Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Cleansed Worlds
In general, the Vyeah take a pragmatic approach to other species and their settlements, seeing something of possible value in each even if they do not know what it is. But even their patience has limits, and if necessary, they will respond with lethal force on a planetary scale.

The Krne have felt this in many places, where their continual rebellion has exhausted Vyeah forbearance, leading to the colonies being destroyed from orbit. Typically this is done with directed-radiation weapons to preserve infrastructure, but the Vyeah are not above glassing a planet with particle beams should the need arise.

Some Krne settlements, the R’de of K’ltlei, the pernicious Orrnhu, and the duplicitous Fiieyl all number among the Cleansed. Survivors, if any, are enslaved.

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“I seek to travel to dark Korton, the Black City,” the woman said.

“Which you will not reach, as it is an arduous journey,” Orthian Maillot said.

“And from there, I cross the plains of Laïs, beneath the deadly light of Køs the Cruel Star,” the woman continued, unafraid.

“Which is so difficult that even those who reach Korton settle there forever rather than risk the rays of the cruel star,” Orthian said.

“I will reach Insbara, and perhaps even enter its labyrinth to satisfy my own curiosity.”

Orthian stopped her. “Who are you, that so confidently states she will travel where the great explorers of our age have fallen short, laid low by the dreamlands?”

“I am Le Aaiun, and I will follow in their footsteps and succeed where they failed.”

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Conscripted Worlds
Worlds that are technologically advanced enough to resist the Vyeah on equal or near-equal terms are generally subject to much harsher treatment, especially if they resist occupation. These worlds are occupied with more troops, expected to furnish ships and troops to Vyeah commanders off-world, and generally exploited more heavily with the goal of reducing them to the level of a Client World or, if necessary, a Cleansed World.

Some species, like the Krne, colonized multiple worlds and in this case each is treated separately. Some Krne colonies have been model Client Worlds, while others have continually risen against the Vyeah, requiring harsher and harsher putative measures, until some were finally cleansed in frustration.

Earth was far too primitive a backwater to be even considered for this fate. It was far cheaper and more efficient to simply economically dominate it.

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Client Worlds
Vyeah control over client worlds tends to be primarily economic. A high commissioner is appointed, as well as the skeleton of a Vyeah bureaucracy. The world is upgraded to connect to the encrypted FTL network, and the Vyeah are granted a monopoly on all products, natural resource exploitation, and raising of armed troops.

In practice, once all the levers of power are in their hands and the world has been defanged as a potential adversary, the Vyaeh tend to leave it alone. They sell some technology and extract some resources, but most of this is spent to fund the costs of the High Commissioner. By dribbling down advanced technology and appointing puppets, the Vyeah are able to halt would-be foes before they can become threats. Only in cases of prolonged insurgency will they commit additional resources or off-world troops.

Earth is one such world.

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> pick up book

Taken.

>look at book

The book is entitled Media of Pure Fantasy.

>read book

You page through the book. It appears to be an avant-garde novel of some kind, in which the unnamed first-person protagonist finds a book, also called Media of Pure Fantasy, and find that large portions of their life are expounded upon as being part of fantasy texts. It drives him to madness.

>who wrote the book

You flip to the end leaves. The book is credited to one Edminster Stoudenmire, which is also your name. Curious, as the copyright date is at least ten years before you were born.

throw book against wall

The book thumps noisily against the wall. Sparrows sing sweetly outside, oblivious to the noise.

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I kept reading the essay, a little uneasily. It helped to speak it out loud, to hear my own voice going over the syllables.

“Now, the short film in question was Your Favorite Story which was up for an Oscar in 2010, I want to say. It’s a simple enough character piece at the start. Two girls in an apartment–Roommates? Lovers? We never do find out for sure–are discussing their favorite stories, mostly books but also TV shows and movies.”

Turning the page, I kept on:

“One of the girls have never heard of the other’s selections, and neither have we, the audience. It soon becomes clear that while one character is speaking of media that exists in our real world, the other is pure fantasy. But she insists, with specific details in her recollection, they they are real. And what’s more, she’s never heard of any of the others the ones familiar to us as the audience. The short ends just as they consult an encyclopedia to find out who is right.”

Glancing over at the computer on my desk–the modern encyclopedia–I felt a shudder work its way up my spine.

“Which is more disconcerting: the notion that the first character’s favorites do not exist–or that ours in the audience do not?”

At this, I slammed the book closed and threw it across the room, breathing heavily. There was no way. The author had been dead for years, nearly half a decade. There was no way he could have known.

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“My favorite was always Prisoner of the Striders, did you ever read it?” Mallory said.

“Isn’t that one of the Tintin books?” said Sunny. “I ever read any of those French comics.”

“No, it’s one of the Sparrowverse stories that Sandra Cooke Jameson wrote.” Mallory grew more animated as she talked, gesturing with both hands. “It was in one of her short story collections. Song of the Sparrows maybe.”

“Sparrowverse?” Sunny arched an eyebrow. “Sounds flighty.”

“It’s a bunch of short stories and novels about the lives of birds. Starting with sparrows, eventually with other birds too. They made an animated movie out of one of them in the 70s, and Netflix is working on a show, I think?”

“So what is Prisoner of the Striders about, then?”

“A bird disappears, but another one sees it in a human’s house. They call us striders, we’re the striders in the title. So the missing bird’s friend goes on this big journey to find the house and rescue it, but it turns out to just be a photo framed on the wall. It’s really sweet and really sad.”

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“I saw Gathl, but he was…different. He did not move, nor did he sing, and when I drew near to him, he grew to an enormous size.” Clwyd said. “I have heard that the striders possess fearsome magic, but this is beyond the pale.”

“Ah, I know of what you speak,” the old bird said. “Before the finch-blindness took my sight, I had seen it before. My good friend was once approached by a strider, you see, with a curious object. My friend froze, but they did not harm him. Llew took him not long afterwards, but I saw him again, returned to life, in the strider nest. But he never moved.”

“What do you think it is?” said Clywd.

“I think…that the striders have powerful magic at their disposal, and sometimes it pleases them to take the form of one of us and display it, even after the original has died.” The old bird laughed “I suppose it does save them from raising young in their nest, doesn’t it? But it is yet another of their unknowable ways.”

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The nobler our intentions
The muddier our words
A self-important man once said
The intelligent are doubt-wracked
While fools are self-assured
I would revise that to
The truth is complicated
And lies are simple

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Oglethorpe’s Multi-Variegated Tyrant Flycatcher (Empidonomus multivarius) holds the record of largest name-to-bird ratio, at 3:1 to 4:1 depending on the font. R. Evans Oglethorpe was actually accused of fabricating the species to take the title for himself, as ornithologist doubted that such a small flycatcher could be so boldly colored–especially Arnold Huntsman, discoverer of Hunstsman’s Dapplebacked Pewee, the previous record-holder. But an independent investigation in Uruguay confirmed the species, and all subsequent challengers, such as Gregson-Williams’s lesser southern semipalmated megapode, have proven to be either misidentifications or hoaxes.

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