Absurdist Fiction

Uncover the terrifying secrets of Sacramento, California, once a symbol of American pride, now morphed into an oppressive urban hellhole ominously known as the Ward. This chilling city-prison, with its unfathomable horrors, is a place where even angels fear to tread. In the grim depths of the Ward, a trio of horrifying factions clash. Avalon Company, fueled by an obsession with fire and destruction; the Breedless, cannibals who echo the ferocity of ancient Vikings; and Talon's Legion, a death-cult reminiscent of the terrifying might of the Roman Empire. Each is embroiled in a brutal battle ...

Penny Rush has problems. Her marriage is over; she’s quit her job. Her mother and stepfather went missing in the Australian outback five years ago; her mentally unbalanced father provokes her; her grandmother Dr. Pincer keeps experiments in the refrigerator and something worse in the woodshed. But Penny is a virtuoso at what’s possible when all else fails. Elizabeth McKenzie, the National Book Award–nominated author of The Portable Veblen, follows Penny on her quest for a fresh start.

A parallel universe. South Texas. Narcotics are legal, and there’s a new contraband on the market: ancient Olmec artifacts, shrunken indigenous heads, and filtered animals - species of animals brought back from extinction to clothe, feed, and generally amuse the very wealthy. Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet. But his simple life starts to get complicated when the swashbuckling investigative journalist Paco Herbert invites him to come to an illegal underground dinner serving filtered animals.

He spent his life chasing a dream—but some dreams chase you back. A private detective takes on a missing person case with a difference. The client, a wealthy man named King, has hired him to find a beautiful young woman. King claims to have seen her three times over the course of twenty years – at a railway station in London, a lake ferry port in Italy, and an airport in New York – and each time she looked identical. Impossible, of course. A middle-aged man’s fantasy. Or is something stranger going on? Inspired in part by the Pygmalion myth, My Sweet Rock explores what dangers can ...

Avishay is up for the Nobel Prize for Economics. There’s just one problem—he’s dead. His four closest friends agree that the well-earned prize must stay within his grasp, and so conspire to conceal Avishay’s corpse until the committee’s announcement. The potential of a glorious legacy for their late friend – and by extension, for them all – is only a mere eight days away. What could go wrong?

Un día Matías Pascal, bibliotecario en Sicilia, lee en un periódico la florida reseña de su propia muerte. Toda la novela es una profunda reflexión sobre la constante pugna por establecer una identidad definida y tener un lugar bien definido en el mundo.

Set in the time of Charlemagne and narrated by a nun with her own secrets to keep, The Nonexistent Knight tells the story of Agilulf, a gleaming white suit of armor with nothing inside it. A challenge to his honor sends Agilulf on a search through France, England, and North Africa to confirm the chastity of a virgin he saved from rape years earlier.

King Edward IV did not like that Simon was thrice removed from some long-forgotten ancestor who was somehow related to the owner of the cow that gave milk to King Henry V. Or something like that, Simon was not very good at genealogy. But now, the Lancastrian lordling has fled to the far reaches of the world to brood on revenge. He's stranded in these strange waters with money-hungry Captain Aldo Mitacchione, his halfwit first mate, Neno, and a crew of starving Italians. Things are about to get stranger.

Can fiction shape reality—or is it the other way around? Howard Protheroe’s life is thrown into disarray when he meets the unpredictable Evie Nickelbite. At round about the same time, would-be writer George W. Durant buys an antique Remington typewriter that seems to have a will of its own. As Howard and Evie’s lives become increasingly action-packed and fraught with danger, they start to feel like characters in a badly written novel. What is going on, and what does it have to do with George’s Remington? By turns surreal, funny and romantic, The Typewriter navigates the mysterious ...

An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capitol of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on the Chalazian Mafia Faction (a splinter group of the Chalazian Children's Theater). The book takes place over the course of a night at the Bar Pulpo, Kermunkachunk's #1 spoken-word karaoke bar, where conversations are actually being read from multiple karaoke screens arrayed around the barroom. Moreover, it's Thursday, "Father/Daughter Nite", when the bar is frequented by actual fathers and daughters as well as couples cosplaying fathers and daughters.

It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and the want of anything not-Moon quickly fall away when she beholds the idol in concert, where Moon dances as if his movements are creating their own gravitational field; on live streams, as fans from around the world comment in dozens of languages; even on skincare products endorsed by the wildly popular Korean boy band, of which Moon is the youngest, most luminous member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing Y/N fanfic.

The buzzing didn't grow louder—only harder to ignore. A man is haunted by the sound of an insect only he can hear—an invisible presence that grows louder after he suffers a tragic loss. The narrator spirals through grief into a life of tailored luxury and surface-level ease. Despite this, the buzzing continues—until a new arrival stirs long-buried memories and reveals cracks in the story he's been living. The Insect charts a haunting journey through identity, obsession, and the inescapable echoes of the past.

A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women - who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive “feminine” passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company.

More than 500 years before his friendship with Kitty, noble Ricardo de Avila's life met a fate-changing twist, and his morally complex, blood-soaked existence as an immortal began. Before being turned, Ricardo de Avila would have followed Coronado to the ends of the earth. Instead he found the end of his mortal life - and a new one, as a renegade vampire. For over 500 years as an immortal, Ricardo has followed his own moral code, upsetting the established order in the demon world.

The Late Mattia Pascal (Italian: Il fu Mattia Pascal) is a 1904 novel by Luigi Pirandello. It is one of his best-known works and was his first major treatment of the theme of the mask. The protagonist, Mattia Pascal, finds that his promising youth has, through misfortune or misdeed, dissolved into a dreary dead-end job and a miserable marriage.

The Sven Chronicles: Synergy, Sausages and Spuds Wisdom Nobody Asked For – But Here We Are Are you tired of self-help books that tell you to wake up at 5am, eat chia seeds, and achieve inner peace while riding a a monocycle? Meet Sven. He’s not here to optimise your workflow. He’s here to remind you that it’s okay to accidentally walk into the Gents’, eat cake in your knickers and find meaning in a potato. Inside, you’ll find: - A prophetic potato who speaks in starch-based riddles - A dog named Biscuits who has mastered the ancient art of Doing Nothing With Purpose - Golden ...

Morgan Beale is a pop icon - and hates every second of it. He begins adapting the latest best seller, The Chihuahua in the Blue Prada Bag, into a blockbuster movie just before his celebutante wife starts remodeling their Hollywood home, driving Beale to a hotel. Dodging the paparazzi one morning on his way to Starbucks, he spots his writing partner, Luke, who has been dead for over a decade, and who is staring into a mysterious hole in the ground....

Lara the Runaway Cat tells the story of Gobi, the loveable pug who followed Dion Leonard across a gruelling 155-mile trek across the Gobi Desert, and her mischievous cat sister, Lara, who runs away from her family, seeking a courageous adventure and different life.

Tutto può accadere nel bar sotto il mare. Un bar in cui tutti vorremmo capitare, una notte, per ascoltare i racconti del barista, dell'uomo col cappello, dell'uomo con la gardenia, della sirena, del marinaio, dell'uomo invisibile, della vamp e degli altri misteriosi avventori. Sompazzo, il paese più bugiardo del mondo - Gaspard Ouralphe, il più grande cuoco di Francia - Il verme mangiaparole e l'incredibile storia del capitano Charlemont - La disfida di Salsiccia - Il dittatore pentito - Kraputnyk, il marziano innamorato - Priscilla Mapple e il delitto della II C.

When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset. A couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's. A woman finds she is irresistible to a small green monster that burrows through her front garden. An insomniac wife wakes up in a twilight world of semi-consciousness in which anything seems possible - even death. In every one of these stories Murakami makes a determined assault on the normal.