Tag: silly romance novels

Ms. Crepuscular’s Last Stand (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Trying to finish composing her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, suddenly found herself standing on a chair besieged by large stick insects, one of which is actually the evil medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, wielding a fly-swatter in defense of her sanity.

(Go ahead–just try to diagram that sentence!)

Yesterday Mr. Pitfall rescued her by blasting the insects with his fire extinguisher. They promptly left the house.

“I am not all right!” Ms Crepuscular confides in her readers. “For two cents I’d throw this book away and start it over!”

Good lord: all CDDXXX chapters? That’s 730, isn’t it–730 chapters scattered to the winds? I beg her not to do it. Mr. Pitfall begs her not to do it. What could be more traumatic than starting Oy, Rodney all over again from scratch? A reader in Kazakhstan begs her not to do it.

Maybe a few days away from the stick insects will calm her down. Forsooth, imagine yourself as a character in Oy, Rodney, confronted by the looming catastrophe of your whole universe dissolving into dust because some writer wants to throw in the towel. Maybe the Oy, Rodney cast should take over writing the book. It could be one of those fictional characters’ collectives.

Find the Sorceror! (Oy, Rodney)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, confides in her readers: “Sometimes real life spills over into fiction–and vice-versa.

“You will recall that the notorious medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, transported himself into the 19th century, only to find that he made an error that turned him into a large stick insect….

What is the definition of a giant stick insect? Are there any giant stick insects in Australia? If so, how many types are there and what do they look like? - Quora

“Horrible, isn’t it! And now imagine several hundred of these converging on your kitchen! That’s what I’m dealing with today!”

We do not know how she’s dealing with it. Suffice it to say it’s an unbearable distraction for anyone trying to write an historical romance. We must also consider the possibility that one of these stick-bugs is actually Black Rodney seeking revenge upon the author.

And so we have no Oy, Rodney chapter for this week: Ms. Crepuscular has been forced to stand on a chair, beating back the stick insects with a Disney World fly swatter. Chapter DCCXXX is just sitting there, waiting for the next chapter. Readers all over the world are disconcerted.

If only she could find the stick insect that’s Black Rodney, and clobber it with the fly swatter! But they all look alike. You could swat a hundred of ’em and still miss Rodney.

The Sorcerer Strikes Back (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

“We are coming down the home stretch!” ululates Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, as she introduces Chapter DCCXXX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. “All I have to do is tie up fifty or sixty loose ends, and it’s a wrap!”

She confides in her legion of readers, “You will remember that the old medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, cast a time-travel spell to bring himself up to the 19th century. At least, you should remember! It’s not something that happens every day.

“Alas! He bungled the spell and came back as a large stick insect–without vocal chords, so he can’t recite a spell that would restore him to human form. Suffice it to say he’s now crawling around Scurveyshire in search of edible leaves.”

Meanwhile, Lady Margo Cargo has mistakenly married her butler, Crusty, thinking him to be Lord Jeremy Coldsore. Crusty was paying no attention at the time, so it was a jolt to him to learn about those nuptials. Lord Jeremy is not amused.

“I’ve a good mind to ask you to shoot that interloper!” he remarks to his friend, the American adventurer Willis Twombley, who thinks he is Sargon of Akkad. Twombley takes it seriously and shoots Crusty in the foot. Now Crusty can’t serve the wine without stumbling and spilling it in Lady Margo’s lap.

“And here we will leave it for the time being,” concludes Ms. Crepuscular. “It’s how we suspense writers crank up the suspense!”

Silly me: I thought they called it “dawdling.”

Bringing Back Rodney (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Introducing Chapter DCCXIX (“How do you pronounce that, anyway?”), Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, explains her decision to bring the evil medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, back into the story.

“I know, I know–the critics are all saying he can’t possibly come back, he must be some 600 years old or more,” she pullulates. “But they have failed to reckon with time-travel spells!”

It has been, however, a long, long time since Rodney used any of those spells; and this time, something has gone wrong.

Black Rodney has come back as a very large stick insect.

“Now that he’s a stick insect,” she explains, “he has no vocal organs. He can’t talk. He can’t pronounce the counter-spell which might restore him to human form. Then again, it might not. These things are very tricky!”

What was the purpose of bringing back Black Rodney after all this time?

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” she cries out loud. “There’s just no pleasing certain people, is there? Just last night my neighbor, Mr. Pitfall, spat out one of my toothpaste brownies! He said it tasted like something from Pnath! I don’t know where that is. But I’ll betcha whoever lives there has healthy teeth!”

We will leave it here, for the moment.The critics are getting restless.

 

Putting the Rodney in ‘Oy, Rodney’

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

“It’s Nose-to-the-Grindstone time!” declares the Queen of Suspense, living legend Violet Crepuscular. “Actually, I did that for real once and it hurt like blazes! I’m lucky my nose grew back!”

Be that as it may, her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, is drifting perilously close to the end–a literary waterfall, so to speak. Introducing Chapter DCCXVIII. Ms. Crepuscular takes up the challenge of explaining why the title character, Black Rodney, fell out of the story a few hundred chapters ago.

“This was by design–us authors are always doing it,” she writes. “I always intended to bring back Rodney when the time was right. And there’s nothing that heats up Rodney’s temper like Picts!”

You’ll recall (or maybe you won’t) that Picts have abducted the Royal Millipede Inspector and carried him off to Portugal, where he married the daughter of a chieftain. Podiatrist Dr. Whatsisname vanished before he could address the problem.

But what a podiatrist can’t do, the malignant spirit of a medieval sorceror… can!

“At least that’s what they tell me,” elucidates Ms. Crepuscular. “Meanwhile, I am preparing hot dogs with toothpaste–ideal for a holiday weekend!”

Dr. Fratsky vs. The Picts (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Trying to get her act back together, Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, embarks on Chapter DCCXIV (give or take a few) of her classic tale of sorcery, revenge, war, and hitherto unheard-of personality quirks. She addresses her readers:

“I am very sorry to have let my narrative falter, these past few weeks,” she precorrugates. “Writing about Picts always does that to me. When they abducted the Royal Millipede dude, my coccyx just about fell off! But let us see whether Dr. Fratsky, the podiatrist, can save him.”

In no time at all she reports that she is unable to find Dr. Fratsky. “He must’ve been called out in an emergency,” she writes. “This is, after all, Victorian England. Podiatric emergencies were all too common then. That’s what got Jack the Ripper started.”

That controversial statement already has the podiatrist community up in arms, and the confounded thing hasn’t even been published yet. There are also some readers in Ohio who are annoyed by the title of the chapter, which they say is misleading.

Do we sense this epic drawing near its end? And who put the Rodney in Oy, Rodney? You’d think she’d settle these things before wrote “finis” to the book.

The Daring Podiatrist (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Introducing Chapter DCCXI of her ambulatory romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular, “The Queen of Suspense,” challenges her readers: “Will the daring middle-aged podiatrist, Dr. Fratsky, be able to bring the Royal Millipede Inspector home from Portugal, whence he was transported by rogue Picts?” (Honk if you know the answer to that question.)

For a podiatrist, Dr. Fratsky takes great big chances. “Did you see him dancing on the roof top during that thunderstorm the other day, waving that old sword around?” Such was the question most often asked at The Lying Tart.

Dr. Fratsky’s theory is, “Find the chap’s real name, and you find the Royal Millipede Inspector.” Lady Margo Cargo’s crusty old butler, Crusty, has already done that; but no one will listen to him because the shire is in one of its snooty moods toward the servant class.

Dr. Fratsky’s method is to make a very long list of guesses and then hope one of them is right. “I can’t say I think much of that procedure,” muses Lord Jeremy Coldsore.

“Well, he did manage to fail all his courses at university,” stroots Dr. Fratsky’s cousin, Johnno the Merry Minstrel. “He stole his degree from a dead man. He really is quite a daredevil.”

Ms. Crepuscular hints darkly: “Get ready for Portugal.”

The Plot Thickens (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Introducing Chapter DCCIX of her interminable romance, Oy, Rodney, Ms. Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense,. confides in her myriads of readers:

“I’m torn,” she writes, “between going back all the way into the Royal Millipede Inspector’s early childhood and jumping ahead to World War I to see how many of my characters are still alive by then. After wrestling with the dilemma all week long (It quite took the magic out of my dinner date with Mr. Pitfall–which I paid for, by the way!), I have decided to follow the advice made famous by Constable Chumley:

“‘Ayr yer vavven cligh yon boodie, gaet snaffle!'”

Proceeding in accord with that age-old wisdom, she brings in yet another character: Johnno the Merry Minstrel’s podiatrist, Dr. Fratsky. His hobby is hoodwinking the Picts. He is seven and a half feet tall, but no one notices. “Later on in life,” Ms. Crepuscular coagulates, “he will come to resemble Tim McCarver. I once had a crush on him, until I heard he was wearing a toupee.”

Management disclaims any and all responsibility for anything said or written by Ms. Crepuscular.

The Millepede Inspector Goes Native (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

In case you have ever wondered how there came to be a district in Portugal inhabited by Picts and devoted to millipede husbandry… well, I guess now you know.

Having forgotten his own name, the Royal Millipede Inspector, after his mostly accidental abduction by the Picts, has married the daughter of the Pictish chief and taken on a Pictish name: Jackie Fernandez.

“You wouldn’t believe the flak I’ve gotten over this name!” Violet Crepuscular, “The Queen of Suspense,” confides in her numberless legion of readers. “This is Chapter DCCVIII of my immortal romance masterpiece, Oy, Rodney–and suddenly I don’t know how to name a character??? Sheesh! If they all know how to write so good, why ain’t they doing it–eh?!”

Heap Millipedes Photos and Images | Shutterstock

(From Clint Eastwood’s A Fistful of Millipedes)

“Now another self-proclaimed Expert out there tells me these are not millipedes but mealworms! O wretched woman that I am!” crinculates Ms. Crepuscular. We cannot but agree. “You would think a Royal Millipede Inspector would know millipedes from mealworms. If not by sight, then by taste.”

We are not anxious to follow her into this particular byway in the plot.

What Makes Her ‘The Queen of Suspense’? (Oy, Rodney)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

What makes Violet Crepuscular “The Queen of Suspense”? What makes Oy, Rodney “the greatest epic romance since “The Odyssey”? These questions have occupied virtually nobody, ever.

Be that as it may, Constable Chumley, finally freed from the outhouse, has a plan to rescue the Royal Millipede Inspector from the Picts [there should be a footnote here, but it seems to have been lost]. “The Chumleys have fought 800 years of war against the Picts,” writes Ms. Crepuscular, introducing Chapter DCCVII of her timeless romance. So you see, it’s not just “epic.”

Explaining his plan, the constable asserts, “Yawph’n hannigal, yer vayvin!” As the plan involves building a fleet of invincible warships and training an entire generation of Scurveyshire in the arts of seamanship, Lord Jeremy Coldsore, Justice of the Peace, has been slow to approve the scheme. “I don’t think the inspector can wait that long, old chap,” he says.

The inspector has meanwhile married the daughter of the Pictish chieftain and has introduced the whole Pictish nation to the finer points of millipede husbandy. This marks a watershed in Pictish history.

“In weeks to come,” Ms. Crepuscular galvasticates, “I will write more chapters of this romance. I was going to take suggestions from readers, but the ones I got were distinctly impolite!”