After a long, long hiatus...

 

Asmodeus and the Wicked Wizard of the East is done. It's not very long, only 78,000 words, unless I go through it again. 

This was a fun write. It's my first first-person novel, and it's my first foray into fantasy. It uses the same reality-jumping alternate universe trick used in Andi, expanding on it a bit. I'm guessing it will expand in future novels as well. It's also the first that at least starts outside Carbon County. That's because I moved, and I like my new location in Delaware. Further novels will probably be set there -- not that I have any idea what they're going to be about. When I finish a book I have no idea what I'm going to write about next.

Asmodeus J-for John Jones is Summoned by Nevianne the Witch to combat the evil Palegos, who's oppressing the countryside. She's expecting someone nine feet tall, with fangs, and she gets him. He not only doesn't believe in magic, he suppresses its use for a mile in any direction. There's no way she can send him back. He's capable of slipping between reality streams, but he's far away he can't find his way back.

How far away? Nevianne and her coven live in the Really Later Roman Empire. There was no battle at the Milvian Gate, no "In Hoc Signo Vinces." Emperor Julian reigned for thirty two years, not three, and he declared parity among religions, establishing a Ministry of Religion, to enforce it. Nevy and her coven are pagans. Athaulf the Visigoth king wasn't murdered in his bath. He reigned with Galla Placidia as Emperor Athaulf I. There was also an Emperor Genseric. There's a synagogue in Flumen Martii, the capital of Agus, which covers Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and part of New York. Asmodeus learns magic from the Archbishop of the Church of Saint Simon Magus.

Under Roman rule North America was settled around 1000 A.D. The population of Agus is about a third native, a third Saxon (and Celtic Briton and some Dane), and a third Latin. The official language is Latin. I don't mention it in the text, but there's also an official Latin Academy and an official Latin language, so there's no official French or Italian or Romanian; there are just different accents. The natives in Nevy's area speak Lenape, and there are Iroquois living to the north. The Susquahannocks aren't extinct. Nor are passenger pigeons.

Nevianne and Asmodeus fall for each other immediately, and hard. She first saw him as her future husband in her first vision when she was nine. Demons can be summoned only by maidens. Once they complete the task, the maiden is theirs forever. Nevy expected to be a human sacrifice to the demon. She and Asmodeus get to mess around a lot, but she has to remain a maiden at least until the wizard is vanquished.

As soon as Asmodeus (he prefers Jack) is Summoned, Palegos sends Nannakussi, his Lenape minion, and his men to kill the entire coven. Blaeda, Nevy's best friend and a member of the coven, who's a Seeress, warns them. Jack constructs an IED from the witches' gunpowder and flour, with rocks for shrapnel, and kills all of Nannakussi's men, burning Nevy's house down in the process. He conks Nannakussi in the head with a chunk of cord wood, defeating him in personal combat. Nannakussi and his wife and five-year-old daughter become Jack's slaves by law. They were Palegos' slaves before.

Besides the witches and the archbishop, there are flying monkeys, monkey-faced bears, a precocious five-year-old witch, a fire-farting imp, and a fight to the death between Asmodeus and a real demon.

Flash Gordon

Don't take a date. Don't take your kids. Don't take Grandma. If they ever have it on TMC, don't watch.

"Fragments of moon rock!" sez Doctor Zarkov, enjoying the glowing, golf ball-sized object on his floor.

"Strange object in the Imperial vortex!" alerts a ruthless minion of Ming the Merciless as they approach Mongo.

Really cheesy dialogue. Really cheesy costumes. Really cheesy effects. Probably the cheese at dinner is cheesy. I suspect the Empire of Mongo subsists on macaroni and cheese, with an occasional cheeseburger for variety.

Ming the Merciless's daughter wears a diamond-studded booby holder! All the aliens are bilaterally symmetrical, upright bipeds wearing funny costumes, many of which don't allow any freedom of movement. They all speak English too, but, y'know, they all got fonny assents.

Leather short shorts--on Flash?... Gassed!... Saved by the nefarious princess!

"Don't you have telepathy on Earth?" she asks as they flee to Arboria.

Dale makes her getaway! She turns cartwheels when she fights! No idea why. No idea how she was trained into her ninja-like ways. She was introduced in the beginning of the movie as a travel agent.

I do like the booby holders all the babes wear, especially the ones who jiggle. But then I do have pretty low tastes.

I suspect the average IQ in the Empire of Mongo isn't precisely 100.

"A young man is being initiated! But we must hide outside until it's done!" Look out! It's a squishy green scorpion thingy! "Send me on my way!" cries the young victim. "Spare me the madness!"

I' pretty sure that was the only way he could think of to get out of the movie.

"You are playing with fire, Aura!" sez Prince Whatsisname. Oh, yeah. Prince Barin. I forgot from one scene to another. "Of course I am!" Have a fireball?

"We can team up and fight him, Barin!" sez Flash. "Lower them into the swamp!" sez Prince Barin. That sort of thing has ruined so many dinner parties!

"Seize the Imperial surgeon on suspicion of treason!" "You're mad!" "Prepare him for torture!"

"Confess!" "No! Never!" "Bring me the bore worms!" "No! Not the bore worms!"

"Sleep well, you traitor! We hang you in the morning!"

"One year in a cavern of ice will cool her blood!" sez His Majesty the Merciless about his only daughter.

"Do you know where you are?" asks Prince Barin. "Up the creek!" sez Flash, in one of his more memorable witticisms.

"Leave him!" hollers the prince. "He's mine! I hunt him alone!"

"Would you leave us alone?" requests Dale, just before the big fight scene, after Flash smooches her and sez something about their impending children. "Ooh! I just got engaged!"

"You tortured Aura!" sez the prince. "Interesting girl. I think she found it rather enjoyable!" Princess Aura is kind of kinky. You can tell that from the way she does her eyebrows.

"We shall return to the Imperial rocket! Leave the Earthling here to his doom!" That always works, doesn't it?

Dale and Principessa Aura meet as Dale's being prepared for her wedding to Ming the Merciless. Pillow fight ensues!

"Dispatch war rocket Ajax to bring back his body!" That's Flash, remember? Last seen left to his doom. Or maybe there were a few scenes in there that everyone, including the actors, forgot.

Ummm... The massed forces of the Hawkmen look like flying monkeys? And one of the Hawkmen looks like he used to sing with Spinal Tap.

So Ming the Merciless is gonna marry Dale (rather than just keeping her as a concubine, which was his original intent) and they're playing Mendelssohn at the marriage ritual.

The Imperial engineers are big on single points of failure. And the Imperial Storm Troopers or whatever they are, are just about as good shots as Emperor Palpatine's.

Verdict: Made as a spoof (of some kind, at least I hope it is), Flash doesn't make the "So Bad It's Good" cut. It's the difference between campy and bad. It's one of those movies you walk out of twenty minutes into it, assuming you last that long, so most people don't get to see the predictable ending. Flash is played by Sam J. Jones. I read somewhere that he beat out Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kurt Russell for the part, to their great relief. Dale is played by Melody Anderson, for whom this movie was the peak of her career. I thought until I looked them up that those were assumed names. The film was produced by Dino De Laurentis, who wanted Fellini to direct it. De Laurentiis also considered hiring Sergio Leone to direct it. He should have gone for Terrence Hill, who could at least have made it funny.

As an aside, George Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon in the 1970s, but de Laurentis had the rights. Instead, he cobbled together something he called Star Wars. 

Honest to God.