Strangely True

Our dreams are weird, as is our favorite fiction. The strangeness is strangely normal. The nonsense makes sense in context.

The very best non-fiction is actually fiction. It is legends and propaganda taken seriously. Uninspiring reality is dramatized into wonderful stories. We are inspired by what is imagined, even if we are horrified by it. Dreams, even as nightmares, are wonderful.

Truth is what it is, not what we believe or imagine. The best fiction is true. Its realism grounds it. Its weirdness expands our consciousness. The story is a dream we experience while awake. We see reality play out in a fantasy. Everything is summarized and clarified as symbols and scenarios.

Jesus taught in parables! He told the truth as a storyteller.

There is nothing weirder ever written than the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation.

Fantasy. Science fiction. These are weirdness as genres. They are The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek and Star Wars and The Cthulhu Mythos and Alien. They are the classics, quite literally, as Classical Mythology.

I write fiction. It is weird. The stories are fantasies as truth. They are waking dreams I give to everyone to dream. As of now, they languish in obscurity… as did the Arkham Cycle written by H.P. Lovecraft. It will be a success to fail as he did.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Shawn-OToole/author/B07C28S75Z?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

My Claim to Fame

I write fiction. I finished nine books in less than two years. I illustrated their covers and created the title fonts in that time.

I am not making money writing fiction. On the contrary: The time I spent cost me hundreds of dollars. It is an expense not a career to do what I do. It is all worth it, however. A have books in print to show for myself. They are priceless as art… though worthless as commodities.

The two Sorcerer novels are military science fiction. The two Weird World books are surreal horror. The five Black Death novellas are black comedy action-adventure.

My work languishes in obscurity… for now. I sympathize with H.P. Lovecraft. His work, like my own, was weird and unappreciated.

My thematic specialty is the foot soldier of villainy archetype, female versions specifically. If my work ever becomes famous, it shall not be because of this. Readers may appreciate this oddity of mine, but not of itself. The context I provide shall make it interesting.

What few people read my work say the dialog is believable as real people speaking, the descriptions are easy to visualize and the immersion is beyond the stories themselves. If my work ever becomes famous, these three traits shall be why.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Shawn-OToole/author/B07C28S75Z?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

7 or 9

My novel The Wayward School for Girls began as the idea that most people are children. There was no story in mind. There was only the realization that most adults are childish. I imagined the reality as literal.

My thematic specialty is the foot soldier of villainy archetype, female versions specifically. The characters are always young in my work. They are always ordinary. They are typically adults because I want these useless antagonists to be at their best, so that their inglorious fate is deserved.

The foot soldiers of villainy are action-adventure characters. They set the standard of ordinary by which heroes are measured. The story would be an action-adventure accordingly.

The best mainstream use of children as the nameless baddies is the 1999 video game Silent Hill. A school is infested with the dehumanized students who bullied the daughter of the protagonist. The hero slaughters them in droves, and not to avenge his daughter. The children swarm him relentlessly. They are the mindless servants of the evil trying to be born.

The setting of my fiction would be a school, like it was for the child soldiers of villainy in Silent Hill.

I started writing what became the novel The Wayward School for Girls before I even knew what I was going to make of it. I finished fifty days later. I illustrated the cover a week after that.

I decided from the beginning that the children of the story would all be the same age. The heroes and nameless baddies would all be little girls. I had yet to decide what age, exactly and what costumes the characters would be wearing.

In the book Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the protagonist states that she is “seven and a half years exactly.” I decided the girls in my story would be seven years old… but changed my mind before finishing. The dialog of the characters would be more interesting if they were slightly older… so I turned them all into nine-year-olds. The actress Fairuza Balk was nine years old when she played Dorothy Gale in the wonderfully scary movie Return to Oz. Her performance gave an example of what I preferred.

I have written many books, several of them novels. I consider The Wayward School for Girls to be among my best, if not my best. It is a long and adventurous nightmare as survival horror… and I enjoyed the ride. I hope those who read it have as much fun doing so as I did writing it.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma/art/The-Wayward-School-for-Girls-full-cover-1043500403

The Wayward Interzone

I read the novel Naked Lunch… and was amazed by how similar it is to my novel The Wayward School for Girls. Both books are surreal to the point of absurdity. Both are strangely violent and sexual. The main difference between the two novels is that the erotica of Naked Lunch is generally homosexual and that of The Wayward School for Girls is generally heterosexual.

Boys are the victims of lust killing in Naked Lunch. They are murdered for the viewing pleasure of patrons in a nightclub and hung from the ceiling. Girls are the victims in The Wayward School for Girls. The principal calls students to his office and has his way with them, murdering them when is he finished.

Naked Lunch is about a man on the run from the authorities. He ventures into exotic lands while doing so. The Wayward School for Girls is about two little girls on the run from the authorities. They venture into strange lands while doing so. These stark similarities are coincidental.

Naked Lunch was written by William S. Burroughs. It was published in 1959, when the author was forty-five years old. The Wayward School for Girls was written by me, Shawn O’Toole, when I was fifty-three years old.

Burroughs was a hedonist. He indulged in every pleasure. His novel is about indulgence. Interestingly, he is honest about the consequences of such a lifestyle. Everything is expressed matter-of-fact, rather than as social commentary.

I am wholesome. I seldom indulge. My novel is about indulgence, however. The villains rape and kill but the protagonists enjoy killing too. Everything is expressed honestly. My fantasies are unabashed.

I wrote The Wayward School for Girls and read Naked Lunch in 2024. They are both weird fiction erotica of a type seldom read or written. I am glad I am not the only one to fancy such a style.

World War of Another World

As of March 11, 2025, my novels Sorcerer of the Realm and Blood of the Sorcerer are perhaps my best work yet. They are military science fiction.

The world is very much like our own… yet quite different. Speech was never confounded into languages. Contagions are unheard of. Weapons of mass destruction are obsolete.

The history is very much like our own… yet quite different. The continents are named after the sons of Noah. The Confederacy won the War Between the States and became the Empire of the Golden Circle. Adolf Hitler is Adolphus Wolf and takes over the European Union in a 1930s that are the modern day.

The universe of the fiction is White Empires. The world is ruled by six powers, five of them of the race of Japheth, white people. The sixth is Japanese as the Empire of Dawn.

Britain is Albion. The United States and Confederate States are of New Japheth. The Soviet Union is still the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The European Union as the 3^rd Reich is the Great Realm of Japheth.

I love strategy games, especially as world conquest scenarios. Though I created White Empires as a setting for prose, I did have such games in mind.

The Sorcerer books are pre-war stories about covert operations and counter-insurgencies. The inevitable war shall be between the Axis and Allies. The Axis powers shall be the Great Realm of Japheth, the Empire of Dawn and the Confederate States of New Japheth. The Allies shall be the Albish Empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of New Japheth.

The Axis shall be outnumbered and outgunned. Its only advantage shall be taking the initiative. Once is makes its move it must win quickly. It cannot conquer the Allied empires, mind you. The Axis can be conquered by them, however, though not easily.

The Realm invades the Soviet Union from the west and the Empire of Dawn invades from the east. The Albish Empire and the United States declare war on the Realm and the Empire of Dawn. The Confederacy invades the Midwest region of the United States. The Axis hopes to conquer the Soviet Union quickly then sue for peace. The Confederacy shall relinquish its gains for recognition by the United States of Missouri and Kentucky as Confederate states.

If the Axis wins…

The Soviet Union is divided into new regions of the Great Realm of Japheth and the Empire of Dawn. The United States normalizes diplomacy and trade with the Confederacy.

If the Allies win…

The Empire of Dawn falls and Dawn is reduced to a vassal state. The Realm and the Confederacy are dissolved, their states small and weak divided and kept that way.

Awaiting the Spotlight

The greatness of art and fiction is decided by very few. When influential people tout something, everyone is interested. When the influential few lose interest, so does everyone else.

I write books and illustrate the covers. My work is not yet noticed by the influential few. If it is, it must interest them… or my work shall languish in obscurity.

I think my fiction is among the best ever written. Whether it is or not, it is not yet popular. It is unknown to those who could tout it to greatness.

Who are these influential few? They can be authors, publishers, critics, actors, producers, politicians, singers, scholars, editorialists, internet influencers or whatever else. They are either famous and influence the public directly or important among those who are famous.

Is my fiction among the best ever written? I think so… but I am not among the influential few. Ultimately, it is for them to decide.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Shawn-OToole/author/B07C28S75Z?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Apocalypse

The true horror of nuclear weapons is not their destructive power… but rather their lack of it. Though they can kill by the millions in an instant, millions more are left to die slowly. Victims shall languish in agony from burns or they shall starve to death.

People flippantly remark that we should nuke other people. Not everyone is serious when they say such a thing. Everyone who does mean it is evil, regardless of their self-righteous indignation. They are stupid, confident that they can terrorize the world into submission.

A limited nuclear war? Wars do not escalate anymore? Seriously? The mindless brutes are mindless indeed. Their sophistries of apocalypse without consequences demonstrate what Jesus meant when he said, “professing themselves wise, they became fools.”

There shall be a nuclear war. It shall not end the world in an instant. It shall wage for years, the most horrible years ever. There shall never be a worse year afterwards. Humanity shall have its hell on earth… and in vain.