Satire Science

Part catharsis, part diagnosis, this divinely wry collection from New Yorker and McSweeney's satirist Eli Grober will strike a chord with those who are dismayed by the chaos of our times. None of it will help—but a few good laughs won't hurt. Probably.

Since 1968, Garry Trudeau (b. 1948) has brought his brand of political satire to bear on public figures, movie stars, heads of state, and even on himself. Trudeau has also advocated for artists' rights and challenged industry norms while keeping a decidedly low profile. In Garry Trudeau: Doonesbury and the Aesthetics of Satire, Kerry D. Soper traces the contribution of this groundbreaking artist. Trudeau is arguably the premier American political and social satirist of the last forty years. Amazingly, he achieved this on the comics page, rather than the editorial page.

In post-NK3 Los Angeles, a 60-foot-tall fence surrounds the hills where the rich used to live, but the mansions have been taken over by those with the only power that matters: the power of memory. Life for the community inside the Fence, ruled over by the new aristocracy, the Verified, is a perpetual party. Outside the Fence, in downtown Los Angeles, the Verified use an invented mythology to control the mindless and nameless Drifters, Shamblers, and Bottle Bangers who serve the gift economy until no longer needed.

After dealing with killer whales, evil scientists, the return of her long-lost mother, and, certainly not least of all, the challenges of breastfeeding, Elvie Nara has just about had it. And then the Jin'Kai (along with the aforementioned estranged mom) kidnap her baby. And before she knows it, another Jin'Kai attack puts her on the run again, but not before discovering that Olivia was implanted with a genetic tracking device.

New York Times best-selling author P. J. O'Rourke has toured the fighting in Bosnia, visited the West Bank disguised as P. J. of Arabia, lobbed one-liners on the battlefields of the Gulf War, and traded quips with Communist rebels in the jungles of the Philippines. Now, in The CEO of the Sofa, he embarks on a mission to the most frightening place of all: his own home.

It has been 20 years since The War, and Major John Karnage has finally settled into retirement: locked up in an insane asylum, with an explosive device embedded in the back of his neck to curb his violent tendencies. Karnage and his troopers have been deemed unfit to live in normal society. Like a bit of old chewing gum stuck under a coffee table, the world has left The War and its scarred, unstable veterans behind.

Elvie Nara was doing just fine in the year 2074. She had a great best friend, a dad she adored, and a bright future working on the Ares Project on Mars. But then she had to get involved with sweet, gorgeous, dumb-as-a-brick Cole - and now she's pregnant. Teen pregnancy is never easy - especially when extraterrestrials are involved....

A satirical and complex Fantasy novel featuring one of the last remaining Dragons and his efforts to coexist with mankind.

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!

A snappy, absurdly dark satire set in Hanmer, a small town on the outskirts of the author's hometown of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. It's about a sport involving grocery carts, several terrible people, an alternate universe, and an annoying (yet charming) narrator.

The Wonderful Visit tells the story of an angel who finds himself unexpectedly marooned on Earth. Wells used John Ruskin's remark that an angel appearing on earth in Victorian England would be shot on sight as the inspiration for this tale of a celestial being who is completely out of place in human society. Ironically, the angel's first confidant and protector is a clergyman, who never recovers from the eventual and inevitable disappearance of the angel. Wells dwells in detail on the contrast between the idealism of the celestial visitor and the discourtesy of his hosts.

Gappers will get your goat. Literally. If you don't brush them off and return them to the ocean, these bright orange, many-eyed creatures will cover your goats, and the goats will stop giving milk. In a village called Frip, goat's milk was the entire economy. Three families lived there - the Romos, the Ronsens, and a little girl named Capable and her widowed father, who wanted everything to remain the same. It didn't. One day, the Gappers decided for a good reason to concentrate on Capable's goats. Oh, how the Romos and Ronsens turned their backs on the gapper-ridden Capable!

The Weekly World News team uncovers the definitive and faux-tastic story of Bat Boy, from his hardscrabble origins in the caves of West Virginia to his global influence in the 21st century. Going Mutant reveals how Bat Boy has heeded a call to service that has embarrassed less forthcoming mutants.

Das Europaparlament – eine hervorragende Idee. Nur in der Realität leider ein Witz, und noch dazu ein sehr schlechter. Nico Semsrott berichtet ehrlich und komisch von seinen Erfahrungen aus fünf Jahren Europaparlament. Von der sinnlosen Pendelei zwischen Brüssel und Straßburg, in der schon alles steckt, was das Parlament im Kern ausmacht: Steuerverschwendung, Tragik und grober Unfug. Von gierigen Parlamentariern, die keines ihrer unsinnigen Privilegien ungenutzt lassen und sich ständig in die eigene Tasche wirtschaften.

"The Water-Babies" remains relevant today as it resonates with universal themes and moral insights that extend beyond the Victorian context. The narrative's enduring appeal lies not only in its engaging storyline, but also in the profound messages that it conveys about human nature and societal values.

In the shifting sands of the desert, near an unnamed metropolis, there is an institute where various fellows come to undertake projects of great significance. But when our sort-of hero, Percy Frobisher, arrives, surrounded by the simulated environment of the glass-enclosed dome of the Institute, his mind goes completely blank. When he spills something on his uniform - a major faux pas - he learns about a mysterious shop where you can take something, utter the command “same same,” and receive a replica even better than the original.

His Holiness, the Supreme Spiritual Leader of the Galactic Guild, Glup III, an aging podil, is about to be dethroned and podil-napped all in the same day. The MISFITS decide today is a good day to thwart the evil Cardinal Nog’nik’s plans to take over the Galactic Guild and become a living god. The Galactic Guild dispatches their top agents, George Shooters and Sali Terri to restore Glup III to his righteous position and discover how a pair of bumbling pilgrims have obtained the technology necessary to teleport Glup III from the clutches of a deranged despot.

In this science fiction satire of westerns, after the American West was destroyed in a series of biological disasters, rebuilding it is a lot like building it in the first place, but there are crucial differences. For example, new, partly mechanical cattle with computer brains are called steerites. They speak and sing a lot more than the original steers. Most of the cowboys, outlaws, and lawmen are partly mechanical, too, except for those few humans called control-naturals. That group has to keep all their original equipment, just like the original cowboys.

Dr. Eve Zachara, a smart, sexy, tech executive and expert in martial arts, is on a mission to save the world from total annihilation. In the future, the fight between Apple and Google has grown into a deadly world war. Corporate fighter jets roar over the deserts of Central Asia, machine guns blast in the jungles of Africa, and high above the planet, vast battles are waged by opposing space fleets. Google has vowed to nuke the Earth from their space based nuclear platform, right after Steve Job's new Keynote speech.

Eight people escape zombie-infested New York. They have only one thing in common: the addict gene. The same genetic quirk that makes alcoholics and addicts susceptible to booze and drugs gives them a mysterious ability to evade the undead. But that's not enough to unite them. They're an unlikely crew: A Botoxed Upper East Sider; a drug dealer; a resentful daughter of addicts; a recovering AA guy; a Japanese ex-dope fiend; an addicted Ivy Leaguer; and a Mexican immigrant.