Please find some pages from the Inappropriate Library, coming soon from Shockingly Awesome Press. The book is the first in a series of fantasy books. Please note that the title of one of the chapters is "Excerpt From Fun Facts of the Ancient World 1102 AD Edition" and that is not an excerpt.

For comments and feedback please email the author Kim Greenblatt - thank you for your interest in the series!

Excerpt From Fun Facts of the Ancient World 1102 AD Edition

Greetings, peace and joy upon you, my trusted friend. If you are reading this, indeed, you can be trusted. After all, the library has survived for better or worse, because of trust. We, who are trying to find a cosmic balance, rely on trust as well.

This may look like a lot of boring text but I can promise you that it is anything BUT boring.

First, we need to set records straight.

It is indeed true that the Library (with a capital "L" from now on, if you will graciously indulge me) existed before Alexander’s time; its true nature became apparent during that period of The First Enlightenment. Though accounts state that the Library was established around 3 B.C., the truth is that it existed before that in some shape or form that was not commonly known by many except those initiated in schools of the Mysteries.

It should make sense to you, trusted friend, because if we are to first surmise that if in the Beginning, there was the Word, would it not make sense that somewhere, sometime, the Word would be written down?

What do you suppose would happen if somebody had the power with one word to create whatever he or she wanted?

“I want to control the weather!”

“I want all the gold in the world.”

How about if whatever they said destroyed what ever they wanted? You wonder where the origins of magical "spells" came from?

“I want my enemies dead!”

Ahhh! I can see the light flickering in your eyes indicating enlightenment.

Yes, that is it exactly.

Somewhere between the birth of Creation and now, the first sounds, the first Word, if you will was captured and saved.

Unlike recording devices of today, the best we could clumsily do was either recite to one another the sound or write down what we thought was the sound and pass it down for others to experiment with.

Results though at times seemingly miraculous or catastrophic, were still far from being what a supreme deity would be able to do. Perhaps that is for the best, eh?

Human nature, being what it is, decided to take the Word and use it at times in what we shall call not-so-beneficial ways.

There were the wars. Beings of incomparable power yet evenly matched fighting for years causing damage to cities, killing millions, and polluting the environment. The sides were too evenly matched. Within these factions, cooler heads prevailed and decided to come to a compromise.
So with the early wars, the wise men of the day decided to collect all the documents, scrolls, parchment and early books that had the approximation of these powerful words and collect them somewhere safe where they all could watch over these powerful men.

Men and women come and go and with them their hopes and dreams. Some of the caretakers were less than dutiful in their care and started using the Library to develop powers to control nations.

Unlike the overt battles, they tried doing this in subtle ways getting leaders to do their bidding through guile and corruption. Other of the Library's caretakers seeing this used what they could of the Library to fight back.

I am a part of the group that fought back.

Sadly, the majority of our group came to the conclusion that the Library must cease to exist in order for mankind, even life on the planet to have a decent shot at continuing. We cried to the Heavens.

“Save us! Do something!”

The universe or whatever you want to call it decided to listen and try to remedy this error by wiping out the Library. The first attempt was with water.

Lots of water.

In fact, throughout all world cultures you will read of this water.

The Great Flood that happened was more for the benefit of ruining all documentation in the Library then the universe-cleaning house. Granted, it was an easy two-for-the price-of-one deal and it sobered up humanity for several hundred years at least. The shame was that it also resulted in a great deal of beneficial information being lost.

I've debated with others that if we ultimately lose the Library, a great deal of aid to humanity and its evolution may be gone forever. Another sad item was that the Library learned from its mistake.

Fun Fact #1-The Library cannot be destroyed with water anymore.

Since then, the Heavens seem to have thrown their hands up in resignation as well since any prayers seem to have fallen on deaf ears! Perhaps it was by our doing and powers that the waters covered the earth and not some deity. That would indeed be sad!

Fast-forward to about 250 BC and we have the reign of Ptolemy II from Egypt. He built this as a supplement to his father's contribution, the temple of the Muses.

What history texts fail to tell you is that the temple of the Muses had taught hundreds of people as best as they could the basis of the Word.

Some of the people literally became what they believed.
Crazy, dear reader? Is it any crazier than what people can do in this day and age?

Do not people who are under the influence of alcohol, narcotics or hypnosis think they can be animals, feelings, and creatures? I see you nodding your head so I will not belabor the point..

Of course without devices to record what they would sound like, the followers had their disciples write books and cast their sounds through letters into books!

Incredible is it not? The power of the Library was amazing.

What was more incredible was that a lot of these people had hoped to become immortal and control all life. Human nature did not evolve or change as some of these beings gained power.

It only corrupted them faster.

Sadly, that left others the horrible choice of either letting future generations die or willingly accept a bizarre form of immortality themselves to bond in text to guard against these beings from ever attaining their goal.

That was the purpose of the supplemental library. Disciples of those of us who believed the corruption must be kept in check; we transferred ourselves into the texts themselves to stay in the library. Together with the texts saved from the temple of the Muses, the Library, as we know it today was formed.

The Library has been known to be sneaky.

Back in the day, it was mandatory that whenever a book came into Alexandria, it was confiscated and copied in the Library. It was thought to be that all world knowledge should be stored and copied in the Library. Ha! The Library was waiting to see how it could extend its reach into the world.

Would the people of the day wonder how quickly that their book was copied! A lot of times, their book might be replaced with a book from the Library that would go on to alter the lives of kings and commoners alike! The book would go out and guide its owner to greatness - or madness - depending on the nature of the book.

We would sometimes be able to get out ourselves and stop the evil books from corrupting civilization.

Fun Fact #2-Not all books from the Library are bad to read. The problem is that sometimes it gets to be hard to tell the difference.

It came to a point where the Library was making a concerted effort to go out completely after some wars to spread itself throughout the world and make civilization in the image that it wanted. A lot of people think that it was Caesar, Aurelian, the decree of Theophilus or the Muslim conquest that destroyed the Library.

Kindly let me set the record straight.

None of them destroyed the Library. We destroyed it ourselves with fire. Any other fires attributed to anybody else were insignificant. That leads us to our next Fun Fact!

Fun Fact #3-The Library cannot be destroyed with fire anymore.

Good luck and please go to the next chapter for more Fun Facts and information!

Oh, before I go, please do not forget this important fun fact:

Fun Fact #4 - The Library has a wicked sense of humor. For example, do not trust librarians named Ptolemy! They are nothing like the true Ptolemy was.

-from the Fun Facts of the Ancient World 1102 AD Edition

go to the next chapter

Publisher: Shockingly Awesome Press

ISBN/SKU: 0977728285 ISBN

Complete: 978-0-9777282-8-2

Title: The Inappropriate Library

Publication Date: 3/2/2008

Language: English

Coming Soon thru a bookstore near you in the US and UK.

Price: US $12

Book Description: Billy North and his family move to Northern California to discover a small town where all the children hang out at the library. Instead of playing video games or text messaging, the kids like to be with their books. Something is different and very horrible at the town library. Billy's life shifts into a fantastic world of excitement as he discovers the secrets and power of the Inappropriate Library. This is the first book in this new exciting series! Suitable for children and adults. A portion of all sales from this book go to research Rett Syndrome. Rett Syndrome affects a girl born every fifteen minutes. Boys born with the Rett gene die at birth. Kim Isaac Greenblatt, the author, is also a writer of non fiction books.

LCCN# 2007910324