Get the book of a delusional Walter Mitty-type madman published!

[lazyguy]

Harper-Collins (the multinational book publisher owned by News Corp.) has set up a website, [url=http://www.authonomy.com]authonomy[/url], where authors can get their books on the web. People 'vote' for them by 'backing' them. The top five books every month get read by a committee.

A person I know wrote a book, and put it on there.

He's going under the pseudonym Jack Stirling on the site. I won't reveal his real name, but a clue to his character can be revealed when you remember that David Stirling was the man who created the SAS. This is not a coincidence.

This man is practically living in his own little world. He believes many, many contradicting stories about himself, mainly about him being in some secret service or another. His latest story is that he was once Colonel Gadaffi's bodyguard. Eventually he was disowned by his family. He describes himself like this: [quote]I worked in the private sector and for the Government both in the UK and every Arab country in North Africa and the Middle East. Sometimes in uniform. More often in civvies. My insight into the Arab mind came from 25 years of working closely with Arabs and Muslims. Current world circumstances demand a book like BLINDFOLD must be written. It is a warning. Frightening but inevitable! [/quote]

His book is called 'Blindfold', about Al Quaeda planning a terrorist attack on that symbol of Western Decadence, the Yorkshire Moors. Oh yeah.

[quote]Terrorism in the Yorkshire Dales. Never! Are you sure? Pieces of a jigsaw amazingly fit together. The threat is about to become a terrifying reality.
Smack up to the minute modern day terrorism. Although fiction, much is based on fact. Places mentioned are accurate and do exist.
The terrorists Mursi and Al Liby (both with several aliases) were still at large at the time of writing. Each worth $5,000,000. Dead or alive!
The action takes place, mainly, in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. Lidice, a small village much like Hawes, remains a memorial to the villagers who perished at the whim of a cruel and merciless Nazi SS Officer during WW11 [B]World War Eleven! - Ed.[/B]. Al Quaeda decide that Hawes should be their target. They consider wiping out an entire town will have even more impact than 9/11. They have just the weapon to do it.!
At the time of writing, Al Quaeda did not possess any type of nuclear device. This situation has drastically altered. A chilling factor has emerged. All the major intelligence agencies are firmly of the opinion that Al Quaeda has, now, obtained some form of nuclear weapon. What they intend doing with it is anyone's guess. Perhaps not Hawes but you can be absolutely certain that they have every intention of wreaking terrible havoc. Sometime. Somewhere. The clock is ticking. You have been warned. [/quote]

That's his description. It's probably the [I]most[/I] fluent piece of prose in the project. They've disallowed even selecting text on the website, and it's 'encrypted' in the source (basically put into ASCII or Unicode or something. Solvable but it'd take more time than just copying the real thing out.), so I've retyped some of the best bits.

[quote]'Tom, a bird on the phone for you.' Called out Toms boss. 'Tell her not to phone you at work another time'
'Tom Prescott.' Into the mouthpiece.[/quote]
[quote]'Hold your horses I need to ask my boss if it is ok.'[/quote]
[quote]Sir, Deptford here!'
'Yes Inspector what can I do for you?' Enquired Stewart.
'Just as you left here the owner said he overheard the two men arguing about a helicopter. As soon as they realised he was there they shut up until he had removed the dirty dishes. He heard their hushed voices again as he left the room.'[/quote]
[quote]Mahasheer was sitting in a small office when Midhat Mursi strode in, clothed in his full Arab outfit, only his eyes showing.[/quote]
Despite being classified (that's the kind of word he'd like) as 'Completed', it is still a work in progress. Currently, the latest chapter is 97, which was uploaded today and is, confusingly, headed as Chapter 45. At this point in time the work contains brilliant examples of:
*Hardly any punctuation in dialogue
*Using friends and family members' names for characters
*Being absolute shit
*Gratuitous Arabic
*Having everyone say 'fluff' instead of 'fuck'. Fluff is also the name of one of the characters.

If this gets published I can only imagine that it will be hilarious. You have to register to back him but it's free and only requires an email address. We could easily get this into the top five. Even if the committee decides not to publish it the changes they suggest will probably be hilarious, and 'Jack' will get in a right mardy, which will be funny. Alternatively, they could love it and push for it to be finished, which will be great! Read and back the book here: [url]http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=14938[/url]

[Sigma-Lambda]

i wish I got phone calls from birds