File A · Debut novel
Further Indications
An innocuous streetlight mysteriously yet purposefully flashes itself off and then on again.
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The case so far
A rather dull and mundane, sexually obsessed college student sees a streetlight switch itself off and back on. It is the first of many “indications.” Escalating events drag him and his beautiful parachutist girlfriend into a series of adventures with a madcap cast of characters.
His friend Bob Yee has been tracking these incidents for a while. Manure Man, a brilliant eccentric who always wears a ski mask, traces them to evil beings called the Archons. The Archons are trying to hack the system that runs the Earth, which turns out to be a ride in a cosmic amusement park. According to Manure Man, the only way to get off the ride is to die.
The search for parts to build The Bomb takes the narrator from San Francisco to the exotic orient and historic Europe, then back to counter-cultural San Francisco. Along the way come two tangled love triangles, a few betrayals, and some long-overdue lessons about men, women and the nature of reality.
Indications include: ants, virtual reality, street signs, temporal anomalies & Girl Scouts.
Persons of interest
The Narrator
Never named. He nods and smiles through conversations he doesn't understand, and he notices things he would rather not.
Anna Hanna
The narrator's girlfriend: a breathtaking blonde bass player and parachutist who takes him around the world, both literally and emotionally.
Manure Man
A brilliant eccentric in a ski mask who has worked out that the Earth is a ride in a cosmic amusement park.
Flash
A one-time Vietnam veteran who claims he can travel faster than the speed of light, and that the ants are conspiring to take over the Earth.
Mary E.
A sultry, fanatically fashionable redhead who holds the key to a series of interlocking love triangles.
Not Ernesto
A sombre figure who claims to be Ernesto from the future (which, according to him, is not the future). He has to keep injuring himself so he can stay in the hospital, for reasons unknown.
Also under surveillance: Bob Yee, Ed, Taki from Tokyo, Enoch, Candi & the FBI.
Evidence: Chapter One, “First Clue”
The innocuous streetlight deliberately and purposefully switched itself off and then back on. In retrospect it is difficult for me to pinpoint when I became aware of the phenomenon first occurring on that fateful evening.
I was walking with a group of casual acquaintances previously met entirely through a freak of fate. Feeling excluded most of the evening as Spanish was the language du jour, I still managed to nod and to smile in such a way that my associates became convinced I knew exactly what they were saying.
Trailing behind the group in a street otherwise shrouded in darkness, the imposing light filled me with a mixture of dread, awe, suspense, and irritation. In overt defiance of its appointed role as infallible guardian against darkness, the light slowly, inexorably, winked itself out.
Surveillance photos: the comic adaptation
The first chapter in the book, “First Clue”, has been adapted as an illustrated comic. Here are the first few panels.
Further investigation has revealed that the first chapter has been clandestinely published on YouTube (click here).
Particulars
- Author
- Douglas Alan
- Publisher
- Lulu, an unlikelysource book
- Published
- September 2009
- ISBN
- 978-0-557-16008-2
- Genre
- Comic novel, with a touch of science fiction
- Buy the book!
- Paper Back | eBook.
Further reading
If the streetlights near you have started blinking, you may also enjoy The End, And Then?, Douglas Alan's sci-fi comedy about the end of the world.
Ask about a copy »