Kidnapped by Literary Cyber-Terrorists
By Jason Scherer

Transcript of a video sent to the four major news networks, 26 Dec 2000:

My name is Jason Scherer. I'm being well taken care of and my captors have not mistreated me in any way. I am being fed well, allowed to shower at least once a week, and have not been harmed in any physical way yet. I only say "yet" because I worry about the mental stability of my captors. OUCH! OK, I take that back. OUCH! OK OK - I have not been harmed in any physical way and will not be in the future. I hope. OUCH!

Ray and Mike, who are now calling themselves the People's Sci-Fi and Fantasy Literary Liberation Front, stole me from my home two weeks ago at gunpoint. They even threatened my wife if she did not co-operate. Little did I know at the time they were merely Daisy air rifles, but being a former city-dwelling flatlander, I have little experience with guns. I give them credit for not trying the cholocate gun trick they tried in the Starbucks Pustch in Seattle in 1998.

The PSFFLLF consider their demands simple and of a reasonable nature, and they have asked me to outline them here:

1. Big Publishing stop shutting the truly talented writers out from the industry.
2. A keg of beer every three days for the rest of their lives - every two days if the
kegs are from a non-corporate beer maker.
3. Big Publishing stop jacking up the prices of mass-market paperbacks because
they are paying a few untalented authors ungodly amounts of money.
4. The great individuals of the world wake up from their corporate-induced
slumber and recognize literary crap when they see it.
5. Naked cheerleaders smothered in peanut oil performing "Let Me See Your
Tootsie Roll" on all 4 major networks for 24 hours straight.
6. The release of their fellow artists from throttling contracts which choke the life
from their art and deny them a decent percentage of the profits which are
rightfully theirs.
7. A two year supply of Turtle Wax from the Merv Griffith Enterprises
warehouse. I do not understand this demand, and it was apparently made after
several bottles of scotch.

These are their demands. If not met in their entirety, they will force me to continue work on this revolutionary magazine until they are satisfied that society has seen the light. Of course, in the process, they make me a traitor to Big Publishing as well, and so I will face heavy sanctions, perhaps even the fate
worse than death - form rejection letters on my Great American Novel. Though I am an unwilling victim being swept by the tide of this revolution, it is a well-known fact that Big Publishing cares little for what authors have to say; therefore, they would not care if I was held against my admittedly weak will in such matters in a
state of constant drunkenness and forced into this work. Along with that, they have promised to force me to watch David Lynch's adaptation of "Dune" over and over again should my work not prove revolutionary enough. Yes, the Geneva Convention has outlawed this form of heinous and unreasonable torture, but in
war there are apparently no rules.

They have also stated that if at least one of their demands is not met within 72 hours of the broadcast of this video, they will also be leading a "liberation raid" against one of Big Publishing's novel sweatshops, where "poor, underpaid, exploited immigrant workers" are "forced" to churn out pulp romance, sci-fi, and horror novels by the dozens each day.

So to my wife Erika, I would like to say that I love you, and I hope to return home soon. To my cats Goliath and Guinevere, I would like to tell them to take care of Mommy while I'm gone and to stop urinating in every corner of the house. And to Big Publishing, please try and work with these psychopaths. OUCH! I mean, liberators of the reading public. I simply want to go home and resume work on my Great American Novel so that you can trash it, and then publish in a small 2,000 print run of which I will only see about 22.3 cents. Good night, God Bless you all, and GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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