Satire Science

Gustavo Arellano has compiled the best questions about Mexican Americans from readers of his ¡Ask a Mexican!column in California's OC Weekly and uses them to explore the clichés of lowriders, busboys, and housekeepers; drunks and scoundrels; heroes and celebrities; and most important, millions upon millions of law-abiding, patriotic American citizens and their illegal-immigrant cousins who represent some $600 billion in economic power.

One day, in 1994, just as he was poised to land a major cover story in Rolling Stone magazine, music journalist, Derek Christian is whisked away by a mysterious man with multiple arms and tentacles named Kent and deposited in a luxury hotel called the Intergalactic, which is populated by beings and creatures from across the galaxy.

Hobart, 2022: a city with a declining population, in the grip of a dark recession. A rusty ship sails into the harbor and begins to unload its cargo on the site of the once famous but now abandoned Gallery of Future Art, known to the world as GoFA. One day the city’s residents are awoken by a high-pitched sound no one has heard for two generations: a factory whistle. GoFA’s owner, world-famous billionaire Dundas Faussett, is creating his most ambitious installation yet. He’s going to defeat technology’s dominance over our lives by establishing a new Year Zero: 1948.

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre premiered in October 1974, mere weeks after the resignation and pardon of Richard Nixon brought an uncertain end to the most corrupt and criminal presidency in American history. The film had been conceived, written, shot, edited, and produced precisely as Watergate was playing out, and those responsible for Chain Saw unhesitatingly spoke of the horrors of contemporary politics as having directly inspired the ones they created for the film.

When you find out your best friend and business partner is secretly sleeping with your wife, it may be time to move on.... From your job and your marriage.... Which is precisely what happened to Jamie Newgent. A change of lifestyle is what’s needed, and a bachelor pad on the fourth floor of a jutting tower provides a new home, a fresh start, and a new chapter in his life.

Eddie Morales finds his lowly R&D life completely upended when his Boise-based biotech firm dispatches him to Puerto Malogrado, a tiny but tumultuous country in South America where the international media is accusing their experimental potatoes of causing a bizarre medical crisis. Eddie unwillingly arrives in South America only to find his plans for a quick resolution thwarted when he gets caught between the two sides of an impending revolution, each hoping to capitalize on the potato scandal in order to seize power.

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.

The realm of New Sylestia had enjoyed a thousand years of peace, protected by a powerful Sequestering spell. But the harmony that had once existed between Elf and Human society is now threatened from within, and Lorewyn, an Elven archer and war heroine haunted by her own past, is caught between her heritage and loyalty to her most beloved friend...and fighting for her human neighbors and a higher cause.

When the head of a hovercycle club inexplicably calls in news of his own murder, Detective Simon Grave and his team are drawn in to Crab Cove's hovercycle underworld, a world of loyalty, betrayal, greed, and-yes-irony. As if murder weren't enough, the bombing of an election debate stage has the mayor pressing for a quick resolution to both crimes. It becomes increasingly clear that the crimes are connected, and that the solution will require the unraveling of an elaborate criminal scheme-and more.

The undead have risen from their graves, and society hangs by a thread. But America's political parties aren't going to let a little thing like the zombie apocalypse get in the way of a presidential election. There are nasty whispers about the incumbent, though, and they have nothing to do with where he was born.

Enter into the salaciously sexy world of “environmental espionage” and meet Jayms Blonde. He’s gorgeous, gay, and makes the bad guys pay! A hairdresser by trade and a secret agent by choice, this former US Navy Seal can handle an Uzi like a teasing comb.

What if you could reach back in time to deport the world’s worst environmental villains to a depository planet before their greed condemns Earth to an ecological apocalypse? What if each time you did so, an alien instantly extracted a body part and replaced it with a refurbished one? Would you still do it?

The Doctor awakens to discover a universe that is at once all too familiar and yet completely unlike that which he was expecting. Join him as he argues with himself, his companions, and anyone else near enough to be drawn in—all the while attempting to save a shattered and disintegrating universe. If this seems to be parodying something familiar that has itself recently fallen apart and lost its shine, it probably is.

Sheriff Mac must put his love interest on hold when KORN radio station is attacked by a UFO. Believers flock to the lake to witness another UFO attack. The media frenzy grows when Bigfoot is seen near the attack site. Can Mac solve the UFO and Bigfoot mysteries in time to save his relationship with Faith?

Tyrus Murphy is a bumbling EMT from Nebraska with big dreams. When he gets a call from an unknown number informing him he’s just inherited his uncle’s island of killer robots, he has one thought: world domination. International conquest ends up being more challenging than it seems, as the young ruler faces hard partying politicians, mysterious old aristocrats, and even his own unexpected aversion to violence. Powered by optimism and greed, Tyrus falls face-first through a globe-trotting adventure that rarely goes according to plan.

You'll never look at doughnuts the same way again. Now that Kallie Grande-White has reluctantly agreed to find the one who stole her grandmother's top secret, radioactive doughnut recipe, she's more than a little inconvienced by the entire thing - especially since her superhero alter-ego is "Fatgirl", Cuttingham City's would-be superhero who, unbeknowst to them, accidentally saved the city from a terrorist attack.

An implant that gives moral advice whether you like it or not, an irritable galactic ambassador examining Earth’s religions, a future where love can’t happen without litigation, pushy alien anthropologists without regard for the human need for privacy, discrimination against an artificial intelligence in a multicultural world, alien sex - love in the time of deformity, neighborly nitpicking made easy by Computer Court, the excruciating reality of Martian music, invasion of the toe snatchers, something crunchy on the menu, and a transgenic pig dog at war with an android nemesis.

There's nothing that 17-year-old Kallie Grande-White hungers for more than to be a famous model like her mother - except maybe actually food. But that's a small inconvenience, especially with the Model Middle America reality show holding auditions for the Next Top Heartland Teen Heartthrob Model right in Kallie's hometown. Nothing's going to stand in Kallie's way as she claws her way to the top. But when Kallie downs half a dozen of her PhD-in-nuclear-nanotechnology grandmother's radioactive doughnuts in a momentary fit of rage, everything changes - starting with her own body!

When the mysterious zookeeper of Clarendon Zoo grants his animals freedom to govern themselves, the creatures create a new land founded upon life, liberty, and happiness for all animals. Though the land seems to function well, each species soon realizes they have differing visions for how the land should be governed. With the help of Eagle and Owl’s propaganda, the traditional wolves and the progressive sheep quickly emerge as leaders. The two species fight to spread their contradictory visions, pitting the animals against one another, and inadvertently throw the zoo into chaos.

Celebrity-chasing paparazzo Barry Young was abducted by aliens when he was six, an experience he does not remember. He can only piece together what happened that night by what his best friend Scott (who was also abducted) tells him. One night, Barry uncovers evidence of an alien invasion that his ex-girlfriend, journalist Nikki Graves, has been assigned to cover. Together, these two estranged exes are hot on the trail of an alien invasion plot 20 Earth years in the making. Will they stop the invasion?