Okay, I know what you're thinking.  There are lots of reasons to hate someone.  Like they killed your favorite cousin, or grew up to become a genocidal dictator who killed your favorite cousin, or maybe they bought the same dress you did for prom (can't tell you how many times that happened to me).  Maybe (worst of all) the person is a mime.

So why?  What is it with this "Dashner Dude," as his friends (and the "Wanted: D.o.A." posters) call him?

Well, it's like this.  The guy (as you'd already know if you'd read my other posts) is a writer.

But wait!  There's more than just that.  Writers don't, as a rule, make me want to kill them.  Give them a paper cut, or an occasional maiming, perhaps, but not actively whack them.

But Dashner...he's on The Whack List.  Along with that one girl who wouldn't date me in high school.

Okay, he's on the list with, like, a bunch of girls who wouldn't date me in high school.

Okay, fine!  No girl would date me in high school!  There!  You made me say it!  Are you happy?

Sheesh.  Now I have to go cry.

[Pause for tears]

Okay, I'm back.  Where was I?

Ah, yes.  Burning hatred.  For that Dashner Dude.

Because he did it again.  He wrote a book.  A really good, fun book with a twist at the end that I did not see coming, but that nevertheless clarified and made more interesting some of the events of the past book in the series.  The series in question is The 13th Reality, and the second book, The Hunt for Dark Infinity, rocked.  And rolled.  Baby.

Yeah, I'm using the hep-cat lingo to increase my street cred.  Later I have plans in my daytimer to do some cap-busting with my homeez.

So I don't want to spend too much time on the story.  Suffice to say I read the whole thick book in about three sittings (and one standing...I walk while I read...don't ask...).  The plot rocked.

But the thing I do want to talk about is the bad guy.  Or rather, bad girl.   No, she wasn't one of the ones who wouldn't date me.  She's fictional.  Duh.

So this fictional bad girl had an amazing, unusual trait for a villain: she was believably evil.  By that I mean that she wasn't just a cut-out character, snipped from the back of a cereal box and with all the character dimension of a toadstool.  No, Dashner painted a portrait of the very worst kind of evil: someone  who had a sincere belief that the horrible things she was doing were actually in everyone's best interests.

Is she a nutter?  No doubt about it.

But was she a real nutter?  Yes.  In spite of being fictional, she was real.

I'm reading that last sentence again.  It doesn't seem to make much sense on its face.  I'm going with it anyways.

So the nutter - the fake/real one - is someone whose primary goal is to remake the world in her own twisted image; to take the universe and re-form it according to her own vision of "what should be."  There is no room for original thought in her vision, only for her thought.  Her servants are on constant edge around her, knowing that if they walk out of line with her beliefs, they'll probably be killed.

And they follow her anyway.  Because they've bought into the idea that she can make the universe a better place.  In spite of - or maybe because of - her madness.

Look, it's all very complicated and I don't want to ruin the book for you.  And believe me, I can ruin a book if I want.  Just read Billy: Messenger of Powers.  Or RUN.  Or...

Sorry, got carried away.  Again.

Actually, go read The 13th Reality: The Hunt for Dark Infinity.  You'll be glad you did.

Like what you've read? Please consider checking out my number-one rated book BILLY: MESSENGER OF POWERS, or my new hit thriller RUN...and please also share this blog with others by clicking the following: