This one's heavenly. It's difficult to create a sublime pilot for one series, much less two, and The Cactus and The Corpse introduces both the world and styles of Auteur and Coloth in an absolutely divine fashion, somehow setting up two series' distinct identities in one go of it. Odd as hell, but yeah, it manages. Much like the heights of Faction Paradox or Cwej, this is brimming with ideas, it's an idea machine of a story that constantly throws new and exciting ideas at you with extreme giddiness. It also has an excellent grasp of meta-humor, something that I have a deep love for when done well, but equally can be agonizing when done poorly. The Cactus and The Corpse never lets itself get too bogged down in style though, even with a heavily prone to digressing in-universe narrator. There's actual depth to proceedings, a difficult task when considering it's relatively low page count.

I got to read this one early, and even in a rough state it was still something glorious to aspire to. The final draft is goddamn superb. Seek this out, however you can.