Satire Science

When the very fabric of time and space are about to be put through the wringer, in this instance by the imminent arrival of a very large and determinedly oncoming meteorite, circumstances require a very particular type of hero. Sadly, what the situation does not need is a singularly inept wizard, still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world. Equally it does not need one well-meaning tourist and his luggage, which has a mind of its own¿which is a shame, because that's all there is.

Jacob Elliot doesn’t want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents’ basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphi’s outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex. Wandering through Delphi headquarters, Jacob finds other survivors: Lauren, a disillusioned classics major; Swati, a fitness instructor; and Dominic, a business-school student.

What do you get if you put a comedian, a scientist and an internet expert in a room together? The answer is Great Unanswered Questions, a panel game in which resident funnyman Colin Murphy teams up with brainiac Dr David Booth and computer geek Matthew Collins to tackle ludicrous questions and provide the correct (or at least the funniest) answers.

Steve Minion, Heaven’s Emissary to Hell, reunites with his pal Orson Welles to catch a supernatural thief in this comedic “catch me if you can” tale. Go with them on a wild ride through the Circles of Hell, outer space, inner space, even the lower dimensions. Can the guys measure up? For that matter, can they measure anything, when nothing seems constant except their friendship?

Graham Paint is a downsizing consultant, and sick of it. One morning, he misses his bus when he stops to put a strange caterpillar in a matchbox. As the bus passes, he’s shocked to spot himself inside. Like Schrödinger’s Cat in the famous quantum thought experiment, the caterpillar's spawned parallel possibilities. This comic novel explores Graham’s search for a better life among the various overlapping alternatives.

Can true love conquer a zombie mutation? Prepare yourself for an undead zombie romance novel, one that is oozing with dark humor!

König Verence von Lancre und Königin Magrat feiern die Taufe ihrer Tochter. Alle sind eingeladen: leider auch Vampire aus Überwald, die sich sogleich an die Eroberung des Landes machen und die Bevölkerung in Blutspender verwandeln. Niemand kann helfen: Oma Wetterwachs scheint verschwunden zu sein, und Nanny Ogg, Agnes Nitt und Magrat können den Vampiren nichts anhaben. Aber zum Glück ist da Hilbert "Gelobt-sind-jene-die-Om-verehren" Himmelwärts: ein von Selbstzweifeln geplagter omnianischer Unterunterdekan, der Oma Wetterwachs wieder in Stellung bringt.

National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson returns to future Earth in a sharply wrought satire of art and truth in the midst of colonization.

God's just been in a deep-freeze coma in the Arctic. Strapped for cash, the Vatican has sold the body (a bargain at $1.3 billion!) to Baptists in Florida. Enterprising souls that they are, they’ve turned the Corpus Dei into a popular two-mile-long theme-park attraction at Orlando’s Celestial City USA - hooked up to the largest life-support system on earth. Then things get weird....

The only thing worse than the end of the universe is...Casual Day. Six denizens of Hell, one saint and a small blue alien join forces to stop the ultimate catastrophe: The destruction of the cosmos. That most of them are dead is of little consequence, for they possess great powers. Halos and horns, strength and sarcasm, courage and comedy, oh, and a management textbook: This team has them all. They are The League of Unusual Denizens.

"Do you know me? I am Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, Prince of Hell, second only to Satan in the infernal hierarchy. The Devil, you say? Yes, I'm one of those too." Here in one laugh-out-loud volume is the life of Beezy, Satan's BFF, and one of the most popular characters in the Circles in Hell universe. Over 14 billion years in the making, Beelzebub: A Memoir is the ultimate backstory.

Following the lead of Florence Nightingale, Steve’s partner in Eternity, he has returned to Hell to ease the suffering of the Damned. Yet Steve is faced with a dilemma. What can he do that will offer more than a brief respite from everlasting torment? And how can he make it funny at the same time? In Steve’s search for meaningful employment in the Afterlife, he has one comic misadventure after another. Along the way, he meets a few new angels and a couple of saints. He even learns what may be one of the great secrets of the universe...or maybe not.

Interstellar con man Rex Nihilo has a price tag on his head. Railroaded into smuggling a shipment of contraband corn to a planet short on food, Rex finds himself on the run from an insidious corporation named Ubiqorp, which reaps obscene profits by keeping the planet dependent on shipments of synthetic rations. When Rex and his long-suffering robot companion Sasha are sentenced to work as slave labor on a massive Ubiqorp plantation, they learn the terrible secret behind the corporation's products.

Dining alone in an elegant Parisian brasserie, accountant Daniel Mercier can hardly believe his eyes when President François Mitterrand sits down to eat at the table next to him. After the presidential party has gone, Daniel discovers that Mitterrand’s black felt hat has been left behind. After a few moments’ soul-searching, Daniel decides to keep the hat as a souvenir of an extraordinary evening. It’s a perfect fit, and as he leaves the restaurant Daniel begins to feel somehow...different.

Algunos cuentos incluidos: Hay sitio para dos. La serpiente. Hagase como se ordena. Agudeza Gascona. Los estafadores. El alcahuete castigado. El marido escarmentado. Que me engañen siempre asi!!! La ley de Talion. El esposo complaciente.

It’s two decades in the future, and a Christian college student named Ace Hartwick has just destroyed his neighbor’s so-called “wife”—actually a sexbot named Sally—in a trash compactor. Soon, Ace will be on trial for murder. Unfortunately for Ace, everyone despises his kind of “radical” Christianity, and, in the fragile America of the future, all the juries are fixed.

As Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of commuters, he is confronted by the intimidating figure of his Parish Confessor. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website like everybody else? Does he think he's different or special in some way? Better than his fellow man and woman? Does he have something to hide? Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody.

Erin is a plastic girl living in a plastic world. Every day she eats a breakfast of boiled chicken, then conveys her articulated body to Tablet Town, where she sells other figurines Smartbodies: wearable tech that allows full, physical immersion in a virtual world, a refuge from real life’s brutal wars, oppressive governmental monitoring, and omnipresent eco-terrorist insurgency. If you cut her, she will not bleed—but she and her fellow figurines can still be cracked or blown apart by gunfire or bombs, or crumble away from nuclear fallout.

Was verbindet einen AfD-Wähler und eine Klimaaktivistin? Die Angst, dass die Welt, wie sie ist, untergehen wird. Egal, ob rechts oder links, »alter weißer Mann« oder junge »woke« Frau, Lastenradfan oder Impfgegner: Wir sind vereint in unserer Angst vor einer düsteren Zukunft. Doch Sarah Bosetti hat keine Lust auf Angst und Trübsal. Und sie hat eine bessere Idee! Wenn uns die Zukunft, wie sie gezeichnet wird, nicht gefällt, dann sollten wir uns eine schönere malen und darauf hinarbeiten. Wenn niemand mehr Bock auf Demokratie hat, sollten wir sie nicht aufgeben, sondern besser machen.

Set in the time of Charlemagne and narrated by a nun with her own secrets to keep, The Nonexistent Knight tells the story of Agilulf, a gleaming white suit of armor with nothing inside it. A challenge to his honor sends Agilulf on a search through France, England, and North Africa to confirm the chastity of a virgin he saved from rape years earlier.