House of Sages, $4.50, ISBN 0-9753549-2-2
Sci-fi Romance, 2008
Dara Joy’s Death by Ploot Ploot! is available as a digital book on her official website. At the time of writing, as far as I know, this is a “limited time special” with no plans of her putting this story in print. On the bright side, delivery of this book actually takes place this time around, with the book showing up in the inbox a day or two once the order is processed. I probably should also point out that this is not a novel. It’s a short story, actually, with huge fonts that add to the illusion of length to the story. The PDF file of this book is 120 pages long. With the huge fonts, I’d say it is an equally huge stretch for this book to be advertised as a “lengthy novella” since it makes some offerings from Cobblestone Press look like War and Peace.
Also, the digital book comes as a password-protected file which requires you to either keep the email telling you what the password is or write down the password somewhere for future reference, because you have to type in the password every time you open the file. It’s annoying, but hey, Dara Joy is convinced that everyone who reads these things is going to share this one with everyone else, hence the ridiculous preventive measures that annoy the reader just so that the author can collect her money with a clearer conscience from the reader. If you ask me, I’d rather see authors being locked in a password-protected room so that they will not put out complete wastes-of-time and charge readers money for their nonsense, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Also, because Dara Joy and Dorchester have finally made nice – just in time for the new year too – she is allowed to write stories set in her Matrix of Destiny world so Death by Ploot Ploot! is one such story.
There is probably another reason to get excited about this book. The Urban Dictionary website lists down the definitions of ploot as “to fuck, have intercourse with, screw, bang” and “a hardcore smelling funk from a chic’s (sic) vagina”. But, hold your horses, people, because Dara Joy’s personal definition of “ploot” in this story is “based on a very well-known joke widely called Oonga Bonga”. Clearly, I am out of touch with popular culture because I have no idea what Ms Joy is talking about. So, anyway, no, this is not a story where the heroine has extreme personal hygiene issues, much less one where the hero and the heroine expire after one shag too many.
Okay, the story. Wait, is there a story? I don’t think there is one here, unless the story is a pretty unhappy one about how the author has charged her readers $4.50 for something that many other authors give their readers for free. I’m sure you know of many authors who sometimes put up short cute little epilogues on their websites to allow readers to catch up on characters from previous books. Death by Ploot Ploot! is such a story, although I must say that I have seen free offerings from authors that are longer and much more satisfying than this one.
It’s basically a refresher course rather than an actual story in its own right since the author reintroduces Rejar and Traed along with the other characters from Knight of a Trillion Stars and Rejar. The three brothers, I’m told, are gaining more power, although I have no idea why they are becoming more powerful or what exactly these powers are. Deana goes disgustingly cute over cabbage patch babies (don’t ask) and talks about bringing Valentine’s Day to the world of Aviara. Lilac and Rejar have a baby, a development which would have worried me if these characters weren’t fictitious because those two fools have the emotional development of hormonal teenagers in Rejar and nothing here convinces me that they have mellowed. And that’s pretty much it. Not even an epilogue on Dara Joy laughing her way to the bank.
In fact, this story is too short to mock. It’s shockingly unfunny and I still have no idea how ploot ploot is supposed to be relevant to this story, since the only thing this baby has in common with ploot is an unpleasant stench. I wish I can quote passages to make fun of, since this “book” deserves to be mocked for being nothing more than an overpriced waste of time, but I’m afraid this is one of those books where all I can do is to throw up my hands and say to myself in disgust, “Whatever!”
Really, this story is a waste of time because it isn’t even a story. It does nothing to advance the characters’ personalities. It is not a good introduction to any future books in this setting from the author because it doesn’t provide any decent backstory or insight into the characters’ psyche. Unless you’re a reader who will scream in delight like an American Idol fan when Rejar makes an appearance because he’s Rejar and OMIGOD YOU LOVE REJAR SO, SO MUCH that the mere mention of his name sends you into frenzied excitement, I don’t see any reason to recommend this short story to anyone, not with its $4.50 price tag and how little it offers for that amount of money.
