Showing titles in Humorous

For the six lucky scientists selected by the Destination Mars! corporation, a one-way ticket to Mars - in exchange for a lifetime of research - was an absolute no-brainer. The incredible opportunity was clearly worth even the most absurdly tedious screening process. Perhaps worth following the strange protocols in a nonsensical handbook written by an eccentric billionaire. Possibly even worth their constant surveillance, the video of which is carefully edited into a ratings-bonanza back on Earth. But it turns out that after a while, even scientists can get bored of science.

The Pan of Hamgee doesn't believe in miracles but if he’s going to save K'Barth it looks as if he might need one. He's not quite as alone as he thought. The punters from The Parrot and Screwdriver are right behind him and he has rescued three of his friends from the Grongolian Security Forces, who are now of course, three of the nation's most wanted, which doesn't make life easy. He even has something of a plan for once. It involves making peace with the Resistance, trying to resurrect the Underground movement, and toppling Lord Vernon.

Murder has come yet again to the seaside town of Crab Cove, testing the mettle of Detective Simon Grave, his “almost invisible” partner, Sergeant Barry Blunt, and his new assistant, Charlize, a simdroid (an android lookalike of a famous person) who fancies herself a match for Sherlock Holmes, in the simulated body of Charlize Theron. When a body is discovered on a deserted beach, alongside a deactivated Betty White simdroid, the game is afoot.

What if you went to heaven and no one there believed in Earth? This is the question at the heart of Beforelife, a satirical novel that follows the postmortem adventures of widower Ian Brown, a man who dies in the book’s first moments and finds himself in an afterlife where no one else believes in “pre-incarnation”. The other residents of the afterlife have mysteriously forgotten their premortem lives and think that anyone who remembers a mortal life is suffering from a mental disorder called the “Beforelife Delusion”.

Endlich wieder auf der Erde! Arthur Dent ist gut gelandet. Einziger Haken: Er ist zwei Millionen Jahre früher in einer Steinzeithöhle gestrandet...

They fell from space and were hatched. In three weeks, they were fully grown three-feet-high creatures with an IQ about the same as a two-year-old human. Russia and China decided to attack them. When that didn't go well, they destroyed 500,000 of the beings. In the US, Bob Michaels wanted to try a different way. He simply brought two of them home and tried to communicate with them. He began learning from them, and they learned from him. Hell, he even toilet-trained them.

An unlikely hero with an unheard of mission and a world in the balance...Jarl Henderson had a normal, active life until The Disaster. His family, save for his sister Aneera, was wiped out. As the world moves inexorably toward the revealing of Satan’s messiah and the end of the age, Jarl - at Jesus’ request - is launched into the quantum realm to travel its pathways and retrieve items vital for Jesus’ followers still on earth. During his travels he meets shapeshifters, angels, hybrids, and demons and has to determine friend from foe.

On a hotter and more volatile Earth in the 23rd century, humans like Clare and Jon live in utopia, hunting and gathering in small tribal bands, engaged in daily art and ritual, reunited with old friends like the shaggy mammoth and giant ground sloth. Even better, they still have solar-powered laptops and can communicate with each other around the world. The understanding of physics has also advanced.

We always knew in the back of our minds that we'd have to use them on our own world if we were to save it, but I still can't get around the fact we vaporized D.C. to keep the demons at bay. Every day that passes sees humanity more and more on the brink of obliteration. That said, we've managed to secure some intel that gives us a glimmer of hope when it comes to our species' survival. In short, we've got the opportunity to get behind enemy lines—as in, off the planet—and sow chaos amongst their ranks. And from there, who knows?

Andrea Chapela es una narradora de ciencia ficción extraordinaria. Su prosa ágil e inteligente atrapa a los lectores desde el primer instante. A lo largo de sus cuentos, construye un futuro donde en la Ciudad de México pueden coexistir las taquerías, los organilleros, las tortas de tamal, los oxxos y los edificios coloniales, las chinampas y los peseros, con una compleja red de comunicaciones donde interactúan las mentes de las personas y las inteligencias artificiales.

In a world where everyone has a superpower, his was being a geek. Cue was perfectly happy working as a tech super in the dingy basement of Seattle's Superhero Office. Or at least he was until he got mixed up with a machine that could increase superpowers, foreign agents, and a fire-wielding gang of criminals. Now he's dodging fireballs and using his power to change old tech into something that can keep him alive. Luckily, he has a knack for being a hero.

As the United States sinks into apocalypse, two people fight to preserve life and sanity. One is Nora Burkhart, a schoolteacher who will stop at nothing to save her son. The other is genius sculptor Gerard Korty, who struggles to create a masterwork that will heal the metaphysical wounds of the age. Highlights include a bloody battle on a New Jersey golf course between Jews and anti-Semites, a debate between Martin Luther and Erasmus, and a chilling villain in the personage of Dr. Adrian Lucido - founder of a new pagan church in Mexico and inventor of a cure worse than any disease.

Isaac Asimov wrote "The Magnificent Possession" early in his career. This is one of the few humorous stories that Asimov created.

All Mr. Taffle wants to do is be crowned the Mighty Warlord of his high tech sales cult. But there’s two things standing in his way: He sucks at almost everything and has a putrid sense of fashion. So, when he buys a pair of leather pants, them turning out to be insane isn’t all that shocking. Not only does his pants hypnotically attract the most bizarre characters that cross their path, but they also act as a magnet that pulls whoever is wearing them to the most bizarre place on Earth.

On a shattered planet, Solisis Dicax recounts his life as he falls to his death. He was one of the Arxian Guards' laziest yet most famous soldiers. Unfortunately for him, on his quest to clear the military of its corruption, he accidentally stumbled into an ancient plot to reset the world at the cost of his life.

Private investigator Frank Harken’s worldwide fame has only made him more cynical. And living in a giant mall covering the entire USA only serves to drive him nuts on a daily basis. So, when a femme fatale barges in asking Harken to track down her sister, he knows when he’s heard an offer too good to be true.

Arthur Dent hat einen echt miesen Tag. Erst soll sein Haus abgerissen werden, um einer Umgehungsstraße Platz zu machen, und dann wird auch noch die gesamte Erde zerstört...

Our heroes thought they had saved reality, but now, they’ve learned they don't even know what reality is! Things from reality are fighting back against them, and in order to save their reality, they must first work out what reality is, find the real reality, and stop it, or something—I don't even know! Come on one last insanity-filled trip, and let's just hope nobody dies for very long.

So, an elder god hatched, destroying your planet and killing the love of your life. Would you be depressed? Would you want revenge? Would you just go fishing for the big bastard in your spacefaring house off the Iraq Nebula, aided by the inbuilt computer-generated assistant and an alien who crashed into you.... Of course you would.

Eine der großen Dystopien des 20. Jahrhunderts - aber lustig. Hier bleibt Ijon Tichy, der Held so vieler lemscher Erzählungen, ausnahmsweise auf dem Boden, das heißt auf der Erde. Es bedeutet allerdings nicht, dass es ihm hier langweilig würde, ganz im Gegenteil: Er wird beschossen, eingefroren, aufgetaut, betäubt, benebelt, beglückt und bekommt schließlich noch einen Rattenschwanz verpasst. "Der futurologische Kongreß" ist eine der großen Dystopien des 20. Jahrhunderts – allerdings deutlich lustiger als die Konkurrenz von Orwell, Huxley oder Atwood.