Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
"'This Is Crypto Y'All!,' is probably what I'd name it," says awbvious. (Editor's Note: After careful research, we have determined the proper stylization of "awbvious" is all lower case. You can stop with the emails.)
awbvious is not what I thought he (or she) would be. What with the pandemic, I had to do my interview via video conferencing. I was not prepared for what greeted me on the screen. For one, I assumed he would be a Millennial, but his greying temples betrayed more a man in his early forties. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.
AG: I was wondering what to call it. At no point, do you actually title your... Novel?
awbvious: Mmm... [He squints.] More like short novel, as amalgamated from an online, serial publication. It was my first foray into serialized fiction. [He laughs.] I think it shows!
AG: "This is Crypto Y'All!" For the readers, what's the significance of that line? Why would you use that as the title?
awbvious: In Chapter... 11? I think? It's something Ju--... Sorry, I do that all the time, but normally I'm writing and can edit it. [Pause.] It's something Jerald Vilt says.
AG: What name were you going to say, could it possibly be...
awbvious: [Laughs.] Now, now. This was only inspired by real events. And actually, Jerald is an amalgamation as well. He's got a little of that guy, yes, a little of... Actually, I'd rather not say. He's a character in fiction, he's not real. The personality, I made up pretty much whole cloth. The using social media, the taking over a cryptocurrency via monetary means... Well...
AG: And the significance of the line?
awbvious: I think it sums up the tone of the short novel. A little tongue in cheek. Jerald uses it to compare crypto to the wild west. And it's almost like a Western. Personal vendettas, the good guy against the bad guy, or, [exhales through his nose] the white hat versus the black hat. Still, I was going also for Hard Cry-Fi.
AG: Hard Cry-Fi?
awbvious: You know, instead of Hard Sci-Fi? Which is Science Fiction that actually cared about getting it technically correct from time to time. As opposed to Soft Sci-Fi. Which was just whatever technobabble a writer needed to spew to justify a laser gun fight in space with half-dressed alien women. I tried to make it at least somewhat accurate.
AG: So Cry-Fi...
awbvious: Is Crypto Fiction.
AG: I'm pretty sure that's not really a genre.
awbvious: Yet! All the more reason to start the genre with Hard Cry-Fi. As Hard Sci-Fi in the 1920s precluded the Soft Sci-Fi to come, my Hard Cry-Fi in the 2020s will preclude...
AG: What?
awbvious: Um, I'm not sure yet, but it will almost certainly involve weapons and half-dressed women.
AG: I figure this as good a time as any to get to my question: Exactly what do Stacey's breasts look like?
awbvious: I'll answer that, but first I want to thank you Ms. Graham for this interview.
AG: My pleasure.
awbvious: I was really becoming worried. You know, my inspiration for all this was Charles Dickens.
AG: Dickens?
awbvious: Yes, he's probably the most famous writer of serialized fiction that I know of. His success started with the serial that became The Pickwick Papers. Unfortunately, my serial was definitely not getting Pickwick-Papers level of attention. I was beginning to fear I'd end up more like another dabbler in serialization, F. Scott Fitzgerald. He died penniless, his book The Great Gatsby, more accurately, The Great Big Flop, still had many unsold editions from its first printing. Of course, more likely I'd end up like the vast morass of forgotten writers, for whom there is no Wikipedia entry. We have a tomb for the Unknown Soldier, but where's the Wikipedia entry for the Never-Read Writer! Anyway, I even had a wild idea that I'd make up an interview, to ask the questions of myself no one was asking. I'd make up some clever re-arrangement of letters for the interviewer's name, then proceed to have a conversation with myself. So I was very happy to receive your invitation, Ms. Graham.
AG: Please, you can call me Anna.
awbvious: Anna. Anyway, your question was...
AG: Exactly what do Stacey's breasts look like? Jim is so interested in them, clearly.
awbvious: Oh. [Pause.] I have no idea. I actually have no idea what either of them look like, and I never really bothered to describe them. I don't know their age. I remember writing they were coworkers, that's pretty much it. [Pause.] I suppose one might assume they are appealing, in some way, at least to Jim. But the fact that he thinks of her breasts as soon as he has to think of how to describe her... That was just inspired by all the memes one comes across regarding men writing female characters. They always describe their breasts, as if they are very important. I think it's a bit unfair to male writers, though, because men do notice breasts, we're very primal, so are women, we're both primal. They're fairly eye-level and they speak instantly towards fertility... And fertility speaks toward propagation of genes... And we're all big, fleshy vehicles for tiny strands of DNA. [Pause.] Uh, does that answer your question, Anna?
AG: Sorry, the video glitched. I didn't get all that. Did you say they are big and fleshy?
awbvious: [Sighs.] Sure.
