THE MARKET: Operation EMU by B. Brandon Barker is available for publication. Will it get a book deal or make the Project Publish Shortlist by September 17, 2007? If either of these happens, shares are worth $100. If neither happens, shares are worth $0.
THE AUTHOR: Barker’s previous work has appeared in Global City Review, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (St. Martin’s Press), Verbicide, and online at McSweeney’s.
THE LOWDOWN: First, the back-story: Barker wrote a (totally fictional) novel about a conspiracy around a NASA training experiment. Then he created a website to publicize his book. But instead of describing the book, he made a mock-site about the conspiracy itself. On the discussion boards visitors soon began to say they “heard” about something like this years ago. Before long a Baltimore Sun reporter contacted him, investigating the “conspiracy”; see the article here. When the reporter outed the whole episode as complete fiction, some conspiracy theorists proposed that Barker was just a cover for NASA. The debates on the UFO sites continue (for an example, see here).

What about the book itself? Operation EMU describes a NASA training experiment that takes three astronauts, sedates them in a phony space craft and transports them to the desert, where they are made to believe they have landed on an alien planet. As part of the experiment, an off-Hollywood production team – all of whom are avoiding tax-evasion charges and other minor felonies – helps sustain the illusion by staging and acting out an authentic prehistoric community. Operation EMU combines everything from B-movie-era science fiction to earthy spiritualism in a funny and fascinating story.

THE BUZZ: Referred by a literary agent and literary journal editor. All authors posted on Media Predict have access to literary representation. See market advice.



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