Savage Tales

royalties.
    "$10,000," said Issaqua. "That's a lot of money. We're rich, mom!"

    Issaqua dropped out of school. His mom's boyfriend helped them build Issaqua's website, internet TV show, and Q&A sessions. Issaqua didn't understand where or why it had all happened, but it seemed all right.
    One night as he lay in bed, he heard something. Scratching. He looked to the window and there it was. That pale, ghostly face, staring in, but different.
    It scratched some more, then said, "Intruder! I come in! Ha ha ha ha!"
    Then the person ran off. Issaqua looked after him as he went away and saw that it was just a man with a mask. It was a different person altogether.
    This was his life now.

FIELDS OF STAR CORN

    I am terribly afraid of finishing this book. I read the blurb on the back before beginning:
    From the author of Corn Huskers comes a new horror novel that promises to frighten you out of your pants (i.e. in ways you had never thought possible). If you're a male, you will feel fear in the hair of your testicles. If you're a female, you will feel fear in your female places.
    Anthony Plaine was a normal mail carrier in Iowa until one day he was assigned a new route in the 'heartland.' He would have 4000 fewer mail deliveries per diem, but he would now be driving nearly 300 miles each day! But that isn't the horror of this gripping tale. As Anthony (and you, the reader, as you accompany Anthony) explores his new mail route you will meet an assortment of oddball characters and wily critters, all pointing in the direction of... MYSTERY! By the time this novel ends you will have discovered the strange secret behind the happenings in Anthony's life, and what it means for all mankind!
    The book itself wasn't that frightening. The characters were kind of generic and the narrator an insipid twit. But I was so curious to learn the secret that might threaten all mankind that I had to keep reading. What effect might learning the secret have on my life (specifically my personal life – mainly love life and money life)? Who could say? Would it be to my benefit or my detriment? The success of my existence might hinge on the information possibly not revealed till the last page of the book. So as I neared the conclusion I slowed my pace more and more till I only read a page a day, then a paragraph a day, then a word a day, and finally only a letter a day, so that the meaning of the story dissolved to only be understood by a lower realm of my mind capable of collating all the letters introduced piecemeal over a generation of days, but meaningless to my conscious mind.
    Many years passed as I parsed out the letters one by one, and I recall the moment when I finished the text, sitting in the library of my mansion surrounded by books I had never read because I wanted to complete this essential text first and ponder its significance. I had amassed a mass of books over the years based only on their titles, their beautiful titles, and I would pace the shelves of books allowing myself to read the titles but never daring to venture inside those pages, my imagination doling out stories based merely on the inflection of those accursed titles.
    And when I came to the last page, the last letter of Mail Route , I couldn't help but feel a cultural insignificance, an emptiness that I may have wasted my reading life by neglecting other texts, neglecting even this book itself by deconstructing it as I had done, for I felt no different, looked no different.
    This feeling passed as I realized that the effect of this "secret" would only be digested at my lowest levels and I should carry on with my life as usual, engage in work and play, and know that it had taken effect. The details would be left to my inner brain and God.
    And so it was that I went to the local science fiction convention, allowing myself finally to read other books and see what changes had taken place in the genre. I remember that convention clearly. The star was Michael Nobb, author of Fields of Star Corn , a book I had never read but glanced at many times on my bookshelf and wondered what its contents might be. My proposed scenario for the book was this:
    A race of beings is in decline. Their energy supply is twinkling down. Suddenly an obscure old scientist shunned by his community offers a solution. The stars of their galaxy might be forced into another dimension where they are made to "breed" in a way never thought possible in our own universe. This scientist is initially praised for