I am pleased to announce a little bit of happy news: Here are the winning entries for the Polestar Omega contest. Alan actually decided to award a copy of the book to everyone who entered (and don't you wish you had entered now?), so below are all of the winning entries.
From The Phantom:
Alan opens his cupboard and finds it bare. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a few wrinkled bills. Not enough. Not nearly enough to fill his cupboard and pay the rent. Certainly not money left over to hire anyone to hunt down and destroy the puppy kidnappers. Dejected, he grabs his fishing gear and heads to the lake to think it all over. Casting his line into the water, he says to himself, "If only there was something I can do, something I am good at to make some money, pay off the bills, fill the cupboards, get the puppy back...what could it be?". Something tugged the fishing line. A fish! It put up a good fight but Alan manages to reel up a good sized fish and reaches for the... three-eyed mutie fish with little feet! The fish stares at Alan with its three eyes gasping for breath and says "Write..... death....*gasp*...landsssss.....". Setting the strange fish aside Alan realized that the answer was under his nose the whole time. With a sigh, Alan picks up his fishing equipment and trudges home, sits in front of the keyboard and begins tapping the keys.
From Jesper Myrfors:
The author sighed and looked back at the door, where the mint green paint had peeled he could see rusted metal beneath. One patch of rust in particular looked like a cartoon dog dancing with a fish, there was a story there he thought. The only other object in the dimly lit, windowless room besides the chair he currently sat in was a badly done painting of a dragon. It had the idiotic smile of a true believer on its lipless reptilian mouth and it appeared to be looking right at the author. He wondered if its eyes would follow him around the room. It wasn’t something he could test as he was currently handcuffed to a chair. The door opened. A tall, very thin man entered. He wore what looked like a lab coat over a threadbare business suit.
“Write for us again.” The man half pleaded.
“No.” said the author.
“We need you back, the fans love your work.” simpered the man.
“No.” said the author again.
“I can make things…uncomfortable for you.” The man threatened, his tone changing to one of authority.
“You already did.”
“Should I remind you that we still have the trouser weasel? Perhaps the two of you should become…reacquainted.”
The author didn’t respond.
“Or perhaps you would like to try our new de-groining apparatus? Hmm? Does that sound fun? Or at least convincing?”
The author looked at the tall man and said “Or you could just pay me a fair amount for my work.”
The tall man appeared startled. “What? Will that work? But the trouser weasel?”
“I just want to make a living.”
The tall man thought for a moment and then nodded towards the mirror. A moment later the rusty mint green door opened and a burly man stepped in. He removed the handcuffs without a word and left just as quickly as he entered.
“So, when can we expect the first manuscript?” inquired the tall man.
From Colton Kyle:
The reason for Mr. Philipson returning to the series is really simple. One day he was walking down town when he bumped into Robert Downey Jr. Being a huge fan Iron Man he was extremely let down by seeing Tony Stark but not in costume, so much so that he broke down in tears. One of the executives over at Gold Eagle saw this and caught it on his camera. Giving the ultimatum of Alan writing more or the video of him cry will be posted all over the interwebs. Not wanting this to happen, and being a writer he had the delusion that he knew all about sneaking in somewhere and taking something without being caught. Of course he tried and failed. Saving the details he ended up with one foot in the toilet, the executives dog having a seizure and half a pie left to eat. With even more dirt on him he was forced to write at least two more books (2 books for 2 videos).
From actual 'James Axler' author Rik Hoskin:
Ryan reached for his--
With a loud groan, the writing machine known as “ALAN” came to an abrupt halt. Gold Eagle’s top editor stared at it, wondering what the noise was. The ALAN unit had been designed by one of the most famous computer manufacturers, and had functioned for many years without complaint, spewing out reams of white hot prose at a rate of six pages a minute.
The editor stared at ALAN, who was stuck in mid-sentence of its latest Deathlands epic, and realized with a sinking feeling that, after all these years, ALAN had ceased functioning. The editor tapped in a command on ALAN’s input screen, sighed as a garbled diagnostic flashed up on screen. “Something’s definitely not write here,” the editor muttered, shaking her head.
Maybe ALAN had overheated from all those pages of white hot prose it had been producing. The editor decided to help ALAN cool down, placing her desk fan beside it in the hopes it might help.
Three hours later and nothing had changed. ALAN was still stuck mid-sentence, the fate of Ryan Cawdor incomplete.
And so it went for several hours, with the editor inputting different commands, changing ALAN’s ink and paper, and even singing a soothing lullaby to the distressed writing unit. However, nothing helped, and ALAN remained stubbornly stuck in mid-sentence.
The next morning, the editor called Gold Eagle’s IT department. “Have you tried switching it off and switching it back on again?” the helpful voice at the other end of the phone suggested.
The editor did just that. There followed a tense few seconds of clicking and whirring and that strange noise ceiling fans make when you wonder if they’re about to fall on your head. Finally, ALAN’s screen lit up, producing the familiar logo of the Philips computer company. Then appeared the words that the editor longed to see, written in glowing green letters on a black background:
ALAN (Philips)-ON
ALAN was working again!
The editor waited nervously at ALAN’s print tray as the unit went back to work on the page it had been crafting when it had malfunctioned.
Ryan reached for his daisy chain necklace and placed it onto the mutie’s neck as a symbol of their undying love.
“Hmm,” thought the editor. “Might be a few glitches still to iron out.”
(END)
From Chris Collins:
I'd like to think Alan has rejoined the DL series because of the limitless possibilities out there for good writers in a post apocalyptic setting.
From J. M. Jennings:
For months Alan has sat, butt ass naked, crying big crocodile tears in his bathroom. The voices,..they wouldn’t leave him alone. Sounds of horrified screams, gratuitous violence, gun fire and explosions never left his mind. Ugly Images, faraway places, beautiful, deadly creatures found only in the deathlands beckoned him. New characters clamored for his already distracted attention. Insane, outlandish predicaments, terrifying monsters, close calls and certain gruesome death hovers over his characters as they sit waiting in the dark. Waiting, wondering where the hell is Alan so he can write them out of this crazy BS called a plot. He came back to write them to safety. He returned so the voices will shut up. He appeared from the heavens to quiet the war in his brain, put some clothes on and get the hell out of that bathroom. And he’s got to save that damn puppy.
From Bo Mcdaniels:
Simple! He's been traveling the gateway system long enough to be randomly sent back to us, momentarily!!!
From John Proffitt:
To whom it may concern: On September 23, 2029 Alan Philipson borrowed my Temporal Vortex Initiator. He claimed he needed to visit his earlier self to discuss some items of concern regarding his career and some previous decisions he had made. He said he wanted to convince his earlier self that he absolutely had to write for “Deathlands”. However, this is not the real problem. He never returned the device. If you happen to see either one of him, tell him I need it back ASAP before I get fired for losing it. Thanks.
From Stephen Greenwell:
Everyone is wondering what could have convinced Alan Philipson to return to deathlands??The truth is the underpant gnomes has caught Mr Philipson with his underpants down!! Now he needs more money for underpants!!!!!! They wouldn't stop until he wrote more books....true story!! lol
From Barbara Riley:
Six o'clock am and Mr. Philipson sat down at his laptop to check if his employer had forwarded new work. Nothing but a bolded email with the name APs BIGGEST FAN. How irksome he thought, how'd this joker get my email address? Before he could delete it his elbow accidentally knocked the mouse and the cursor highlighted the email and it opened and a sudden feeling of disembodiment rushed over him. Next thing he knew he was laying face down on a cold metal floor feeling like he was going to hurl last night's salmon dinner. After Mr. Philipson righted himself he realized he was in what looked like a Mat-Trans unit he had written about so many times. Trying to find a button or leaver to open the doors he came across a small pamphlet hanging that read "Instructions from your biggest fan who could be the President of your fan club, that is if you had one. Since you won't write any more Deathland's novels for GE I will force you to write one for me. I wrote a virus that upon opening the email I sent sucked you through your computer into a new world, a Deathland's world, at the beginning when things were like just hitting small towns, at least that is how I perceive it. Anyway, the only way back to the present day is to write your way out. End of Instructions". Yeah right, thought Mr. Philipson this crazy fan must have entered my top secret writing lair, hit me on the head and transported me to this place he wants to fantasize as his Deathlands GE probably rejected his manuscript and now I'm his target. Suddenly the door opened and Mr. Philipson stepped out and he was back in his own home thinking it wasn't the salmon last night but that stinky quinoa, why did I buy such a big bag at Costco, I think I'll give the rest of that bag to the neighbor to use as kitty litter. Sheesh, I'd better get back to work but when he tried his laptop he realized there was no power. Fine, thought Mr. Philipson, since this day is going to pot in a hurry I'll go fishing instead that should right all wrongs. That didn't seem to work either upon stepping outside to get to his car and boat trailer a rank stench was everywhere. When he looked around he noticed every house had a huge pile of garbage piled high on top of overflowing garbage cans. He saw a neighbor and yelled over what is going on? The neighbor replied no electricity so the city can't use direct deposit to pay the trash engineers so they won't work. I can't take this smell he said under his breath and thought to himself I need to be out on the water where it is clean.
Mr. Philipson found himself comfortable in his boat with a rod and reel waiting for a nibble in the quiet, clean air, just what my inner doctor ordered he said to himself. But it was only a few moments later that serenity was broken by a fish pulling on the line, about time he thought. The fish felt big, heavy by the pull it was giving could be hard to land but Mr. Philipson played his rod and reel like an instrument and pulled that fish in and next thing it was dangling high at the top of the rod thrashing madly. What the hell is this fish I have it looks like a halibut from hell, it's body appeared bloated and it had more dorsal fins than it should and whoa, what teeth you have Mr. Halibut he said out loud to no one. This fish had several rows of three inch long sharp needle-like teeth protruding from it's big lipped mouth. THAT'S IT he thought, I'm just seeing things, I'm going to get his fish in the cooler but as he tried to cut it off the line it was thrashing so hard it bit through the line and flopped to the bottom of the boat where it got up on little tiny feet and ran towards Mr. Philipson's ankles and sank it's teeth in so deep it couldn't release. Not knowing what else to do Mr. Philipson snap kicked his leg and the fish went flying off his ankle and back into the water. Before he could attend to his bleeding ankle a sound arouse from the water like a school of dolphins skimming the water surface. When Mr. Philipson looked over the side of the boat there were 20 or 30 of these toothy Halibuts chomping so hard you could hear the teeth chattering while circling the boat so fast that it looked and sounded like boiling water. Enough of this nonsense he said to himself and flipped on the motor to it's highest position and the boat practically launching itself lurched forward leaving behind a bloody wake due to motor blades chopping a few of these weird halibuts into chum. Upon approaching shore the garbage stench was now worse and there were now burned out abandoned cars and no signs of human life. I've got to get out of this nightmare but how? Thinking about the "instruction pamphlet" Mr. Philipson thought maybe there is something to this but I'm exhausted I need to sleep but I'll never sleep after the day I've had so he went home sat down in front of his lifeless laptop and without warning fell face first onto the desk.
Once Mr. Philipson awoke he realized he had been the victim of his own Sleep Writing technique but hey, he got a good story out of it, time to contact GE and get a little green for it.
From Devin Hubbard:
Alan Philipson was approached by a team of heavily armored editors from a parallel timeline where he had never stopped writing Deathlands books. The sheer quality of his work had led to such unthinkable popularity for the series that the planet had been ruined. Forests worldwide were clear-cut for book pulp, millions of fans rioted over which companion was best, entire countries were whipped to work in the horrifying Kindle Mines. The Philipson World commandos are holding him hostage, forcing him to write again to feed their timeline's insatiable hunger for dark sci-fi stories full of gripping action scenes, intense new scenarios for Ryan and the companions to battle against, and greater and greater odds against good before it wins in the end.
From Vijay Chandra:
I think Alan came back to write DL books since he had actually been timetrawled from the future. Some rich industrialist who grew up on DL had made MatTrans a reality and there was a working project Chronos going on. He was pulled into the future to write more books on threat of having to impregnate humano-porcine workers of that era. He managed to get back to the Mat-trans chamber and managed to jump back in time to now and he decided to start writing books again which would subtly influence this industrialist that creating man-pigs was a bad idea. For the sake of the humanity of the future, he has sacrificed his free time of today to write DL books again.
From Dave Bruce:
Rupert Murdoch kidnapped his goldfish.
So that's it! Thank you to everyone who entered. If you are a winner and have already sent me your address info, your copy of the book should be on its way soon.