Barnaby Taylor Author, Fiction, Writing

The Famous Five meets the Walking Dead – Second Draft

Ebola_virus

Excerpt from a new project called Viros (Barnaby Taylor, 2017)

Tagline –  ‘Famous Five meets the Walking Dead’

Chapter One

It was an incredibly eerie way to spend an afternoon, stuck up on the roof of the local corner shop waiting for night to fall with only a strange girl for company.

If you had told me yesterday that this was how I was going to spend my weekend I would never have believed you. How could I? Everything has happened so fast that I doubt even the keenest brains in the world could have truly been prepared.

When I went to bed last night the world seemed just about fine. A little crazy in places but the world has always been that way, especially with all those politicians and presidents saying mad and divisive and dangerous things. When I woke this morning everything had changed.

The details are currently very hazy on the radio but from what I can gather, some form of unknown airborne virus has spread catastrophically overnight and infected three-quarters of the world’s population. Reports of individuals turning into of blood-crazed monsters are widespread. Whilst no one is prepared to come out and say it, we have all seen enough films and played enough video games to know that this virus is a likely extinction-level event.

If this means that the world is going to end then it is no wonder that everyone is unprepared. How could you ever really prepare for something so sudden and so catastrophic? I suppose you could hoard boxes of beans and bottles of water in your basement ‘just in case’ but the sort of people that do something like that are the same sort of people who live in the middle of nowhere and have been ready for the breakdown of civilization since before I was born. For everyone else it has all come as a bit of a shock.

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Jake and I was born with a chromosome missing and this simple fact means that it has only been Mum and me since my dad left. Mum says he wasn’t mature enough to deal with everything and so went missing round about the same time that my missing chromosome was found. I live a quiet and ordinary life like any other eleven-year-old kid in a small boring town like this one. Things are only a big deal if you let them become a big deal and I don’t so we won’t need to talk about any of this again. I am who I am and I am proud of it.

My radio alarm clock had woken me as usual at 7am, just in time to hear the news about the virus. The airwaves were full of experts arguing about expert things but the basic premise was a really simple one, through no apparent fault of its own, the world now faced total and utter disaster. Countries were collapsing. Governments were beginning to fall as societies came to an end. I got dressed quickly and headed downstairs.

My mum works early morning shifts as a cleaner at the local hospital and so I’m well used to getting myself up, getting dressed and getting my own breakfast before she gets back. Before you judge her you should know that I love her for what she has to do and the sacrifices she has to make to feed us both. So what if I wake up and she’s not there sometimes? In any case, being independent is very important to me, as it is to all kids, and I have always enjoyed looking after myself in the mornings. Until now, that is.

I knew Mum would be worried about me and I was sure worried about her. But what should I do? I know she would have told me to stay at home and wait for her to come back but how could I do that? The hospital wasn’t far from my house and so I decided that I should try and find her. What if she was trapped? Or hiding frightened somewhere? She would need me there with her so I grabbed my coat and headed out my house.

My house is on one end of a terrace and at the other end is the old corner shop run by Mr. Smith. Every day before school I like to pop in to spend five minutes reading the news headlines.

            ‘It’s still only doom and gloom,’ Mr. Smith would joke every morning. ‘But Hey! We wouldn’t want it any other way, would we?’ he’d say and wink as he stood behind the counter.

It was early in the morning and I was so worried about Mum so I wasn’t really looking where I was going. I bumped into someone.

            ‘Sorry,’ I said as I looked up to see that it was Mr. Smith. He growled and went to grab me. I tried to duck but he had the hood of my jacket held tight in his fist and I couldn’t get away. We wrestled for a moment and I could feel his other hand trying to grab my throat. I had to do something to get away or I was in real trouble. I managed to hook my right leg behind his left and I leaned into his chest with all my might. Mr. Smith lost his balance and fell backwards onto the pavement, losing his grip of my hood as he did so. I stepped back.

            ‘Quick! Up here!’ I heard someone shouting but couldn’t see anyone. Mr. Smith was getting back to his feet. ‘Up on the roof,’ said the voice. ‘Look up here.’ I looked up to see a girl smiling as she fired a catapult at the lumbering Mr. Smith.

            ‘I’ll hold him off. You need to climb onto the top of that van and then jump across the gap.’

Quick as a flash I jumped up onto the front of the van but as I started to climb up I felt something tug my ankle. I looked down to see that Mr. Smith had caught up with me..

            ‘Help,’ I shouted to the girl. ‘He’s grabbed my ankle.’

            ‘Don’t panic,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll knock him down.’ Something whistled past my head and I felt the grip loosen on my ankle. I looked back. Mr. Smith had been hit right between the eyes by a stone from the catapult.

            ‘Good shot!’ I shouted.

            ‘I know,’ came the reply.

Without stopping, I scrambled up onto the top of the van and looked across to the see the smiling girl waving.

            ‘Jump,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You can do it.’

Can I? I thought but that is not the sort of thing that you would ever say out loud in front of a girl you have just met for the first time so I did what she said and  jumped. I caught hold of the low wall and pulled myself up and onto the roof.

            ‘Hi!’ said the smiling girl. ‘My name is Ellis and welcome to my roof.’ I smiled back.

            ‘Jake,’ I said winded. ‘All my friends call me Jake.’

 

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Barnaby Taylor Author, Fiction, Writing

The Famous Five meets the Walking Dead

 Ebola_virus

Excerpt from a new project called Viros (Barnaby Taylor, 2017)

Tagline –  ‘Famous Five meets the Walking Dead’

Chapter One

It was an incredibly eerie way to spend an afternoon, stuck up on the roof of the local corner shop waiting for night to fall with only a strange girl for company.

If you had told me yesterday that this was how I was going to spend my weekend I would never have believed you. How could I? Everything has happened so fast that I doubt even the keenest brains in the world could have truly been prepared.

When I went to bed last night the world seemed just about fine. A little crazy in places but the world has always been that way, especially with all those politicians and presidents saying mad and divisive and dangerous things. When I woke this morning everything had changed.

The details are currently very hazy on the radio but from what I can gather, some form of unknown airborne virus has spread catastrophically overnight and infected three-quarters of the world’s population. Reports of individuals turning into of blood-crazed monsters are widespread. Whilst no one is prepared to come out and say it, we have all seen enough films and played enough video games to know that this virus is a likely extinction-level event.

If this means that the world is going to end then it is no wonder that everyone is unprepared. How could you ever really prepare for something so sudden and so catastrophic? I suppose you could hoard boxes of beans and bottles of water in your basement ‘just in case’ but the sort of people that do something like that are the same sort of people who live in the middle of nowhere and have been ready for the breakdown of civilization since before I was born. For everyone else it has all come as a bit of a shock.

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Jake and I was born with a chromosome missing and this simple fact means that it has only been Mum and me since my dad left. Mum says he wasn’t mature enough to deal with everything and so went missing round about the same time that my missing chromosome was found. I live a quiet and ordinary life like any other eleven-year-old kid in a small boring town like this one. Things are only a big deal if you let them become a big deal and I don’t so we won’t need to talk about any of this again. I am who I am and I am proud of it.

My radio alarm clock had woken me as usual at 7am, just in time to hear the news about the virus. The airwaves were full of experts arguing about expert things but the basic premise was a really simple one, through no apparent fault of its own, the world now faced total and utter disaster. Countries were collapsing. Governments were beginning to fall as societies came to an end. I got dressed quickly and headed downstairs.

My mum works early morning shifts as a cleaner at the local hospital and so I’m well used to getting myself up, getting dressed and getting my own breakfast before she gets back. Before you judge her you should know that I love her for what she has to do and the sacrifices she has to make to feed us both. So what if I wake up and she’s not there sometimes? In any case, being independent is very important to me, as it is to all kids, and I have always enjoyed looking after myself in the mornings. Until now, that is.

I knew Mum would be worried about me and I was sure worried about her. But what should I do? I know she would have told me to stay at home and wait for her to come back but how could I do that? The hospital wasn’t far from my house and so I decided that I should try and find her. What if she was trapped? Or hiding frightened somewhere? She would need me there with her so I grabbed my coat and headed out my house.

My house is on one end of a terrace and at the other end is the old corner shop run by Mr. Smith. Every day before school I like to pop in to spend five minutes reading the news headlines.

            ‘It’s still only doom and gloom,’ Mr. Smith would joke every morning. ‘But Hey! We wouldn’t want it any other way, would we?’ he’d say and wink as he stood behind the counter.

It was early in the morning and I was so worried about Mum so I wasn’t really looking where I was going. I bumped into someone.

            ‘Sorry,’ I said as I looked up to see that it was Mr. Smith. He growled and went to grab me. I tried to duck but he had the hood of my jacket held tight in his fist and I couldn’t get away. We wrestled for a moment and I could feel his other hand trying to grab my throat. I had to do something to get away or I was in real trouble. I managed to hook my right leg behind his left and I leaned into his chest with all my might. Mr. Smith lost his balance and fell backwards onto the pavement, losing his grip of my hood as he did so. I stepped back.

            ‘Quick! Up here!’ I heard someone shouting but couldn’t see anyone. Mr. Smith was getting back to his feet. ‘Up on the roof,’ said the voice. ‘Look up here.’ I looked up to see a girl smiling as she fired a catapult at the lumbering Mr. Smith.

            ‘I’ll hold him off. You need to climb onto the top of that van and then jump across the gap.’

Quick as a flash I jumped up onto the front of the van but as I started to climb up I felt something tug my ankle. I looked down to see that Mr. Smith had caught up with me..

            ‘Help,’ I shouted to the girl. ‘He’s grabbed my ankle.’

            ‘Don’t panic,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll knock him down.’ Something whistled past my head and I felt the grip loosen on my ankle. I looked back. Mr. Smith had been hit right between the eyes by a stone from the catapult.

            ‘Good shot!’ I shouted.

            ‘I know,’ came the reply.

Without stopping, I scrambled up onto the top of the van and looked across to the see the smiling girl waving.

            ‘Jump,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You can do it.’

Can I? I thought but that is not the sort of thing that you would ever say out loud in front of a girl you have just met for the first time so I did what she said and  jumped. I caught hold of the low wall and pulled myself up and onto the roof.

            ‘Hi!’ said the smiling girl. ‘My name is Ellis and welcome to my roof.’ I smiled back.

            ‘Jake,’ I said winded. ‘All my friends call me Jake.’

 

Save

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Television, Volume I

Bewilder Bird Really Really Loves Format Television (He Really Really Does!)

Here is another thrilling extract from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird vs Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets. In this section we learn a little bit more about the kind of television programme that a superhero like Bewilder Bird likes to watch when he is not trying to save the world from complete and utter destruction. If you want to find out more about superhero viewing habits and a whole lot more besides then why not follow the link here. Here. Here. Here. And here.

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Now in its twelfth season, the premise of Paint Tales is a simple one: a single tin of paint is followed from the factory where it is made to the place where it is used, via the shop where it is sold.
For enthusiasts of the programme, the joy of the journey is immense and somehow almost immeasurable. As a result, Paint Tales has now become a global, if somewhat esoteric, phenomenon. Discovering that the tin of paint you thought was going to be used as a humble undercoat turns out instead to be the final flourish of a ceiling in a converted bathroom can be close to life-changing for aficionados of the programme.
For anyone else, the premise of the programme is almost as disturbing as actually watching an episode and both the existence and continuance of Paint Tales has become a major topic of cultural debate. For some it is the ultimate guilty pleasure, for others it is the producers who should be feeling guilty.
Falcon Boy laughed quietly.
‘The season finale of Paint Tales was about a tin of red paint, Bewilder Bird’s favourite colour, and he had been looking forward to watching it all day. He had even left a note on the fridge to remind himself that it was on that evening.’
For future reference, interest, or indeed, warning, depending on what it is that you like to watch or not watch on television or any other screen, Paint Tales is from the same production company that created Concrete Superstar.
Many media experts believed that Concrete Superstar was going to be the next big thing in format television but the programme only ran for a single season. As a result, the five episodes that do exist have achieved cult status.
Each week, Concrete Superstar challenged three celebrities to lay the perfect concrete patio. Aided by experts, a whole range of stars of stage, screen (both big and small), music and anywhere else mixed, shovelled, poured, levelled, screed, bull-floated, hand-floated, rounded (if required), cut-in, and broomed their concrete in a race against both the clock and the other contestants.
The locations chosen were both indoor and outdoor and for the second season, it had been proposed that the programme go to different locations around the world so that factors like local building customs, union regulations and temperature extremes could be brought into play. Sadly, however, this was never to be.
Like many other people (but sadly, as it turns out, ultimately not enough other people), Bewilder Bird found Concrete Superstar really exciting because you could never really tell which one of the chosen celebrities would be the best at pouring concrete just by looking.
For example, who could have known that Dame Circular Rosetwine, opera singer and biscuit entrepreneur, would beat upper body muscle model and self-confessed DIY enthusiast Flint Roland in the first episode?
‘I thought I had it in the bag,’ said Flint afterwards, ‘until one of the production crew told me that I had poured the concrete upside down. It wasn’t until I had ripped everything out and started again that I realised they had been pulling my leg.’
In the second episode, renowned aristocratic bad-boy ventriloquist Sheridan Shaw and his foul-breathed puffer fish puppet, Puff the Puffer Fish, lost out to one-time pop sensation Dorothy Sister, lead singer of the reasonably-famous (and reasonably-named) Dorothy Sisters.
Puff the Puffer Fish refused to cooperate during the aggregate mixing phase and allowed Dorothy Sister to win by a technical default, even though she had managed to bury one of her high heels beneath a crazy-paving slab.

 

Remember: here. Here. Here. Here. And here.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Dr Don't Know, Falcon Boy, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Panic Town, Volume I

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Infamous Moon Rope

Here is the latest exciting installment from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets. As you know, Dr Don’t Know has kidnapped Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and is holding them hostage somewhere secret. In the absence of any real information the forces of law and order have gathered to speculate on Dr Don’t Know’s next step. As always happens in these situations, imaginations run wild and any available intelligence is usually anything but intelligent.

This is just a taster of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets and if your appetite has been whetted sufficiently then please feel free to download the full e-book.

You never know; you might even feel moved enough to want to review it. I’m just saying.

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Captain Lori Lorimer of the Panic Town Police Force briefed a panel of Panic Town’s finest notables including, most notably, Councillor Denver Footswerve, the current Mayor. As she nervously scrolled through the slides of her presentation, Captain Lorimer told the noted notables that she had her best minds working on the case.
‘I have my best people working on this one,’ she tried to reassure those gathered. ‘A crack unit, comprised of the finest minds mined from the department.’ She paused, hoping that the pause sounded reassuring.
‘I don’t mind telling you,’ Captain Lorimer continued, ‘that to my mind these minds are some of the finest minds that anyone has ever been minded to assemble.’
She changed the slide of her presentation and aimed her laser pointer at the screen.
‘Our early intelligence is very sketchy but from what we can gather it is only a matter of days before Dr Don’t Know is ready to launch his Moon Rope.’ Captain Lorimer paused again.
On the screen was an artist’s impression of what the mythical Moon Rope might look like. The audience saw two circles representing the Earth and the Moon with a line joining them. Captain Lorimer traced the line with her laser pointer.
‘From what my best minds can so far deduce, the Moon Rope will allow Dr Don’t Know to create an elaborate pulley system connecting the Earth to the Moon.’
‘Why would anyone do anything like this?’ asked Mayor Footswerve anxiously.
Captain Lorimer shuffled her notes nervously.
‘We are not sure why, your Honour,’ she told the Mayor, ‘but all our agents are telling us that their best intelligence is telling them that this is not going to be a good thing.’
Gasps echoed around the room as Captain Lorimer concluded her presentation by predicting that the Moon Rope would likely cause untold electrical disruption. It would also prevent anyone on the entire planet from ever knowing the right time ever again.
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t look good at the moment,’ she told her gasping audience. ‘This Moon Rope could well mean the end of the world for all of us.’
Mayor Denver Footswerve cleared his throat before he spoke. He thought this made him sound more mayoral.
‘I think I speak for all of us here when I say how pleased we are to have your best minds working on our behalf, Captain Lorimer.’ The Mayor paused and I am beginning to wonder whether pausing is as contagious a social habit as yawning.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am aware that we are all aware of just precarious the situation sounds but I can’t help wondering, from a Public Relations perspective, whether it will in any way be possible to temper bad news of this magnitude with some good news, no matter how small that good news might be?’
The Mayor looked at Captain Lorimer and she could see panic in his eyes. Being mayor was the only thing he had ever wanted and now it looked like someone was going to go and spoil it before he had the chance to enjoy it.
There was no good news.

Barnaby Taylor Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Mizzy Rosebud, Volume I

‘Love is Like a Scary Wind’

Here is another excerpt from Volume I of Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero. One of the many features of the narrative world of Falcon Boy is the wide range of music that characters listen to. In this excerpt I am describing the new digital phenomenon that is Love is Like a Scary Wind. If you want find out more then please feel free to click here.

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Mizzy Rosebud came second in the ‘Best Amateur Song Recorded in a Bedroom on a Smart Phone or other Intelligent Hand-Held Device’ category at last year’s Annual Global Music Awards.

Love is Like a Scary Wind is variously described as ‘ethereal’, ‘ghost-like’, ‘wraithful’, ‘haunting’, ‘mournful’, ‘vengeful’, ‘celestial’, ‘empyreal’, ‘unworldly’, ‘vapoury’, ‘impalpable’, ‘sublime’, ‘gaseous’ – someone has clearly been reading a thesaurus here – ‘exquisite’, ‘fairy’, ‘filmy’, ‘weird’, ‘weirdy’, ‘weirdly’, ‘bizarre’, ‘peculiar’, ‘flinchful’, ‘twitch-inducing’, ‘panic-mongering’, ‘cataclysmic’, ‘stultifying’, ‘impairing’, ‘unhinged’, ‘unlikeable’, ‘unbearable’, ‘unbelievable’, ‘unimaginable’, ‘inconceivable’, ‘unanswerable’, ‘unheimlich’ and ‘terrifying.’

Mizzy Rosebud repeats the song’s title (and only lyric) over and over again for thirty-seven minutes in a small whispery lisp (or lispery whisp) as a howling wind howls in the background.

Love Is Like a Scary Wind has taken the Internet by storm. You can’t move nowadays for footage of snakes yawning, kittens falling from sofas, penguins being tickled, small boats foundering in tropical storms, pensioners sleeping, crowds at railway stations or football matches, amoebas multiplying beneath the gaze of a microscope, fruit flies, or people kissing in old black and white films, all with Mizzy’s song in the background

Love is Like a Scary Wind has also been adopted for more nefarious aims and only last week researchers based at the (very worringly-sounding) Global Institute for Secret Internet Observance discovered an uploaded version of the song embedded on the website of a now bankrupt cosmetic surgery company.

The track was looping on a nineteen-day cycle and there were unconfirmed reports that it was interfering with the brain waves of anyone who had ever received a marketing email from the company. Fearing global contagion the website was eventually made safe in a joint cyber-initiative spearheaded by the USA and Nepal.

It was recommended that all future plays of Love is Like a Scary Wind should be monitored on a country-by-country basis. However, a well-meaning parent felt that the issue of censorship was something for children to decide for themselves and allowed their child to distribute a download of the track among their classmates.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Falcon Boy, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Pearly Stockwell, The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests, The Interesting Twins, Volume II

Pearly Stockwell Finally Realizes How Cruel the World of Contemporary Publishing Really Can Be

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By way of further news on progress so far with The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests (Volume II of the Falcon Boy series) I thought I would give you an update on Pearly Stockwell.

As many of you will know Pearly Stockwell is a child detective who makes her debut appearance in Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets (Volume I). Together with the Interesting Twins, Pearly manages to solve every case she applies her big city ways to. If you want to catch up with her (e-book) adventures then please feel free to follow the link HERE (US) and HERE (UK).

In any case, as the following excerpt indicates, the world of Pearly Stockwell is as prone to whirls and eddies of public taste as any other contemporary publishing venture.

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The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests excerpt:

 

IT Publishing, the company behind the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series which begat the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Detective Comic Audiobook Series ceased trading a while ago and everything related to the series is now little more than the occasional question at a very dull public quiz for people who are very dull.

The final ever episode in the series, Pearly Stockwell Finally Realizes How Cruel the World of Contemporary Publishing Really Can Be opens with our eponymous heroine bemoaning the state of contemporary publishing, a subject which, and even despite her big city ways, Pearly had never shown any interest in up until this final episode.

‘Our time has come, boys,’ says Pearly to the Interesting Twins. ‘Even before our time has really come.’

Pearly plants her feet and stares defiantly into space reads the caption.

‘I should think that the people making these short-sighted decisions really don’t know us at all!’ she snorts. ‘In fact, what do they know about anything anyway?’

Wes is really angry.

‘I’m gonna grab them and box them and fight them until they beg me to stop,’ he exclaims forcefully. ‘And even when they do beg me to stop I ain’t gonna stop for nothing or no-one not never!’

Pearly smiles at her loyal friend.

‘You’ve been a loyal friend for all of these adventures,’ she says kindly, ‘and we are all really going to miss your overly aggressive, small-minded and yet sometimes effective ways.’

‘Say the word, Pearly,’ says little Windy with a big tear in his small eye. ‘Say the word and I will run for you like I always do.’

‘But where will you run?’ replies Pearly. ‘The people making these decisions have made it very plain that there is nowhere left for you to run to and no-one would be there even if you ever arrived.’

‘But there must be something we can do,’ says the eviction notice Pearly had thrown angrily onto the desk. ‘We can’t just let them shut us down.’

‘You are right, as always, my fine, wise Wanderley,’ says Pearly sadly, ‘but not even your alarmingly outrageous propensity for disguising yourself in the most unlikely but nevertheless convenient disguises is going to make any difference here.’

Pearly looks directly out the frame.

‘The only thing that can save us all is if someone decided to continue our adventures as a small, independent online venture, perhaps using a free online publishing platform.’

Pearly shakes her head ruefully.

‘But that will take an awful lot of effort to keep writing our adventures, publishing our adventures, promoting our adventures and trying to get people to read our adventures knowing full well that a thankless venture like this will only ever be a tiny digital drop in the vast and thankless virtual ocean.’

Again, Pearly looks straight out of the frame of the comic.

‘Does anyone know how hard it is nowadays to even get someone to visit your site let alone stay long enough to read something?’

THE END FOREVER MORE? reads the final caption.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Falcon Boy, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, HeroVerse™, Volume I, World Savers Wanted™

World Savers Wanted™

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Here is the next in the series of brief excerpts from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets. If you would like to read the full adventure then please follow the link.

World Savers Wanted™ can be found at http://www.worldsaverswanted.hero and is a listed company created by a twelve-year-old boy called Mulvey Cavell, who saw a gap in the market for matching superheroes looking for things to do with things that needed doing by superheroes.

Mulvey realised that for every superhero being summoned by an enormous searchlight whenever they were needed, there would be many other equally deserving superheroes that didn’t have such a high-profile and therefore probably needed a helping hand when it came to finding suitable things to do.

Mulvey also understood that not all superheroes wanted to try and save the world. Some were just happy doing things like opening supermarkets, posing for photographs or putting on action displays at garden fetes.

Working from his bedroom, Mulvey built the website and devised the marketing campaign. Things were slow to begin with but once the mass exodus from HeroVerse™ started, World Savers Wanted™ began to get very busy – so busy, in fact, that Mulvey Cavell became a multi-millionaire at thirteen and retired from public life.

World Savers Wanted™ works on the same principles as any other online agency. You complete an online questionnaire, upload a current image of yourself and pay an annual membership fee.

Once your application is processed, World Savers Wanted™ will seek to match your profile with the most appropriate tasks contained in its vast and ever-increasing database.

A similar principle applies if you have some work for a superhero to do. Once the registration process is complete, you are free to upload your superhero task request. Your task request is offered to the most appropriate superheroes and they then choose to accept the task or not.

Feedback is given on the completion of each task, whether successful or otherwise, and as you gain more and more positive feedback, so you become eligible to receive more and more difficult task requests. In this way the system always hopes to match the right hero to the right task.

World Savers Wanted™ allows you to define your choice of tasks by selecting from a drop-down menu. Falcon Boy had ambitiously registered himself and Bewilder Bird in the ‘Heroic Duo Seeking to Save the World’ section but as you can imagine, they hadn’t yet accumulated enough positive feedback to be eligible for that category. Not that Falcon Boy was in any way perturbed.

‘Ambition is one of the many things that I wish to be known for,’ said Falcon Boy ambitiously to his friend. ‘Without ambition, you have no real desire to do things,’ he concluded grandly.

Barnaby Taylor Falcon Boy, Troublebots, Volume I

Troublebots are Always Trouble

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Troublebots were always trouble. They stood the tallish side of average and would look reasonably alright from a distance, were it not for the fact that they were usually scratched and dented.

Each Troublebot had two eyes, a dial where the nose should be and a small round hole for a mouth. Variations do exist within this format, and you couldn’t be sure that the distance between the eyes is exactly the same on each head, or that each mouth was die-cut exactly in the centre of each face.

The upper body was square-like and hollow, with enough room inside for all of the various pistons, wheels, wires, switches, motors and circuit boards required to keep the Troublebot working.

There was also a rectangular grille on each Troublebot’s chest and if you looked through the flimsy bars, you could see their badly-soldered inner circuitry sparking, shorting and generally threatening to give up.

The limbs of a Troublebot were designed with action in mind. Unfortunately, the measurements used for the prototype were very slightly out, and this mismeasurement was most noticeable in the slight limp caused by the right leg being ever-so-slightly longer than the left.

The left arm looked normal enough for a humanoid and ended in a metallic hand. The right arm ended with a bewildering array of random tools attached to it instead of fingers. These tools included useful ones like screwdrivers, mini-saws, sharp knives, small-bore guns, digital cameras, half-size samurai swords, and blow-torches.

Less useful tools that have been found at the end of a Troublebot’s arm include sporks, pencil sharpeners, miniature golf clubs, thermometers, toffee hammers, fountain pens, litter grabbers, flag guns that say ‘Bang’, analogue remote control systems, small kites on short strings, spirit-levels, kaleidoscopes, sextants, mascara brushes, wooden spoons, egg toppers, paper clips, microphones, Clingfilm dispensers, radio aerials, small fizzy sweet dispensers and a ruminator (whatever that is).

If you want to find out more about Troublebots then click here.