An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (62 page)

/
s
oapbox
begin

It’s
been my sad fate to have been in one too many classes
,
through my high school and college years
,
where some teacher of literature attempts to draw out some
secret, hidden
meaning to novels I’ve loved or tales that were just that
.

I’m perverse enough to want to make it clear to my readers
and
fans th
at I write stories to
entertain—
full stop
.
My books, short stories
,
and other creative pieces are
not
being used to p
ass on some hidden message
.
I’m not obscuring political
parallels in the background
.
I’m not offering a secreted
religious
message
.
Yes, I have many opinions
—
political, religious
,
and sexual
—
but I won’t use my
novels
as a medium for expressing them.

I conceive of an idea and try to flesh it out so
it’s
logical, believable
,
and most of all, entertaining to you, my public
.
You’re
the one
s
who determine my success or failure
,
and I won’t make you work hard
er
by veiling something critical
.
While I may have reduced my potential sales by not
allowing
some gung-ho teacher
to
force scads of student
s
to use my work to illustrate parallelism or some other concept, I will be true to you
,
the readers.

/
soapbox end

Now, I’ll
give you some insight as to where the kernel of an idea for
this first of
the
CorpGov Chronicles
came from
.
It started, as many of these things do, with someone else’s work
—
to wit, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his well
-
known detective
,
Sherlock Holmes
.
I watched an episode of
their
story just as I
took
a corporate training class on management practices
.
Sherlock’s addiction
to
a seven percent solution came on the screen just as I was dealing with the concept of
“
eighty percent of a problem can be solved with twenty percent of the effort
.”

It took all of about seven seconds for my twisted mind to come up with the rough outline of this book from the title I envisioned from merging the two…
and
An Eighty Percent Solution
was born.

As a shameless plug, I hope
I’ve
entertained you enough to
interest you in
the next installment
of
the
CorpGov Chronicles
.
I’ve
envisioned and mapped out several sequels to
An Eighty Percent Solution
.
I won’t ruin either your
anticipation
or my ability to make
adjustments
to
the stories
’
flow
by going too far in
to
the future
.
Instead
,
I
’
ll whet your appetite with a brief blurb
describing
the next CorpGov novel,
Thinking Outside the Box
:

After replacing the evil business cabal with a responsible government, the terrorist organization known as the Green Action Militia thought their job was finally done. Instead, the newly formed CorpGov calls upon them to help prevent another coup, this time by the Metro police bureaucracy. The Metros want nothing more than to keep their lives of privilege and power in a world that drowns in the blood of injustice.

To this explosive situation, a previously unknown power block begins to forward their own agenda. Tony and his decimated crew of guerillas must dig deep to avert the chaos of a three-sided civil war.

Also throug
h
TANSTAAFL Pres
s
:

Toy Wars

Flung to a remote world, a semi-sentient group of robotic mining factories arrive with their programming hashed
.
They can only create animated toys instead of normal mining
and fighting machines.
One of these factories, pushed to the edge of extinction
by the fratricidal conflict
, attempts a desperate gamble
. Infusing
one of its toys with the power of sentience begins
the quest of
a
2-meter tall, purple teddy bear and his pink, polka-dotted elephant companion. They must cross
an alien world to find and enlist the aid of mortal enemies to end the
genocide before
Toy Wars
claims
their
family
—all while asking the immortal question, “Why am I?”

Demon
Holiday

Torval, Demon Third Class, Layer Four Hundred Twelve of the
Eighth Circle
of Hell, has been in the business of chastising sinners longer than he can remember. Delivering punishment is the only job he's ever known
—
the only job he's ever wanted. After Torval witnesses something unexpected, his demonic Overseer demands that he take time off to resolve this personal crisis. And so Torval, the demon, finds himself sent on vacation...to Earth, the proving ground of souls!