[Clue,Fame,Suspicion,Meeting,Observer]

  I sat in my favorite reading chair and it was pointed right at the large picture window with a spectacular view of Mirror Lake. When I had inherited the mansion I’d hired an electrician to install recessed lighting, directly above this chair. Giving me the perfect amount of light to read. Everything about this mansion was dedicated to the largest source of joy that I knew. Reading.

  Which I was doing right now. The bookstore was empty, which was both good and bad. Good because I didn’t have to deal with any customers giving me plenty of time to engage in my reason to be, reading. But bad because the store had to turn some kind of profit otherwise the county would get the piece of property that virtually everyone wanted. Properly developed and marketed this piece of land would be worth a small fortune to the person who owned it and the county through the higher property taxes they could charge for an inn or better yet, inn, marina and attached four star restaurant.

  But that would happen over my dead body. Well maybe I wouldn’t go that far. If the worst happened, I could always go back to an editing job in New York City. But having to go back to the city tail between my legs and no rent controlled apartment to return to would be a lot more painful than death and with the noise, bustle and millions of people a whole lot more clamorous. It would be a slow death, one taxi, subway trip at a time.

  So while I usually relished a good read, I had a dire lack of customers in the back of my mind. But there was always the royalty check that would be arriving soon, it’d keep the lights and heat on. Food on the table for the ten of us and would also pay a good chunk of the dreaded property taxes. Aside from the water and the sewer which came in separate bills from the property taxes, it was the only county service I used. Yet I still had to pay the taxes.

  But the problem with finances aside, they weren’t what was draining the joy out of reading for me. No, it was the horrible manuscript I was forcing myself to continue. As an editor with more than twenty years experience, I’d read my share of horrible manuscripts. I’d even managed to help the authors of some of those manuscripts turn them around and become publishable if not exactly award winning books. But the manuscript in hand was one of the worst I've ever read and I had a manuscript handed to me last week that was written by A I that was far superior to this human written agglomeration of ideas.

  The ideas were not of the authors either, according to the notes in the margins, most of these scenes were requested by redditors. The author, Lachlan, posted on reddit his bare bones plot of an alien species first contact with humanity and how both species found each other so very very sexually attractive. Then Lachlan, kept posting alternate ideas for sex scenes between the two species and asking for redditors opinions on what they’d like included in his novel.

  It’s a very democratic way to write a novel and also the absolute worst way. Lachlan wasn’t getting any consistent advice from one person or group. Nope, makeithard69 suggested one vile scene, only to be topped by umakmewet33's next completely nonsensical idea. I’d only made it to the third chapter and over twenty redditors had contributed to this mess. If he kept up this pace this book would have been written by over one hundred different people with over one hundred different frames of reference about what the novel was supposedly about.

  There was a very loose plot but it was so obscured by strung together sex scenes I was having trouble following what was actually happening and I have an eidetic memory which usually helps a lot when a plot meanders all over the place. But it wasn’t helping with this one. Aside from a niggling feeling that I’d read this before again something that rarely happens to me, with the ‘photographic memory’ the popular press ascribes to eidetic memory, I can usually spot style, plot, homage, pastiche or appropriation without any trouble at all. But this manuscript was such a mess of styles and points of view that even with my memory I couldn’t figure out if this was plagiarism or just so many generic ideas from so many ‘authors’ that it resembled a lot of plots that I’d read.

  I was saved from further speculation when the bell or the door rang repeatedly. Sure sign that a tourist bus had dropped a load off and as the last shop on the commercial street people had come in to get warm. With any luck I might even make a sale. So I threw the manuscript facedown to save my place onto the round coffee table in the reading nook. While on my way to the sales counter with fingers crossed.

  “Excuse me, could you tell me where you keep the self help books?”

  “I’m sorry we only stock genre fiction, but I’d be happy to order it for you.”

  “No thanks, I always try to buy local, but I’ll just order it from Barnes and Nobles.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  A small bookstore can’t stock everything, so we only stock what I like to read and I like genre fiction and there are just enough readers like me living close enough to the store to keep us afloat.

  “Hello, could you tell me where the history books are?”

  “We have lots of historical fiction, but no non fiction books in stock, I’d be happy to order them for you.”

  “Thanks but we came on the bus, I’ll have to wait and order it when I get home.”

  “Sure.”

  Even if I did have a small section of actual history books, who’s to tell if I actually would have the historical period the customer is looking for. There are a couple of local history books I used to stock, written by local authors but unfortunately they mostly hung around collecting dust until I discounted them so steeply I’d lost fifty percent on each sale. Besides, if I had a history section, I’d have to have cooking and science and sports and a million other topics so I’d barely have space for the books that I love.

  “Excuse me, do you have any romance books?”

  “Yes, ma’am, a huge section, I love the romance genre. Come right this way, it’s right next to the reading nook, so if you see anything interesting, feel free to sit down and see if it suits you.”

  Wow, a possible sale. The buses might be a nuisance in town, but they could be a lifeline to many of the speciality shops. Unfortunately bookstores seem to be speciality stores in an era when fewer and fewer people actually go to a shop to shop and even fewer read for pleasure. Of course people still read but instead of reading great novels, they are reading two hundred and eighty characters of gossip, misinformation or political rhetoric.

  The romance lady came back with ten softcovers. If I could just eek out one or two more sales this afternoon, we might be in the black for a change. A gentleman came up with a Military Techno Thriller from an author I signed an NDA to not name as the real benefactor that keeps the lights on here at Genre’s. He’d written his first novel while living in the Writers Collective on the upper two floors of the mansion. The contract he had with my aunt allowed him six months free food and lodging while he worked on his novel. In return my aunt would receive ten percent of the royalties for the first year of publication. After six months the novel was barely half written but instead of kicking him out, she encouraged him to keep working on it. After a year and a half it was finished, published and a huge success.

  Boy was he grateful to my aunt. The royalties from the first year alone, paid my aunt back and then some but instead of just living up to the contract and retaining the full one hundred percent of the royalties for himself he had an attorney make a new contract which granted the collective ten percent of the royalties until the copyright expires. The book has been made into movies and TV shows and any year with a movie or new show, there is always a big bump in the royalties of that first book.

  We’d probably have been out of business before I even took over the place if it weren’t for those royalties. I just wish I could share the name of the author, but like I said NDA. Of course you might guess who that absolute top of his genre author might be. If you do guess it, his series makes a great gift and gift giving season is always just around the corner.

  I was startled when Lachlan came down the stairs behind me.

  “Well, have you started it yet?”

  What to say? I don’t want to tell him it’s absolute shite. But there is no doubt about that. But this is his first novel so I have to say something encouraging first, follow that up with some advice on how to improve the piece.

  “It’s very unusual, I’ve read a lot of science fiction but I’ve never read anything quite like this story before.”

  “Ah, thanks Laura, that is exactly what I was going for. I didn’t just want to repeat the same science fiction tropes of the past, that have been written to death in the past about evil empires and the saviors who sacrifice themselves to save the galaxy.”

  “One thing I don’t care for are all those side stories suggested by your reddit followers.”

  “No, Laura, that’s not really how reddit works, you follow topics not people per se unless that person has a subreddit. All those comments were from different readers of the science fiction novels subreddit and the romance novel subreddit. They posted about what they want to see in a novel then I’d write the chapter to suit.”

  “Yeah, that’s the part I didn’t care for because each different story that was suggested to you was wildly different in tone and theme. So you are missing a clear strong theme like good versus evil or man against nature. It might be better if you only picked one or two of those suggestions after that just extrapolate those ideas forward. That way the reader will see clearly what theme you mean to say.”

  “No Laura, I’m going for the very first crowd sourced novel. The dedication is going to be to the subreddit and the posters who responded to my queries. This way I have a builtin audience for the book. I got the idea from looking at one of the romance subreddits, those women know exactly what it is that they want to read. After this science fiction book hits the stores, I’m going to crowd source a romance novel just like this one. I was going to start with romance first because they are very specific about what they want. But the scifi subreddit has four point four million members so if only half of those members buy my book, I’ll have a massive best seller that I can parley into a series. Then I can ditch the publisher, once my name is out there and self publish and all the profits will be mine. Then you’ll be able to tell your customers you knew me before I hit it big and moved to California."

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Won’t that be something to look forward to.”

  “Yeah, I’ll need to live out there to sell the rights to movie studios and streaming services.”

  “You certainly have it all planned out. But what kind of feedback are you getting from your beta readers?”

  “Oh, no, no beta readers for me, that’s how ideas get stolen and my novel has tons of ideas, I'm keeping the entire thing secret. You are the only person who’s seen even a page of the novel. I thought since you own a ten percent stake in the book, you’ll keep it secret, you don’t want your royalties to be cut into if someone else gets hold of the crowd sourced novel. I’ll already have to compete with all the A I generated novels. That’s why I’m going with a traditional publishing company for my first novel before going the self published route and raking in the cash.”

  I wondered if an A I could possibly write a worse first draft than Lachlan had? Personally I didn’t think it would be possible. Unless the A I crowdsourced the novel to its A I buddies, like Lachlan had with reddit. Then it might be worse, it just might. This was one ten percent royalty I’d never make a dime on. I could tell him right now, what I really thought,have a room open up and possibly fill it with a paying author or an author who had a better chance of getting published but I just couldn’t break the kid's heart.

  Maybe once he sees how this crowdsource idea turns out he’ll buckle down and write something special. Of course I wouldn’t see a dime’s royalty on that. Amelie McGregor came walking down the stairs, that was a sign for Lachlan to head back upstairs. Ever since an argument erupted one night at dinner about what was more realistic, fantasy or science fiction the two authors hadn’t spoken a word to each other.

  In defense of Amelie, none of the writers had ever warmed to Lachlan. He never participated in the writing sprints, readings that had bonded the other writers as each of them had arrived. Lachlan might just as well have been living in a hotel. Albeit one that offered free room and board for the chance that your novel will be a hit.

  “Hi Laura”

  “Do I say hello to Amelie the author or am I addressing Kestrel Pike the ranger extraordinaire.”

  “I never know, I don’t think the kids know until they arrive if it’ll be a homebrew rpg night or talk about the fantasy book we’re reading”

  “What are you reading?”

  “The Wandering Inn Volume One Revised Edition as compared to the actual web novel.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “Yes I adore the characters, but the whole thing is massive and still growing.”

  “Surely it can’t be as long as the Wheel of Time.”

  “It’s three to four times longer and nearly every week tens of thousands of words are added to it, it’s about thirteen times as long as Harry Potter. Plus it’s free to read online and wildly popular on audiobooks. That’s the kind of thing that I am competing against as a fantasy author. It’s a little disheartening. But honestly you should check it out, It’s free so you have nothing to lose. Of course as a bookseller all your books are free but the Wandering Inn is worth reading for its amazing set of characters, there were very few characters that I didn’t love.”

  “What’s the author’s name?”

  “Pirateaba, they are completely anonymous and use they / them pronouns.”

  “That’s unusual, do you think they are an established author just not wanting to muddy their brand? It’s hard to believe that they could have written that amount of words and not had their identity revealed.”

  “Just guessing but I think to write female characters as well as they do, that they’d have to be female. But I think my favorite thing about the series is how they treat the monsters, especially the goblins. You should read the first volume and decide for yourself, so I won’t say anything else to spoil the story for you.”

  “I can just read it in my web browser on my laptop.”

  “Yes or an ereader or even an old tablet.”

  The bell rang on the door and in walked Lisbeth and Luke, the core of the fantasy book club. They are in high school now but when I took over they were still in middle school and had just joined. Four years later they were still going strong, even though most of the other club members had graduated and moved away to college.

  I wasn’t a member of the club but as the owner I was ‘allowed’ to sit quietly in the reading nook where they held their meetings. I’d try and struggle through a few more chapters of Lachlan’s manuscript. But it was no longer on the coffee table, where I’d left it. I pity the poor person who picked it up thinking they’d discovered a masterpiece before it was published.

  I walked back to the register to make sure I hadn’t taken it over there when the bus load of customers had arrived. But it wasn’t at the sales counter, nor on any of the chairs in the reading nook. So I printed chapters four through six on the laser printer. I wasn’t going to waste ink reprinting those first three chapters. The authors already go through ink like there will be no tomorrow.

  Three fresh chapters to revile, I went back to the nook to read and eavesdrop on the club. I did this with everyone of the book clubs, I joined none but sat in and half listened half read my current book. Sometimes it gave me insights on what to order, if I had a therapist they’d probably say I craved community. Maybe I did, but I didn’t want to talk about the books, I just wanted to hear what other people thought about them. I always read the club's books. That's why I was surprised that I didn’t know that tonight's club was reading the Wandering Inn.

  That’s right, last week at the end of proceedings when the following week's book will be picked, I’d had a bunch of customers. A rare and happy occurrence. Then I’d forgotten to ask Amelie what this week's book was until tonight. But when I sat down and started on a just as horrid chapter four as the first three chapters had been. I was surprised the club wasn’t talking about their book pick, nor were they playing the self made roleplaying game that Lis and Luke were so proud of.

  “Lis, I’m telling you it is as much fun to play LLrpg solo as it is when we all play as a group and I GM. It’ll make you a better gamer too and possibly a better writer. I read online that it helps authors who develop writers block. It’s not like A I where the computer is just giving you complete text or even just ideas. It’s called the Mythic Game Master Emulator.”

  “Well what kind of ideas could it give you for example, Luke?”

  “Alright, let’s say you're writing a fantasy novel and you want to come up with a unique fantasy monster, so you roll on this table of words for creature abilities and you get the words death and senses, then you roll on the creature descriptors table and you get tongue and group. So you get to thinking about a group of monsters who don’t have to bite, they only have to lick a person and that person loses all of their senses permanently. They might be tiny little creatures but with abilities like that they could easily take out an adventuring party. Just think about it. No sense of sight to see where they are going, can’t hear so no auditory clues as to where they are, no sense of touch, so no way to feel your way out of the dungeon. No sense of smell, if you did happen to stumble out of the dungeon, you could just as easily fall into a smelly swamp. Loss of taste, you might drink a vial of poison because you think it’s water. All that from just four words we made up a monster no one ever thought up before. But what really makes it great is if you go beyond just these spur of the moment ideas. How about a monster that only will attack you if it already senses death on you.”

  “Or instead use tongue literally like the rolling stones red tongue, turn that into a monster like the D&D Beholder.” said Amelie

  “Right but how can it be a GM?”

  ”It has this thing called a fate chart, lets say you are walking down a dungeon hallway and you come to a door, normally you ask a GM if the door is locked right, instead you ask the fate chart is the door locked, then you decide the odds. Were all the other doors in the dungeon locked, if so it’s pretty certain that this will be locked. Then you roll to see if you were correct that it’s locked.”

  “But why would you want to play on your own?”

  “Remember last year when I wanted to run an underwater spy adventure. Well I couldn’t get anyone to agree to it, or remember that campaign you wanted to play in regency England and no one else wanted to play. I played the underwater spy adventure last week solo and I had a great time and was truly surprised by the outcome.”

  “That’s right I still would like to do a fantasy adventure in regency England, can I borrow your copy and if I like the adventure, I’ll buy a copy of my own.”

  “What’s your adventure going to be about? Zombies Like Pride, Prejudice and Zombies.”

  “No that’s been done before, books and movies, no I’d rather go for something more original. I’ll test Mythic and see if it can create a monster for me that fits the regency period. No let’s play for a little while, I want to see this system in action.”

  Kestrel, Bruna and Alric walk down the temple steps.. Just in case you're wondering, the trio managed to kill the evil priest and rescue the scarcely dressed princess but much to Luke’s, no I’m sorry, much to Alric’s chagrin the princess decided to award her favors to Bruna the warrior who had actually slain the priest. Lis was still laughing at Luke, saying yes she was quite sure she wanted to borrow Mythic to try out a solo RPG of her own. As I locked the front door and put out the closed sign I felt like someone was watching me. I scanned the street and thought I saw someone move into the darkness between two homes. I watched and waited for a few minutes to see if they appeared again, if they ever were actually there and watching me or the store. But eventually gave up.

  Chapters four through six of Lachlan’s novel were not an improvement. By chapter six he’d or his redditors had come up with every single possible way for a human and six limbed alien to have sex. Or at least I hoped so.

  Before I fell asleep I resigned myself that I may well have to take some free lance editing work if the sales in the bookstore didn’t pick up soon. I ran book clubs all the time and while I almost never made a sale to the fantasy book club, the others that didn’t meet as often usually bought their books from me unless they were reading a classic and could get a free copy from Project Gutenberg.

  The Romance book club was the best sales wise, also the least wasteful. As the members would bring Romances they finished and give them to other members of the club who liked the same sub genres.