Eragon / Eldest Fan Fiction
Sometimes people email me their hand-written short stories in the imitative style of Christopher Paolini, having mistaken me for the infamous author. They are always written by what appears to be slightly more matured than usual monkeys, sporting ugly grammar and hilarious turns of phrase. Take this bit, for example, from The Great War:
“Have thy scouts reported about the outcasts?” asked Aubrey, changing the subject.
“No, they haven’t. They should have reported by now.”
“IT’S BEEN TWO WEEKS!” exclaimed Aubrey, who was quick to loose her temper. “DON’T THY #%&^ SCOUTS HAVE ANY BRAINS! OR ARE THEY JUST DEAD!?”
There’s also a lovely example of a pronoun explosion which (to me at least) can only result in the destruction of the entire party of traveling nouns:
Keith charged at the niblog who was holding Neil and Preston’s weapons. He hurled his sword at him, then, almost the second the sword was stuck in his arm; he took it out and chopped him in half. Now that Preston and Neil had their weapons they could fight too. Preston was mad, very very very mad. He swung his axe with all his might at the one who had whipped him.
You might think with a little more context this would clear up, but no, there is no more context to give you, my fair readers.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows SPOILERS!!!
Check this out, someone got a 0day copy of HP7 through some nefarious means and has released these spoilers:
- Hagrid was killed by Snape in the attempt of ambush Hermione and Ron
- Voldemort killed Hermione.
- Harry came up, killed all the bad guys and Hogwarts against became a good place to stay and have fun.
- Draco Malfoy started to create Horcrux
Interesting. He claims to have infiltrated Bloomsbury Publishing with an email exploit he used to snag the file. But, his predictions are extremely generic and could be ripped from any fanfic forum. Do you believe him?
Fewer Mohammeds After 9/11
Passport Foreign Policy notes that the baby name Mohammed has disappeared after 9/11. People just aren’t naming their children that anymore, since it has a definite connection with an unpleasant American memory. The graph they show indicated that after 9/11 the naming dipped substantially, and only now is it beginning to recover:
This could be considered an experiment in how memory fades. It seems after 6 years, we’re ready to forget about the terrorist bombing and subsequent destruction of the World Trade Center in NYC. That, or at least the Muslim community believes we are and dares name their children what they want to again.