Wandering out and about with KiLL! yesterday, I bumped into a book that I thought I would purchase for a friend. As we waited in the checkout line, the woman at the register stared intently at the cover. She was already ringing everything up incredibly slowly and nearly ripping packaging open in an attempt to get some UPCs to scan, so I was pretty curious what had her frozen in place. Did she not see the huge barcode on the back cover? Suddenly, she gasps. Her eyes widen and she whispers, "Oh my god… Is this book about the 9/11?"
The 9/11? KiLL! and I exchange meaningful glances. The words "Sci Fi" are printed on the left margin of the cover, just below the author's name. There's a helicopter shooting lasers and some guy in a Halo-esque suit half crouching in the corner. The woman continues, "You know, I was watchin' a documentary on the 9/11 the other day…" Still wide-eyed, half-horrified, unable to put my new book into my shopping bag. I calmly explain to her that, no, the book is not about the 9/11.
It's better that most people never know about the massive alien invasion that took place on that most awful day, nor the intergalactic circumstances that began it all.
- Virva Peikko
