THE BROTHERFLY, after several months of physiotherapy and a hip replacement, has returned to me for an expanded role of talk therapy in his life to address his Secret Identity Diffusion and to finish exorcizing the ghosts of Rudolphism-inspired pain. Currently remodeling his family home which he recently inherited, he’s now hosting Ultra Power Network’s hit Brotherfly for the Regular Guy, featuring André dispensing superhero chic for the fashion-challenged ordinary citizen.
OMNIPOTENT MAN, FLYING SQUIRREL, and IRON LASS unveiled their strategy for a revitalized F*O*O*Jification of global affairs. The Prospects for a New Superheroic Century calls for and maps out a vigilant stance against the new breed of super-menaces lurking beneath the illusion of peace like subtopical acne waiting to erupt on the face of an innocent adolescent.
WALLY W. WATCHTOWER has made astounding progress in overcoming his Crisis of Infinite Dearths, Mission-Identity Loss Disturbance, Icon Trap, Post-Power Stress Disorder, and Secret Identity Diffusion, integrating his manifold alters and powers into a unified, successful new identity. Like an eagle, Omnipotent Man has soared past his previous popularity to unexpected new heights, not only because of his triumphant return to superheroism and his victory in the July 16 Attacks, but because of a new development sweeping the nation. Piltdown Psychotronics has developed and mass-marketed a home consumer OM Meter, one which in these uncertain times allows ordinary Americans to connect empathically with one of their greatest leaders, one whom they feel confident is in direct, daily connection with the Ka of Hawk King himself. After only a few months of retail sales of the OMpathy Box, it’s estimated that half of all Americans own or regularly use one and pay monthly subscription fees. Sales of OMpathy Boxes show no sign of slowing down.
HNOSSI ICEGAARD and WALLY W. WATCHTOWER are now happily married, and Hnossi has given birth to a baby boy. The product of combined Aeserian and Argonian genes, the fast-forming fetus gestated to full term in less than a month, with a birthday of September 12. Eager to celebrate their union in numerous ways, the couple toyed with the names “Hnally” and “Wossi,” but arrived at a happy third option by naming their child Freedom.
PROFESSOR ICEGAARD has overcome her Savior Complex, removed herself from her id-crisis of scripted behavior loops, deactivated her narcissistic tendencies and Uranus Conflict with her daughter, countered her Mortiquaeroticism, and successfully disassembled her Icon Trap. In doing so, she’s found a new life and new love, and has gone past mere consultation with Piltdown Dynamics to become its Chief Research & Design Officer as Pilt-Dyne’s vanguard in the development of all new peace-delivery technology systems including the new B10 ballistic-pacification flight vehicle currently under construction.
MR. PILTDOWN, still unmarried, remains saddened by the loss of his former protégé, whom he still remembers as the happy, smiling child he’d once been. More pleasantly, he’s processed his way through his own Icon Trap. Because of his role in protecting the public safety, he’s been able to reduce his Mission-Identity Loss Disturbance, and he’s made great strides in minimizing his id-confrontational tendencies, his Obsessive Defensive Ideation and Compulsive Fight-or-Flight Behaviors, and has addressed his own case of the Achilles Threefold Folly of Superior Ability. Buoyed by his newfound mental clarity and public acclaim for his heroic role in the July 16 Attacks, he was elevated by an overwhelming margin to the F*L*A*C as Director of Operations in the F*O*O*J election of September 12, with his Squirrel-slate swept in alongside him. Awarded the contract to build the Asteroid Omega penitentiary, Piltdown Dynamics is also constructing and will be operating a new network of high-tech criminal containment facilities around the United States, providing jobs and safety for the nation.
Festus Piltdown was perhaps my most reluctant sanity-supplicant, beginning as an angry, confrontational, embittered, and lonely man who was suffocating under the weight of his own past. Yet he employed our psychemotional processing more successfully than any of his comrades to undertake the greatest degree of self-actualization into the humble, correctly confident, serene, and wise leader he is today.
Because of that success, I’m going to give him the last word in Unmasked! When Being a Superhero Can’t Save You from Yourself, quoting his final answer to my repeated question about how to face life if the glory days never returned. And because I’m giving him the last word, I’ll even spot him a few more than the allotted ten:
“New days are upon us. We have no need for personal rewards or individual glory. We, a new F*O*O*J for a new century, have only one mission, and we’ll honor that mission to our highest capacity: to serve Man.”
—FESTUS PILTDOWN III, HKA THE FLYING SQUIRREL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my longtime comrade Dengar Shafiq for indispensable advice on revisions, and to amazing poet, author, and friend Mark Kozub for his encouragement on this project.
To my agent, mentor, and friend Marie Brown, who continues to dazzle me with her knowledge, wisdom, and understanding: my eternal affection, gratitude, and respect.
To my fellow SF writers who’ve been especially encouraging and gracious to me and my work: Richard Morgan (Market Forces), and Canadian cohorts Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring) and Robert J. Sawyer (Hominids).
To my little sister E-Beth for use of her line “punched him in the soul.”
To all the wonderful folks who promoted and supported The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, particularly the mighty Colleen Lindsay, and those readers and critics who understood that beyond the humor, Coyote Kings is a serious book.
To authors Dr. John Gottman (The Relationship Fix), Sandy Hotchkiss, LSCW (Why Is It Always About You? Saving Yourself from the Narcissists in Your Life), Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham (The Myth of Repressed Memory), and Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed (The War on Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked September 11, 2001) for their often electrifying insights and case studies.
To my wife, Michelle, my best friend and truly a blessing from the Divine.
And finally, to the Creator, from whom radiates all splendor, power, and triumph, who is the great hope of the universe, the maker and master of the stars, and the love of all the worlds. All praise is due to You.
The mistakes are mine alone.
ABOUT THE REAL AUTHOR
MINISTER FAUST is a high school English teacher, community activist, and public broadcaster in Edmonton, Canada, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Alberta Views, and Vue Weekly, and his fiction, poetry, and essays have been anthologized in Fiery Spirits and Voices, Poetry Nation, and Edmonton on Location: River City Chronicles.
Hailed for its language, humor, and rich characterization, Minister Faust’s first novel, The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, Compton Crook Award, and Locus Best First Novel Award, and ended up on 2004 top ten lists for January magazine (fiction), Barnes & Noble (SF&F), Amazon.com (SF&F), and SF Site (SF&F, Editor’s Choice). The New York Times Book Review said of the book: “Faust anatomizes [the Edmonton setting] with the same loving care Joyce brought to early-twentieth-century Dublin…Faust’s debut novel is a fresh and stylish entertainment.”
Since 1989, Minister Faust has been a community broadcaster at Edmonton’s CJSR FM88 and has freelanced for the CBC. His national award-winning Africentric and pro-democracy news program, The Terrordome Afrika All-World News Service, and his cohosted music show (with Bongbiemi the Original Tribesman), Asiko Phantom Pyramid: Global Afrikan Musics Led by a Headcharge of Hip Hop, can be heard around the world at cjsr.com.
Minister Faust’s website The Original BRO-LOG (ministerfaust.blogspot.com) hosts his commentaries on a range of social, political, and pop-culture issues. The BRO-LOG is also a portal to Minister Faust’s extensive writings, with audio and video, and including podcast archives for The Terrordome and Asiko Phantom Pyramid and a vast array of links to Africentric, social justice, pro-democracy, and literary websites.
/> His superpowers include always being able to find an excellent parking spot and the infallible capacity to choose the slowest checkout line in any store.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DR. EVA BRAIN-SILVERMAN lives and works at the Hyper-Potentiality Clinic inside the refurbished Mount Palomax Observatory in Los Ditkos. She has been helping hyperhominids for more than twenty years.
BY MINISTER FAUST
The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad
From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain
BY DOCTOR BRAIN
Seven Habits of Highly Defective Teams
Why Do Bad Villains “Happen” to Good Heroes?
Evil Geniuses Who Hate Humanity and the Women Who Love Them
Sacred Identity: Reclaiming the DemiGod in You
Secrets from Menton’s Brain: Using Two Lefts to Make Yourself Right
Being Super-Mom in Today’s Multiverse
SideKicked! When the Alpha-Hero Treats You Like Omega
Bulletproof, Schmulletproof
Secret Origins, Starring: Your Miserable Life
Unmasked: When Being a Superhero Can’t Save You from Yourself
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
UNMASKED!
“Brilliant, easy-to-implement life-changing guidance and classic examples from the careers of our greatest legends. An astonishing tale of…transformation and redemption…authored by the leading therapist of the extraordinarily abled.”
—THE ÜBERMENSCH READER
“If I’d had this book twenty years ago I could’ve saved myself decades of rage, violence, and self-loathing, not to mention a $4 billion judgment against me by the city.”
—CLIFFORD DAVID STINSON, HKA THE BLUE SMASHER
“Were I still at my psychiatric practice and had I not begun my career of mental butchery that led to my incarceration, I would unreservedly recommend this fine volume to all my living patients.”
—MENTON THE DESTROYER
Praise for
MINISTER FAUST
From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain
“Minister Faust’s gleefully surreal approach to story lines, wonderful wordplay, and offbeat, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet wit make [this] a marvelous read.”
—Eden Robinson, author of Monkey Beach
The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad
“A joy to read.”
—The Seattle Times
“Minister Faust brings [The Coyote Kings’] world alive in a jumpy, hold-nothing-back style…. Faust anatomizes [the Edmonton setting] with the same loving care Joyce brought to early-twentieth-century Dublin…. Faust’s debut novel is a fresh and stylish entertainment.”
—The New York Times
“Quite simply stunning.”
—Cinescape
“Writes like Kevin Smith as if he’d grown up in an African immigrant neighborhood—just as comic-and pop-culture-obsessed but with a dose of righteous ethnic minority fury.”
—Hollywood Reporter
“Unique.”
—Ebony
“Faust’s novel explodes with exuberant ideas, creepy adventure, intense emotions and linguistic derring-do. Every page is pure pleasure.”
—Montreal Gazette
“I feel quite comfortable in saying that there’s never been a book quite like this one…[which] fairly teems with dark corners…. A stylish, accomplished first novel. Alternately laugh-out-loud funny, deeply tender and downright chilling…Filled with pop culture references, modern philosophy and subtle thoughts on the nature of human relationships. A first-rate novel from all angles; one can only hope it’s the first of many.”
—January magazine
From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2007 by Minister Faust
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-34549741-3
www.delreybooks.com
v1.0
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