Finally to my wonderful wife, Sor, I couldn’t have done this without your continued support. Thanks for listening to me ramble on about a bawdy goblin for the last six months and thank you for working so diligently on the art for this book! I’m sorry for asking you to draw weapons and Japanese food over and over again.
Japan
I lived in Japan off and on over the course of a two-year period from 2014 until 2016. My Japanese language skills are far from good, but I am able to get around and I once was pretty good with Katakana. I started in on Hiragana, but work assignments kept me from ever taking the next step. Regarding Kanji, I only know the sign for ‘exit’. For this book, I’ve used mostly Katakana and some Romanji, which is the word used when Japanese words are phoneticized into the English alphabet.
I miss living in Japan dearly, and I find myself reading about it quite often. Books, both fiction and nonfiction, that have gone into the making of the Fantasy Online series include Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein; Gangsters, Geishas, Monks and Me by Gordon Hutchison; Number9Dream by David Mitchell; Roppongi by Nick Vasey; and Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo by Michael Pronto. I was also inspired by a number of animes, too many to list here.
There’s more to this picture than meets the eye.
If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to review Fantasy Online: Hyperborea.
Your reviews help other readers decide if the book is worth checking out. They also (hint hint) help the writer write faster. I plan to get the second book in this series out at the end of this year and at the latest, in January 2018. In the meantime, catch up on the backstory of the Proxima world known as Tritania in The Feedback Loop series or check out what the future may hold for Ryuk and Hajime in the Life is a Beautiful Thing series.
Yours in sanity,
Harmon Cooper
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Writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com
P.S. If you have yet to discover the biggest Easter egg that relates to this series, message me on Facebook or send me an email and I’ll let you in on the secret!
Fantasy Online Merch!
More merch to come, but here’s what there is so far for the Fantasy Online series!
Click here to visit www.harmoncooper.com where you can pick up signed books and merch.
Read more about Tritania and other worlds in the Proxima Galaxy in The Feedback Loop series!
P.S. The Feedback Loop stars Quantum Hughes, whom you know as FeeTwix’s inspiration (aka the guy with the big inventory list).
The Feedback Loop preview
Book One
By Harmon Cooper
Edited by George C. Hopkins
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!?”
“Let … Me … Go!”
Morning Assassin spits digital blood into my face, baring his pearly whites. He is a gangly man, sharp-faced and always 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!”
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 a single cigarette from 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.
It’s the only way to keep track of how long I’ve been imprisoned.
8.05 AM. Morning Assassin smashes through the window, just as he has done the last 545 days in a row. I’m behind him in a heartbeat, driving the ice pick into his NPC skull He jerks once, twitches and falls; I’m unable for the 546th time to get information out of him. I can try again tomorrow morning.
My Loop-life is planned to a T. Once I kill the assassin, a crow flies by the window over my bed. It lands on the ledge outside the window, pecks its filthy beak against the glass. A dark cloud passes in front of the sun, ready to add downcast rain to the shit-stained streets outside the hotel. From there it’s to the dresser.
Dressing in the Loop is a snap; it’s automatic. In the blink of an eye, I’m in a pair of black boots with loosened laces, stompers with steel toes. My mirror tells me that my hair is already slicked back, my skin almost translucent, my eyes dark, lifeless, dull, sorrowful, frosted. I can change any number of the things through my attributes menu, from my hair color to my eye color to my size and my girth. This has no effect on my stats.
I decide to go with a hat for today, selecting it from a drop down menu that appears in the air before me. The benefits of a virtual entertainment dreamworld needn’t be explained here – everything is accessible at my fingertips aside from freedom… aside from a way to log out of The Loop.
I chose a black military cap, tight, with a short brim. My blond hair grows out from underneath, styling itself. It isn’t hard to look good in The Loop.
I kick open my door, just in case there’s someone in the hallway waiting to ambush me. While the happenings around me are always the same, sometimes there is a surprise or two, which leaves me to believe that something is watching me, toying with me, cynically monitoring my cyclical existence. Possibly the NVA Seed, but I’ve long since given up my search for the world’s puppet master.