All over Europe the taps are being turned off! Pixie communities from Croatia to Wales, from Poland to France have joined the small Pixie Kingdom of Just Outside Kiel in refusing to steal any more Russian oil or gas. In what is being heralded as a uniting force behind European Pixiedom the boycott has become an impetus for bringing together disparate and far flung communities . Talk of a European pixie parliament briefly arose, though the idea seems to have been immediately discarded because of the failed human example.

Having ‘borrowed’ a human cell phone and doctored the internals so that it no longer registers for billing (we’ll leave it like that when we return it) we were able to contact the Just Outside Kiel monarch, Henri the 37th, for an exclusive interview. King Henri is the originator of the protest against the Russian leader, Puddle Duck, and is attributed with great leadership in uniting the pixie for this cause.

“King Henri, what inspired you to start the ‘we won’t take any more Russian oil or gas’ movement?”

“Well, totally nameless Pixie Express interviewer, our pixie village is across from a human house with a nice little window where we can see a human television set. We were watching the BBC when we heard about the Russian leader, Puddle Duck, being mean to people. We thought that that wasn’t very nice, and wondered what we could do about it. The only thing Russian around here is the Russian oil and gas that we used to steal to light and warm our pixie village. So in protest we decided to stop that immediately.”

“But what do you do now instead? Isn’t this a great hardship on your people?”

“Not so much, it’s still summer here, the nights are getting a bit cool, but we are finding other human power supplies that we can steal from in preparation for winter. We were able to ‘acquire’ a hoard of diesel petroleum from an American frigate before it sailed away. That should do us for many months. Being near a seaport many non-Russian vessels frequent here, so we have decided to only steal from those. The Pixie Kingdom of Just Outside Kiel will manage our way through.”

“Our Pixie tabulators have calculated the financial impact of the European Pixie boycott on Russia,” King Henri volunteered, “our estimates are that the combined effect of all the pixies in Europe no longer stealing Russian oil or gas is 197.23 Euro per month!”

“That sounds like a substantial amount!”

“Yes indeed! Per month, mind you, it adds up. We believe the Russians will stand up and take notice of the Pixie protest.”

In other news, when informed of the Pixie boycott and its estimated impact, the British Prime Minister’s reaction was:  ”What?”.

The U.S. President, Banana, was even more taken aback, his reaction was “You’re kidding, right?”

Most interesting has been the Russian leader, Puddle Duck’s reaction to the embargo. Puddle Duck had remained silent on the issue until now. When this reporter had bypassed Russian security pigbacking the cell phone carrier wave on a Siberian emergency line to the Kremlin, the Russian leader’s reaction, in an exclusive interview, was “Vhat?” before my illegal tap was found by post-KGB secret police and terminated.

Further developments on the pixienet will be reported here as they happen.

In a move which is bound to lead the rest of Europe, the Western Pixie Kingdom of Just Outside Kiel have announced their refusal to steal any further oil or gas from Russian pipelines. The small pixie kingdom has relied on stolen oil and gas reserves since 1992 for heating and lighting their pixie village. But no more! The illegal taps have been shut down at the order of their Pixie King, Henri the 37th.

We’ve received third hand fairly recent quotations, possibly even accurate, from the Just Outside of Kiel monarch. Where are they now? I think I wrote them down on some bubble gum paper. Ah, here they are:

 “We’ve heard that the Russian leader, Puddle Duck, has been mean to people and a bit of a bully, so we won’t be stealing his oil anymore.” King Henry is reported to have said.

Further reports just in from the Just Outside of Kiel, Clever Technical Stuff Working Group, tell of moves to tap the reserves of a US military frigate docked not far from the pixie village, thus eliminating any future dependence on Russian produced hydrocarbons.

“We just have to find a really, really long hose in case the ship decides to sail off somewhere.” Head of the Clever Technical Stuff Working Group, pixie Longthought, offered.

In moves which mirror the initiative of the Just Outside of Kiel Kingdom, French Pixie groups have quickly moved to follow suit and have also turned off the taps refusing further theft.

“We are going nucléaire, and stealing from our local French power plant instead. We will not be out done by the German Pixie.” One source is reported to have said.

Elsewhere in Europe solar and wind plants are being tapped for their energy. The Welsh pixie have apparently returned to burning coal in the short term. “We don’t even need to steal it, it’s just lying around on the ground.”

Meanwhile Russian Pixie groups remain glum and despondent with no comment forthcoming. Neither has any reply been made by the Russian leader, Puddle Duck, regarding the Western Pixie actions.

As book stores grow rarer the printed word seems to be disappearing. So looking towards a brave new future, how much access will we and our children have to books? Are e-books the new environmentally friendly replacement? The easiest stats to find are for America, apparently a surprisingly large number of people there own e-readers. In 2014 32% of Americans had an e-reader. 42% had tablets that could be used as e-readers. Some smart phones can also be used as e-readers, and of course laptops can be used as well. But despite the availability of e-readers only 28% of Americans 18 years or older will read an e-book this year (see http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/16/e-reading-rises-as-device-ownership-jumps/ ).

There seems to have been a massive investment in reading devices, or e-reading capable devices, but where are the readers? Are we falling short in ensuring that our children read? Are tablets only used for games, on-line television and u-tube? Or are people slowly preparing for a change to an unfamiliar new world. Apparently many of those who bought e-reading devices were still reading printed books.

I don't know, it's all a bit hard really. Maybe many others feel this way. But hey, kids are faster than adults at adopting new technology, so even if you're still hooked on paper books, don't forget your kids when it comes to encouraging their reading. You've made the capital investment, e-books are a very small step in terms of cost. Maybe they could do with a few e-books as well as all those computer and tablet games. If you've bought an e-reader and you haven't yet started using it yourself, lend it to your ten year old. Oh, and buy the Fairly Stillwart Chronicles, while you're at it.

Authors, such as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, even George Orwell with 1984 (yuck) were authors with great social problems that they fearlessly grappled with. Slavery, poverty, social indifference and subjugation. But today, I have to ask, what are the social problems that we as authors have to contend with?

My first thought is bullying, as it's something I’ve written about, and because it's a great problem for young people in many places, but I only have to look at the book Tom Brown’s School Days, the 1859 novel by Thomas Hughes, to know that it is not a new social problem.

Is it still slavery? What slavery? Slavery was abolished years ago. But what of sexual slavery, and the slavery of under classes in third world countries, working in subsistence conditions to produce western goods.

I have to ask, what in the world has really changed? The problems of almost two hundred years ago still exist today, though we hide them all the better in places further afield, or in sweat shops that we still ignore.

To me, the social conscience is changing, but never changing. The ills of the world move position, they hide for a while until they are uncovered again, but they are still around, just shifted to somewhere new. The London slums of Charles Dickens still exist in the slums of Asia, Africa and the Americas. The slavery of Mark Twain, still exists in sweat shops and sex houses on almost every continent, and in almost every developed and under-developed country in the world.

As present day authors, we still have a challenge, and always will, to alert the world to what is wrong; what can be better; how we can improve the human condition.  I look back at my own writing and see that I have done so almost unconsciously. It’s simply part of my being to write what I think. I look at internet threads by other authors, and see their outrage… then they write about it.

Cheers to you all. Write angry words; write words of your experience, never fear to say that something is wrong, though we have all suffered from saying so. Write what your heart tells you, my brothers and sisters - wherever you are.

So I promised Adam Oster that I’d help blog his new book, The Rise of Fat Mogul, the second book in the Buddy Hero series. Well, I had to do it: Adam almost died because of me. There was some chain bloggy thing, and if I’d broken the chain, well, poor Adam… As it was I was two weeks late getting it on the internet (not my fault, I hadn’t done it before… well, maybe it was). He might have snuffed it while waiting for me!

Anyway, I actually like Adam’s first book, The Legend of Buddy Hero, so I’m glad he didn’t die, and that he’s survived long enough to write the second book. I read some excerpts of the first Buddy Hero some time ago, and I’ve since been reading the full version at home. It’s a terrific superhero story, following the great tradition of American superhero literature!  Except that Buddy Hero is a bit of a slob, just like me!

Now I guess I should ask Adam some questions, it’s in keeping with bloggering.

So I sent him some questions on facebook. Waiting, waiting, waiting, it’s been almost 30 seconds now and …no reply.

I guess there was a delayed reaction in regards the late posting of that chain blog. Adam is gone. I thought that since he’d survived up to when I posted it that he’d be good, but chain bloggs are unforgiving, they can get you when you least expect it. I myself have broken several of these and know that my time is limited. Yep, I’ll be dropping off the twig in the next sixty years. I may not make it to 111, or even 100. I was hoping for a letter from the Queen too. Let’s see, she’ll be… ooo… 140 something or other when I’m 100. So she’ll be good, I probably won’t. Maybe she’ll send me a letter when she turns 100. I can only hope.

Oh, look he’s replied.  That was almost two minutes! Apparently he was driving back from the pool, but he’s stopped and got his wife to drive so he could text. This is almost live!

Question: Are you glad you didn’t die while waiting for me to do that chain bloggy thing?

Answer: I actually died more than a little while waiting, but since I don't have any major addictions, I figure it just gets me closer to true author hood.

Question: One of your less than erudite fans was crittering the "Legend of Buddy Hero" saying that there wasn't a good explanation of how the Fat Mogul got to where he was. Should he/she be buying the second book?

Answer: Book two does give a lot more back story, but not all answers will be revealed. One of the points of the series is to go along with Buddy as he learns the history.

I should explain that answer, Buddy’s mind was wiped of all his memory in the first book, so he’s rediscovering himself. It’s not a hippy thing.

Question: Now be honest, Buddy Hero, Buddy Holly… are you a fan?

You know, the name Buddy Hero was a silly thing I came up with ages before I even considered writing a book about superheroes. Kind of inspired by "buddy Christ" of dogma fame. But yeah, took me a while before I didn't think of Holly whenever the name came up.

I actually didn’t understand that answer either.

Question: Why Sun city?

Answer: I actually had a difficult time coming up with a city for Buddy to live in. I didn't want him to be constrained by the reality of any city, but live in a Gotham /metropolis type of deal. Sun City is actually a fairly common city name in the states and I liked the rather optimistic outlook it gives. Seems like the perfect name for a super hero to live in.

Question: Will you be playing roulette with chain blog again? Or can we expect a third book in the series?

Answer: Basically, if I get tagged I usually do it. They're dumb and no one actually reads them, but I don't want to appear as though I don't play well with others. And yes, “The Return of Kid Zero” is the third book and I'm really excited for where that book will take the series, as will most folks who have read book 2. I don't really have a plan to end this series. I like to think of it as a comic book without the pictures (as one of my detractors has mentioned as well) I've got tons of stories to tell about Buddy and company.

There you go, Buddy Hero, that middle American, beer drinking dude, living in that ordinary Sun City – could be anyone of us really, well maybe not me because I’m living in Canada, but hey! I like beer too. Yep, it’s my hope that having thrown some giant creature northward from the borders of America, that I’ll be in a bar somewhere as Buddy comes in the door to buy a round for all us Canucks to apologise for the destruction of Toronto. No actual loss there, but I’ll be looking forward to introducing Buddy to Richard’s Red or Molsen’s Canadian.

I also look forward to reading some more of Buddy’s adventures, I’m off to get my copy of “The Rise of Fat Mogul”. This is from the dust jacket:

"Saving the world doesn’t mean squat if no one knows it was ever in trouble.

Buddy Hero and The New Defenders may have defeated the villainous Dominion and saved the world from ultimate destruction, but thanks to another worldwide redaction, no one knows.  So when a familiar face reappears and claims to be the head of the Meta Human Defense Team, the heroic team finds themselves facing the ultimate decision. 

The New Defenders find danger coming at them from all sides as they face off against yet another world-threatening calamity, all in full view of the Sun City Comic Convention and the Real Life Superheroes. 

Now if only they could come up with a way to pay the rent."