Face-Lift 874

Guess the Plot

Love Drug

1. The natives of the planet Xanatopsis bred all emotions out of their species long ago. But now, their inability to care for one another could cause their extinction. Can a team of brilliant young scientists from Earth create a drug that will teach the Xanatopsians to love again?

2. In the year 3011, Avalea Christopher is in love. Or so she thinks. Turns out it's her government-prescribed drug regimen that was making her feel that way, as she discovers when she stops taking the drugs. Now the government has put a price on her head, because the last thing they want is people falling in love with their real soul mates.

3. Jerome's attempt to chemically create the perfect love slave backfires: Millie now falls in love with everyone she sees except for him. The antidote makes her turn chartreuse and sprout feathers. Can he find an antidote to the antidote?

4. 'Love drug her heart/ 'Cross a dirty floor/ Love drug her heart/ And she crawled on back for more.' With these lyrics, country singer Boots McCallister begins his climb to the top of the charts. But Annie Craig recognizes the words from a fan letter she sent to Boots, and she wants her piece of the pie.

5. Phab Pharmaceuticals announces the Love Drug: a potion for men that makes them irresistible to women. What Phab Pharm doesn't reveal is that after ten doses your penis falls off. Could CEO Tilly "Two-Bagger" McFrump have an agenda?

6. Wall Street banker Jim Jones reaped billions selling worthless mortgages until he met Midge, an undercover agent with C.U.P.I.D., who slipped a 'love' potion into his coffee. Jim left NYC on a sailboat, and decided to spend his billions on food and tractors for Somali refugees. But arranging distribution from the pirate detention center where he's a hostage is proving very difficult.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor:

I am seeking representation for LOVE DRUG, a 98,000-word YA dystopian science fiction novel set a thousand years into Earth’s future.

Avalea Christopher’s Soul Mate loves everything about her, even the books hidden in her closet. He’d be perfect—if he wasn’t the wrong guy.

He’s Felis Quinn and for days he’s been telling her he loves her. When he reveals he’s a Crew leader from the lawless lower city, and he’s only there as a favor to her real Soul Mate, [It's confusing to refer to two different people as her Soul Mate and her real Soul Mate. Especially when the real Soul Mate is going to turn out not to be the real Soul Mate. I think it would help to get both their names into the query here.] Avalea wants to believe it’s a joke. She’s so certain of their love, she’s willing to stop taking her government-prescribed regimen of medicines and vaccines at Felis’ request.

[Felis: Although we're complete strangers, I love you and I think you would love me back if you would stop taking your medicines.

Avalea: Well, I already have a Soul Mate, but sure, why not? Surely you know what's best for me.]

A week later Avalea knows the love she felt was driven by the medicines and she suspects they control more than who she loves. She’s not sure how Felis knows her chosen Soul Mate or why he agreed to the favor to begin with, but she has bigger worries. The upper city doesn’t like having its secrets out in the open, and Avalea’s parents are ready to turn her over to the authorities.

[Parents: According to the authorities, you know something.

Avalea: Yes, apparently the--

Parents: No! Don't tell us, or they'll kill us, too. ]

To avoid being disappeared, Avalea writes a suicide note and escapes into the lower city, looking for Felis.

Felis gives her a home with his Crew, though it’s not an easy fit for a high-society girl raised to speak well but know little. But the hobbies that would have made her a social pariah in her old life have uses in the lower city and she starts teaching the Crew’s children to read. [It's hard to believe the upper city can maintain the upper hand in this society, if they can't read. I guess that's just because the illiterate don't often rise to the top in our society.]

Avalea is adjusting to her new life and starting to enjoy her freedom when she learns that the upper city didn’t believe her note and they’ve put a price on her head. In a bid for the reward money, the most powerful Crew in the city takes Felis’ Crew’s children hostage, and Avalea is the ransom price. Which means Avalea can save them—if she’s willing to surrender herself, and the life she never knew she needed. [It seems the amount of the reward would be an acceptable ransom alternative to Avalea herself, as it would save the risk/bother of taking her to the authorities.]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

When you think about how different the world is today from a thousand years ago, you have to assume that in another thousand years nothing will be the same. Thus, if an oppressive government and love drugs are the main changes, maybe it would be better to set this a hundred years in the future.

The government doesn't want its secrets getting out to the extent that they put a price on Avalea's head, but Felis already knows their secret; and presumably that means everyone in the lower city knows it, and the Soul Mate must know it, and the authorities know it, and even if they don't all know it first-hand, surely Wiki-leaks has revealed all to the world.