A surprise gift for the Colombian boy
who read Much Ado About Corona
faster than Operation Warp Speed

Blazing Reader,

As I shared on Friday, the world's youngest reader of Much Ado About Corona, Manuel Gutierrez Toccalino, dropped by on Thursday for a visit. He’s the boy from Colombia who read all 500 pages of my novel faster than Operation Warp Speed — 50 pages a day — when he was only twelve years old. He, along with his mother Angela and his little brother Gio, were visiting relatives in the Great White North during our hot humid summertime (when Southern Ontario morphs into the Great Tropical North).

Well, I wanted to give Manuel something to make the visit memorable. Having only just completed the short satirical story, Dr. Science Fiction Himself: The Most Far-Fetched Interview with Anthony Fauci This Side of Pluto, I thought a signed print copy would make for a great gift. 

The only problem was this idea came to me late Tuesday night — the day before their visit. So I set my alarm to wake me extra early, allowing me time to reformat the ebook and get it emailed to my local print shop before they opened at 9 am — praying they’d have time to print it that day. 

Manuel and company arrived at 2:30 pm. After we sang the COVID Christmas carol together from Much Ado About Corona (as per Friday’s crazy post), I took everyone downtown to Angela's Gelato and Fine Refreshments (where a completely different Angela makes Italian ice cream on-site). In case they didn't like my short story, I figured they'd surely delight in Angela's oddly popular strawberry basil gelato (along with other unique flavours).

After gelato, we played some badminton in Market Square (until we decided it was far too windy for the birdies). Then we dashed off to the Stratford Business Centre where they had two proofs of Dr. Science Fiction Himself nicely printed with a full-colour cover. Here’s a picture of Manuel and Angela holding the first two copies ever to exist:

Don’t they look happy? As if they can’t wait to get back on their plane to read Dr. Science Fiction Himself.

Between singing the crazy COVID Christmas carol, Angela’s gelato and an impromptu book release for Dr. Science Fiction Himself… we had the best get-together this side of Pluto.

John C.A. Manley

PS Signed print copies of Dr. Science Fiction Himself will be on sale soon. They may become a collector’s item more valuable than Bitcoin. While you wait for their release, have you read the free ebook copy of Dr. Science Fiction Himself I sent you as a thank you for purchasing a copy of Much Ado About Corona? That’s two stories of courageous dissent for the price of one. Here's the secret link (don't share it!) to download your copy: https://blazingpinecone.com/books/dr-science-fiction-himself/downloads/dr-science-fiction-himself-1.0.pdf

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.