American Visidramas, feat. Unofficial Katy & the Starseeds
Meet Unofficial Katy, and your little index file
I’m hoping that title sort of says it all really, by way of explanation.
So this is essentially your pinned intro/index post for this new Unofficial-K section, which is where you will find all my Unofficial Katy stories. Both the ones featuring her in a leading role, as well as some of the stories which she herself wrote, during her misadventurous journeys through various parallel versions of reality. Yes, it will get a little postmodern. Mischievous, that is, as befits her character.
So in this post, I will give you a brief introduction to Katy, as well as some of the other characters you will be meeting along the way. Then I shall give you a little list of stories, with appropriate links where available. Obviously that will be updated as and when these stories are available (likewise as and when – or if – I ever get round to writing some of them. As you’ll see, some of them are as yet unwritten, and range from ‘title with a few lines of an idea’ to ‘detailed outline with several scenes already written’.).
On that note, I am also publishing this today in advance of the forthcoming premiere of Katy’s second great misadventure, which has the superb title Pinko Commie Superbunker, the first thrilling episode of which will be in a theatre near you tomorrow. There’ll be seven episodes in total, as on review I discovered it’s around the 14.7k word mark. So I have, indeed, reviewed it (no typos – yay!), and split it into seven. For more details, see below.
One of the reasons I say ‘coming to a theatre near you’ is because pretty much all of these stories are me writing in a very cinematic way. And in a knowing way too. That’s to say you’ll find a fair few mischievous and humorous references to the fact that what’s really going on is that you are watching a movie. This sort of postmodern mischief only increases as some of these stories go on, until by the time you get to Katy’s McGuffin some of the characters themselves are making overt references to the fact that they are in the process of making a movie. For another – unrelated – story in this fashion, I’ll put you onto Johnny Gone to Charon, over in my Spec Fic section. And if you’ve read and enjoyed that one then you will surely enjoy this section likewise.
Similarly, this explains the series title – American Visidramas. Obviously a visidrama being the futuristic, or extraterrestrial, even, word for what humans call a movie (or a theatrical play, even). At some point, I do intend to release a collection with that title, although it’ll probably turn into a series, given the number of stories (and thus total word count) we’re dealing with here.
Anyway, I am in danger of going off on one again, and that simply won’t do.
So, with that in mind, here is a brief intro to some of the characters, and then I’ll give you a little taster of the stories.
By the way, you have no need to worry about spoilers in any of these character descriptions. The characters are introduced very early on in the stories (especially Katy), which sort of means that as a writer I can just get on with the plot. Having said that, by the time we get to Katy’s third outing, Katy Gone to Mars, I find myself not being able to be bothered with that so much anymore, and rather just lazily assume people have already read the earlier stories and know the characters. Which is partly a measure of the fact that I’d started envisaging the thing as a series by then.
Likewise, in the pervasive mischievous postmodern theme, you’ll find Katy in particular making a few humorous allusions to the characters from previous stories. This is because each of these stories are set in a parallel version of reality. Whilst Katy herself is aware of all these different versions, the other characters are not, and so she permits herself a good amount of fun with that. For a kind of outtake semi-explanation of this parallel world feature, there is the little vignette called Katy Disconnect which is in my Immigration Control collection (as yet unpublished – I’ll link to it as and when).
Characters
Unofficial Katy
Katy Major is her full name. Obviously that’s a version of Katrina Meyer, but that’s just more mischief on my part. Katy is the character of mine who most closely resembles me. We share the same birthday (10 February 1973), for example, she is southern English by birth, and we both write offbeat and ironic speculative fiction and have a lot of playful fun with conspiracy theories. We both take some of these theories seriously (in the sense of believing in some of them), but we also know not to take ourselves seriously in doing so. Because that way lies madness, frustration, rage and despair. Unlike me, however, Katy is a very successful SF writer, and has a devoted army of fans. The Establishment don’t like her, of course, not simply because she writes scurrilous diatribes (thinly veiled as ‘fiction’) against them, but because they know that she knows everything about them (those conspiracy theories, remember). Katy is aware of this, and so happily provides them with a means of discrediting her in the eyes of the general public, which consists in her openly talking and writing about being a Starseed, that’s to say an extraterrestrial incarnated into a human for a lifetime. In her case, she says she is a Paschat, a leonine lifeform from Sirius. And she does have obvious feline traits, like curiosity and mischief. At the same time, she can be very loving. But very serious too.
The seed for this character, despite the fact that it’s me, really, can first be seen in the humorous little vignette I already published, called Fortunately, I was Saved by the Aliens, which you can read at that link. This one sort of leads into a parallel world version which becomes Ciao, SETI! (see below). I also have the title story from Immigration Control, which is about a Starseed writer on her way to a convention in America, and has to pass through the eponymous immigration control at JFK International. During this, she has fleeting memory flashes of her previous incarnations as an extraterrestrial. The attitude of the character in that story is pretty much the same as Katy’s, in the sense of a determined anti-Americanism.
Anyway, that’s quite a long intro for Katy. I’ll keep it a little shorter for the others.
Phoebe Drake
We first meet Phoebe in Ciao, SETI!, where she is a sassy young astronomy postgrad working at the Parkes Radio Observatory in Australia. Technically, without giving too much away, she is sort of like a cousin to Katy. If you haven’t read Ciao, SETI! yet then I can’t really say much more without spoilers. Phoebe doesn’t appear in Katy’s second adventure, and is only peripherally mentioned in the third (or fourth, I can’t remember – I’ll edit this later). She will feature again, however, in the fifth story, which is simply called Event Day. Again, however, this is another parallel lifetime, so it’s not the same Phoebe. Confused? Don’t worry, you soon won’t be.
Alex/Nathan
Alex first appears in Ciao, SETI!, in the guise of a member of ‘The Group’ (as Katy calls them). The Group is composed of humans who take the whole Starseed and ETI phenomenon seriously. Yes, think X-Files and you’re halfway there. Alex, indeed, is sort of modelled a little on the very cool Alex Krycek out of X-Files, and if you want to picture him then you may as well picture Nicholas Lea, the actor who portrayed Krycek. So he is about thirty years’ old, give or take. Whether The Group is bad guys or not is kind of ambiguous. On the one paw, when they first started they did carry out some pretty nefarious activities with regards to Starseeds (which Katy wrote a story about – see below), but after that kind of got sternly nipped in the bud they have settled down into simply studying the ETIs. However, that isn’t to say there aren’t rogue elements. I seriously do need to write some more stories about The Group if I’m honest, especially as I really like the Alex incarnation of the character.
By the time we get to Katy’s second adventure, Alex has effortlessly metamorphosed into Nathan. In Pinko Commie Superbunker Nathan is a lot more tame than Alex, obviously has zero memory of that incarnation, and plays a kind of deadpan sidekick role, frequently being the butt of Katy’s teasing. In the third story, however, you will see him definitely channelling more Alex, in the secret intelligence service sort of thing. Katy doesn’t mention that she recognises him until the third story, however. Anyway, I like this character. And so does Katy, fondly enough.
Whilst we’re on the subject of X-Files, Gillian Anderson kind of shows up in a cameo at the end of Katy’s McGuffin, essentially playing Katy in the movie.
Lisa
Lisa is another member of The Group, who first shows up in Area 51 in Katy Gone to Mars. She’s maybe same age as Alex/Nathan. She definitely needs more roles in these stories. And maybe a surname too for that matter. Likewise Alex/Nathan.
Caligula Jones
Cali, as he is known to his friends, is the world’s third richest guy. Unlike the likes of Musk and Bezos, however, he genuinely isn’t a sociopath. He’s not averse to a little neoliberal cunning, but when he does philanthropy he doesn’t do it just to make himself look good, but rather he sincerely means it, and often does it without any fanfare. Also, he did in fact invent stuff (unlike Musk), and has worked hard, and he treats his employees with respect (unlike Bezos – and Musk too, for that matter). Cali is around the mid-fifties in age, and quite good-looking. He has one of those charming film star smiles. Which is a nice cue for more postmodern pop culture references. Cali first turns up in Pinko Commie Superbunker.
So far, those are the main characters you will meet. There are other more peripheral or minor characters, who may or may not play larger roles in the future. There is Bryn Bradman for example, who effectively stars opposite Phoebe in Ciao, SETI!. I haven’t any plans to reincarnate him in a future Katy story yet, but I may well do.
Then there are various cameos from real-world people. The aforementioned Deodorant Guy (Elon Musk) does indeed have a speaking part in Katy’s McGuffin, and he is mentioned in Pinko Commie Superbunker.
Various American Presidents will also be making an appearance. In Pinko Commie Superbunker, although he’s not specifically named, it’s pretty obvious that Biden is the intended target. Trump will appear as the President Elect in Katy’s McGuffin (this was an anticipation of mine, as the election hadn’t happened when I wrote it).
Then there is the arch-conspiracy theorist himself, Alex Jones (no relation to Cali), who, if you don’t know, runs the Infowars dot com alt.right/conspiracy theory channel. As a little background, you may remember he was successfully prosecuted several years ago over his loud opinions about the Sandy Hook school shooting, which he believes was a fake/staged event. Some of the victims/relatives sued him successfully, and if I remember correctly they were awarded an absurd sum of around 1 billion petrodollars. Obviously Alex Jones doesn’t have 1 billion dollars, so there are a fair few jokes about that in some of these stories. In Pinko Commie Superbunker Alex Jones only appears on the radio (in the bedroom of a delightfully odd and sexually vivacious couple, as you’ll see). He has a visual role, however, in Katy’s McGuffin. The reason he gets a cameo is because of this playful mischief about conspiracy theories – the fictional Jones here would be completely aware of Katy, and probably believes every word she says.
Then there’s Spielberg. Yes, the movie director Spielberg. We are talking about ETs here, after all. So there’s a lot of fun stuff going on there. See Katy’s McGuffin for more details.
There is also a girl called Maisie who is a weathergirl in Pinko Commie Superbunker, and then seems to have received a little promotion by the time we get to Katy’s McGuffin. I will have to do something more with her at some point too.
Anyway, those are some of the main characters for now. I am in danger of making this intro far too long.
The Stories
Unofficial Katy stories
So these are the ones in which Katy herself has a starring role. In order, then, we have
Ciao, SETI! – Whilst Katy languishes in a prison, Phoebe, a sassy young astronomy postgrad, has to foil the dastardly SETI organisation from covering up a genuine signal from ETI which, if made public, could liberate the world. That’s the hidden reason for the recommendations in the Brookings Report, of course – by ‘the social fabric will collapse’ (in the event of public knowledge of other intelligences) what they really mean is ‘our mechanisms of social control will collapse’. Obviously this theme crops up a lot in my writing. It’s part of the conspiracy theory thing, in case you hadn’t guessed. I split this one into 8 parts, as it’s around 16k words long.
Pinko Commie Superbunker – Katy is sequestered to help Caligula Jones design a superbunker, because he believes what she has written about the end of the world being nigh. This one starts tomorrow, in seven parts. It’s around 14.7k words.
Katy Gone to Mars – Katy again gets sequestered, this time she is taken to Area 51 (to her delight, as a conspiracy theorist, you know), where The Group hope to lure her into a foo fighter and send her off to Mars. This one is around the 17k mark, so I would imagine I’ll split it into 8-10 parts.
Katy’s McGuffin – Katy is once again asked for help, this time from NASA, because they know perfectly well their Artemis moon programme isn’t going to work for the same reasons they had to fake the Apollo landings. Still, there is such a thing as a foo fighter. This is, as it happens, a direct sequel to Katy Gone to Mars, in the sense that it’s set in the same (parallel world) lifetime. This one is around the 7.2k mark. It’s now paid subscribers-only, I’m afraid.
Event Day – This story is set in a parallel version in which people have taken Katy’s writing seriously and the general public believe in the Starseed phenomenon and the impending Event Day, although Katy refuses to say what’s going to happen. Phoebe is an ‘event day baby’ because she will be 18 years’ old precisely on Event Day. She is asked to appear on a TV show on the morning of the day, in which Katy will also be a guest. This story is written a bit more seriously than the other ones, which are blatant comedies. In my defence, it was a little rushed for a deadline. So I may revisit it at some point. This one is just shy of 7k words.
So that’s five so far. I have some outtakes and deleted scenes and suchlike, as well as the intro to a new story (which I have no idea where it’s going), so there will be more Katy at some point. It’ll be a while until we get to the end of story number five anyway, so I have a fair amount of time to write them.
Stories that Katy wrote
In Katy’s world(s), then, as I said she is a writer of speculative fiction. As such, obviously she wrote a fair few stories. So I am going to pass off some of mine as, actually, hers.
So, the original setlist for a tentative anthology called American Visidramas, feat. Unofficial Katy & the Starseeds, was going to look something like this:
Part One – Unofficial Katy…
Alt.Contact – Shari’ana’s cousin Kit’sa-shey steals her ship, slips through the hypergate to Planet Danuih (that’s your planet, in case you didn’t know) whilst it’s configured to send a message back in time to the early 21st century, whereupon she does a little joyriding through the solar system, then decides to buzz the humans and pay a visit to Number Ten Downing Street to pay her respects to the Prime Minister in her own particular fragrant idiom. This story is alluded to at the beginning of Ciao, SETI!.
XF – This is an offbeat First Contact story, which you can read at that link. You could, I suppose, possibly see the woman in the story as a different (i.e. parallel) version of Katy. Or me, even.
Fortunately, I was Saved by the Aliens – This is the proto-Katy story in which the protagonist is in a prison when the aliens arrive in their spaceships and effectively cause a revolution. I already published this one – you can read it at that link. Yeah, this one’s got a lot of me in it too.
Katy Disconnect – I don’t want to say too much about this one; it’s disjointed anyway and a series of little musings which ended up setting the series in which ‘Katy has fourteen incarnations in various parallel versions of this world’ – each of which ends up being one of the Katy stories. It’ll be appearing later this year as part of the Immigration Control collection.
Ciao, SETI! – see above.
Part Two - …& the Starseeds
The Final Abduction – A Starseed is abducted from Laurel Canyon in 1973, awaking to find herself in some holding cell in an unnamed deep state facility (something along the lines of Area 51 or somesuch). This story is alluded to in Ciao, SETI! in a conversation between Katy and Alex.
Starseeds – This is a more contemporary take on the previous one. In which Dr. Mary Tilford is a psychologist who has an interest in the Starseed phenomenon, and has several patients who claim to be Starseeds. Then one of her patients goes missing…
Immigration Control – A Starseed, who is also a writer, has to go through immigration control at JFK International, and remembers her previous lives as an extraterrestrial. It does crossover with the Paschats stuff. There’s a bit of entirely deliberate and self-conscious intersectionality going on in this one. It was sort of written to market, so to speak, in the sense that ‘intersectionality’ seems to get published these days. This one didn’t, ironically enough.
Part Three – American Visidramas
Pinko Commie Superbunker – see above.
Vital American Statistics – In the near future, America is an occupied country with a vastly depleted population. The occupying forces offer euthanasia windows of opportunity to Americans, based on ‘readings’ which can tell when their next incarnation will be good or bad. The beleaguered American President Kane, who is little more than a vassal, decides to get a reading done. But does she have some scheme or motive in mind to help the resistance?
The Compatibility Award Nominations – This one is set sometime towards the end of the 21st century (if I remember correctly – it’s near future anyway), in which humanity has made contact with the ETI at Alpha Centauri, but only selected few are allowed to visit, based on their (psychological) compatibility. This was intended to be a sort of ‘young adult’ type of thing (again – this was when I was thinking commercially), in which the protagonist, a teenage boy, is in line to potentially win the compatibility awards and get to travel to Centauri, but isn’t really sure he wants to win. There’s a girl who may also win, who likes him, so there’s a predictable bit of plot there. It’s intended to be a sort of coming-of-age story, for both the two main characters and humanity itself (without being pretentious, I hasten to add). This one needs a bit of work, I think, although I’ve seen the ending in my head and it does look lovely.
Katy Gone to Mars – see above.
An American Visidrama – This is the final tour de force comedy sci-fi movie, being a retelling of Katy’s The Final Intervention, in which humans undertake their first interstellar voyage to Alpha Centauri and meet the ETI there. There’s definitely a knowing element of Shakespeare’s Tempest in it. My novella version of this (from Rejected Messages) isn’t really a comedy, whereas this one is, complete with caricature Americans who have just stepped out of a classic 1950s Sci-Fi movie. It is, in fact (or will be, if I ever finish it) intended to be told as if it were a 1950s classic, or a remake of a 1950s classic. In my head, this one is simply superb. I really must finish it for you. I already have a fair few thousand words of it, so there is hope…
As you may already know if you’re familiar with my other collection Immigration Control, I ended up rethinking the whole thing when I realised I had enough stories already written for that collection. So whilst the above setlist would make for a very cool anthology, I am going to stick with Immigration Control for now. Likewise, I already have enough Katy stories for an anthology all to herself, in advance of writing some of those as-yet-unfinished ones. If I add Katy’s McGuffin and Event Day, and include Fortunately, I was Saved by the Aliens and Katy Disconnect, then we’re on about 65k words or so, which is a reasonable length for a little Unofficial Katy Volume One, or a better title. Given that all those are already written, it also means I can in fact go ahead and publish it, along with Immigration Control. So that’s what I intend to do sometime this year. And of course you will be the first to know. And if you can afford to become a paid subscriber, then you will get those books for free! By that time I am also hoping I have gotten my head around this print-on-demand thing, because I personally would far prefer an actual physical book, than an e-book. In the same way that vinyl sounds better.
There are some other stories for which I also have either copious notes or outlines and some scenes. Whether these turn out to be Katy stories or not is another matter. A lot of them fit very well with the Paschat stories, the main long novella (around 35k words) of which is in my Rejected Messages collection. In Katy’s world, that story becomes her novel The Final Intervention, which is mentioned in Pinko Commie Superbunker. What happens with some of those stories, I don’t know yet. When I do know, I will let you know.
Anyway – this has been a far longer intro than I was intending. So I shall attempt to wrap it up.
I think what I shall do with Katy on Substack, just to entice people, is to give you her first two stories for free. After this, her adventures will be for my paid subscribers. Katy’s McGuffin is still unlocked, though – if you wish to read it, hurry up and do so because I shall put it behind a paywall soon enough. As for all those other stories, however, most of them will be free, which means I am going to have to be self-disciplined, true to my word, and actually write them for you. I will set myself a deadline of writing all of them this year.
So there, that’s it. Welcome to Unofficial-K. I hope you have a lot of fun. I certainly did writing these stories. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself so much in my writing. And I’m hoping that comes across in the reading.
Well, let’s say it’s Ciao from me for now…