Description
NOTE: This first part of the story is told in the third person from Jo-Bri’s POV.
JO-BRI is the handsome and rebellious teenage son of legendary wizard parents in an alternate sword and sorcery world. He’s two feet shorter than other boys in his isolated village, and a foot shorter than any of the girls except for the one he falls in love with, KAWILLE, a “midget” of a girl only three or four inches taller than he is. Jo-Bri hates learning the spells his parents keep trying to teach him and would much rather hunt, fish and make out with his midget girlfriend.
One day an evil “fear monger” named Hodon attacks Jo-Bri’s village, destroying everyone in it, including Jo-Bri’s parents and his lover Kawille, and accidentally sends Jo-Bri into an alternate world, with the life forces of his parents and other villagers inside him, followed by one of Hodon’s wizards.
Jo-Bri appears in the middle of a modern highway with automobiles zooming past him and Hodon’s wizard attacking him. Fighting the madness that the voices inside him and cars all around him threaten him with, Jo-Bri manages to defeat Hodon’s wizard, and then staggers off the highway, wondering where the jurak he is.
NOTE: This second part of the story is told in the first person from Melinda’s POV.
Melinda is a pretty teenage girl in her ancient Datsun hatchback on her way down the frontage road near her parents’ home in Dillon, Montana when she spots a handsome young man staggering down the road. She gets out to find out if he’s okay, and the stranger – Jo-Bri -- speaks a few strange words, making her car disappear. Completely miffed at losing the prized Datsun her father had bought for her, Mel drags Jo-Bri home and, after getting him to blow up the toaster and make her mother levitate, she convinces her college-professor parents that maybe this young stranger is worth getting to know.
Over the next several weeks, using his magic, including telepathy, Jo-Bri learns Mel’s language and culture at light speed, and learns also that at 6 feet four inches tall, he’s not quite the midget he was in his world. He keeps patting her on the head as if she were a small child, which annoys the heck out of her and somewhat mitigates the growing romantic feelings she has for the towering hunk.
Jo-Bri teaches Mel, her parents, and her friends magic, hoping to create a small army to meet Hodon, who is sure to create a portal to reach Earth. Jo-Bri knows Hodon intends to destroy the Earth in order to prevent its evil from destroying his own world.
Still wracked by guilt over the deaths of his parents and of his lover Kawille, Jo-Bri nonetheless finds himself falling in love with Mel and helps her, her parents and friends to understand how humanity’s evil is destroying Earth and seeping through to threaten Jo-Bri’s world. He also teaches them an alien’s view of life, sex, love, God, and hip-hop.
Hodon creates a portal to Earth and sends a series of wizards through it to test its safety. Jo-Bri, Mel and the others, including Mel’s parents, battle and defeat the wizards but at a terrible cost, one of Jo-Bri’ being killed. They then have to magically convince the local police and townsfolk to keep their identities and powers secret, knowing that though some people might want to lionize and learn from them, others would want to destroy them out of simple fear and ignorance.
Hodon finally breaks through to the Earth and Jo-Bri and his apprentices meet him head-on. Jo-Bri battles Hodon to a standstill but realizes Earth’s survival depends on him taking Hodon back with him to their world.
Jo-Bri and Hodon disappear into the portal, which closes behind them, Jo-Bri sealing it permanently with a spell, to keep Hodon from ever returning to threaten the Earth. Mel and the others defeat Hodon’s remaining wizards, but know that the remaining evil around them threatens to destroy not just Jo-Bri’s world but also the Earth itself. They vow to prevent that Armageddon, and Mel vows to find a way back to Jo-Bri.