"Fake Book Synopses" drabbles by Beck Scassellati
Hamelin Tales
Fake Book Synopses
Two kids grow up together in a city slum where murder is as common as crushed beer cans strewn roadside. Roland is a gifted musician in a discount suit. Marjory is a wide-eyed magician from an abusive home. One will become a scholar; the other, a vigilante. From kindergarten to high school and beyond, their story is told by Sally, their childhood confidant, who always had a secret love of her own.
“It’s not the kind of story you like,” Sally tells Roland’s son many years later. “It’s sappy. It’s full of violence. And it has a sad ending.”
Gaymer Theory
Fake Book Synopses
Vince thought he was gay, until he met Penny, the badass gamer of his dreams. Now he’s stuck playing her Straight Man, a game he was never any good at.
Penny worked hard to get where she is. She finally has a real boyfriend in a nice town where everyone calls her “ma’am.” But to level up with Vince, she somehow needs to tell him she’s trans.
When an awkward attempt at coming out separates these star-crossed gamers, it’s up to their friends to bring them together in a high-stakes speed run with few items and many enemies.
Your Happy Place
Fake Book Synopses
Computer viruses have adapted into biotic pathogens. Life happens indoors, thanks to global virtual reality. If a virus catches you, simply enter your Happy Place while your body is shut down and rebooted. They say your consciousness won’t know the difference.
Ansel Atkins, average teenage cyborg, takes his McAfee pills every morning like everyone else, until a personal encounter with a Trojan Worm shows him these things are evolving. Humanity wasn’t meant to merge with machine so suddenly, and the end of organic life may be near.
Unless the rumors he hears about the world beyond his walls are true.
The Serving Witch
Fake Book Synopses
Fay’s been a teenager for the past 80 years, practicing magic, working as a barmaid, sleeping around, and living only for her next paycheck. It’s tedious, but it’s better than the life she’s tried so hard to push away.
That former life rushes back when Fay stumbles upon Slavomir, the son of the sorcerer who assaulted her as a child. Now she has a new personal drive: revenge.
But when Slavomir's deathless father returns, Fay is left with a demolished home, a strange new allyship, two human girls needing protection, and an overwhelming desire to find her life’s true purpose.
Lauren Ipsum and Ethan Shrdlu: Type Detectives
Fake Book Synopses
It’s been two weeks since Dr. Trajan betrayed the agency with the excuse that he felt “overused”—and now he’s working with evil genius and notorious crazy lady, Comic Sans! And as if that’s not enough, someone has been messing up the kerning on signs all over the city.
Can Lauren and Ethan figure out who this new threat is? Will they crack Dr. Trajan’s secret code using the letterforms he designed before he left? And will they ever find out who Comic Sans is behind the mask? Find out in the latest book of everyone’s favorite typography-based mystery series!
