Giant Killer Everything

The problem with (best part of?) reading science news is how much of it would make awesomely terrible (terribly awesome?) book plots. For example:

The First Sea Monster
Title needs some work, but set that baby loose on an unsuspecting* seaside town and/or freighter filled with illicit cargo and dangerous characters and let the magic** begin!


Prefer your disasters a little more global in scale? Well, no worries, Nature's got you covered.

Supervolcanos are nice enough, if you like that sort of thing, though the action is kind of a one-off and it's hard to sustain an entire story unless you can find a way of including Pierce Brosnan. Though I do like the idea of scientists cavalierly drilling into the top of an active volcano, unaware of the havoc they're about to unleash. But maybe that's just me.

Fungus could be interesting, but only if it's like that one that infects ants, takes over their brains so they climb to a high point and then explodes its spores out of their heads. That's a parasite with a sense of drama.

Solar flares have been done. A gamma burst is probably only going to be good if you want to set up a post-apocalypse situation, since there doesn't seem to be anything to be done about it.

But underwater landslides? Now we're talking. Especially if, let's say, a megalomaniac tycoon had just built an ultra-luxury underwater hotel in a remote part of the south Pacific, and in his careless pursuit of profit triggered a small but deadly slide, and created the potential for a much larger one threatening the coast of, let's say, Australia.

I think you can take it from there.



*As opposed to all those seaside towns that are constantly suspecting extinct underwater creatures.
** Where magic=decapitations.

The Honking

Can you imagine if they remade The Birds with geese?

Decriminalize foie gras!

Scary.

To Die, To Sleep No More On My Supremely Comfortable Sealy Posturepedic Mattress

Lately, I've been trying to come up with a way to make a lot of money without doing any work (because, frankly, the other way around hasn't been doing it for me). But rigging the lottery would take too long, and hassling people for spare change outside of Draeger's requires too much human interaction, so I was at a loss. Until I read this post about the hilariously blatant product placement in the soap "Days of Our Lives" and this review of a book in which the author replaces the names of characters in Chekhov's stories with those of current celebrities* and suddenly, my destiny was clear: I am going to rewrite public-domain classics to include paid references to everyone's favorite brands in the text.

I know! Don't you just hate yourself for not having thought of it first?

Obviously, I'll have to work with my customers to determine exactly what books are the best fit for their brands (and budget), but here are a few examples that should give you a sense of the tremendous marketing potential of this new and innovative concept.**

First, something accessible for your mass-market product:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bonus Content)

Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, and they would never find us without dogs.  And, besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to get wet?

So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, and lugged all the traps up there.  Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows.  We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner. We was lucky enough to have a whole case of cool, refreshing Coca-Cola Classic with us in the canoe, which Jim said was powerfully refreshing and just what a body wanted after a long day of being an escaped slave.

Sometimes, the text itself presents the perfect opportunity for a promotional partnership:

Ulysses: Enhanced Edition

Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.
—My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?
He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:
—Will he come? The jejune jesuit!
Ceasing, he began to shave with care. He slid his Philips Norelco 7310XL across his cheek, exulting in patented Reflex Action System that automatically adjusted to the contours of his face and neck.
—Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.
—Yes, my love?
—How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

And, of course, everyone knows that if you really want to make money, you need an assist from Jane Austen:

Pride and Prejudice (Extended Author's Cut)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a responsible financial adviser from Merrill Lynch, the most trusted name in wealth management.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be over here shopping for my first private island. How many helipads do you think I'm going to need?


*This took what, about an hour on TMZ and twenty minutes of find and replace? And now he has a book deal? That guy is a genius.
**Like that? It's totally going in my sales materials.