Killing the fairies in your internet.
The John Golden novellas are a series by Django Wexler released by Ragnarok Publications. They star the titular character and his disembodied sister Sarah. John Golden is the world's best Debugger, those rare individuals capable of physically entering the internet and banishing the fae who live there. While most fairies do nothing more than mess up data and prank their users, the worst are capable of stealing souls.
The first John Golden novella, John Golden: Freelance Debugger was released in February, 2014, followed my a sequel John Golden and the Heroes of Mazaroth in August. More novellas are planned with a full-length novel in the works.
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Tropes across the series
- Badass Abnormal: John as a Debugger is this. He's able to fight fae on their home turf and win. He's not bad in real-life, either.
- Cartwright Curse: John seems to suffer from this given he's had a new girlfriend every story.
- Consummate Professional: John, despite appearances, takes his job very seriously.
- Cyberpunk: A Lighter and Softer variant with Urban Fantasy elements.
- Deadpan Snarker: John and Sarah both.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: Sarah is a ghost inhabiting a laptop who hunts fairies but maintains she's an AI because she doesn't believe in magic.
- Mission Control: Sarah fills this role for John.
- Our Fairies Are Different: The fae primarily inhabit computer networks, since it's easier to manifest there.
- Urban Fantasy: Fairy-hunting IT guy is this in a nutshell.
- Virtual Reality: Played with. Fairy burrows appear to be this but John points out they're magical pocket-dimensions.
John Golden: Freelance Debugger
- Action Girl: Delphi has shades of this due to her keeping a bat nearby her at all times at home. She proves it fighting the fae and becoming a Debugger.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The genie plans to use Falmer's antivirus software to spread to the entire world's networks.
- Badass Normal: Delphi is this. Until she becomes a Badass Abnormal.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mister Falmer. He's not. He's actually dead.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Sarah thinks this would be the case if she died since she's backed up. John feels otherwise.
- Expy: Anti Fae seems to be a stand-in for Norton.
- Grand Theft Me: Mister Falmer is possessed.
- Klingon Promotion: After a fashion. John convinces the investors to make Delphi CEO after they kill the possessed corpse of the CEO.
- Meaningful Name: Delphi is both an oracle and also a pun on the Dell computer.
- Not What It Looks Like: John comes off as a creepy stalker when he visits Delphi's home.
John Golden and the Heroes of Mazaroth
- Action Girl: Meghan is one, at least in character.
- Sarah becomes one, sort of, with her very male character.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Lord Anaxomander's goal in-game.
- Antivillain: Lord Anaxomander is a Card-Carrying Villain but that's just because he was made that way. When given the option to defect to the side of good, he does.
- Captain Ersatz: Heroes of Mazaroth is World of Warcraft.
- Chainmail Bikini: Kelara's "armor" covers about as much as a standard-issue bikini, plus thigh-high mail boots and spiked shoulder pads.
- Dark Action Girl: Kelara is an Expy of Sylvanas.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: John is killed in Mazaroth. He then respawns. The experience freaks him out a little.
- Evil Overlord: John finds one living in a finance officer's servers. He's a refugee from Heroes of Mazaroth.
- Hypocritical Humor: Sarah puts down Heroes of Mazaroth the entire game, yet suspiciously seems to know a lot about it. It's because she's a die-hard player with maxed levels and gear.
- Jiggle Physics: Sarah's annotation describes that Kelara's breasts bounce as she strides, and she is "badly in needs of a sports bra".
- Mage Marksman: Kelara is a sorceress who fights with a bow and arrows.
- Ms. Fanservice: Kelara is lithe and dark-haired, with lips painted a bruised-looking purple and flawless olive skin, and quite a lot of that skin is on display. Heroes of Mazaroth's character designers are experts at appealing to their target demographic, for whom "women are a sort of mythical beast slightly less accessible than dragons". Her bust would have "done credit to a blow-up doll".
- Rainbow Pimp Gear: Sarah's character in Heroes wears a hat like this because of its stat buffs.
