The Tumbleweed Dossier

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Tumbleweed Dossier is an omnibus novel written by Sugar Ray Dodge that splits into two story arcs. The first being The Tumbleweed Dossier, the original 2008 novel. The second being a trilogy of novelettes called Paranormal Investigations, written from 2009 through 2011. The complete omnibus was published in March 2012. It is a Crossover Cosmology work that deals primarily with vampires, alien abductions, and Ancient Egypt. It is also an Affectionate Parody of The X-Files.

It’s time for full disclosure! Due to the highly publicized nature of the events that took place in Tumbleweed, Texas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has commissioned this report. The author has been granted full access to the Tumbleweed dossier, interviewed all surviving key individuals, and written this objective novelization of what happened. Subject 1: Special Agent Stanley B. Goode, FBI. Lead investigator into the disappearance of Daisy Dotson. Subject 2: Special Agent Kimberly Hart, FBI. Agent Goode’s partner on the case who may have ulterior motives. Subject 3: Daisy Dotson, High School Student. Daughter of oil tycoon, Arnold Dotson. Mysteriously disappeared after the prom. Subject 4: Dr. Ronnie James “RJ” Wiley, DDS. Dentist with a practice in Tumbleweed, expert in all things paranormal. Within these pages you will discover the truth about vampires, aliens, and unidentified flying objects.

Tropes used in The Tumbleweed Dossier include:
  • Agent Mulder and Agent Scully: Inverted with Stan and Kim.
  • Action Girl: Kim and Daisy.
  • Alien Abduction: Wiley, Daisy and Kim.
  • Aliens and Monsters: The premise of the entire book.
  • Anal Probing: Wiley, played for laughs.
  • Animal Motif: Vampires can elect to turn into a non-human beast of their choice. While there are many vampires in the book, Stan, Kim, Xenu and Freddy Johnson are all vampires by book's end,) only a handful reveal their preferred beast form. Daisy and Douglas prefer coyotes, yellow and red respectively. Xenu elects to turn into an unknown alien-demon spawn to hunt his prey in Tumbleweed. Pickwick and Charlie Castro's beast forms are consistent with their Egyptian God counterparts, Anubis/Jackal and Sobek/Alligator respectively. Kim's invokes her beast form when encountering Pickwick in New York City, but her exact form is unspecified in the text. Stan, Felix, Freddy Johnson, Lovely Wife, and Arnold and Anna Dotson do not invoke their beast forms during the narrative, so their preferencess are unknowable at this time.
  • Affectionate Parody: The X-Files and arguably Twilight.
  • Back from the Dead: Every. Single. Vampire.
  • Came Back Wrong: Xenu, Osiris and Isis.
  • Came From the Sky: When the flying saucer crashes in Tumbleweed.
  • Crossover Cosmology: Vampires, Ufology, Egyptian Mythology
  • Classical Movie Vampire: Arnold Dotson, however he is not evil.
  • Fully-Embraced Fiend: Douglas and Charlie.
  • Egyptian Mythology: Pickwick, Charlie, Curtis, Reno and Rude, Freddy Johnson and Lovely Wife.
  • Elvis Lives: Felix.
  • Evil Overlord: Freddy Johnson as Osiris.
  • Holy Burns Evil: Most notably Daisy.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: The Dotsons. See also: Vampires Are Rich.
  • The Greys: Except they are green.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Don't Taze Me, Bro. Stan with Wiley.
  • Lemony Narrator
  • Literary Allusion Title
  • Long-Lost Relative - Kim and Daisy are sisters. It is also strongly implied that Anna Dotson is the sister of Tandy Kringle from Son of Santa, which would make Daisy and Douglas the adoptive cousins of Jack, Dale and Lucy Kringle.
  • The Men in Black: Reno and Rude
    • Inverted at the end of the book. Stan, Kim and Daisy are identified as the first three members of the FBI's new Paranormal Investigations section. Their personalities are anything but those of the stereotypical Men in Black.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Wiley.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires in The Tumbleweed Dossier differ greatly from those found in much of contemporary popular culture. The author's primary influences for these vampires were Varney the Vampire, Dracula, Castlevania and Bloodsucking Fiends. Twilight also played a significant role in the creation of characters as it is mentioned by name in the text itself, presumably because the author was writing away from the vampires introduced by Stephanie Meyer. Examples:
    • Vampires are able to tolerate and function in daylight as regular human beings.
    • Lycanthropy is not limited to bats, but to any creature the vampire chooses. They can also turn into fog.
    • The possess superhuman strength, but not superhuman speed.
    • They can breathe fire for some unknown reason.
    • They can only drink the blood of their own species, rendering the concept of Vegetarian Vampire impractical.
    • Someone can become a vampire in only two ways. 1) They are cursed with The Curse of the Vampire, which forbids the soul from received final judgment in Heaven, forcing it to return to its dead body, which will require the blood of the living to restore its strength and vitality. 2) Being infected with vampire venom through a bite. The latter is used with extreme caution as to not wildly increase the vampire population, which is why most victims have their veins sucked dry.
    • A vampire can only be killed by decapitation with a blade of pure silver.
    • A vampire cannot commit suicide.
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: Stan, only to FBI Headquarters. See also: The Scapegoat
  • Red Shirt: Filbert, Leslie, Vargas and Andrew. Averted with Greasy Tim and Fat Pete.
  • Roswell That Ends Well: Tumbleweed becomes a new hotspot for UFO nuts after the release of the eponymous Tumbleweed Dossier.
  • Vampire Monarch: Arnold Dotson and Freddy Johnson (as Osiris.)
  • Stages of Monster Grief: Felix and Stan.
  • Take That: Freddy Johnson as Barack Obama. See also: Author Filibuster.
  • Was Once a Man: All vampires except Xenu, who was an alien.
  • Your Vampires Suck: Twilight

Allusions and References

  • The X-Files: Tumbleweed as a whole is an Affectionate Parody of the television show. The first half of the borrows various elements from the episodes Pilot, Duane Barry, Ascension and Bad Blood.