Satire Science

Take a space-pirate, inspired by a long-ago Dark Lord. Take a long period of quarantine within the tiny confines of a stolen starship. Now, take 42 busted, broken, or overbearing tropes of fantasy and science fiction. One by one, the Dark Lord twists each into a strange shape and uses it to tell a new story - many of them disgracefully funny, some rather dark, and none of them suitable for vulnerable minds such as yours. Jeff Mach brings tight, interesting, usually satirical, often quite twisted stories, to light a fire in your belly like whiskey, and light a whiskey on fire.

Blood felt good in the enormous child’s hands.The 12-year-old never expected to turn his family into cherry red ragdolls, but the beatings had made him into a monster. It was all he knew. After being exiled by the vile inhabitants of the Lowlands, Preston “Porky” Sullivan planned his revenge for over 40 years. Hate. Loathing. Despise. Will it end in blood, or become yet another sad, moronic tale to dwindle in the raging abyss of the Lowlands?

This book is important, and not just because it's about Donald Trump. It is essential listening for anyone who wants to discover the official Trump Brand Origin Story, to learn his positions on vital issues like the military - "Are These the Biggest Missiles We Have?," science - "If Einstein Was So Smart, Why Wasn't He Rich?" and good government - "Of the Good People, By the Good People, and For the Good People."

Running afoul of a pants-less ghost pirate wasn't exactly what paranormal psychologist Matilda Schmidt had in mind when she took off for some R&R. Even at a quiet beach-side bungalow, Matilda can't catch a moment's peace when the restless spirits aren't the only ones haunting her bedroom. Marooned by a disappearing demigod, and seeking a solution to banish her unwelcome guests, Matilda rides shotgun with a hit man who's better at making ghosts than eliminating them.

Paranormal psychologist Matilda Schmidt is sick of secrets. But when her troubled mother falls into dangerous hands, she must enlist the help of the two men who may be hiding the most: the hot-bodied demigod who's suddenly tight-lipped about his current client, and the delicious hit man who's been concealing much more than a gun in his pocket.

Superheroes battle the living dead in this hilarious spoof on the comic book universe! The Undead Pool is a humorous and demented origin story of former mercenary Mace Murdock, who after being subjected to an experiment from the evil clown Zarathustra that leaves him with accelerated healing powers and the hunger for human brains, adopts the alter ego The Undead Pool.

In Yurope! Hillary's Invasion, Thomas D. is the last self-sufficient man in America. The illiterate masses of humanoid gelatin surround him on their government assigned wheel chairs and clap rapturously as more and more of their freedoms are taken away in the pursuit of comfort. The first female American president, Hillary Clinton, is elected. At the same time, a mysterious stranger named Kuzen calls upon Thomas to liberate the country of Ungland.

The impact of science and technology on human behavior has reached the breaking point. In just the past 100 years, the explosion of new technology has dramatically improved our lives. But the existential risks keep multiplying. If we don't take a different approach, we have no hope of surviving, despite the Panglossian promises of our new technological wizards.

Премудрый пискарь — сатирическая сказка Михаила Салтыкова-Щедрина, вышедшая в 1883 году. В сказке Салтыкова-Щедрина Премудрый пискарь осмеиваются трусливые люди, которые всю жизнь проживают в страхе, так и не сделав ничего полезного.

What if politicians cared about the country? What if people stopped being insane? What if the government earned its money instead of stealing it? The state-laid plans gang aft agley, and only ending taxes, setting term limits, the line-item veto, sunset legislation, and honest elections can amend 'em. What we need now is a good laugh, quotable economists, and missionaries for reality. Who's in?

PHLEGM is not one of those acronyms that just rolls off the tongue. It tends to stick in the throat. But it's easier to say than Planetary Hub Law Enforcement Group - Monroe Division. PHLEGM is an important unit, doing an important job. Members of this group are called shields and they patrol Monroe Station, a huge orbital community in Earth's influence. This story is about one of those shields. His name is Levi, and he's trying to fit into a human world as best he can.

The Watergate Rhymes aims to educate, reflect, and learn from that consumptive scandal, while using satire to see the humor in the human frailties of that maligned administration - and in ourselves, all with the perspective and understanding that only precious time enables.

Kallie—as her super-sized, super-hero self—has had a hard day, and literally the last thing she needs is to find out another Alterant is running loose. And when AB's Phi-ger goes off, she's hardly pleased. But genuine worry starts to overtake her, as this time, it's Zeus who's digested the radioactive doughnuts. If he's compromised, Zeus could easily reveal Fatgirl's true identity to the world, and what else could be his worst fear? Along with AB, Kallie races over to save him. Only to be met with the shock of her life.

Kallie once looked forward to the Spring Fling, the one dance allowed at Cuttingham City High School. It was too easy to dream of Blake Turner as her perfect date.... But now, thanks to her deal with Abuela-Blanca, they’re spending the weekend in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, attending the “retirement gala” for Zina “ZZ” Morozova--one of the last and youngest inductions to the KGB.

This is the ultimate traffic nightmare - city-wide gridlock! In this savagely satirical view of the near future, vehicular traffic in Los Angeles finally loses its liquidity, transforming into slow-moving slush, then finally hardening into sun-baked mud. With cars and trucks and buses paralyzed across 100 miles of freeway parking lot, the city grinds to a painful stop - or does it? Plus, a bonus story: "Afternoon with a Dead Bus" - a bizarre urban fantasy that only Hugo and Nebula Award winner David Gerrold could write.

The girls are caught in the Battle-of-the-Holes (listen to the series to understand that one). Jane takes one up the cooch for Mary. Next, the couple is off to Carnival! Vacation in beautiful Rio was great till the whole thing goes bust! The girls are kidnapped by the VAC. Then, it’s up to Mars where Russian miners riot for more holes. But of course Mary and Jane save the day as usual with their naughty, girly persuasion.

Following on the success of his first published novel, The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) published two short stories. With his farcical "burlesque autobiography", he describes a series of disreputable characters all of whom he claims were his ancestors. The second story, A Medieval First Romance, satirizes romance novels with a yarn about the cross-dressing daughter of a duke who thanks to her disguise is in line to inherit male privilege.

With her dad held captive at the Darling Donut factory, Kallie and AB race to the scene. And while Kallie's too scared to do much more than follow AB's lead, she's left speechless as AB does the unthinkable: Consume one of her own radioactive doughnuts.

After a long, adventurous and exhausting spring break, Kallie's almost ready to go back to school just so she can forget about her mother, trouble with Azure, and especially everything that happened with Zeus. But trouble never takes a break, especially when Kallie's certain AB's enemy is targeting her friends and turning them into Alterants—and when Amory reaches out to Fatgirl over her website, Kallie fears the worst. But her worst fears are nothing compared to Amory's.

There's nothing worse than a long ride in the car with AB, or so Kallie thinks as they head off to the Fairview Mountain Rehab Center to pay a visit to Trevor Darlington. But once they arrive, she finds there are some things that are indeed worse than Abuela-Blanca's kami-nazi driving—such as running into Azure, her fashion designer from Model Middle America. Only he's not Azure—or is he? There's nothing "Azure" about the pasty-faced, non-makeup-wearing man who shares Azure's face. Kallie's more than certain it's a twin thing, even as he begs her to keep his devastating secret.