Micheal R. Meyer

Improv(e) Your Conversations teaches the ingenious rules of improv comedy that allow performers to turn boring prompts into memorable interactions worthy of standing ovations. This means there are real frameworks and templates to escape interview mode small talk – and start connecting and building rapport from the moment you say “Hello”. This book goes through over 15 of the most helpful and insightful improv comedy techniques with countless real-life examples to make you a great talker.

Once upon a time, in the magical land of San Francisco, there lived a not-so-ordinary girl named Laurel Pettigrew. She was supposed to be the Chosen One. The plan was simple: She would vanquish the great evil Tybus in an epic battle. But destiny had other ideas, and Laurel's performance in the whole heroics department was a colossal flop. Now, instead of being a legendary hero, Laurel's the resident pariah of the magic realm. And what’s worse, the dark wizard Tybus swooped in, took over the realm, and forced all supernatural creatures to live under his tyrannical rule.

After being court-martialed by the Space Legion for ordering the strafing of a treaty-signing ceremony, multimillionaire Willard Phule receives his punishment: He must command the misfit Omega Company on Haskin's Planet, a mining settlement on the edge of settled space. At his duty station, he leverages his personal money and a knack for managing people to get the company to come together as a unit.

Skeeve is a powerful magician, and he always means well...but he is more than a bit naive when it comes to romance. And suddenly, he’s drowning in a sea of romance! There’s Bunny, the brilliant mob moll, Cassandra, the friendly neighborhood vampire night-club queen...and of course, there’s the sexy but dangerously twisted Queen Hemlock. Only one of his nubile suitors can assure his future - and maybe even keep him alive.

Stranded in the myth-begotten world of Perv, it’s home to Ahaz, Skeeve’s scaly green demon mentor and partner in crime, but it’s no place for a human. When Ahaz takes exception to something Skeeve says, he walks away from M.Y.T.H., Inc. and goes back to Perv. Skeeve realizes that he must apologize for his thoughtless behavior and convince his stubborn, thin-skinned cohort to rejoin the firm - and finds himself trapped in the most demonic dimension of them all!

It was just an innocent game of dragon poker. But soon Ogres were high, unicorns wild, and the pot was half a million! Skeeve bluffs his way into a high-stakes game of dragon poker - and wins! But now he's left with Markie, a pint-sized IOU left by a player who went broke. She conjures up a house full of trouble every time she tries to cast a spell. And now the dragon poker champion has challenged Skeeve to a game - with a pot of half a million.

Skeeve is just settling into his duties as court magician of Possiltum and his training as sorcerer’s apprentice to Aahz, his scaly green demon mentor, when Aahz is suddenly called back to his home dimension on family business. Skeeve figures he can handle things on his own for a while, but then King Roderick convinces Skeeve to use his powers of illusion to take the king’s place while Roderick takes a little “vacation”. That’s when Hemlock, the ruthless, ambitious queen of a powerful neighboring nation, turns up to fulfill her part in an arranged marriage with Roderick.

Having defeated the mad wizard, Isstvan, Skeeve, and Aahz have taken over the remote inn that was the enemy’s hideout. They’re generally safe from visitors, and if not, Skeeve’s growing magical abilities allow him to disguise himself and his friends as such repulsive serving staff that potential guests flee, screaming. Skeeve has grown bored of studying magic at the isolated inn, however, and one visitor who does not flee offers him an invitation for employment as court magician in the kingdom of Possiltum.

Skeeve is a magician’s apprentice (and a wanna-be thief) until an assassin’s bolt kills his master, Garkin. Along with Aahz, the green-scaled, purple-tongued demon and master magician summoned by Garkin, he sets out on a quest to get even. The road to vengeance is bound to prove rocky, however, because Skeeve can barely light a candle with his beginning magic, and Aahz has lost his own considerable magical abilities as a consequence of Garkin’s summoning spell.

First published in 1986 and updated several times since, Don’t Panic is in an in-depth exploration of Douglas Adams’s cultural phenomenon The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - from its beginnings as a UK radio series, to its expansion into a wildly popular book trilogy, and onto incarnations in various media including stage, records, film, computer games, and even, um, tea towels.