Ix wrote a terrible book once

When I was eighteen I wrote an awful book.

Named 'Tales from the Foaming Alien' it's essentially a collection of short stories set at a consistent location with a consistent cast of characters (90% of which are lifted from other half written projects I was working on at the time). It's a horrible mess and 173 pages long and I'm gonna cleanse myself by posting this terrible thing a chapter at a time and then tearing it to pieces.

(This is the plan anyway, I don't remember all of what is in this book there is a pretty good chance I may be way too ashamed to post all of this but lets see how far we get.)

INTRODUCTION
- THE FIRST

The year is 2023. As a result of a strange and inexplicable sequence of events that took place on New Years Day 2000 the world was subjected to a nuclear extravaganza killing most inhabitants of the planet. A few humans survived the nuclear blast and mutated into all manner of strange creatures. Other humans, such as those living in bunkers survived the blast and as they spilled back into the world they drove the mutants underground. The remaining humans began to build towns.

Apologies for the following. There's some weird stuff regarding sex and social attitudes towards it in this introduction that isn't really a prevailing thing in the rest of the story (as i remember it), including a misogynistic slur and implications of encouragement of sexual activity between minors. I really hate that I wrote this and I'm hiding it under a spoiler so it's there and you can read it if you want but essentially the point is sex and nudity isn't a big taboo in this culture.

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Spoiler

In about 2001 a reproduction policy was instituted meaning that people had to have as many children as possible in order to make up for the lack of people in the world. Huge Nursery buildings with robotic security systems were created. However there was not a huge boom in children until 2002, and the children that went to these were few and far between. Because of the early problems some even escaped. In 2002 the boom came but the Nursery buildings were being rebuilt because of programming faults. As a result many unwanted children were cast onto the streets. Most children at that point went on to schools where Sexual Education had been given a more hands on approach. Once a child entered its teenage years they lost their virginity. The government at the time reasoned that there was no sense in a lot of virgins running around. This produced a generation with a very flippant attitude to sex.

So far there has been no official alien contact but there is a little contact in a small town called Therana. The contact comes in the form of a self proclaimed Venusian who is quickly rising to superstar level. Nobody is really certain as to whether he is a Venusian or not though. The year is now 2023.

More (but less) weird sex taboo stuff:

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Spoiler

By this time all taboos have been reduced to nothing. Sex is shown during normal TV and during the middle of the day. Modesty has been abolished along with all the indecent exposure laws. A woman would have to have had sex with about 1000 men to be declared a slut and a man is considered barely experienced at the same number of women.

The town is Therana and there is a little bar where legends are forged. Welcome to the Foaming Alien.

The Foaming Alien stands proud, wrought from pure stainless steel it positively glows ensconced in the pale moonlight. A beacon, it calls out to all passers by. As to what it calls out, well you’ll have to ask the building itself. Back in the 1950’s its self opening metal doors would have looked out of place, but as the year that it was built was 2017 when everyone wanted that kind of post modern look, except traditionalists (except they don’t really count) they didn’t look out of place.

Inside the building there is a long corridor carpeted with scarlet red carpet and plastered upon the walls are photographs of strange things, including Lord Lucan chatting to some aliens. At the end of the corridor there are more self opening doors and beyond these doors, who knows? Who dares to speculate? Those who have passed through these hallowed portals say it is nothing more than a pub on the other side. Those who haven’t believe that something far more sinister lurks on the other side, and in a way they would be correct.

Lurking behind the bar of The Foaming Alien is Pewter, the landlord. The lord of the land. The Foaming Alien himself. Pewter is a smart man, dressed in a suit with glasses. Occasionally the suit will lend him the glasses which, quite frankly look better on him than on the suit. His head will occasionally wear a hat, when it doesn’t you can see his hair which is a straight black affair with a white stripe running down the centre of his head. Once the stripe ran so far that it ended up running out into the street and messed up the traffic. His teeth have been provided with much jewellery through the years, including diamonds and golden fillings. This alone does not conjure up the picture of someone who lurks, but this doesn’t tell the whole story. Picture if you will the inane grin, that single feature that can ruin any style someone’s body would care to wear. The kind of landlord (lord of the land) that would duck down behind the bar when somebody enters. This is Pewter. Make of him what you will (his last owner made him into a landlord (lord of the land) but there are a few that would like to make him into a dead body).

The bar behind which Pewter lurks is a golden job with human skulls on spikes. Behind the bar is a tableaux detailing the entire course of human history and the part of aliens in the history of same. Remarkably it makes a lot more sense than anything you would be taught at school, college or university. It was donated by one Kerry Karallas (his clones refused to contribute), but there will be more on him later. Without further ado lets plunge into the fascinating world of Polystyrene (?!).

• Hot damn I hate that I wrote that whole 'de-tabooifying sex and nudity' section. There it is, there's my greatest shame exposed. This story can only increase in quality from here.
  
• I can damn near guarantee that this post apocalyptic scenario stuff will not be referenced anywhere else in the text
  
• Its important to note that in the original text there's no line breaks between all the apocalyptic stuff, the weird sex stuff and the sudden 'hey but do any aliens exist?!' stuff. There's no connected thought here it's just one super long poorly thought through paragraph i'm so sorry
  
• Let me count how much irrelevant information there is here (and here I'm talking only about things which are explicitly not material to this book, not including the worldbuilding which doesn't get brought up again)...
  
• Also the alien stuff is just 'one guy claims to be an alien?' why am i even mentioning this. Literally why is this a thing i felt needed to be said.
  
• Irrelevant stuff count: Five separate items, six if mutants never make an appearance which could very well happen.
  
• The Foaming Alien is a terrible name for a bar, this could be its own sentence just put a full stop here and be done with it but, especially when there are maybe actual aliens in this book why would I do this?
  
• I did not (and still kind of do not) know who Lord Lucan is.
  
• I hope you like the joke that Pewter's stripe continues past the bounds of his hair because I sure did.
  
• I still have a fondness for jokes involving hanging modifiers
  
• I don't think I knew what a pub was.
  
• golden skulls....
  
• yes chapter one is all about polystyrene because what's a more thrilling way to start a book than a chapter dedicated to packing materials?
  
• i'm sorry again
  

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Nope, I wasn't particularly artistically inclined back then. And honestly even if it was a project I was approaching today I don't know what exactly I'd want to put on there.

i read on a little and i've made a huge mistake

Ix, I salute your bravery in going back and looking at stuff you wrote a long time ago. I personally would have buried it in a giant pit after setting fire to the remains of it after I ran it through a shredder, so you are certainly stronger than I would ever be.

Oof. Sentence structure.

i'm not reading htis but... good luck.

i'm not reading htis but... good luck.

This would be a far less douchey sentiment if you'd just avoided mentioning the first part!

Ix you are doing a brave thing and you have my full aupport