Prospero Lost
Most of you reading these words will probably never have a chance to play in a role playing game moderated by obscure midlist author John C. Wright, esq. But fume not! For now, all the characters I made up and never wrote up have been written up for me in their own adventure by L. Jagi Lamplighter, my lovely bride. There are also characters she took from some hack named Shakespeare, but he lived before Obama took charge of the planet, so who cares who that is?
Miranda Prospero, the willful and regal (and immortal) heir to the vast financial empire of the Prospero family has for ages used her white magic to protect mankind from the world of darkness of which man knows nothing. She is stirred from her complaisant life by a mysterious note from her father, warning her of a threat from the Queen of Hell, and of beings known only as "The Three Shadowed Ones." Now she must search for his missing and scattered relatives, unaging magicians living in secret among mortal men, to discover the source of her sorrows and her father’s true legacy. The action ranges from a Circe-like island in the Gulf of Mexico, where her cruel sister keeps ex-lovers as animal companions, to the high house of Father Christmas at the North Pole, where the elder beings gather for the Winter feast.
Here is the cover art.
I have no idea why it looks blurred here: I was able to get a clean copy on my pc. Hmm.
Let me try again:
(Of course the idea that the warlock Prospero is secretly the master of the world and governing all its history is a fictional conceit invented for this novel. Ho ha! We all know that in real life the secret master of the world is either Red Orc of the Lords of Thoan, or Laurent Michaelmas, unless perhaps it is Walter S. DeLany of the weaponmaker’s guild. The scientist Robur wished to become a master of the world, but when his high-speed submersible flying machine, The Terror, passed over the Bermuda Triangle, agents of the Si Fan (under orders from the beautiful but evil Fah lo Suee, Robur’s enraged ex-lover) blasted him from the sky during a thunderstorm using a still-working Martian heat-ray, left over from the ill-fated 1899 invasion. The Martians were killed by an application of the Gaea Power invoked by the coven of good witches of England (established by Queen Elizabeth, and Three Charmed Ones currently who currently possess the Book of Shadows are Mary Poppins, Eglantine Price and Nanny McPhee). No one remembers this invasion because the evil Time Lord Setebos (exiled to Earth by the triad of Donblas, Manwe, and Galactus) commanded Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems to erase the memory of the interstellar war from the human consciousness. Yoyodyne lost control of the Thought-Abolition Machine when T.R.U.S.H. agents hired as temp workers for Extensive Enterprises stole it. The terrorist organization Cobra is currently using the Machine to cause Hollywood to forget how to make a good movie about American G.I.’s — except for the recent TRANSFORMERS movie, where the American soldiers are the badass good guys, and total heroes, and they kick the space robots in their shiny metal asses. Oorah and Semper Fi! All that actually happened. But Prospero is made up. Totally invented and not real. Trust me. But the book is really good. Buy a dozen copies and give them to your friends.)
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
