Robot Pirate Ninja

Robot Pirate Ninja: Like a Thief in the Night [α]

By Roy M. Taylor

                INTRODUCTION

My guess is that this book will be slightly different than most you have read, or browsed, or bought to put on your shelf so people know you are aware of it.  This book is largely a book of fact.  In a couple places, and during a couple of stories, I plan to introduce slight bits of fiction in order to keep the story moving and fun.  Heighten the drama a bit.   Rest assured that I will happily illustrate my tricks in appendix A.[1]  If you would like to turn there now, you may, and then you may read the book as complete fact, and call me on my bullshit in real time when the story gets weird.

                I would ask that you not do such a thing, and read this book as it was written, from this page on.   I think it is more effective that way.   Far more effective, as it was designed to be read in such a manner.  This book is my argument.  A one-sided one, to be sure, but it is an argument nonetheless.  As an added bonus feature, included at no extra cost, you get to try and predict where I’m making shit up, and then grade yourself on the result.   There will be a test near the end.  If you complete the test you get an “A” for effort and for being such a wonderful little snowflake.

                This is being done for a number of reasons.  First, if you think I’m bullshitting you, some of the parts of the story will be easier for me to tell.  You don’t have to read them as absolute fact, as I’ve already mentioned that I may be misleading you.  This will make the reading easier and the story much more fun than it might have been otherwise.  That hint of danger and subterfuge has always been a draw for me, even though I’m more than happy to admit that that is all it is.  I also enjoy a bit of facetiousness from time to time.  I was once taught that interacting in such a manner was an expression of love, and it’s a hard habit to break. 

                I would also highly encourage you to have an Internet[2] nearby while reading this story.  I have had one for much of this writing [exception:  Chapter 11] and find that particular tool to be quite useful in my work.  Whenever I ran across a word or concept I did not understand in my journey, I would ask the Internet and it would tell.  Sometimes it would tell me foolish things, but as I studied longer and harder, it became much easier to separate the wheat from the chaff and the signal from the noise.  I hope your experience is the same as mine in this regard, but YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

                If you would like to read this entire work as a bit of explorative fiction, please, feel free to do so. I would add a word of caution, however, as I am a real person and this is my story [Appendix P: Pictures]. Or, if it takes too long for you read it, was a real person, and this was the beginning of my story (that’s a bit of foreshadowing on how I solved the whole “afterlife” riddle; in short, others who have passed exist in the same place as those of the living, in the minds of others.  The dead can simply act no more, and are fully defined by their actions in life).  Additional note: the previous sentence was written for people that may read this book faaar into the future, not my contemporaries.  This bit of obfuscation on my part, and the inability of my early editors to ask simple questions, led to Chapter 11.

                Another word of warning, this is going to be a challenging book. This book includes an argument about the fundamental nature of our perception of reality (and a good bit about that reality itself).  It’s got a poof on why P=NP.  There is no place that I am afraid to go in order to make that argument, as you will see in some of the personal stories.  Expect to be offended.  Expect to be angered.  You are being “trolled.”  These expectations will moderate your emotional response when such reactions occur.

I’ve tried to make this argument as strong as possible, within the time constraints allotted, one month and fifty-thousand-words (I’m only 34, but since that is older than Jesus ever was, I can start now).  UPDATE: Ultimately the editing has taken longer than expected and expanded the word count a bit.  I believe strongly that “brevity is wit” and have tried to keep it short, sweet, an accessible (like me, except I’m a bit taller than the average human.)

                I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed getting it out of me.  If you experience a tenth of the pain reading this book as it took to tell this story, consider yourself lucky[3].  

It’s been a quite a process to get to this point, as you soon shall see…

-Wah