Guess the Plot
The God Virus
1. A flu-like virus spreads across the globe, its only symptom being that it makes you think you're Simon Cowell.
2. A conservative think tank explodes in acrimony and suspicion when their computers suddenly flood the political landscape with copies of the Beatitudes.
3. Dr. John Gannon has isolated what he calls the God Virus: a virus that affects the brains of some individuals, making them believe their superiority is unlimited. Should he alert the rest of the faculty, or just infect himself so he can show those brown-nosing bastards just how pathetic they really are? Also, some publishing professionals.
4.Halfway through the Ice Age, Gerf and Ugwa are lounging in their cave, gnawing on the bones of a dire rabbit and making rock music, when Thor comes to visit. Alas, he takes ill and dies. Other deities follow, with the same result.
5. The smallest and least popular god in all the Greek pantheon, Virus, sets out to take over the world. First, he causes blistering rashes. Then he induces cough and sneezing. And finally, he deranges the bowels.
6. Dan Walker creates a sentient Internet super-entity and becomes the target of terrorists who kidnap his girlfriend. To rescue her, Dan becomes an untraceable computer virus, which works fine until his creation develops a God complex and decides it wants dominion over the entire world.
Original Version
Dear Evil Editor
Dan Walker's pioneering research on net intelligence made him famous. It also made him a Luddite in hiding. No email, texting, smart phones, or ATM machines. [What about a TV remote control? I can live without that other crap but I gotta have my remote control.] But he has a good reason. He's created something dangerous in the internet, [Internet] and he knows it's watching him.
Now he's been attacked in his lab. His girlfriend and children, gone. And the FBI is blaming him for power outages throughout the nation. Someone wants him found. Someone wants what he created. And they've planted clues leading him straight to them.
Now he's on the trail of a group of illusive [elusive] terrorists, but finds they've anticipated his every move. [It sounds like they're after him and he's after them. Maybe they should arrange a meeting.] They're using his research against him, and holding his girlfriend hostage. [What about his children? Where are they?]
Dan has to do what he's most afraid of. Join with his internet [Internet!] creation to become a Ghost Walker, [Think Ghost Rider, but so old that instead of a motorcycle he uses a walker.] [He's still a flaming skeleton, however, which comes in handy when the nursing home has their annual weenie roast.] invisible in cyberspace, untraceable in the real world. [He's the superhero known as 00101010100010. But he's untraceable because of his secret identity, 10001110001011.] Tough for the terrorists to escape someone who hunts at the speed of light, and hits with the weight of the internet. [Int...I give up.]
But nothing comes for free. His creation doesn't want to stop with the destruction of the terrorists, or dissolve such a useful partnership. For once you control the world's infrastructure, there are no limits. [Until the power goes out during a thunderstorm. Ah, Mother Nature, you are the Great Equalizer.]
THE GOD VIRUS is a 100,000 word adult thriller.
Notes
This is the same plot as in Face-Lift 1035, except that in that one the superhero's secret identity was 3.14159265359.
Does Dan's creation care about his girlfriend? Or just about world domination?
The first two paragraphs are choppy. Too many short sentences. I'd be worried the book will read like that.
I'm not sure we need most of what's in the first three paragraphs. You could open: Dan Walker's pioneering research on net intelligence has made him famous, but it's also made him a target. Terrorists want control of the sentient Internet super-entity he created, and they've kidnapped his children as leverage.
3 comments:
I'm a little confused as to who or what is the peril...
It is a) his computer program gone awry, b) terrorists trying to hack the infrastructure, or c) Kidnappers who want his program so they can do bad deeds?
Also, when he goes on the Internet, does his mind leave his body like TRON or is he siting in someone else's basement eating Cheetos?
His girlfriend and children, gone.
To quote Chris Cagle: "There's gone for good, and there's good and gone, and there's 'gone' with a 'long' before it... What kind of gone are we talkin' here?"
The line could mean his girlfriend and children are dead, or it could mean they got tired of him and lit out for Albuquerque. Later we find out that the gf's been kidnapped, but we never do find out what became of the kids. Yet in my exp. people who have kids are fairly obsessive about tracking the little tykes' whereabouts. Remember we know nothing about your book except what you tell us.
Other than that, and that "Ghost Walker" already means many other things, and other than "illusive" terrorists, which gave me flashbacks of the GW Bush administration (W loved him some illusive terrorists), I think this query would probably work for people that were interested in that kind of thing.
Oh my, a mighty super-sentient being that can be defeated by pulling out your phone jack.
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