The mess the modern world finds itself in has been built upon the misappropriation of our cooperative nature. Contemporary evolutionists say that when a society is too successful, and the surpluses from co-operating grow too great, then some individuals try to benefit at the expense of the group. A few will take the vertical fast route to power over others. And the grand view of history is littered with individuals who claimed superiority over society by divine right, by force, or by entrenched privilege. These are the tyrannical kings and queens; the hypocritical priests and bishops; the dictators and corrupt politicians, who seem to fill our history books. And now we see a new wave of self-serving corporate bosses, animated with a similar sense of entitlement.
In the year 2010, few would disagree that we have lost our sense of balance with and within our planetary environment. Few would deny, that should we continue to hurtle down this road, there awaits a spectacular collapse, in some form, at some point. Perhaps the way we can avoid such a collapse is by rediscovering the evolutionary self that tends towards mutual aid: the self which makes us human.
You have just read a tale of a world that had collapsed. Some species survived, and some evolved, somehow managing to reinvent their lives from the bottom up, with whatever was closest at hand. Will they go on to make the same mistakes that we are making? There are kings and queens, monsters and all the rest … it is a fairy tale after all … But perhaps unlike many fairy tales, and more like life itself, there are also sprinklings of anarchy and mutual aid in the moments when needs must …
Danbert Nobacon
Twisp, Washington
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my wonderful editor and publisher, Tod Davies.
Alex Cox for imagining the characters in such a spectacular way. Mike Madrid for his tireless efforts in that universe called graphic design, which will always remain a mystery to me.
A toast to Charles Darwin, Jared Diamond, David Sloan Wilson, E.O. Wilson, Bernd Heinrich, Bill Bryson, Alan Weisman et al. for fomenting the dialogues in my head that made the world of this book seem sort-of-possible.
Thanks to the Banks Lake crew for entertaining the Gricklegrack.
And thanks to Laura Gunnip for her belief in me.
Glossary
adaman - the first man
adamonkey - common ancestor of humans and great apes
airgile - agility in the air
bepuzzled - puzzled
begoggled - dazzled
birch-barker - someone who gets the wrong idea, and barks up the wrong tree
birded - to be kept informed by message bird
blasfamy - blasphemy
blasfenemies - enemies, distinguished by a supposedly heretical nature
boggled - mind boggled
boggler - someone who sees but does not necessarily understand: a nosey boggler, nosey parker, nosey beggar
boggerworts - general term for warts, derived from boggarts who are prone to having warts
brainfryingly - the adrenalin rush of terrifying endeavor, such as downhill skiing or roller coaster riding
brethsisteren - brothers and sisters
celestion - a heavenly being, a god, or god-like creature
cessprince - derogatory term for a princess
changefigured - transfigured, transkinked, evolved
chittle-chattle - gossip
crizeymas - winter festival, sometimes called Iziemas
confuzzled - confused, bepuzzled
crookedy - crooked
devanimal - according to the wangodmatist way of thinking, the renegade animals who had caused the Wangod to curse earth with the dark times. Any creature or person heretical to wangodmatist ideas
earthrumble - earthquake
ennunce - denunciated
ensluicing - taming by cruel means
excaliberite - wedged like a sword in rock
flameringly - obvious, literally as noticeable as flames
fretter, frettered - to fret, did fret
gadzillion - an unimaginably large number
gatoriles - large lizard-like creature such as a crocodile
gigglanth - genus of laughing men and women
gigglanthropic - the quality of being gigglanthine
grabbled - grappled, wrestled.
gracklebrain - someone not quite with the program
graydark - the eerie three-quarter dark of the dust-filled skies during that cataclysm
grickles - shorthand for genus known as gricklegracks
gropple - grope
groppled - groped, molested
guffackling - guffawing, cackling
jekkler - a joke, particularly a rib-tickling joke
kero-lamps - kerosene lamps
kink/kinks - the mutant gene/genes that power evolution or
transkinkery - the process of evolution
kingdidates - candidates for election of king
lateen - someone in their late teens: usually an indication of a more worldly wise youth than what most would think of twenty-first century teenagers
loominated - illuminated by moonlight
magickery - magic, seemingly supernatural phenomena
man-to-man - male homosexual, gay-boy
marriage brokery - matchmaking, the business of arranging marriages
mechanagics - seemingly magical, but actually mechanical
memobird - a message bird
mezzaculously - miraculously
moonblood - menstrual blood, period
morningsun - east, or meaning directional right, towards the right
mothshark - huge mythical flying beast who brought people from the other side of the world
mysterhyme - riddle talk
nobadness - goodness
nymphemona - she-demon of the river
pompiffery - ceremony, pomp
potstillery - brewhouse
prancer - one who prances about
pretendsuppose - make belief, a pretendsuppose story
probber - a priest or parson, a wangodmatist who teaches others in the ways of the Wangod. A professional missionary
probber s nose - parson’s nose, the rear end of a bird, anatomically a bird’s anus
pumpeduppery - puffed up,
pumpery - extenuated tavern talk, regarding the fine, and to most people, the boring details of machinery
psykologicks - psychology
pyskosicks - dangerous sickness of the mind
quizzleprink - upstart
redfish - salmon
regaliocol - royal protocol
romp-pomp-pum-paggle - street or bar-room theater
rumble-wave - tsunami, a giant wave
sagack - sage, guardian, chaperone
scarify - scare, frighten
schemagems - schemings, tactical plans, strategems
scientic - scientist
scientical - scientific
screek - schreech
skimble skamble - nonsense
skydynamics - aerodynamics
skolarshop - a workshop cum study
sledblastering - involuntary outburst as a result of high adrenalin activity
smakker - mouth, lips
smakobbed - gob-smacked
spasmering - convulsing, gripped by spasms
splinterendering - the cracking of wood as it caves in under pressure
sticklerish - quality of being a stickler for the rules
swaggerswankings - washbuckling
ta - thanks
Tavernmizz - senior waitress in a pub, barmaid
thezzpians - theatrical types
Time Egg - a time capsule
transkinkery - the process of evolution
turkabird - a wild turkey
volcanemon - volcano, perceived by the western peoples to be enraged earth spirits
wan, wance - one, once
Wangod - the one god
wangodfearing - deeply religious
&nbs
p; wangodknowswhere - the one God knows where
wangodmatist - believer in, or practitioner of, wangodmatism, the worship of the Wangod to the exclusion of all others
wangodsakes - for godsakes
whoosh-shoosh - sound of rushing, air or water
whorlet - teenage or young whore, term of derision
wonderlook - a small but powerful telescope.
zizzerhither - hither-thither
Copyright © 2010 by Danbert Nobacon
Illustrations © 2010 by Exterminating Angel Press
No portion of this book may be copied or reproduced for commercial purposes,
with the exception of quotes used in critical essays and reviews, without the
written permission of the publishers.
Portions of this book first appeared, some in different form, on the
Exterminating Angel Press online magazine at
www.exterminatingangel.com
EXTERMINATING ANGEL PRESS
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p. cm.
Summary: Princess Alexandra Stormybald Wilson, a thirteen-year-old prince killer, lives with her stepmother Queen Gwynmerelda and her father, King Walterbald, until she is initiated into the Order of the Accidental Adventurers.
eISBN : 978-1-935-25910-7
[1. Fairy tales. 2. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.--Fiction. 3. Princesses--
Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Three dead princes.
PZ8.N63Aam 2010
[Fic]--dc22
2010016249
Table of Contents
An E.A.P. Fairy Tale for Adults of All Ages
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1 - BALD MOUNTAIN CASTLE
Chapter 2 - THE WONDERLOOK
Chapter 3 - DOES GOD GO TO THE TOILET?
Chapter 4 - THE WILSONS AND THE GODLOVES
Chapter 5 - GOOD NEWS BAD NEWS
Chapter 6 - BIG HAIR, BIG TROUBLE
Chapter 7 - ONE DEAD PRINCE
Chapter 8 - YOGA BREATH
Chapter 9 - A GIG AT THE GRACKLE TAVERN
Chapter 10 - DREAM DREAM DREAM
Chapter 11 - THE WITCH IN THE DITCH
Chapter 12 - GIRLTALK
Chapter 13 - SORTOFINGTON
Chapter 14 - THE BLACK BIRD
Chapter 15 - THE DEVANIMALS’ WORK
Chapter 16 - THE BELLS OF WAR
Chapter 17 - TRANSKINKERY AND THE CHICKEN MAGICIAN
Chapter 18 - TWO DEAD PRINCES
Chapter 19 - THE BATTLE OF BALD RIVER FALLS
Chapter 20 - THREE DEAD PRINCES
Chapter 21 - THE RIDDLE OF THE EGG
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Copyright Page