Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set)

by Harmon Cooper

  After rewriting Book One, I wrote Book Two in three weeks over the month of March 2015. Then I wrote Book Three in April. At that point, I started working on a new series that takes place about thirty years before Life is a Beautiful Thing called The Feedback Loop, a LitRPG series that has taken off as of late (yay me!).

  Book Two:

  Another book comes to a close. I was sad that Hajime had to go, but maybe I’ll write a backstory for him some day. (Hint: this will be published in 2017 under the title, Fantasy Offline).

  The first draft of Life is a Beautiful Thing Book Two was written in the month of April 2015. At the time, I was stuck in a polluted place in Central Asia waiting out the end of winter in an old Soviet apartment (depressing, I know). The nights came early and the pollution came quick, forcing me indoors to pen the follow-up to Book One.

  Keva was inspired by a violent and crazy anime character. I watch a load of anime (can speak and read some Japanese too), and I based her on a woman named Ophelia in an anime called Claymore. You can watch Claymore and millions of other animes for free on the website kissanime.com. Anyhow, Ophelia loved to kill and torture her companions. Spoiler alert: Keva is fun to write and her role expands in Book Three.

  As you may have noticed, Book Two moves away from the hallucinatory nature of Book One mostly due to the fact Meme can’t get his favorite pollute and because I wanted to focus more on the action. For those of you missing the hallucinatory nature of Book One, it will return in a more refined way in Book Three. Poor Nelly still has a lot in store for her in Book Three, but she’ll get her bearings in Book Four, which will conclude the Red Books (consisting of Life is a Beautiful Thing Books 1-4).

  My girlfriend, Sor Ganbold, was one of the first to see potential in this series, and I thank her for encouraging me to finish it and put it out there. To my editor, George C. Hopkins, I thank you for continuing to school me as to how weapons work and doing a bang-up job of making this book shine. You have improved this series greatly through your knowledge and skill. To Kay from Scotland, thanks for your powerful ocs – you are the reader writers dream of. I’ll refrain from quoting Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams (1989) here, but you get the picture.

  Pollutes and words.

  I spend quite a bit of time crafting these names, so read them twice, and if something seems made up, it really isn’t. For example, I discovered Sacai Dong”e (mentioned in chapter thirteen) in an Air China in-flight magazine. It is the name for some weird donkey jelly made in a province in the belly of the red dragon. You’ve likely noticed by now that Meme has an expansive vocabulary. This isn’t in an attempt to be pedantic as much as it is an attempt to utilize our shared language. It adds a dimension to Meme’s words which separate him from the other characters. I take these words from new word lists, old books, classic works of fiction, archaic words and New Yorker articles on random subjects. He is a smart addict, which isn’t like most the addicts I’ve encountered but this is fiction so fuck it.

  Book Three

  Reader,

  Another book winds to a close and another book in the series is on the way, thus completing the Red Books (Books 1- 4). Next year I will start to release the Blue Books (Books 5-8) with new covers. (Author’s update: Oops, that didn’t happen. Hopefully late 2017!) The story will continue where it left off. The response for the series thus far has been positive and I’m excited to continue the book as I love writing it.

  Book Three Thoughts (Note: all links go to Amazon.)

  Here’s something you should know. Chapter Nine, the chapter in which Meme gets heavily intoxicated and makes his way up to Madoka’s girlfriend’s room, was actually written in 2011. This was the original chapter five (the Lit Leviathan, all the literary quotes) for the first book. Upon my final edit in 2015, I decided to take this whole section out of the first book in the series and ‘save’ this trip for a different book.

  The quotes in the chapter, which you should read again (you can access the chapter in the menu) are taken from a number of books, from 1984 to works by John Updike and Vonnegut to a booked called We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. We is an interesting book as it was written in the 1920s, predating other dystopian works like the famous 1984. I also borrowed the term aeros from this book. Somewhere on my old computer, there is a list of all these quotes and where they came from. I have no idea where it is exactly though.

  More borrowing. I borrowed some things from Hemingway in this book as well, from a few of Meme’s quotes (I obscenity in thy milk!) to the name ‘Pilar’ of the woman who switches with Nelly in the prison. Some of the Spanish quotes were borrowed from the book For Whom the Bell Tolls.

  I have done heavy research into the American-Iraq war that started with the Shock and Awe Campaign 2003 (and is ongoing depending on your view of private contracting). I’ve read over ten books on the subject, the best of which are Generation Kill, Imperial Life in the Emerald City and The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq. I’m quite familiar with the layout of Baghdad due to books I wrote on the subject, and while I wanted to keep city details brief in Book Three, I hope I conveyed this appropriately.

  In Book Three, I wanted to give Sauria a bigger motive for what he is and how he became what he became. He was originally supposed to be the focus of the book, but other characters got in the way (as they are prone to do). Keva can’t seem to keep her head down and of course Meme is always vying for attention. I suppose there really is nothing I can do about characters that jump out to me.

  My favorite line in the book, if I may have one (yes, sometimes Meme writes himself more than I write him) is when Meme says: Xi Dada Mao boppers complicate things. Xi Dada is the name that Chinese people call Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China. Mao is of course Chairman Mao, who current Chinese president Xi worships. A bopper is a giver of fellatio (is there a better way to explain this elegantly?). Basically the phrase is about harkening back to leaders of the past – leaders who may have been wrong – and how the wrongful leadership of the past can greatly affect the future.

  A dedication is in order! This book was greatly improved by my editor, George C. Hopkins, who continually enlightens me about weapons and brings me down from the comic book imagery swirling in my head. Get that fox and get him good! Also to Kay, who beta reads like a goddess – I thank you both from the bottom of my dark little heart. Thanks also goes out to readers who have contacted me and told me they like the series. It is a strange series, but as you’ve likely noticed by now, there is a method to my madness.

  Occasionally, my editor George sends commentary regarding my subject matter. This one was about Rebel and I’ve decided to share it here because I can and because it is pretty awesome.

  Babies and pollutes (By George C. Hopkins):

  “Let it suffice to say that I have more than a passing acquaintance with baby-wrangling. Babies are simple creatures – they want what I want: warm, quiet, safe, full tummy, clean diaper, los hooters grande.

  Fuzzy-Warm-Tickle-Cuddle-Bunnymilk - what else would you call a pollute for babies? Start ‘em early, hook ‘em young.

  Elementary, my dear Watson.

  What pollutes do I take? My Health Care Providing Organization very obligingly sends me scads and scads of reinforced white plastic shipping bags chock full of rattley goodness every month. One of my favorite games is ‘guess the synergistic side-effects’. Every morning, I’ll throw a random handful or so into my Official Sesame Street Big Bird Cereal Bowl, moisten them with Everclear and Dutch Chocolate Slim-Fast and eat ‘em with a spoon while I watch cartoons. They’re magically delicious indeed!

  Then I’ll go feed the poultry.

  Sometimes they’re geese; sometimes flamingos. Emperor Penguins show up occasionally. They’ve been dodos a couple of times, safety lime green Great Auks once or twice, and on one memorable occasion they were half-a-dozen each of Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety Bird, Road Runner, Big Bird, Toucan Sam, and Barney. Don’t know how the Barneys got in there with them, but they seem
ed to enjoy the Purina Flock Raiser, cracked corn, and sunflower seeds as much as the birds did.

  Then I’ll come in and work on your stuff.”

  Enough rambling :-D

  Book Four:

  Reader,

  With this note the Red Books have officially come to an end. They started wild in LA, and they moved around the globe introducing characters from various walks of life, all seeking something, from the next high to simple affection. The Blue Books (Books 5-8), will come next year, and will pick up where the Epilogue left off, with Keva and Rinchi going after Meta.

  Papo the Bullet.

  The story of Papo la Bala is true – he did inject himself with HIV – and I first heard about it on a Podcast Program called RadioLab. I knew after listening to his story that it would play a part in this book, due to both its message and because I wanted to preserve his struggle somehow as well as introduce Papo and his answer to oppression to readers in the far future. I don’t condone this behavior, but it does show you how far someone will go for freedom, which is important as the concept of freedom morphs over the next century.

  I lied.

  If you read the first “back of the book shit” at the back of Book One, I said that I wrote the first Life is A Beautiful Thing book (yes, the trippy one) in November 2011. This isn’t actually the case. The first conceptualization of the series was in the fall of 2007, when I first started writing seriously. I envisioned a story about a Humandroid therapist and his client, named Tim7 after a friend of mine who later went on to overdose on heroin. I only wrote three chapters, which mainly featured the therapist talking to the Humandroid about what it was like to serve humans.

  It was boring.

  At the time, I was working at Starbucks and at Austin Community College’s chemistry lab. I wrote these chapters while sitting at the lab, slightly upset at where my life had gone. Working in the service industry made me feel like a Humandroid, serving some unquenchable monster that kept coming every day for more, more, more and more. In a way, this early incarnation was a tamer version of Meme interviewing me, and I quickly disbanded the project once I realized I wasn’t a good enough writer to pen the book. This early incarnation exist somewhere, possibly on a computer or a hard drive at my home. Who knows…

  More about this book.

  Yes, this book, the one that you’ve finished. This book was written over the course of six weeks, from about the start of June 2015 until the end of July. It is the longest of the books thus far, and it does everything I want to do in a Life is a Beautiful Thing book. Namely, I’d like to continue to explore human-Humandroid relationships alongside Meme’s idiotic brilliancy and characters that we love to hate, like Sauria. Meta will become an important character as well.

  Bill Bleak, while playing a somewhat minor role in the Red Books (books 1-4), will play a bigger role in the following books, the Blue Books. While Sauria is obviously a caricature of a very right wing businessman, I plan to make Bleak the caricature of a very left wing business man. I also look forward to exploring the powers that turn someone to the other side, even if they don’t know they’ve turned.

  Meme and Nelly are finally reunited in this book, and I wanted to explore their relationship a little more but I wasn’t able to due to the number of storylines running. The following books will feature Nelly more prominently, as Meme, Yeshi and Nelly go to LA to do a little disruption. Yes, Meme as Sauria – I can’t wait to see what happens next. As I’ve said before, Meme writes himself.

  Damn these characters in my head.

  Keva was supposed to kill Monique and Clove in this book, but she didn’t. Meme was supposed to get over his addiction to pollutes, but he didn’t. I guess this is the way the pollute smokes – some characters write themselves. Even I’m surprised at what these characters do once I’ve given them a scenario in which to take part.

  Damn this series.

  Yes, damn this series because it is hard to classify and it immediately turns some people off and some people on. If I were a smarter man, I would be writing contemporary romance under a penname just to make a living as a writer. Unfortunately for my pocketbook, writing Life is a Beautiful Thing is the joy of my life and I’ve touched quite a few people through the series, which fills me with more joy than I can possibly describe. That being said, if you’ve made it this far, you are either crazy or you know passion when you read it.

  Regardless of what you are, the best way for this series to continue and for it to reach more readers is your voice. Leave a review on the books you’ve read, and if you know someone that could use a good trip into a book that merges scifi, hallucinatory experiences, meta-fiction, sexual identity, diatribes and combat, please recommend the book to them. All books in the series are available in print and digital formats.

  The biggest shout out possible goes out to Kay from Scotland for beta reading the hell out of this book. I’ve met the most amazing people through the publication of this series, and she is one of them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This book wouldn’t be the same without your help.

  To George C. Hopkins, my editor, much appreciation for the solid job on improving this manuscript. Holy Priceless Collection of Etruscan Snoods, Batman! It reads like a charm now, a misunderstood, violent and hallucinatory charm, but a charm nonetheless. Your ‘What Would Meme Do?’ bracelet is in the mail. Please destroy it once you receive it.

  It is a longshot to say this series may touch a lot of people, but I’ve designed to walk as many fine lines as I possibly can and above all, to entertain in an original way. This series wouldn’t be possible without you. A bigger publisher wouldn’t touch something like this, yet here you are (and here I am), both moving forward with it. Thanks for taking part, and look for Books 5-8 in 2016. I’ll also release a book about MercSecure next year, so be on the lookout for that as well. You can follow me on Twitter, Amazon or join my mailing list by going to my website, www.harmoncooper.com

  Twitter ID: _HarmonCooper

  In the meantime, check out my other sci-fi series, The Feedback Loop, on the Amazon store. There’s also a sample on the next page. It takes place twenty-five years before Life is a Beautiful Thing, and you’ll definitely see some connections, from pollutes to Humandroids.

  Get started on my other series for free! Sign up for my reader’s group to receive a free copy of the Feedback Loop Book One.

  1) Click here to sign up for my reader’s group

  2) Confirm your email

  3) Receive a free book in your inbox

  Yours in sanity,

  Harmon Cooper

  (Sample) The Feedback Loop

  Book One

  Harmon Cooper

  Edited by George C. Hopkins

  Available on Amazon here.

  Day 545

  I’m afraid to die even though I know I can’t die. This fear is what drives me to kill indiscriminately, to maim as many as I can in The Loop. The day resets at midnight, regardless of whether or not Cinderella has been laid. The difference between Cinderella’s story and mine is that there are no happy endings here. There is no Prince Charming, no magic pumpkin coach to spirit me away, no light at the end of the tunnel.

  There is only me, and I am royally shafted.

  “Who told you my name!?” I scream into the face of the same button man I choked yesterday (and the day before that, and the day before that). “Who sent you here!?”

  “Turn … Me … Loose … !”

  Morning Assassin spits digital blood into my face, baring his pearly whites. He is a gangly man, sharp-faced and always sneering, sneering like he’s in on some private joke and I’m the sucker. I slam him against the floor once more for good measure.

  Keeping one hand on his neck, I stick my finger in the air to activate my inventory list. I retrieve a pair of brass knuckles, item 229, from my list. They appear instantly on my knuckles, gleaming and ready to deliver punishment.

  “I’m sick of playing this game. Tell me who sent you!”

&
nbsp; Morning Assassin laughs as my fist connects with the bridge of his nose. His data indicates that he is an NPC, a non-player character just like all the others, a feat of artificial, game-based intelligence. He’s not real.

  A second kiss with my brass knuckles makes him laugh even harder, his teeth scatter like Chiclets with my third shot.

  “Who sent you!?” I scream to no avail.

  “Goodbye, Quantum.”

  Morning Assassin’s bloodied lips open wide and the barrel of a gat pops out of his mouth.

  He drills me in the face before I can roll away.

  Day 546

  I respawn a day later, the sound of feedback rippling inside my skull. Damn the feedback. No alarm clock wakes me; I’m up naturally at this godforsaken time, glaring at the digital sun filling my hotel room with strips of bitter light.

  One must sleep, even in a virtual entertainment dreamworld like The Loop. I suppose ‘wait to respawn’ would be a better explanation for what I’ve just experienced, but I like to think of it as sleep anyway. It’s a nice way to remind myself that I’m human, that my body still exists in the real world.

  Morning Assassin will be here soon. He comes every day at 8:05 – I expect nothing less from him today. There has never been a weapon in his mouth before, but he has killed me on several occasions.

  I access my inventory list and select an ice pick – item 538 – that I found about a week ago.

  My list is the only way to keep track of how long I’ve been stuck in The Loop. Thus far, there are 544 items in my list. I add the deck of Luckies sitting on the nightstand to tally for yesterday’s unexpected and sudden death. Now there are 545 items. I’ll find something later today to mark day 546.