From the Desk of Arthbard:

    Yes. I’m very lazy. Hopefully, this announcement might make up for it to a certain degree.
    Well, I’m kind of excited about it, anyway.
    What you may not know about dear, old Arthbard is that before I was blogging, or even using the name Arthbard, I wrote a book. Approximately 60,000 words worth of book. Okay, it’s not War and Peace, but a lot of work went into those 60,000 words, and, while I did make some effort to have it traditionally published, that never happened, and it’s been more or less sitting there, taking up space on my hard drive ever since.
    But, hey, wouldn’t you know it, print-on-demand technology (as employed by, say, CafePress and Lulu.com) has made self-publishing as affordable as masturbation–perhaps even more so, depending on your particular kinks. This, of course, means that every pathetic loser with more enthusiasm than talent now has the opportunity to see their poorly plotted, badly spelled, childishly written manuscript in print. Including me!
    So, you will soon (very, very soon) have the opportunity, if you so choose, to own, like, a real, damn book written by me.
    “But,” you may ask, “Arthbard, I’m extremely cheap, poor, and/or illiterate. What about me?!?”

    Well, luckily for you, that’s no problem … Except maybe for the illiteracy. That I can’t help you with. As for the lack of money or unwillingness to spend of it, however, you’re pretty much covered. Turns out, I’m kind of inspired by the Jonathan Coulton business model. Because, see, while Coulton does sell his music through paid downloads–and even CD sales–he also publishes it under a Creative Commons license, allowing his fans to share his songs in all the ways more traditional music publishers have spent a lot of money to fail to keep people from doing. For those who’ve acquired music through alternative, non-paying means, Coulton offers the option for them to donate money if they so choose, with the caveat that, if they don’t so choose, it would at least be nice if they’d consider sharing some of that free music with their friends.
    So, this is more less my plan. The book will be available to order in print form. If you buy it, yay! Thanks! I hope you enjoy it! If you choose to download it, there will also be a link to donate an amount of cash of your own choosing. If you click that link, thanks, again, and I still hope you enjoy it! If you choose not to click that link, I hope you enjoy it, anyway! Thanks for even taking the trouble to read the damn thing in the first place! If you choose not to read it, then fuck you! … Nah, that’s okay, you don’t really have to read it if you don’t want to. But you’re still encouraged to tell everybody you know about this totally awesome book you were too lazy to read and let them know that they should really totally buy it, like, seriously now.
    Anyway, the book will be available later this week. In the mean time, in the interest of drumming up whatever little bit of enthusiasm I can in the hearts of however few people care, here’s the first couple of chapters of

The Kanteron Chronicles

By J.N. White

Prologue

What’s Going on Here

    For five hundred and thirty-seven years in a row, Kanteron 7 has been voted the best planet in the galaxy to live on. For many years, scientists have been trying to pinpoint the main attraction in a vain attempt to improve the quality of life on such horrifically dismal worlds as Blotskapar 29, which is reputedly so terrible that death is frequently looked forward to as the most pleasant event to take place during a being’s lifetime. In fact, rather than mourning the passing of a dear friend, the residents of Blotskapar 29 actually celebrate it due to the fact that, no matter what happens to a person’s soul after death, not even Hell could come even remotely close to the horror of life on this forsaken world. Unfortunately, even these celebrations tend to suffer from a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, as those celebrating—rather than feeling happy that a friend has moved on to a better place—generally feel jealous that the corpse in question has managed to escape life on Blotskapar 29 before them. To make matters even worse, instead of moving on to Heaven or Hell, the Blotskaparian dead are usually reincarnated back onto their home world for yet another lifetime of misery.
    But, to get back to Kanteron 7—where we were before I so unprofessionally left the subject to discuss an infinitely less interesting topic and then abruptly left that topic only to unprofessionally refer to myself in the first person—scientists have long struggled to discover the secret behind the incredible bliss that seems to inevitably accompany life on this amazingly wonderful planet. Any discussion on this subject generally involves a detailed analysis of the three predominant theories. I, however, am much too lazy to partake in such an analysis. Likewise, the attention span of the reader is, in all likelihood, much too short for such a discussion to maintain interest. Hence, the best course of action seems to be simply listing the theories:

1. The inhabitants of Kanteron 7 have learned to ignore the myriad distractions of life and, instead, to focus on personal relationships with family and friends, thus overlooking the unpleasant aspects of life in favor of those that are truly important.
2. Kanteron 7 has been blessed with a great abundance of the softest toilet paper in the known universe.
3. For five hundred and thirty-seven years in a row, the ruler of Kanteron 7 has bribed 51% of the people in the galaxy to vote for his planet as the best one to live on.

    Unfortunately, though these theories all show a great deal of promise, neither is quite sufficient to fully account for the joy of life in this terrifically wonderful place. Regardless of the reason, however, the end result is the same: Life on this extraordinarily blissful world is always excruciatingly fun, and any story that takes place on this unbelievably entertaining planet is guaranteed to be jaw-droppingly good. Unfortunately, the story you are about to read takes place on Kanteron 6, so all bets are off.

Chapter 1

Exposition and Extraneous Information

    It was a perfectly normal day on Kanteron 6. The sun was shining nearly as brightly as on Kanteron 7.¹ The birds were singing almost as beautifully as those in the Kanteron 7 forests, which, come to think of it, are just a little bit greener than those on Kanteron 6. And, of course, the toilet paper came amazingly close to the extraordinary plushness of the universally renowned Kanteron 7 bathroom tissue. Despite all of this, however, a dark cloud hung over Kanteron 6. Well, okay, technically speaking, it wasn’t all that dark, really, but, when compared to the brilliantly white clouds seen on Kanteron 7, it seemed that way, and therein lied the problem. No matter how good life was on Kanteron 6, it was never quite as good as on its closest neighbor, Kanteron 7. This led many people to form the opinion that life on their world was actually much worse than it really was. Thus, there was an ever-going struggle to improve the quality of life on the planet, but, since Kanteron 6 already had the second highest standard of living in the galaxy, improvement was rather difficult. That didn’t stop people from trying, though.
    Ardel Voodavog, for example, felt that Kanteron 6 would be more pleasant if it rained less often. His proposed solution was to create a device that would prevent the formation of rain clouds. After years of tireless work and research, Ardel finally achieved his goal, and his invention, the Voodavog-Sunny-Day-Maker, was presented to the public. It was a huge success. Unfortunately, however, what Ardel had foolishly failed to realize was that people need water to live. After a 50-year drought wiped out 49% of the planet’s population, the Voodavog-Sunny-Day-Maker was pulled from the market, and several members of the Voodavog family had their last name changed to Voodalor in order to dissociate themselves from Ardel’s disgrace.
    Another such improvement attempt was carried out by Erlit Propchi, who formed the opinion that it would be awfully nice if Kanteron 6 were a little bit sunnier. This opinion led him to develop a gas that would thin the atmosphere of the planet in order to better allow the rays of the sun to pass through. The effect of this was twofold. In addition to making breathing extremely difficult, it caused the sun to become so bright that 49% of the planet’s population was permanently blinded.²
    Of course, the most well-documented and widely studied of these improvement attempts is Crumany Crawford’s effort to create the universe’s softest toilet paper. Crumany’s first step was to take over the company responsible for Kanteron 6’s entire bathroom tissue distribution. Then, he had all toilet paper replaced with his own Super-Soft-Pleasure-Wipes. What Crumany overlooked is that such softness required a very unstable molecular structure, a fact which caused his Pleasure-Wipes to disintegrate completely before they had even reached store shelves. This gave rise to one of the darkest periods ever in Kanteron 6’s recorded history: The Great Shortage of ‘63, during which 79% of the planet’s literature was lost forever.³
    Finally, one man realized that these attempts at improving the quality of life on Kanteron 6 weren’t working. He knew that the only reason things seemed so bad on Kanteron 6 was that they seemed so good on Kanteron 7; the only real problem facing the residents of his planet was that of envy. He knew that life was so good on Kanteron 6 that any attempt to change things could only end in disaster. Thus, he developed his own solution.

Chapter 2

The Idea

    Enol Vasphounden blinked his eyes sleepily. Having just awakened from his three-month slumber, he found that he was feeling rather hungry. He yawned, revealing a mouthful of jagged teeth, and stretched his powerful legs, scraping his enormous claws against the earthen floor of his cave. Then, Enol began his quest to find sustenance. He purposefully strode out of the cave to a nearby stream, where he spent several hours catching and eating live salmon. Having sufficiently stuffed himself, Enol let out a mighty roar, terrifying every small animal in the vicinity. Enol Vasphounden was, in fact, a bear living on the planet Earth and therefore inconsequential to the story at hand.
    Meanwhile, back on Kanteron 6, a being who by some strange coincidence was also named Enol Vasphounden awoke from a three-hour nap, let out an inaudible yawn, and groggily stumbled into the kitchen to fix himself a cup of frompe.⁴ Enol Vasphounden was, in fact, not a bear but a comparatively human-like creature known as a Kanteronian.
    Kanteronians are the natural inhabitants of Kanteron 6. That is, they share the planet with several other species, but they are the only one that is widely considered to be intelligent. It can, however, be noted that at one point some grad-school students decided to try to prove that grobleks—a Kanteronian species of creatures similar, in many respects, to an Earth dog—were also intelligent. After eight years of research, funded by $7,846,324.87 worth of government grants, they released their findings to the public. The public agreed that grobleks were, indeed, very impressive but questioned whether the ability to pretend to be dead on command in an attempt to have a larger creature feed it was really sufficient evidence to qualify a life form as “intelligent.”
    Of course, since Enol Vasphounden did not own a pet groblek, there was only very little question that he was the most intelligent life form in this particular apartment. In fact, you might even say that he was the most intelligent life form in the galaxy, but you would probably be wrong.
    However, what you could definitely say without any doubt about Enol is that his skin was a sort of palish green. Surprisingly, this had extremely little to do with the exceeding ickiness of the beverage making its way down his unfortunate throat. Rather, palish green skin is a fairly typical trait common to all Kanteronians, no matter what they’ve been drinking.
    What you could also say about Enol—in addition to the greenness of his skin and the knowledge, or shortage of it, contained within the depths of his brain—was that he was about make a visit to the home of his good friend Gasper Nandelhuck. Enol quickly swallowed what was left of his frompe, put on his flazer,⁵ and left the apartment.
    As he exited the building, Enol caught sight of the neighborhood frompe shop. He wasn’t in a big hurry, so he decided this would be a fine time to stop by for a quick cup of frompe. Inside, he studied the menu, which featured 255 different types of frompe that all looked, smelled, and tasted exactly the same. After a few moments, he made his choice. “I’ll have a #58, please.”
    Upon receipt of his of his #58, Enol sat down at one of the numerous booths and enjoyed his beverage, despite the signals it informed his tongue to relay to his brain. After emptying the mug of steaming liquid into his mouth, Enol stood up, left, and continued on his way.
    When he reached Gasper’s street, Enol passed by another frompe shop. At this point he wasn’t especially thirsty, but a sign in the window advertised a new, 256th type of frompe. Since this flavor wasn’t available in his own neighborhood, Enol decided that it would be incredibly stupid for him to pass up the opportunity to taste this latest drink type. Thus, he went inside and had a mug of this new, exotic frompe, which looked, smelled, and tasted exactly the same as the 255 other flavors already available on his street.
    Finally, Enol arrived at Gasper’s apartment building, a tall structure painted an appallingly tacky shade of purple. What is appallingly tacky to one culture, however, is the height of fashion to another. It can also be said that what is the height of fashion to one culture will, one day, be appallingly tacky to that same culture. Fads come and go. On Kanteron 6, they came and went about once every three days.
    In fact, just a few days before, the apartment building in question had been an appallingly tacky shade of orange. The trick to keeping up with the ever-changing fashions was computerized paint, which could easily change colors with a simple combination of button presses and advanced calculus. Unfortunately, no matter how many square roots and multivariable equations were inputted, the paint only ever seemed to create appallingly tacky shades of colors that were not especially good for buildings. The side-effect was that fashion was forced to switch the definition of “appallingly tacky” with that of “really neat,” effectively solving the problem, if only for three days at a time.
    Enol stood outside while he introduced his third cup of frompe to the first two that were currently rushing their way through his suddenly overworked digestive system. He tossed the empty cup into a nearby waste receptacle, entered the building, rode the elevator upstairs, knocked on Gasper’s door, and promptly asked to use the restroom. Once Enol had completed his expulsion of unnecessary fluids, Gasper politely asked him if would like to have a nice, hot cup of frompe. Not wanting to seem rude, Enol graciously accepted Gasper’s hospitality.
    After presenting Enol with his drink, Gasper sat down in one of the two appallingly tacky orange chairs (he had been having trouble trying to reprogram the computerized upholstery) and propped his feet up on the frompe table, which was littered with notebooks arranged in precisely the right manner as to suggest that the person who put them there wanted them to capture visitors’ attentions without having them look like they were put there to capture visitors’ attentions.
    Enol started the conversation on sports. “The Crogters are having a pretty good season so far. They could even go on to the finals.”
    Gasper absentmindedly twirled a finger in one of the black curls hanging down on either side of his otherwise hairless head and unenthusiastically responded, “Hmm …? Oh, yeah. Crogters. Sure.”
    Enol tried changing the subject to music. “Have you heard the new Demboyso album, yet? It’s excellent. I mean those are some really talented guys.”
    Gasper shook his head uninterestedly. “No. Haven’t heard it, yet.” After a moment, he added, “I’ve been busy.” After another moment, he also added, “I’ve been doing … other things.” He nodded his head ever-so-not-at-all subtly towards the notebook-festooned table.
    Enol brought up the cinema. “I hear Kilo Jopset may be coming out with a new movie pretty soon. That should be pretty …”
    Frustrated with his friend’s complete unwillingness to take a hint, Gasper suddenly interjected, “Careful, Enol! Don’t spill anything on my notebooks.”
    Enol glanced at his mug, which was not even in the vicinity of the vicinity surrounding the frompe table, and politely responded, “Oh … Sorry. So … what’s with all the notebooks?”
    Gasper brightened up visibly. “Oh, you don’t really want to know about all that.”
    “No, I do. Tell me.”
    “Well … No, you wouldn’t be interested.”
    “Okay, fine,” said Enol. “I didn’t really want to …”
    Before Enol could finish, Gasper removed his feet from the table, sat up, and began to talk excitedly. “You know, this is a pretty nice planet. Life here really isn’t bad at all. Yet people don’t seem to be happy.”
    “Okay.”
    “Right,” continued Gasper, picking up one of the many notebooks. “So, lately, I’ve been asking myself why this is so. Kanteron 6 is a nice place. It has windswept valleys. It has vast, blue oceans. It has the galaxy’s highest concentration of frompe shops. So, why are so many people unhappy?”
    “You tell me,” suggested Enol.
    “I was just about to,” explained Gasper.
    “Oh, sorry.”
    “I think the people are missing something. Something that would make their lives complete. Something that they probably don’t even know they need. In all likelihood, it’s not even a big something. That would explain why no one has ever noticed it before. No one has ever taken the time to sit down and ask themselves, ‘Just what is this tiny, little, insignificant thing that no one has,’ but that’s just what I’ve been asking myself, recently. I’ve thought long and hard about this for months now, and I think I’ve finally figured out the answer.”
    “Go ahead,” prodded Enol, “tell me.”

Gasper paused for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, he paused for rather a bit too long, completely destroying the impact of his next word: “Glazers!”
    A puzzled expression came over Enol’s face. “What,” he asked, “are glazers?”
    An eerily large smile spread its way across the lower portion of Gasper’s face as he prepared to reveal his brilliant idea to his good friend, Enol. “They’re a bit like flazers, but they have one small difference.”
    “Yes?”
    “They have,” said Gasper, opening the notebook to show off his conceptual sketches, “four arms!”
    A look of enlightened understanding suddenly failed to reveal itself on Enol’s face. Now, had Gasper correctly estimated the appropriate length for his last dramatic pause, the idea might have made more sense, and things may have turned out quite a bit differently, but, as it is, a very puzzled Enol asked, “What’s the fourth arm for?”
    Having not expected this kind of question, Gasper was a bit taken aback. After a dramatic pause that was, quite frankly, much too short, he gave the only answer he could think of: “Well … You know … Just in case …”
    A persistently unenlightened Enol asked, “Just in case of what?”
    Quickly coming to the conclusion that he liked asking questions more than answering them, Gasper said, “Well, do you think you can come up with something better?”
    Enol did, indeed, think that, so he said, “Yes, actually, I do.”
    “So, tell me.”
    “I was just about to.”
    “Oh.”
    “I don’t think that four-armed apparel is really the answer we need, here. The only thing that’s wrong with our planet is this inane jealousy we have towards Kanteron 7. Some people will just never be satisfied so long as there’s one planet out there that’s better than ours.”
    “Well,” said Gasper, “what do you suggest we do about it?”
    “There’s only one thing we can do about it,” said Enol. Then, after a dramatic pause of such staggeringly perfect length that Gasper’s heart skipped three beats and his brain spun around in his head, he continued, “We have to get rid of Kanteron 7.”
    “Get rid of?”
    “We have to,” explained Enol, “blow it up.”
    Now, had Enol’s last dramatic pause been a microsecond longer, this idea would doubtlessly have sounded rather silly, and things might have turned out quite a bit differently. As it is, though, everything seemed to make perfect sense, and Gasper could only say, “Wow,” and watch as the notebook fell out of his hand to slide off the frompe table, which suddenly seemed very embarrassed to be holding all of these silly drawings of overly-limbed jackets. Once his brain had spun back to its correct position, Gasper asked, “How can we do that?”
    “The first step,” said Enol, “is to find a weapon capable of destroying an entire planet. The second step, obviously, is to use this weapon on Kanteron 7.”
    “So, what’s stopping you?” asked Gasper.
    “Well, it’s not as if I can just walk down the street and go into a Weapons Capable of Destroying an Entire Planet ‘R’ Us.”
    “Hmm … Yes …”
    “Weapons of that magnitude are fairly hard to come by.”
    “The military would have weapons like that,” said Gasper.
    “And?” asked Enol.
    “And,” said Gasper, “this is an election year …”
    Enol considered this for a moment, then asked, “Are you suggesting that I run for Supreme Ruler of Kanteron 6?”
    A look of surprise came over Gasper’s face. “Oh … Well, I suppose that might work, too.”
    “Too?”
    “Well,” said Gasper, “I was going to say that you might be able to break into a heavily-guarded military warehouse on Election Day and leave with a twenty-ton meganucleatomic-deplanetizer.”
    “Were you?” asked Enol.
    “Yes, I was,” admitted Gasper. “I think your idea’s pretty good, too, though.”