It is my distinct pleasure today to welcome Elexabith and Jemafer Geggelkek to my blog. My account of their adventures has been steadily climbing the non-fiction bestseller lists, and although this is happening in Alternate Universe 5, I hope soon to duplicate that feat in my own universe. But without further ado, let's get down to the interview.

        Me: Hello, ladies.

        Lex: Hello, asshole.

        Jem: Hello, shit head.

        Me: Um, what seems to be the matter?

        Lex: What's the matter? Your book is bullshit, that's what's the matter!

        Jem: Yeah, you portray us as sex crazed bimbos who think of nothing but men all day long.

        Me: That's not true.

        Lex: Bullshit! Why didn't you mention that I recently completed my master's degree in mathematics at the University of Glasgow and I won second prize from the British Botanical Society for my hybrid orchids?

        Jem: And I have a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Edinburg and I've had six poems published in The Londoner magazine, which is a helluva lot more prestigious than your dumb New Yorker. Did you mention any of that? No!

        Me: Those facts weren't germane to the central theme.

        Lex: What central theme? That we're horny bitches who can't stop fucking and fighting? Completely and utterly untrue!

        Jem: We hardly ever fight. But ever since your dumb book came out, people keep coming up to me and asking me why I hate my sister.

        Lex: You took a few spats and blew them way out of proportion.

        Jem: What about all the long talks we've had about classical music and medieval history and all the movies we go to, and the fun we had as co-coaches of the youth lacrosse league at Leeds Preparatory School?

        Lex: All that stuff was in your sorry manuscript when we read it over, and then whiff! Gone!

        Jem: You took it out without our permission.

        Me: I had to pare down the manuscript because my publishers announced they weren't able to accept anything longer than 50,000 words till next year. I wanted it published this year, so I had to trim a lot of stuff.

        Lex: Funny you never mentioned that.

        Jem: Yeah!

        Me: I did. On the very first page of the book, I said I had to get rid of three chapters.

        Jem: but you didn't say why.

        Me: I couldn't tell the reader that I cut three chapters to make it shorter. I don't like to break the fourth wall. And what I mean by that is...

        Jem: Hey, I know what the Fourth Wall is. You don't have to tell me. I've been published in The Londoner, and I know more about writing than you'll ever know!

        Me: Oh. Well escuuuuse me!

        Lex: Look, I don't care what you told the readers. You never told US you were cutting a bunch of stuff. That's what pisses me off.

        Jem: Why didn't you get our permission?

        me: You're a little hard to get ahold of. Communicating with alternate dimensions isn't the easiest thing in the world. You should see my electricity bill for the last month.

        lex: Poor baby

        jem: Excuses, excuses.

        lex: And speaking of that first page, what's with that stupid narrator condemning us for blasphemy and perversion and sin? What's up with that? Who is that asshole?

        me: He's a character I made up. I thought it was a rather clever narrative device.

        Lex: You know what I think? You put that stupid narrator guy in there so you could write all that dirty stuff and then pretend you didn't approve of it, so if some prudes complained about your book you could agree with them and say, 'I know, I know, I'm just as appalled as you were.' Fucking hypocrite!

        jem: You focused your book on sex -- not because you thought it portrayed us as we really are, but because YOU'RE a dirty old man and that's all YOU ever think about!

        me: Well, I wouldn't say that's all I EVER think about...

        Lex: Bull. You've been staring at our boobs the entire time we've been here.

        me: That's not true. I've spent half the time staring at your legs. Just kidding! Just kidding!

        jem: Well we're not kidding. We're going to sue your fat ass. Laugh at that, corn boy.

        me: I'm sorry you're unhappy, but let me point out that "The Caskian Scandal" has made you oodles of money.

        lex: Can money buy back our reputations?

        me: How have I damaged your reputations? You get thousands of emails from fans every week.

        jem: Perverts, you mean.

        lex: Guys hitting on us and sending us pix of their private parts.

        jem: Or somebody else's private parts. How are we to know who's who and what's what?

        Me: I'm sorry to hear that.

        Lex: Not as sorry as you're going to be when the libel suit hits.

        Me: You won't win. You can't claim libel if the book is true. And everything in that book happened. It might be condensed, but everything is true.

        Lex: Bullshit.

        Me: Name one incident in the book that didn't happen. Just one.

        Lex: the bathtub incident. We did not do Thatchan Tane at the same time. It was separate incidents.

        Jem: And that stuff with Vilidi in the tent. I didn't just jump into his furs the minute I saw him. There was a long and meaningful conversation first, as we got to know each other as human beings.

        Me: Uh, I wouldn't say Vilidi was exactly human, was he?

        Jem: Oh, now you're being mister accurate? Too bad you didn't care about accuracy when you wrote that tripe.

        Lex: And for your information, I wasn't in the tent while Jem and Vilidi were going at it. I was out feeding the turtle.

        Me: OK, a minor mistake. Anything else?

        Jem: Yeah, the way you described our clothes throughout the book. According to you, we wore our nighties the entire time and they were flimsy little peek-a-boo things.

        Lex: And you know damn well we were in terrycloth bathrobes, not faeiriespun nighties, and during most of our adventure we were in normal street clothes.

        Jem: And what about that part where you said I let Mister Caspinger use some sort of radar dildo on me? It was an experimental treatment device to combat yeast infections with electrostatic impulses. Oh sure, I'll admit I had an orgasm, but that was an unforeseen byproduct of the experiment that neither he nor I anticipated.

        Me: And yet, thanks to publicity from my book, his radar dildo is the best selling sexual aid on the market.

        Lex: It's all about money with you, isn't it, Stan?

        Jem: Well you won't have your money for long, after the jury gives it all to us!

        Me: What exactly are you going to sue me for? Condensing a book? Gee, if that's against the law, Reader's Digest is really in trouble!

        Lex: Oh, you can laugh about it now. But you'll regret selling us out. You could have written something with deep insights and meaningful reflections on broad sociological issues. Instead, you cranked out a steaming pile of smut!

        Me: Look, let me explain something to you. I wrote a book about a heavyset female private eye who goes looking for a missing archaeologist. It was full of deep insights and meaningful reflections. It sold squat. I wrote a book about some hot male dancers kidnapped by female soldiers. It was full of deep insights and meaningful reflections. It sold a few copies. I wrote about two horny goblin girls and it's sold five thousand copies so far and counting, and a famous Japanese anime director has contacted my agent asking about movie rights. You think anybody would want to make a movie about a woman studying for her finals in mechanical engineering? Or two women coaching their youth lacrosse team to second place in the all-Leeds Under 16 Tournament? Puh-leeze!

        Lex (rising from chair): OK, that's enough. I'm not going to sit here and be insulted. You coming Jem?

        Jem (also rising): I'm with you, sis.

        Me (also rising): I'm sorry our little talk couldn't have been more amiable. But someday, when "The Caskian Scandal" is heralded as one of the best erotic steam-goth satires of the decade, you'll change your tune!

        Jem: Uh, how many other erotic steam-goth satires are there?

        Me: That's not the point.

        Lex: No, I'll tell you what the point is, Stan. You've pissed us off. And it's not smart to piss off goblins.

        Jem: Yeah.

        Me: OK, whatever.

        ***

        If the Geggelkeks had stuck around, I intended to show them the five-star review my book got from the New York Times, and the letter advising me that "The Caskian Scandal" has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award. Maybe after they calm down they'll read this blog entry and change their minds about me. In the meantime, I'm going to lock the portal and change the coordinates. Because, as we all know, if you piss off goblins, lawsuits are the least of your worries.