Ideality — Rosemary Edghill

This is the story of Childeric, called The Shatterer, Last Emperor of the Eidolon Empire. He swashbuckled through a swordly and sorcerous universe...in four novels written by A. E. Phillips during the fantasy revival of the late 1960s. This is the story of Arcadia Stanton McCauley, who spent a couple of summers being A. E. Phillips and got on with her life...until her life was over. Only it wasn't. Not quite. Because Cady McCauley died one night on an LA freeway. But she woke up in the Eidolon Empire.... The first Childeric the Shatterer adventure was written in two weeks flat on a borrowed Royal portable in late nights fueled by black coffee and Boone's Farm Apple Wine. If Cady hadn't been desperate enough for money to try anything she would never have finished it. When it was long enough, she sent it off to a publisher called Eponym Books without even bothering to read it over. She received a contract in the mail within the month. She didn't read that, either, except for the part that said they'd pay her fifteen hundred U.S. dollars. She had no idea of how to write a sequel; the writing that had become a grinding torture by the end of Book Two (Temptation of Masks), and Childeric had become an impotent incestuous mass-murdering alcoholic bisexual masochist. She tried bestiality. Necrophilia. Child abuse. Cannibalism. Eponym also bought books three (Starchild Mourning) and four (City of Tombs). By then Cady was in her junior year at college and her father gave up. He sent her a check for the last three years' worth of tuition and living expenses. When the check cleared, A. E. Phillips (Childeric's doom-laden amanuensis) was buried in an unmarked grave. For a while.