humor

OOF: An Online Outrage Fiesta for the Ages

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Award-winning novelist and cultural critic Strobe Witherspoon interrogates his own profession. It goes terribly.

“Wildly entertaining …Sometimes sad and sometimes hilarious, Witherspoon’s timely metafictional novel explores the ways (mis)information can shape public discourse in the digital media age.” – Booklife by Publishers Weekly

”Strikingly original …an innovative literary experiment that supplies a thoughtful commentary on the ‘discourse virus’ of our age …Witherspoon tackles a broad spectrum of media, including comically scathing excerpts from tweets, podcasts, blogs, and even academic journals and also keenly exposes the ways in which Strobe, the character, is implicated in his own online assault, due to his obsessive attachment to public life.” – Kirkus Reviews

OOF explores the role of satire in a society lurching from one ridiculous crisis to the next, where media outlets rely on clicks to stay alive and everything is filtered through a lens of anger and misinformation.

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Strobe Witherspoon just sold his latest satirical novel for a lot of money. The book in question, FLOTUS: A Memoir, is a fictitious autobiography about a former first lady of the United States reflecting on years of misery at the hands of her much older POTUS husband. When a chapter is leaked in advance of the book’s publication, an Online Outrage Fiesta (OOF) ensues via news outlets, blogs, Twitter, troll farms, and everything in between. Witherspoon has his life placed under a microscope. Family secrets are exposed. Now, an anthology has been put together to document Witherspoon’s downfall—and settle the score.
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”an impressive achievement of unflinching honesty from a noteworthy talent, as resonant and relevant as it is entertaining …OOF tugs at the threads that connect American cynicism with radical extremism and weaves a character-rich tapestry of insight …Each voice, whether of a New Yorker journalist or an Internet influencer, is rendered with uncanny fidelity. Perhaps most masterful is that key events are not depicted but merely alluded to, allowing the text to provide an elegant framework for a more personal story painted almost invisibly in the negative space.”– BlueInk Review

Meet Strobe Witherspoon

Witherspoon’s first novel, furtl, was a 2014 Kirkus Reviews book of the year selection. The absurd near future of that novel became not-so-absurd one year later.

Pianist in a Bordello (Bargain Book)

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Pianist in a Bordello

What would happen if a politician decided to tell the truth—the whole truth? 
Richard Youngblood, aspiring Congressman, is about to find out. He’s running on a platform of honesty and transparency—and against the advice of his friends and advisers he’s decided to start with himself. His autobiography will lay his entire life bare before voters just days before the election.
And what a life he’s had. Born in a commune and named Richard Milhous Nixon Youngblood as an angry shot at his absent father, Richard grows up in the spotlight, the son of an enigmatic fugitive and the grandson of a Republican senator. He’s kidnapped and rescued, kicked out of college for a prank involving turkeys, arrested in Hawaii while trying to deliver secrets to the CIA…Dick Nixon Youngblood’s ready to tell all. 
He’ll even tell his readers about the Amandas—three women who share a name but not much else, and who each have helped shape and define the man he’s become. 
Are voters really ready for the whole truth?
Are you?
Pianist in a Bordello is a hilarious political romp through the last four decades of American history, from a narrator who is full of surprises.

Meet Mike C. Erickson

Mike C. Erickson grew up in the idyllic college town of Logan, Utah, but because of a twist of fate he graduated from high school in Honolulu. He left Hawaii brimming with aloha and enrolled at Utah State, where he was awarded two degrees and self-proclaimed minor intellectual status, which was of dubious value when the US Army invited him to vacation in South-East Asia. Ten days after leaving Vietnam, he began decades of dispensing pearls of wisdom as a high school history teacher, academic decathlon coach, and on occasion, as a community college instructor in the Sacramento area. Mike and his wife Trudy, have two grown sons and a grandson born soon after this novel is published. When not in Hawaii or another exotic locale, they live in Gold River, California. This is his first novel.

Magi of Gaia – Volume One: I Told a Lie

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Three young, inexperienced magicians must defend their world against a wave of increasingly difficult opponents. That’s what Magi of Gaia is essentially about, but if you’re only looking for fierce, hard-hitting action, you’ll overlook the humor, kindness, and drama that bring this world to life. Sure, you might be happy with the amazing uses of magic and the broken noses, but you’ll miss out on seeing the quick temper of the usually-composed Jorri, the softheartedness escaping from Yuna’s severe demeanor, or Eren’s courage overcoming her self-doubt.

This trio, the Magi, are the imperfect heroes—human in spite of their incredible powers—and are tasked with keeping their world from falling into darkness. When a magician enters Gaia’s realm, it’s the Magi’s job to find them, determine whether or not they are hostile, and deal with the situation appropriately. It’s a lot to ask, and things aren’t helped by the appearance of a woman claiming to be a deity whose sole joy seems to be breaking the Magi’s spirit … and their bodies. This woman shows her powers seldomly, but when she does, she breaks the very logic of their world and makes it look effortless.

Come and read more. Find out how our heroines can laugh and joke around, even under the toughest of circumstances. See if you can figure out why Eren, a girl who should be a beloved hero, is treated as though she’s diseased. Discover why 80% of Gaia’s population is … female?!

It seems Gaia is different from Earth is more ways than you might think.

Meet T.E. Holtz

T.E. Holtz is an American writer who first started drafting the original Magi of Gaia (then titled “Welcome to Gaia”) as a playful hobby online in 2014. After a year of writing for fun, Holtz saw that the story could be reworked in a meaningful way with more excitement, better characterization, and a more, fuller view of this new world called Gaia. Finally, after years of tweaking and developing, Holtz ended a nearly 10-year employment at one of the world’s largest retailers in hopes of pursuing a love grander than the universe—a love for the world of Gaia and all the beloved characters than inhabit it.

The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex: The Self-Proclaimed Greatest Dragon in the Multiverse

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Kept hidden by the United States government for decades, the Site is a place where magic is real. But that doesn’t mean that everything happening there is sparkly. Soul-sucking policies and layers of stifling bureaucracy threaten to take all the fun out of magic.

Harris, a newbie Conjurer, starts his first day of work at the Site bursting with excitement: he’s been brought on for an extremely big project happening the very next day. In a triumph over its habitual inefficiency, the Site manages to carry out its plan and conjure an actual dragon to be used by the military.

The dragon (Zoth-Avarex, the self-proclaimed greatest dragon in the multiverse) immediately eats the person next to him, snatches a “princess” from the ranks of the Conjuring Department, and flies away to the Space Needle. There he manipulates the media, outwits the Site’s bumbling management, demands sixty-three billion dollars’ worth of treasure (because Smaug was said to have had sixty-two billion in his hoard), threatens to destroy the city–and installs a couple of food trucks.

While this book skewers the same fantasy genre it gleefully inhabits, it also pokes fun at corporate culture, today’s obsession with wealth and celebrity, and our denial that life is anything more than meets the eye. Hapless Harris, believing in magic all along, learns to apply what he’s picked up between the pages of fantasy literature.

Meet K.R.R. Lockhaven

K.R.R. (Kyle Robert Redundant) Lockhaven writes humorous, fun fantasy books with a pinch of social satire.
He lives with his wife and two sons. Together they conjured a bearded dragon who rules over a hoard of sand and devours crickets by the dozens.
When not writing or raising kids, he works as a firefighter/paramedic.

Corporate Shenanigans

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A Silicon Valley cult worshipping fake hamburgers…

…man-eating animal hybrids in a secret US government lab… 

…and here I am with a dead hockey team mascot.

LA’s favorite British private detective, Heidi LaMont, is back and she’s as snarky as ever. When a Brazilian sugar magnate mysteriously dies eating cheese rolls outside a cafe, Heidi is tapped to investigate. Things quickly turn south as a young, brash Silicon Valley tech mogul wants the PI dead before she uncovers the sinister truth and puts a crimp on his designs for world domination, mass murder, and putting the finishing touches on his collection of lightsabers.

With thousands of lives in the balance, can our plucky private dick stop his plans before the clock runs out on the CEO’s own version of Judgement Day?

Crack open the book and find out.

For fans of unapologetic escapism, action, and dark humor, CORPORATE SHENANIGANS is for you because everyone needs a good laugh.

Buy it now.

Meet Erik Salas

Erik Salas is an award-winning writer and author of the Heidi LaMont series of mystery/dark humor books, and Absurdity. When not writing, Erik is a fixture in the Denver improv scene, enjoys ’80s horror movies, writing in third person, and knowing way too much about professional wrestling.

Pandora’s Gardener

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There’s a war being waged between two secret factions. At stake is the heart of democracy itself.

The key to victory is a small, seemingly harmless, piece of computer hardware, which in the wrong hands, could bring about a technological Dark Age. The race is on to find it as a trail of death is left in its path.

John Cranston is a gardener. He’s not really interested in global domination, he’d much rather mow a lawn. He’s the current keeper of that harmless looking thing.

The problem is – he’s the last person to know.

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Sutherland and his sidekick Sergeant Bludgeon are working on the mystery of the missing accountants, little knowing that this will lead them into something darker and more sinister, as their paths cross and diverge from the gardener on the run.

Meet D Charles Mason

Bexhill-on-Sea photographer and writer David C Mason is the author of the new novel Pandora’s Gardener, an adventure thriller with added humour.

Originally from London’s East End he “escaped” to the seaside to see out his last years of climbing the corporate greased pole, before giving up to do something more interesting.

After thirty odd years of writing plans, outlines, proposals, strategies, business cases, most of which could have passed as works of fiction (or “scenarios” as they were known), he is no stranger to making things up. He thought it would be a shame to let all that experience go to waste.

When he’s not writing, thinking about writing, or out with his camera, he can sometimes be found telling people that “no, Bexhill-on-Sea is nothing to do with Southend-on-Sea…”

Conversations With the Golf God

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Every day around the world golfers wonder if the Golf God is real and how much he impacts the game. This book answers many age old questions. Yes, the Golf God is real! He appeared to local golfer Shanks one day, dancing on a bar at The Fleece Muni Golf Course and told Shanks he had been chosen to be his disciple. “Why have I been chosen?” Shanks asked, bewildered. “Because you are the worst putter I have ever seen and to continue to play the game you have to be filled with devotion,” answered the Golf God righteously. 
The Golf God also informed Shanks he had been assigned the task to write the Golf Gods’ legacy. In between beer, cigarettes, and pizza the Golf God told Shanks the real history of golf, explained the fine points of throwing a club, what golf terms really mean, why we play the game, and a few tips about putting, while Shanks shared several stories about real life golfers at the Golf God’s request – the kind who take your hard earned cash and lie about their handicaps. Grab a slice of pizza, have a beer, maybe a smoke, then sit back and feel like you are in the room enjoying the conversations between Shanks and the Golf God!

Meet Robert K. Swisher Jr.

Robert K. Swisher, Jr. has been writing contemporary fiction since 1967. During this time seven of his novels were published by SUNSTONE PRESS ranging from young adult, contemporary, to historical fiction. Seven of these books are still in print of which three have been converted to e-books. He has received raving reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Best Sellers, Midwest Book Review, and numerous others. Over the past several years OPEN TALON PRESS has released a highly acclaimed four book comedy mystery series about a Vietnam vet and his not so nice Guardian Angel, a hilarious golf book, an off center love story, two literary novels, a highly acclaimed reader participation novel and its sequel, and a tongue in cheek writing instructional book based on a course he taught that goes against the grain of what most creative writing instructors hold as dear. Swisher’s novels can be found on Amazon, your local bookstore, Author Central, Facebook, and Goodreads. He can be reached via his Facebook page. At the moment two fiction novels are being edited, he is working on a third, and a contemporary fiction novel,

The Desperation of Harry

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In this amazing anti-mystery loaded with dark humor, twenty-three-year-old Monty Hill leaves his Midwestern roots for 1977 Hollywood with dreams of becoming a major film screenwriter. He meets Harry, an unpredictable yet endearing man who in hopes to assist Monty financially, steers him to an apparently dangerous producer of pornographic movies, just as an unidentified pedophile looms in the background, inexplicably relating his own brief narratives. There are shocks and secrets aplenty buried in this intelligent story based on actual events, but it’s up to the reader to figure out where they are hidden before they crash-land with thoroughly unexpected explosions.

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Alexandra Forever 2291, Book One, The Strange Matter of the Red Dwarf

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Alexandra Forever 2291, Book One, The Strange Matter of the Red Dwarf - ASIN B08DM6XB5S

This sci fi adventure opens on the crest of a gravity tsunami, when a red dwarf star system punches through the fabric of space-time and barrels toward the Milky Way Galaxy. The Early Warning Centre can only watch helplessly as colonized space braces for impact. 

Questions arise. Is it merely a star system? Or, is something else altogether?

The dire situation takes an unforeseen twist in this science fantasy when an SOS transmission from a long-lost experimental starship, The Invictus, is traced to the sole planet orbiting the red dwarf.  

Alexandra, Post Office Marshal and living goddess, is in an action-packed race against time when she is conscripted to retrieve either the Invictus itself or, failing that, it’s top-secret data, before the ship is lost to imminent galactic collision, or worse, falls into the wrong hands. 

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Fun Stories Greatest Hits

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Enjoy the biggest laughs, the craziest stories, the most comedy. 40 greatest hits! 

Featuring multiple tales from the top 10 of the iTunes comedy chart 

The ultimate destination for humorous short stories. TV and radio personality R. Scott Murphy takes you on a wild ride through office pranks, romance fails, commuter clowns, parenting problems, and the day he quit Cub Scouts. No topic is safe from his off-the-wall comedic sense of observation. 

Fun Stories Greatest Hits is a must-have collection of laugh-out-loud life stories sure to please humor readers, comedy connoisseurs, and fans of sitcoms such as Seinfeld, Friends, and The Office. 

Make Fun Stories Greatest Hits your next comedy adventure. Get it now. 

PRAISE FOR FUN STORIES:
“Five big stars. The funniest book I’ve read in a long time!”  

“Murphy is funny and charmingly off the wall. I love all five Fun Stories books and these are the greatest hits!”

“There are rollicking adventures in every chapter. It’s my go-to gift for friends and family.” 

“Hilarious book. Witty humor like Dave Barry, Trevor Noah, Nick Offerman, and Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.”

INCLUDES ALL OF THESE POPULAR STORIES & MANY MORE:
“Chick-fil-A Makes Me Feel Like Leonardo DiCaprio” 
“The Least Amount of Fame Possible (Old MacDonald)”
“Cub Scout Dropout”
“Not the Next Carrie Underwood”
“Bigfoot Popcorn”
“Gatorade For Your Soul”
“Shamelessly Suggestive City Names” 
“I’m the Freakin’ Michael Phelps of Googling” 
“Alright, Alright, Alright!”
“Mind Game of Thrones”
“Happy Friday (Mr. Pee Man)” 
“Clown Commuter Award”
“How NASA Thins The Herd”
“Crunchy Roads, Take Me Home” 
“Good Folks, Bad Coaching”
“Ultimate Waitress Revenge”
“Battle of the Bands”  

Get a free Fun Pack of stories at www.mentalkickball.com.

The Fun Stories family also includes:
Fun Stories For Your Drive To Work
Fun Stories For Your Drive Home
Fun Stories: Random City Limits
Fun Stories: Searching For More Cowbell

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