Growing up, I’d always been fascinated by science fiction narratives, having been suckered in by Star Warsat a very young age. But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon The Hitchhiker’s GuideTo The Galaxy that I realized stories didn’t have to take everything so seriously. This pivoted to an obsession with comedy, leading me to write skits for the stage and screen in my late 20s as a fun side-gig along with my own comedic sci-fi novel series. I’ve always appreciated stories that lean into the lighter side of things. Reality is grim and dark enough as it is, our escapism doesn’t need to double down on that.
Michael Duckett is fed up with his life. His job is a drag, and his best friend, Stephanie Dyer, only makes him more anxious with her lazy irresponsibility. Things get worse when they get evicted from their 5th-floor walk-up and find ads for their Detective Agency plastered all over the city. The only problem is: Michael and Stephanie don’t have one of those.
Despite their incompetence, Stephanie pursues this crazy scheme and they stumble upon a web of missing people linked by a sexually audacious theoretical physicist and his experiments with space-time. And unless Michael and Stephanie can put their personal issues aside and fix the hole they tore in the multi-verse, the concept of existence itself may, ironically, cease to exist.
Carmen Loup's The Audacity is the successor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that I've been looking for for a long time. Loup takes strands of Hitchhiker's Guide DNA lovingly engineers it into its own unique tale filled with bright, colorful, and snarky characters and a fun, insightful (and, indeed, inciteful) voice that rings incredibly true to an Americanized Douglas Adams (that is, lacking in British poise and restraint). The Audacity is simply an amazing sci-fi comedy from start to finish and feels like a love letter to The Hitchhiker's Guide and, indeed, to all its fans. Plus, the entire first trilogy is available now (with more to come!).
Rocket racing can be deadly, but working in food service is worse.
May’s humdrum life is flung into hyperdrive when she’s abducted, but not all aliens are out to probe her. She’s inadvertently rescued by Xan, an “I Love Lucy” obsessed alien with the orangest rocket ship in the universe.
But you still have to eat in space, and rocket racing is a quick, if life-threatening, way to make a living.
Finally, May has a career she loves and a friend to share her winnings with. Until a Chaos goddess possessing Xan’s ex decides to start a cult on Earth…
The Hike is a completely bizarre, surrealist masterpiece by former Deadspin Columnist Drew Magary. While it’s impossible to describe the plot, I personally recommend this book if you don’t mind being taken on a strange, strange journey filled with fantastical creatures, a bit of horror, and some mind-bending introspection. You might not know where you’re going to end up, but part of the fun is strapping in and enjoying the crazy ride. Fans of animation like Infinity Trainor Adventure Timemight enjoy this if they’re looking for something with a grittier, adult edge to it.
“The Hike just works. It’s like early, good Chuck Palahniuk. . . . Magary underhands a twist in at the end that hits you like a sharp jab at the bell. . . . It’s just that good.” —NPR.org
From the author of The Night the Lights Went Out and The Postmortal, a fantasy saga unlike any you’ve read before, weaving elements of folk tales and video games into a riveting, unforgettable adventure of what a man will endure to return to his family
Lingeriais a sarcastic, humor-infused take on the portal fantasy, which forces the author of a beloved fantasy series into the world that he's written - and come to despise.
It's a solidly entertaining book that appropriately skewers a lot of the tropes of fantasy fiction and the associated fandom.
I enjoyed the world of Lingeria and it's definitely a fun read for people seeking to scratch that Discworlditch.
LINGERIA: A wondrous world of centaurs, goblins, elves, knights, bounty hunters, giant centipedes, angry bookies, four-armed Yetis, and a single wizard. There is just one problem – Lingeria shouldn’t exist. It is the product of acclaimed, and depressed, author Norman Halliday
So, how did Norman come to be sleeping on the couch of one of his fiction characters? And why are Norman’s novels revered as Lingerian scripture? Also, why does all of Lingeria believe Norman to be God? Actually, a better question is … Who s this cruel wizard, about whom Norman never wrote, that seized power over the land?…
Old Cold Cannibalis a bit of an outlier in this list, as it doesn’t fully conform to the Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett style of humor/narration or plotting. But it’s a unique book with an amazing voice. I have a soft spot for harsh 1800s white narrators whose doubling down on arrogance and (historically accurate) racism wrap around from being awful to weirdly and unsettlingly charming. Old Cold Cannibal delivers on that 100% and allows it to infuse some humor into what is otherwise a very dark and disturbing narrative that follows a journey across the pre-Civil War U.S. to find and slay a dragon. It’s a rough, but entertaining read.
1849. Two men —professional con artists on the run— cross the dangerous deserts and plains of Texas and New Mexico, on a quest to find and slay a Dragon that has laid waste to the countryside.
World Enough (And Time)is an absolute gem of a book that reads like Fawlty Towers set on Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic (if you’re old enough to remember that game!). It reads like a drawn-out comedy of errors that balances madcap situations and multiple outlandish characters into a brilliant narrative that – albeit a bit long at times – dovetails nicely with the protagonist's emotional journey. This is one to pick up if you enjoy character-driven stories told with wit and a bit of poignancy.
In the 24th century, companies offer deep-space cruises on luxury ships, but no one takes a deep-space cruise for pleasure. Because the ships travel at nearly the speed of light, 20 years pass on Earth during a standard cruise, while the passengers age only two years. Most passengers are sufferers of degenerative diseases who hope that, during those extra Earth years, medical science will catch up with their maladies. Many of these passengers are elderly; nearly all are fantastically rich. And then there's Jeremiah Brown. 31 years old and in the pink of health, Jeremiah is "rich" only through his…
My life and work have been profoundly affected by the central circumstance of my existence: I was born into a very large military Catholic family in the United States of America. As a child surrounded by many others in the 60s, I wrote, performed, and directed family plays with my numerous brothers and sisters. Although I fell in love with a Canadian and moved to Canada, my family of origin still exerts considerable personal influence. My central struggle, coming from that place of chaos, order, and conformity, is to have the courage to live an authentic life based on my own experience of connectedness and individuality, to speak and be heard.
Trapped in her enormous, devout Catholic family in 1963, Annie creates a hilarious campaign of lies when the pope dies and their family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, is unexpectedly on the shortlist to be elected the first American pope.
Driven to elevate her family to the holiest of holy rollers in the parish, Annie is tortured by her own dishonesty. But when “The Hands” visits her in her bed and when her sister finds herself facing a scandal, Annie discovers her parents will do almost anything to uphold their reputation and keep their secrets safe.
Questioning all she has believed and torn between her own gut instinct and years of Catholic guilt, Annie takes courageous risks to wrest salvation from the tragic sequence of events set in motion by her parents’ betrayal.
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