READERS GUIDE to the Alpesco Bookshelf
By Alpesco



Having seen Merz's guide to his bookshelf, this seemed like a good idea. The
stories on this bookshelf have grown surprisingly in number over the past few
years. They feature several principal characters. My heroines tend to be tall
and naturally powerful, having worked hard to build their strength. They are
independent minded, and enjoy surprising strangers with their power. Annoying
them tends to be exceedingly dangerous. I like to think of all of them as
real, in that they are based on the abilities and capacities of real women.
There are no super powers, no magical growth serums, no impossibly sized
people tossing tanks around. Women like these are all out there somewhere in
the real world, if you take the time to find them. We are just looking in on
their stories. The earlier stories are plain text. From November 2005 onward
illustrated stories appear.

CHARACTERS

BRIONN: The earliest stories feature Brionn Landeck, a six foot one tall
sports model and student of martial arts. She is beautiful, tall, very strong
and loves lifting and carrying as well as using her fists. Secretly she is a
bit of a bitch and enjoys humiliating her largely male foes and stripping them
of their power. The loosely-connected stories reveal her at various ages.

LUDMILLA: Another blonde heroine, city-girl Ludmilla is an immigrant from the
Ukraine. She is six feet two tall, and very powerfully built. She works in a
bar as part-time security and is enormously strong.

KATIE: Is a good-natured young swimmer who is naturally strong. Although she
enjoys being stronger than most of her elders, only when sorely provoked does
she use her strength aggressively.

REBECCA: A twenty five year old farmer, she inherited her land and has two
younger siblings to care for. Brought up on the land, she is tough and rangy
with a steely strength. She takes no nonsense from anyone.

GINNY: Is a somewhat selfish fourteen year-old who has just put on a growth
spurt, and now finds herself taller and far more powerful than her older
sister and a lot of other people. "Little Sister" is the first of these
stories exploring how will she handles her sibling rivalry.

More recent characters include:

SARAH is the bodybuilding teenage daughter of a back-country sheriff. She uses
her considerable strength to help in her father's work.

ALICIA: A complex character. Alicia is only twenty, but stands a willowy six
feet five inches tall. But her slimness and formal attire belie her steely
physical strength which is quite overwhelming. She has risen swiftly to become
manager of a small hostel for long-term residents in need of community care.
She is well-meaning, but a stickler for order and discipline and a complete
control freak. In just a few months she has got both staff and residents
completely under her thumb and is becoming a pocket dictator.

MEGAN: Standing five feet ten, with blonde hair, Megan looks no more than
twenty five, but she is nearly forty. She has always been strong, but by
training every day, she has made her body into a tower of rock-hard mature
muscle. She has also made a lot of money over the past twenty years and used
it to buy whatever she wants including a luxurious desert retreat, thousands
of acres of land and most of the nearby town. Megan insists on total
submission from her mostly much younger men. Her first story is "Toy Boy".

KAREN SANDWOOD: Karen is basically a misfit. She stands six feet two tall, has
always been really strong and continues to build her prodigious strength. We
meet her in her first story "The Survivalist" where she runs into an
unfortunate couple on vacation. By the age of twenty five she has left the
city to build a secret homestead in the mountains where she awaits the
imminent breakdown of society. She distrusts all authorities and believes in
self-reliance and survival skills. Both intelligent and immensely physically
powerful, it seems that no-one can stop her doing exactly what she wants.

ELAINE: Artist and girlfriend of Bob, Elaine is a tall and gorgeous blonde.
She is fun to be with and has a beautiful nature. Her hidden side is her
alarming strength and her love for full-contact martial arts, of which she is
a master.

Comments on the stories are welcome via the Readers and Writers Message Board,