You may have noticed the manuscript I slipped under your bedroom door. You may also have noticed that Lt. Lazer Hudson and the Battle of Simiyosu: A Space Phantasmagoria contains some allegorical elements that can be best interpreted as referring to you and our recently ceased relationship. As a writer, and as a scorned lover, I felt it was only appropriate to write what I know the most about: the critical flaws in our relationship, and why I’ve been so depressed recently. Also, a bunch of space stuff. I know a lot about space stuff.
At the outset of the novel, we meet our hero—the handsome, soft-spoken, big-hearted, and desirable-to-a-lot-of-women-who-don’t-mind-the-constant-tongue-clicking thing—Lt. Lazer J. Hudson. I won’t pretend that Lt. Hudson doesn’t stand as my proxy in the story. I am proud that he is a fully rounded character, a real man, flawed in his own ways. Like Batman. He is a sensitive man, and although he may at times seems to become more invested in his mission than that mission is in him, it doesn’t mean he’s weird or creepy or anything.
A number of the larger set pieces, you’ll notice, have direct counterparts in our romantic history. Take, for instance, the epic battle on the ocean planet Aarouslimon, which is symbolic of that barbecue Charlie had last year where you basically didn’t talk to me all night. The giant mudslug rather obviously stands in for that douchebag Bryce. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you chatting him up all night and laughing at his stupid jokes, just as everybody but Lt. Hudson ignores the mudslug’s trail of destruction? It’s no coincidence that the giant mudslug is trapped forever in the salt mines and everyone thinks he’s gay.
And when the climactic battle between Lazer Hudson’s squadron of good and Baron Sexua Linadequacy and his thousand-eyed dragon rises to a fever pitch, even you must have been moved. You may have claimed that all those orgasms were faked, but the annihilation of Tauntalis IV was all too real.
Even the social and political implications of the various exotic species I created are self-referential. When the Glrobians (the race of sentient balls of plasma, if you don’t remember), segregate their society, placing balls of plasma with a darker outer tone into a lower caste, regarded as mentally and morally inferior to those with a lighter plasma tone, that’s based on how it feels when you don’t respond to my texts.
Near the end of chapter 21, as the members of the Alpha Alpha squadron are escaping Aarouslimon, Lazer makes a very important proclamation. Lt. Hudson’s three little words, “implode the crystallosphere” are perhaps not so different from three other little words that I may have said to you after a brief, albeit passionate evening of lovemaking. Ensign Qarqaran’s response, a stammering, stuttering, “Oh, wow, gosh, I… I’m not… uh, wow. Thank you?” may, too, seem familiar.
The part where Lt. Hudson’s uncle plays a game with him called Fun-Pants Tickle Time and Lt. Hudson starts to get really uncomfortable and doesn’t know how to make it stop? That’s about you, also. Just about our relationship. Nothing else.
Perhaps most poignant for me are the events detailed in chapter 25, wherein Lt. Hudson battles the giant robosquid. The squid entangles Lt. Hudson and holds him captive with its tentacles of passive-aggression, then uses its cold, unflinching, soulless robot claws and attempts to rend him limb from limb. The squid won’t let him go and it won’t let him stay. See, the giant robosquid is a metaphor for your fear of commitment. Unfortunately, unlike the robosquid, with his soft and vulnerable mucous membrane easily penetrated by a mechasword, there’s no easy way out of missing you.
The giant armadillo with a cannon for a face doesn’t stand for anything. That’s just awesome.
The end of the novel leaves our hero at a crossroads of sorts (technically a dark matter vortex) that promises to define the rest of his life. I don’t know where Lt. Hudson goes from here. Will he return to his base on the desert moon of Teraumigog? Or is that too real for the desert moon? Will the desert moon be scared away? Can the desert moon grow up and admit that its harsh, noxious, largely sulfur-based troposphere is nothing more than a defense mechanism, and inside there is a warm, delicate, endocore? It’s hard to say. Only you can write the next chapter.
Actually, I’ll probably need to write it, just to keep the voice consistent, but I’d love your input.