DO NOT make a drinking game out of this! If you take a shot every time you hit a falsehood, you'll have cirrhosis before you get the the end of the "essay".

(Do note, however, that the piece skips over Wolfman's testimony, especially the part where he describes me as someone who "doesn't create characters." Under oath, no less)

••

Unlikely. Having managed, in those pre-internet days, to keep Guardian's impending death secret for more than a year, Denny wasn't handing out xeroxes of the key scene before the book was published!

Up walks one lanky kid, maybe 20 or so. "So Guardian is the one who's gonna die."

I smile, knowingly. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"No, it's Guardian. Peter David is handing out xeroxes of the pages."

I had read in fiction where characters were so angry the world turned red around them. I had not experienced it before that moment. I thundered across the room to his table, demanded to see what he was handing out.

Yep. Xeroxes of the pages on which Guardian died.

I honestly felt like the floor was tipping beneath me. I could not find my voice. I turned and stumbled toward the exit, tripping over (but not throwing) a chair in the process. Somehow I found my way to my room. A few moments later there was a knock at the door. It was Tom DeFalco and Peter David. I expressed my fury in words. DeFalco tried to calm me down. David bleated that he was "only doing his job". His job being to ruin my story?

Finally they left. I lay on the bed wondering if I was going to have a heart attack.