MoxieMezcal

This Unhappy Planet is a satirical dramedy about two guys who hatch a scheme to open a chain of spiritual fitness clubs, hoping to get rich quick off of bored yoga moms and affluent New Age seekers. Its brilliance is in Marc's ability to lampoon both the main characters' cynicism as well as the distinctly SoCal brand of pseudo-spiritualism without veering into the realm of mean-spirited caricatures. The characters are imbued with such depth and shading, they are rendered so completely believable,… (more)

This Unhappy Planet is a satirical dramedy about two guys who hatch a scheme to open a chain of spiritual fitness clubs, hoping to get rich quick off of bored yoga moms and affluent New Age seekers. Its brilliance is in Marc's ability to lampoon both the main characters' cynicism as well as the distinctly SoCal brand of pseudo-spiritualism without veering into the realm of mean-spirited caricatures. The characters are imbued with such depth and shading, they are rendered so completely believable, that you can't help but empathize with them even while laughing at their foibles.

Jim writes the kind of stories that sneak up on you. Unassuming at first, they don't fire out of the gate with a lot of fanfare and bluster. They are simple stories, elegantly told, that stay with you long after you've put them down. My personal favorite is "July 4: Easter", which deftly manages to weave together issues of love, relationship power dynamics, guilt, vindictiveness, tradition, and ceremony.

Ostensibly a thriller, it starts off feeling more like a travelogue about a westerner's first observations about Tokyo, then starts cooking with a nice, tight little plot about the planning of a terrorist attack - inspired by Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks in '95. But the overall structure of the book is like a whirlpool, and soon everything speeds up, frantically and furiously, with crazy shit being tossed at your head around every corner - great big chunks of sci-fi, eastern mysticism, posthumanism, and conspiracy theory.

Dead(ish) is a quick read, written in a playful, conversational style that shifts between several characters’ first-person points-of-view. What makes it special is the way that it crackles with exuberant creative energy from start to finish, never dragging or dwelling on the kind of inconsequential minutiae that tends to trip up less-assured, more pretentious authors. Part mystery, part ghost story, part revenge fantasy, Naomi’s work stampedes over genre conventions and thumbs her nose at… (more)

Dead(ish) is a quick read, written in a playful, conversational style that shifts between several characters’ first-person points-of-view. What makes it special is the way that it crackles with exuberant creative energy from start to finish, never dragging or dwelling on the kind of inconsequential minutiae that tends to trip up less-assured, more pretentious authors. Part mystery, part ghost story, part revenge fantasy, Naomi’s work stampedes over genre conventions and thumbs her nose at outdated notions of literary propriety. She doesn’t care if it’s a sentence fragment or not, she’s not worried if her potty-mouth offends you, she’s just telling the story she wants to tell, the way she wants to tell it.

What I love about these stories is the nuanced, sophisticated relationship presented between human beings and technology, which is often belied by the absurdity of the humor. He seems to present technology not as a boogey-man, but rather as the tools human beings create to fill real needs, whether they be emotional, spiritual, sexual, etc. The problem, of course, arises from humans' preternatural abilities to epically fuck up even the best intentions.

File is empty, there's no text/content, only the cover and feedbooks logo page. Shame, because the synopsis is intriguing.