Superbloke: A Publishers’ Summary

Publishers’ summaries are promotions for readers looking for something new. You find them on Amazon, Audible, Goodreads and most other bookseller websites. Their most notable characteristics are cliches, exaggeration and urgency—altogether, unreliability. The protagonist/hero/antihero “must” always be doing something or other, and doing it “quickly.” Even a mild comedy might be characterized with words like “stunning” and “shocking.” And surely no book is worth a blurb unless the impact is “explosive.” If the book will change you forever, even better.

I haven’t started writing the first book in the Superbloke series, but I hope to get around to it very soon. However, because publicity trumps every other consideration when it comes to selling books, I have written its publisher’s summary.

Superbloke: Adventures in the Lower Sphere

In this first and latest heart-thumping installment of this bestselling series by ever-aspiring author Adrian Spratt, Superbloke must confront the biggest threat he has yet met.

Empress Tanta summons Superbloke after evil warlady Wordah Pants kidnaps the Empress’s betrothed, Mori Bund. Tanta mounts a massive search, but she knows she cannot prevail without Superbloke’s help. Superbloke quickly flies—well, drives—to his trailer in order to transform from Kent Clerk to muscle-bulging savior. But once there, Superbloke discovers his “S” outfit no longer fits. He knows that without his uniform, he cannot transform himself into defender against evil.

He summons heart-throb Louis Street, who introduces him to the anti-obesity drug Zepbound. “What’s that,” Superbloke exclaims, “some new breed of dog?” Louis brings up videos of endoscopies demonstrating that Zepbound works by keeping the stomach filled with days-old food. Seeing stomachs bubbling with decomposing hamburger, Superbloke vomits.

But, in a shocking development, Superbloke determines that it isn’t his body type that has changed, but that someone, or something, has penetrated his secret lair, the nondescript trailer, and applied a catastrophic shrinking agent on the S suit. Who could this monster be? Will Superbloke succeed in identifying him/her/them before he becomes a victim of clothing shrinkage? Has his glorious errands-of-mercy career come to a calamitous end?

Superbloke enlists his long-time ally, private detective Ham Shovel, who quickly uncovers a mammoth conspiracy. In a stunning development, the man responsible for Superbloke’s terrible predicament proves to be none other than his childhood nemesis, Dink Wrap. Wrap can breeze through trailer walls with little more harm than a scratch and an itch. He bought up the company that mines and supplies the shrinking agent, Tiny Prancer, that now seems destined to destroy Superbloke. That fateful night, while Superbloke was playing at being mild-mannered Kent Clerk, Wrap had flowed through the S trailer and squirted Tiny Prancer on every piece of clothing he found. Superbloke hasn’t yet tried on his underwear.

Can Superbloke and Shovel find a supplier that can tailor his suit to his new shape? Or can they locate a counter-bloat agent before it’s too late? If so, can they prevent Dink Wrap from monopolizing it before they can super-X-size his S suit back to what it was? The stakes are raised and tensions quickly mount as bodies pile up.

But then, in yet another twist, Shovel appears to switch sides. The man whose loyalty Superbloke has counted on his entire good-deeding life, the man who paid the down payment on his trailer, can no longer be relied on. Surrounded by friends and foes he dares not trust, Superbloke must quickly determine if he is being betrayed or teased. If betrayed, he must quickly kill or be killed. If teased, he must quickly acquire a sense of humor.

And, with so many obstacles in his way, will Superbloke yet find a way to rescue Empress Tanta’s fiancé Mori Bund before his kidnapper, Wordah Pants, commits a deadly act of cold-blooded murder?

In this explosive, action-packed thriller, readers will be at the edge of their seats, fearful of falling on the floor but unable to stop turning pages or swiping left until the very last, heart-stopping comma. Their attitudes toward heroism and obesity will change forever!

Note: Need I admit I have no intention of writing even the first sentence of the Superbloke saga? My apologies for—let me roll out one more cliche—any inconvenience.