The main antagonist of my new novel (released today!) Slubes is an intergalactic tyrant who travels the cosmos and conquers worlds–as the name suggests. With four long tentacles and a rather small body, the vast amount of his mass comes from a giant, menacing, bulbous head that lets him tower over most anyone and glare at them with his teardrop-shaped eyes. Also, the back of his head is replaced with a glass case, so you can see his brain!

The Conqueror is a megalomaniac, sure, but he also has a high belief in his qualifications for rule. That is, he’s really smart. He’s calculating and scheming, but quick to anger. Everyone is below him—even if he has respect for someone, they’re still below him in his eyes (of course it helps that he’s taller than a lot of people).

The Conqueror is the instigator of these events; he comes to Mintop in a scouting space station to examine the planet before he launches a full invasion. In scanning the planet, he comes across a crystal with a vast amount of energy contained within. His plans to take it for himself go awry, though, but he doesn’t intend to let such a powerful artifact slip from his grasp.

My novel is out now—you can read all about The Conqueror’s plans and how the trio of slubes face them by getting it here! Before you do, though, here’s one more excerpt:

The rebels yelped; they were grabbed by The Conqueror’s long tentacles and pulled away. He held the four rebels each in one tentacle.

“You thought you could rebel against The Great Conqueror!?” shouted The Great Conqueror as he held them at eye level.

“I thought you were just ‘The Conqueror’,” a rebel said with all the cheek a creature without cheeks could muster.

“Great or not, you have made a fatal mistake,” The Conqueror told it. Every previous attempt to rebel against him had failed, and the resulting public torture… It led to a stronger grip on the planet that saw the torture. But for a spleech to try and rebel…

“So… you’re not actually great?” asked the rebel.

…and then try to mock him!? The Conqueror tightened his grip on that rebel and threatened, “I would watch what you say, for there is nothing stopping me from squeezing the life out of you.” He suspected there were more rebels and would need to interrogate these four. However, one less captive would not matter…

While this exchange was going on, one of the rebels freed its mechanical tentacle. The end of it opened and shot out a bomb. It exploded, blasting the control panel apart.

“NO!” cried The Conqueror. The computer smoked and fell silent, ceasing all activity.

The spleech began working furiously to get a status update on the crystal. “We’re losing visual on the crystal, sir!”

“Power signals decreasing!”

“They’re spreading out!”

“Crystal gem entering Mintop atmosphere!”

“Sir! It appears the crystal is breaking apart in the atmosphere!”

“What!?” The screen before them showed dots on the map of Mintop. Each dot marked where the crystal landed after breaking up. “This rather multiplies the problem, then…”

“Sorry, Conqueror,” said the cheeky rebel, “but your crystal is in another ca-” The Conqueror cut it off by tightening his grip again.

The Conqueror ordered in some guards. “Lock these rebels up. Interrogate them. Find out who else dares to go against the might of The Conqueror.” He wanted to interrogate them himself, but he now had more pressing concerns. Turning to the spleech at the computers, he said, “Find those shards! This isn’t over! I will have that crystal!”