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The esteemed Professor System? writes

INSERT IMAGE: COVER OF FIRST PAPERBACK DEADTREE EDITION OF INFERNO AT NOON

Begin dictation, “Inferno at Noon,” pre-edited copy, draft one.

Now some people – small-minded, contrary people, people who care little for truth and instead desire solely to advance their own dark, I daresay Dark, agenda – some people will claim that a Power of Inferno at Noon is an impossibility.

That they are technically correct while remaining utterly wrong – this is a paradox worthy of overlong description by that blowhard Aaron? and his temporal savants?. He’d probably make some jokes that aren’t funny, damn his eyes, and then change the subject. Oftentimes I suspect he is in league with the Damned – so many are, so many don’t admit it, so many don’t even realize it.

Which brings me back to the Power of Inferno at Noon. They fell upon him, the Damned did, and I am sure that in Excruciating him and his Estate they caused the erasure of five hundred years of history. Those who insist that I provide “evidence” to support this “outlandish” claim are nothing more than hypocrites who cannot bear to see their pet theories evaporate under the harsh light of day. (Be sure to quarantine the words evidence and outlandish within quotation marks.)

Inferno at Noon was a novel written in 2015* or thereabouts, on one of the asteroid belt colonies, it doesn’t matter which. It was one of those historical-generational-speculative-fictional novels of the sort that weigh thirty pounds and sell fifty billion copies. Started in 1916* with Ben Faulk going off to college to become a mining engineer, skipped ahead to 1954* and the HMAS Nelson landing on Mars, back to 1937* and the Thirty Seconds of Silence, ahead to 1981* when the Olympius Mons colony told Earth 'thanks for founding us and go to hell,' back to 1925* and Doktor Zumm's Mercuric Men, ahead to 2304* and the twilight of Cancellations, back to 2089*, ahead to 2210*… you get the idea.

It’s a faddish practice I disapprove of, this nonlinearity of narration. But! The unique thing about Inferno at Noon, what made it such a phenomenal thing that it merited its own Noble – that was its Truth. Every word of that book was true. The dialogue (which, in fact, was criticized for attempting hyperrealism badly and ending up with too many stutters and mispronunciations) spoken by every character was in fact spoken by every historical figure, even the ones who lived after it was written. It outlined in general shape – and perfect detail – human history from 1904*, when in the epilogue a young Ben Faulk buys an ice cream cone, to 2400*, the outbreak of Yseult's War?.

Not only is all this true, but I have a copy of the book that someone squirreled away against the unforeseen. It’s on my shelf as I dictate this.

No, you can’t see it.

End dictation.

I said, end dictation!

SEE ALSO: Ben Faulk, Temporal Savants?, Yseult's War?

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This is a I entry in the Lexicon of the Lost 500 Years.