The Story So Far Vol. 1

In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy

The Story So Far Vol. 1

Liam Gibbs

If you purchased this book without a cover, then...well...at this point in human history, I'm not sure anyone cares. But assuming you're one of the few people who still does, the book was stolen, blah blah blah, it was supposed to be returned, blah blah blah, you're responsible for the downfall of humankind, blah blah blah. And with the downfall of humankind comes apocalypses. The nasty kinds. Road warrior nonsense, zombie junk, maybe a nuclear winter. You like nuclear winters? They're not the skiing-skating-white-Christmas-and-hot-cocoa type of winters. Well, maybe hot cocoa. But not skiin—Wait, we were talking about apocalypses. Yeah, the kind that kills about 90 or 95 percent of the population. And it's all on you because you decided to read a coverless book! See how that works? You started an apocalypse! Aren't you satisfied with the apocalypse we've already got?

Happy now?

IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWRY: THE STORY SO FAR VOL. 1

Copyright (c) 2019 Liam Gibbs

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Azer Babaev.

Cover concept and design by Liam Gibbs.

Cover puns are really hard to come up with.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. If you reproduce any of it, you're no better than the guy who stole my burrito from the fridge at work.

This is a work of fiction. The names of the characters have been changed to protect our nation and its people, even though Legion is doing a fine job of that on his own. Still, dude needs time for a coffee break. And that's where my name changing comes in. Let's be thankful I'm here to fill the gap.

ISBN 13: 978-0463069905

First printing: May 2019

{ PLOT DEVICE PUBLISHING }

Your Favorite Table of Contents

At the Front

Other Books in the Series

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

The Story So Far Vol. 1

Chapter One: Pincushion in Something Pincushion Is In

Chapter Two: Reef in That One That Reef Is In

Chapter Three: Appetite in Story Titles Are Sometimes Meaningless

Chapter Four: Station One Cookbot Serial #A31766F5901 in This Storylike Thing Here

Chapter Five: Smithereens in Spaced for the Case

Chapter Six: Franchise in That One That Power Plant Is In

Chapter Seven: Ice Cream Headache in This Thing I Put Ice Cream Headache In

At the Back

Appendix: The Growth of IAGFFA

Appendix: The Culture of Hyperabilities

Appendix: Class Photo

About the Goon Who Saddled You with This Book

Connect with the Series

Available on the Author's Super-Awesome Site

This stupendous, amazing, spectacular, not-at-all-overhyped comedy/science-fiction series can be found in the following parts:

Book 1: Serial Fiction Sideshow

Book 2: Home Sweet Home Invasion

Book 3: Technophobia

Book 4: Armageddon Trigger Finger

Book 5: The Genetic Equation

Book 6: Power Tool

Book 7: The Lesser of Two Egos

Book 8: Untitled of Attitude Adjustments

Book 9: Those We Left Behind

Book 10: Metaphor for Life

Book 11: Oh, Crock, Here Comes a Meteor!

Book 12: His Kingdom Come

Book 13: A Wolf in Sheep's Armor

Book 14: Man Versus Machine Part 1 of 1

Book 15: Our New Hiring Policy

Book 16: Life like Broken Glass

Book 17: The Church of Steeple

Book 18: Blood Bunny

Book 19: Disease of Behavior

Book 20: The Paper Tiger's Yardstick

Book 21: This One Has a Dancing Gibbon

Book 22: My Brother's Captor

Book 23: Marching Orders

Book 24: To Wake the Deactivated

The Story So Far Vol. 1

Please visit the In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy site for all these free e-books and more information.

Other Travesties of the Arts

Maybe check out these other things 'cause they're superfine too!

Not So Superpowered, available at tiny.cc/nssuperpowered

Three Flash Fictions, available upon request from the author

Ransom notes written to relatives of mannequins

Dedicated to...

...Stan Lee, the king of short stories.

Acknowledgements

The weird thing about writing is that people who don't write picture writers as recluses in dark basements using a single candle as a dim light source, as if solitary confinement breeds inspiration. That stereotype is crap: we don't use candles.

Still, we need people. Specifically, we feed off the blood and sweat of what we call beta readers, those victims we inflict our early drafts on before you amazing people take a chance on us, and street teams, those victims we use to publicize our tripe. And when we're not sucking dry the souls of our beta readers and street teams, we're thanking them in acknowledgements sections of books. And look what we have here! So let's get to one of those two things. The boring one.

Thanks to...

...Steve Baptista for fact-checking me. Also for not complaining about the times I threw myself into traffic when he didn't understand what I wrote and for the times he didn't blab about the crying. Ohhhh, the crying. Tell no one, Steve. No. One.

...Matt Levesque for nitpicking all the technical errors I made and for not denouncing the human race every time he found something mispleled.

...Mark Nadon for making military recommendations to a guy who has no knowledge of the military. However, said guy is not thanking him for refusing to show me—I mean, to show said guy how all those cool rifles worked. I swear, if said guy hears you're just a civilian one more time...

...LeAnh Gibbs for letting me go off into my dark basement with a single candle as my light source and for not calling me on it.

...Bernie Pallek, Colin Atterbury, Val Villeneuve, and Alex Schizas, the official IAGFFA crew, for so, so, so many times we showed everyone that tabling at a convention, expo, or fair wasn't a sales opportunity but a party. Just you wait, Montreal. We're gunning for you.

...Andrew MacLellan for being that guy who embodies the quote No matter how long it's been since we last talked, we always pick up right where we left off. Ah, the memories and buried bod...bodhrans. I was gonna say bodhrans. Buried bodhrans.

...God for Earth. Also for pancakes.

...my grandfather, William Gibbs, for turning the windup crank on my back and pointing me in the direction of writing, then watching me shuffle off and sometimes try to walk through a wall.

...tacos. Tacos deserve recognition.

Now let's get to soul sucking.

Prologue

Here's a short story for you.

Everybody gets introduced to the art of narrative differently. What was my introduction? In an age called Jaw-Droppingly Way Back When, my introduction was cartoons, as it was for a lot of kids. Specifically, my introduction was the Spider-Man cartoon from the 1960s. Remember that one? Yeah. You do. You remember Spidey's physics-bending acrobatics and his web-slinging from thin air (I still think he swung from New York's smog clouds, which had congealed to concrete). You're singing the theme song right now.

Anyhow, if you want to identify any single origin point for In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy, this, my friends, is probably it. This cartoon was my intro to superheroes, my gateway to comics, my portal to sci-fi. The comics that first caught my eye were Spidey comics because of this cartoon. I started collecting The Amazing Spider-Man and The Spectacular Spider-Man, which expanded into The Uncanny X-Men, The New Warriors (yes, my favorite), and the whole assortment of ridiculously costumed grunts dancing to the sounds of thwip, snikt, kapow, and all the accompanying exclamation points.

My point in all this is to explain that my exposure to storytelling was short narratives. Twenty-two-minute episodes, twenty-two-page comic issues—what's so magical about the number twenty-two, anyway?—these stories had to get you in and out in short bursts. Not much time for lollygagging.

Stan Lee was the master of quick storytelling. He made you care about the characters in such short spans. In twenty-two pages, he made you feel the feels. He didn't have hundreds of pages like novelists do. Novelists have the room of sprawling luxury estates. Stan Lee had a one-room apartment next to a clattering trainyard: the kitchen was part of the bedroom, which was part of the closet, which was part of the bathroom. Yeah, the kitchen and bathroom in the same room. Don't miss the toilet or you'll hit dinner. Gross.

But Stan Lee did it. Still today, people read Spider-Man titles, X-Men titles, Avengers titles, even stories about not-so-eloquent heavy hitters like the Hulk. He did it. He's partially accountable for the In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy series.

Short, hit-and-run stories drew me into the art of storytelling. And that's what you've got here: stories as quick smash-and-grabs, much shorter than the novellas that compose the main IAGFFA series. Think of this collection as my tribute to those twenty-two-page stories that dragged me into superhero fiction kicking and screaming and loving it. These stories aren't twenty-two pages. In fact, Ice Cream Headache's is a fat forty-five pages and is, so far, the longest chapter in IAGFFA. But they're short.

A lot of comic series showcased only one character. So that's what you've got here: I took the Bad Guys and Good Guys and separated them into their individual components. Each character gets his or her spotlight. Not all of them yet. More are on their way. But here's your first helping. And hopefully I do half the job Stan Lee did. You be the judge.

You're welcome for