Blue Jean Girl

What Sawyer's been reading...

Okay, I'm back on one of my favorite subjects today...ABC's LOST. For the past few months, off and on we've seen my man Sawyer sitting on the beach reading a manuscript he found in the wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815. (Presumably the author perished in the plane crash.) He's been telling people it's a good mystery. He was almost finished with it when he got into an argument with Jack and Jack grabbed the manuscript out of Sawyer's hands and threw the whole thing in the fire.

Sawyer's burnt-up book, BAD TWIN by Gary Troup (Hyperion, ISBN 1-4013-0276-9), is now available at a bookstore near you.

This real book by a fictitious author (whose name is an anagram for Purgatory) is yet another piece of what has to be the most elaborate and intricate worldwide television promotion puzzle, The LOST Experience.

The game started a few weeks ago, and clues are everywhere. It revolves around the mysterious fictional corporation The Hanso Foundation, the power that seems to be behind the mystery on the LOST island. CLues are dispersed through fake TV ads aired during the last few LOST episodes, print ads taken out in major metropolitan newspapers around the world, websites including TheHansoFoundation.com, GaryTroup.net, InsideTheExperience.com and others, emails to and from a Hanso Organization principal, and phone numbers like 1-877-HANSORG. Most of the clues need to get decoded before you can use them. If you're lazy (like me), head over to thelostexperience.com, an unofficial fan blogsite where you can find the answers as soon as the more obsessed and geeky LOST fans among us figure them out.

But back to BAD TWIN. Of course, I ran right out and got a copy. A number of people posting on Amazon are speculating that the book has been ghost-written by Stephen King. Granted, It's been a while since I've read a SK book, but halfway through BAD TWIN, I'm not inclined to think it is truly his voice. I could be wrong, though.

In the tradition of The Maltese Falcon, BAD TWIN is an intricate mystery involving Paul Artisan, a down-on-his luck PI who is inexplicably sought out and hired by filthy rich CEO and heir to an old-money family empire, Clifford Widmore. Widmore, obstensibly the "good twin," wants Artisan to track down his identical mirror image "bad twin," Zander Widmore, who disappeared shortly after the untimely and suspicious death of Clifford's wife, Shannon. There are references to the Hanso Organization in the book as well as other clues about the TV show LOST. On the Hanso website and in numerous newspaper print ads, The Hanso Organization denounces the information presented in BAD TWIN about the Foundation as a pack of malicious lies. What is certain is that in the novel, as on the island and on the Hanso website, nothing is what it seems. As I said, I'm halfway through the book right now. The deceptions, along with the dead bodies, are starting to pile up.

Check out my website, www.joynash.com, in a couple weeks. I'll be posting a review of BAD TWIN, an intriguing and well-written story that stands firmly on its own, whether or not you've seen a single episode of LOST.

Until next Friday...

Joy Nash
http://www.joynash.com/

The guys with the biggest swords always get the girls...

Today I'm blogging about Immortals, Dorchester Publishing's hot paranormal continuity series launching in May 2007. Each book in the series will feature a hero with a REALLY BIG...um...sword.

(Yeah, that's it. Sword.)

Immortals begins and ends with installments by its creator, Jennifer Ashley. Robin Popp and yours truly, Joy Nash, round out the series.

Here's the lineup:

The Calling by Jennifer Ashley (May 07)
The Darkening by Robin Popp (June 07)
The Awakening by Joy Nash (August 07)
The Gathering by Jennifer Ashley (Sept 07)

The story takes place in an alternate present-day Earth reality. Magic and magical creatures are commonplace and have always been accepted by humans. There are two kinds of magic--Living Magic and Death Magic (guess which one is good!!) The human world relies on the balance between these two forces being maintained. But as the story begins in The Calling, it's clear that Death Magic is outpacing Living Magic. If the trend continues, the human world will descend into chaos and Death Magic creatures such as demons and zombies will reign supreme.

Into this grim scenario, enter the witches of the Coven of Light. These powerful women practice Living Magic. They are determined to stop the spread of Death Magic and restore the balance of the world, but the Death Magic is spreading so rapidly the task seems hopeless. Then they discover an ancient legend that may point them to the solution. The legend of the Immortals.

The Immortals are five big, hunky, large-sword-carrying Warriors who cannot be killed. Created at the dawn of civilization, the Immortals were charged by the Mother Goddess to protect the infant human race. Their task was to battle Death Magic, giving the humans a fighting chance to grow and develop. Humans were given a spell--The Calling--that enabled their witches and shamans to call the Immortals at need. For more than a thousand years, the Immortals fulfilled this duty. Then, during the Middle Ages, Tain, the youngest of the Immortals, disappeared.

His four brothers searched, to no avail. Meanwhile, the work of the Immortals was dwindling. Due to expansion of human settlements and the persecution of witches by the expanding Church, the Immortals were called less and less. Eventually they disappeared from human consciousness.

But now the Coven of Light has rediscovered the existence of the Immortals. They realize the Warriors are their only hope. For the balance of magic in the human world is being tipped by one of their own.

Seven hundred years ago, Tain, the most sensitive and human of the five brothers, was tricked by a vengeful witch, who had him magically imprisoned and tortured. Tain remained bound even after her death, unable to break free of her spells.

In that time, Tain went slowly and completely mad.

Now, incredibly, Tain, scarred in both body and soul, has broken free. He has one goal: to end his own life and put a halt to his suffering. But he's an Immortal, unable to die, right? Well, there's a catch (isn't there always?). Immortals are sustained by Living Magic. Because of this, if the Living Magic drains entirely from the human world, they can die. So this is what Tain has set out to do.

There are many, many Death Magic creatures willing to help him. Some have their own agendas. But one thing is clear--with the Living Magic gone, the human world will be a living hell. Human will be slaves to the creatures of evil.

Unless four witches can locate the remaining four warriors.

And even if they do, will it be enough to defeat Tain and his minions?

Immortals is going to be a fantastic series! The books will be hot and sexy and brimming with magic and action. I'll discuss the individual books in future blogs, so be sure to check back from time to time to learn more about the Immortal Warriors and their big...

...SWORDS.

Until next Friday...

Joy Nash
www.joynash.com

LOST in thought...

What a shocker on LOST this week!

Sawyer and Ana Lucia going at it like monkeys, then Michael gunning Ana and Libby down in cold blood! At least Ana Lucia got lucky before biting the dust (snicker). But will Hurley ever forgive himself for forgetting the picnic blankets?

From the previews for next week, it's clear that at least one bullet-ridden woman is dead, if not both. Honestly, I'm not too sorry to see Ana Lucia go. Hard to warm up to someone who's as trigger happy as she is. But the mystery of how Libby the "clinical psychologist" was really a loony in the bin with Hurley was just getting started. I want to know how she got out and if she stalked Hurley to Australia!

And here's another plea--more of Sayid, PLEASE! Naveen Andrews is so hot with his bedroom eyes, sultry accent and yummy muscles--can't the LOST producers give him more than a couple of lines every six shows?

Theories on Michael Turned Bad--obviously he's either brainwashed or working under threat of Walt being killed. He seems to be bent on inciting a war between the Oceanic survivors and the "Others." But why do the Others want this?

Actually, I'm beginning to think there are two groups of "Others." One is a group of hapless survivors from another disaster similar to the plane crash who have been on the island for years longer than the Oceanic survivors have. The other is a group of Dharma Initiative scientist Puppetmasters, led by the "Brilliant Unforgiving Man" who has been alluded to by the fake Henry Gale and "Bluebeard."

What is the Island? There are a lot of theories floating around the Internet that the survivors are all really dead and living in a dream that will allow them to resolve their baggage and move on to heaven. Or that the whole thing is Walt's dream while sleeping on the plane with his comic book and they haven't really crashed at all. IMO, these theories SUCK! I really hope neither is correct. It would be the ultimate cop-out to have a trite spiritual resolution or a Wizard of Oz rip-off end to the series.

I favor a natural phenomena/government conspiracy theory. The Outback shaman healer that Bernard took Rose to alluded that healing power was connected to certain power places on the Earth and that his place wasn’t the right one for Rose. But the island is the right place for Rose, and Locke, and Jin, who were all healed of various afflictions (cancer, paralysis, impotency).

I think the island is a natural power place, maybe vibrating a little out of sinc with the rest of reality, so it's not on the map. The power could be associated with a natural magnetic anomaly. The island is connected to various other power points in the world, and creatures and people can get sucked to the island from anywhere (Nigeria for the heroine smugglers, North Pole for the polar bear, Atlantic Ocean for the Black Rock pirate ship, Pacific Ocean for the French scientists and the Oceanic flight). Sometime in the Sixties, a group of scientists funded by some government (US? Korea?) discovered the island and established a research base there, constructing the hatches and the "security systems".

Everything that has gone on since then has been administered by Puppetmasters. Various groups have been lured to the Island and are being experimented on. Obviously, there's someone watching the Oceanic survivors--they recently parachuted in a supply of food!

The Puppermasters seem to keep naughty and nice lists of the survivors. Henry Gale said Locke was good, Ana was bad but they thought they could change her. The kids are good, and get taken first. What constitutes "good"? Natural psychic power? If that's the case, why would Ana be able to change from bad to good? Did she have some latent talent?

All of this is, of course, awesomely interesting and obsession-forming, but you want to know what my biggest question is?

Where did DESMOND the HATCH GUY go?

And how come no one on the show ever wonders about him? They haven't said a word since he disappeared. Desmond seemed to think the world had been destroyed/was contaminated and hadn't had any contact with anyone for years before Jack and Locke got into the hatch. So he couldn't have run to the Others. But as soon as he got Locke to push the button, he swiped all the vaccine in the hatch and ran off as if he sure as hell knew where he was going. According to Locke, his tracks just vanished.

Where is Desmond? I want him back. I liked his accent, and he has to have some answers.

Until Next Friday...

Joy Nash
www.joynash.com