror of the seas, the largest, most powerful, and blackest ship ever to be manufactured in recorded Arimean history. BIN Independence.

Aboard, no movement could be seen on deck, for the presence of tiny black dots on the humongous black hulk of steel may give its location away to prying eyes. Below decks however, there was much going on.
Though the South Telosian Sea is about as far away as one could get from the hated Telosians, all stations must be maintained just in case. In the dank, gray (Yes, the innards were not all black) mid-section galley, lunch was being served for all C-Deck personnel, and Corporal Tommy Davis was not about to miss out.
In a line occupied solely by BIN officers and personnel, clad only in black jump suits, Tommy was a glittering purple testament to pain, valor, and self-sacrifice, but mostly to pain. On his otherwise bland uniform, Tommy had pinned twenty-three purple hearts and a Bedorven Valor Badge, and he could tell you the story behind each one.
Tommy, recently promoted to corporal for his three years long service, was a tall, lanky weasel of a man. God (Or Nasa, depending on your beliefs) had blessed him with a skin whiter than paper, with more freckles than could be counted, and, naturally a voice that had not yet broken at the ripe age of 21. His one dream was to make a career out of the navy, and he was failing fantastically; everyone in his graduating class at the Imperial Naval Academy (Technically, he didn’t actually graduate however) now outranked him. One such person was standing in front of Tommy in this line.
“Hey Sergeant Pepper!” Tommy called in his nasally voice to his fellow alumni, Staff Sergeant Pepper.
“I already told you Tommy boy, you can just call me Pepper”, the Sergeant replied, turning his perfectly formed head to face Tommy.
Sgt. Pepper was a stark contrast to the corporal, even more so than any other normal, healthy adult male was. He was a man of average height, but with broad and muscular shoulders, giving him the appearance of a professional football player. In relation to Tom’s unruly red hair, Pepper’s was a finely combed blonde masterpiece, perfectly accentuating his dazzling blue eyes.
Tom stared at Pepper with his dull gray eyes, awaiting a response to the question he had just asked. They stared at each other for a full ten seconds, accentuating each’s inspiring intellect.
“Well?” pressed Tommy.
“Well what?” asked Pepper, genuinely confused.
“I asked you how you were doing”
“Only idiots ask that every time they talk to someone.”
“I didn’t last time!” Tom retorted.
“That was because your mouth was covered by a piece of tape that some good Samaritan put there”, Pepper explained.
“I hardly see how covering my face with tape was a nice thing to do to me!”
“It was a great thing for everyone else.”
“Oh, ha-ha. But seriously… How are you doing?”
With that, the sergeant frowned, his perfectly chiseled face almost entirely unrecognizable by the temporary wrinkle on his brow. He was remembering Jenny, back home. What a great girl- possibly the only girl he had ever thought about twice.
“I’m actually not that well. I am at least a month away from anyone I would even consider going to bed with, and I miss Jenny.
“You know, I really don’t see what all of your girlfriends see in you. Is there really such a difference between the two of us?” To further his point, Tom put his hand to his forehead and attempted to run it through his hair. It got stuck in the jungle of knots in the matted red hair, and refused to budge further, even when he began wrestling it with both hands. When Tommy was thoroughly exhausted, he attempted to play it off in a cool manner, failing pathetically.
“Yeah, uh huh, okay. Did you just want to insult me, or did you have something constructive to say?” A perfectly fair question from a perfect and fair man.
“Yeah, I guess”, said Tommy, his face turning redder than it’s usual freckled hue allowed. “What do you think about this ship? There’s been a rumor going around that Dr. Whatshisname’s theory of stealth technology may not have been very technical.”
“What are you saying?”
“Do you think the enemy could see us?” Tommy’s already twitchy eyes seemed to have seizure, looking around to make sure no one was about to kill him for even suggesting the thought.
“Tom… We’re standing on a massive piece of black metal, floating on a bright blue ocean under a dark gray sky. At night, the glow from the sheer amounts of energy needed to move this hulk of a ship lights up the sky in such a way that you’d swear we were a ghost ship covered in glow in the dark stars charged with strobe lights…” were Pepper’s calculated words.
“Are you implying something?”
“Yes. There is every possibility that ‘Dr. Whatshisname’s’ theory was complete bullsh-“ Pepper continued as his head erupted into a cascade of gore, splattering blood all over a somewhat surprised Tommy.
That same Tommy now stared blankly at where his friend had stood before crumpling to the floor in a pool of red liquid that was most likely not ketchup.
And he stared.
And stared.
Then, like a specter, Grand Admiral of the Fleet, His Honor, Ace XXI sprung out of nowhere behind the shocked corporal with a twirl of his black cape. The Admiral whisked Tom into his arm, holding his shoulder and began walking in one swift, fluid-like movement.
Ace XXI, like his twenty predecessors, was a born leader. He was tall and slender, with enough muscles to pull of the look, but not too many. He wore Black leather boots, and a full body suit like his comrades, though his bristled with armor plating and various medals, and over it all, he wore a flowing black cape. On his head he bore a dark gray space marine helmet with the words, ‘Bedorven Honor Guild’ printed in gold letters on the side. All that could be seen under its opaque black visor was a pair of thin lips that now formed a charismatic, ‘I know what I’m doing’ smile, and a single lock of orange hair that stood in such a straight line that, hairspray or no hairspray, it must be breaking the laws of hair physics.
Beneath his helmet, Ace analyzed this young… man… with his piercing green eyes. He spoke:
“Hello, private… What’s your name?”
“Um. Tommy, sir. And, you promoted me to corporal two days ago for general attention to duty.”
“I see, Tom, if you don’t mind me calling you that. Consider yourself demoted for contradicting a superior.”
“Yes sir” Tommy replied with less gusto than usual. “Will Pepper be okay?”
“One month’s pay docked for referring to him by name only. Pepper will be alright though. A medic will be coming around to put his head back together in a matter of hours.”
“Shouldn’t we be finding the son of bit-“
“Another month’s pay for swearing on duty”
“Yes sir. But shouldn’t we be finding the mean person who did this and bringing him to justice?” shot back Tom.
“Yet another month’s pay docked for questioning a superior’s actions. I already know who did it anyway.” The admiral had a smirk on his face now, thinking of all the money he could save the navy if every man was like this one. If you could call Tommy a man, that is.
“Well, why aren’t we taking action against him?”
“Or her”, replied Ace.
“Or her”, Tommy agreed.
“Oh yeah; I forgot, another month’s pay docked for questioning my actions again. We aren’t taking action, because I ordered the man to do it.”
“You did what!?!” a confused Tom asked of his superior.
“You are good at this; I’ll have to give you some sort of money saving medal. Wait, no; that would cost money. Another month’s pay docked for questioning me for a third time. I ordered our sniper, Richard Dick to practice on a living target” Ace calmly continued, waving to a man in a black jump suit, but wearing a black mask similar to one a marine or a bank robber may wear, and holding a sniper rifle in one hand. The man known as Major Richard Dick waved back. “See?”
“Why did you ask Richard to do it?”
“Yet another two months’ pay docked for questioning me a fourth time, and for referring to Richard by name only.”
Yet again missing the irony in the statement, Tommy corrected himself, “Why did you ask Major Dick do it then?”
“And another month’s pay for swearing on duty again. I asked him to do it because I like to keep a finely tuned war machine here, and Dick obliterated all of the targets in the shooting range; they are now more lead than target.”
“Will Pepper get a purple heart at least?”
“I’m sorry; all of the purple hearts aboard the ship are reserved for you. Especially after that spectacular stunt you pulled the other day when an assassin’s bullet intended for me changed its own course and struck you in the thigh. Oh yeah, and you are minus another month’s pay for not referring to Pepper by rank” Ace replied with finite patience.
“Roger. May I be excused sir?”
“Why?”
“Conversations with you can be costly” Tom explained.
“Okay private… Uh… What’s your name again?”
Tommy thought about this one. If he gave him another name, their pay would be docked instead of his.
“Um. My name is… Dick. Richard Dick.”
“Something’s fishy about that private. I’m going to dock you another month’s pay, Tommy, for trying to trick a superior. And I’m giving one month of your wages to poor Major Dick for pinning the loss of nine month’s wages to him. Don’t worry; you’ll get paid in eleven month’s time; just in time to buy me a birthday present, right?” He laughed heartily for a moment. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect anything over one thousand BIP.”
“We only get 1000 BIP a month!”
“I know.” He smiled back.
“Yes sir.”
Today was not a good day.
“Oh yes”, the ever benevolent admiral reminded Tommy, “You may want to go down to the medical bay and get yourself screened for AIDS. Pepper’s blood is all over your face, and he was quite promiscuous.”
“Yes sir.”
Today was really not a good day.

Again, comments, questions, concerns?