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Q: Funny Story Gone AWOL ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   4 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Funny Story Gone AWOL
Category: Arts and Entertainment > Books and Literature
Asked by: morbidluna-ga
List Price: $10.00
Posted: 05 Jul 2003 09:38 PDT
Expires: 04 Aug 2003 09:38 PDT
Question ID: 225368
I'm looking for a partial story written by the author of a particular
website, I believe the main site was about astronomy. (Can't remember
the URL)
It was about this guy who gets a $5000 or so check(lots of money, not
sure how much) from this weird uncle of his and an invitation to come
and see something.
When he arrives it turns out the uncle is a magic user, and the guy is
teleported to another dimension shortly thereafter. He meets this
rather unskilled wizard whom he accidentally sends to hell(and brings
him back) as well as a faery-nymph thing(not sure what) named Tyme.
I found this story originally by typing in 'silver eyes and shining
fates' without quotations or any other markings. It seems to have
moved though, since it's no longer available on the first two
pages(not that I could find, at least), but I might have looked over
it somehow.
It's completely original, IE., it's not a fanfic or spin-off.
It's also very funny; I recommend the researcher who finds it to read
it themselves for the sheer amusement value.
All I need is the URL to the site, if it still exists.
Answer  
Subject: Re: Funny Story Gone AWOL
Answered By: markj-ga on 05 Jul 2003 11:21 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
morbidluna --

Here is the URL for Chapter 1 of the partial story you are seeking:
The Book
http://www.vat13.com/tb01.htm

Subsequent chapters can be accessed by clicking on the links at the
bottom of each page, up through "Chapter 5," after which the tale
abruptly ends.

I am glad that you asked only for the URL, because there appears to be
nothing else on the web that explains or supplements this material. 
To test that conclusion, I tried various searches using exact quotes
from the text and came up with nothing.  And, of course, the site that
I found contains no names for either the author or "the book."

You're right that the story has some very funny moments, and I commend
it to the attention of other researchers.


Search Strategy:

I started with a simple search using only the most unusual word in
your description -- "Tyme."  That was not much help, since it resulted
in 202,000 hits:
tyme
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=tyme

I then added the word "wizard" to the next search, since that seemed
to be a word that was likely to be repeatedly used in the story.  That
helped some, but still produced an unwieldy 2200 hits:
tyme wizard
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=tyme+wizard

I then added the word "spell" to the next search, thinking that it
would be repeatedly used on the same web page as "wizard" in the
story, but it should narrow the results down to a manageable size. 
(The whole strategy assumed, of course, that the name "Tyme" occurs on
the same web page as the other terms in the search.)  This search was
a success, and language that looks like an excerpt from the story in
question appeared as the 15th of 271 hits:
tyme wizard spell
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=tyme+wizard+spell 


I am confident that this is the information you are seeking.  If
anything is unclear (or wrong!), please ask for clarification before
rating the answer.


markj-ga
morbidluna-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars
Excellent. I wish I'd thought of approaching it that way, but I got
stuck in the rut of trying to recreate the same means that had led me
to the results previously.

Comments  
Subject: Re: Funny Story Gone AWOL
From: denco-ga on 05 Jul 2003 13:27 PDT
 
Fantastic job by markj-ga on finding the site!

Some more information...

From the home page of the website containing the story, we
find that it belongs to one Devon Oxford.
http://www.vat13.com

From the link that appears there, it seems that Mr. Oxford
wrote "The Book."
http://www.vat13.com/other.htm

"For those who like reading something really off-the-wall,
or just for a good laugh, check out 'The Book' by........me"

The "home" page for "The Book" which also includes some
background on the story, can be found at:
http://www.vat13.com/tb00.htm

Mr. Oxford's email address (from the website) in case you
had questions, such as when Chapter 6 will be available, is:

devon@vat13.com

Hope this helps!  denco-ga
Subject: Re: Funny Story Gone AWOL
From: markj-ga on 05 Jul 2003 14:00 PDT
 
Thank you, denco-ga, for supplying the additional information.  I had
committed a typo in trying to back out the home page's URL from the
URL of "The Book."

markj-ga
Subject: Re: Funny Story Gone AWOL
From: morbidluna-ga on 06 Jul 2003 07:16 PDT
 
Thanks. I had explored the entirety of the site so knew precisely what
I was looking for(which you found very nicely), but didn't know where
it had run off to, or whether it existed at all.
It's an unfortunate fact of the internet that some of the greatest
writings and sites disappear due to financial reasons, hosts going out
of business, etc...
Anyway, I shall record the URL in a more secure location now.
Subject: Re: Funny Story Gone AWOL
From: markj-ga on 06 Jul 2003 08:17 PDT
 
morbidluna --

Thanks for the kind words and the five-star rating.  

markj-ga

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