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Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

A challenging and funny roller-coaster ride through the outer margins of SF - The Straw That Broke by Tom Whalen

Description:

In his rollicking new novel, The Straw That Broke, author Tom Whalen continues his ENCYCLOPEDIA MOUSE series, a challenging and funny roller-coaster ride through the outer margins of science-fiction, philosophy, and word play. Readers who reveled in previous books in the series, such as The Camel's Back (called “the Moby-Dick of mice” by poet and critic R.H.W. Dillard) and Roithamer's Universe (which science-fiction writer Rudy Rucker termed “giddy fun”), are sure to greet the arrival of The Straw That Broke with anticipation and joy. Lovers of such visionary writers as Kafka, Borges, Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll, and Douglas Adams (THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE series) also will find a kindred spirit in Tom Whalen, as will readers of all tastes who are looking for a thrilling literary adventure. 

The main “character” in The Straw That Broke is the Encyclopedia Mouse, who, according to the author, “is the one creature who can save the multiverse.” In Whalen’s synopsis of The Straw That Broke, “Bulwer Zetford’s work-in-progress, The Cosmic Messenger, is about to take a strange turn, and the multiverse with it, when Roithamer of Relix “beads” once again and brings swirling into Zetford’s Kaduza M-mon processor the Encyclopedia Mouse … Tale twines tale as the mouse battles his Doppelgänger in cyberspace, Heidegger, in his Black Forest hut, and a hyper-crazed Roithamer. Death is everywhere, but the mouse, birling (if only barely) in his Binding Nexus Drive, is determined to narrate the universes away from their demise.” 

Whalen describes his style as “playful, parodic, philosophical, lyrical. I wanted The Straw That Broke to be thick with character and plot and at the same time alive with language.” 

“The word play is part of the novel’s texture, as well as being embedded into the plot and character of the mouse,” Whalen also explains. “No need for the reader to pick up all the formal play. It’s enough that this exists on a subliminal level.” 

Whalen’s ultimate goal, he says, is to have the Encyclopedia Mouse books published in one volume “and eventually turned into a wide-screen baroque masterwork of cinema.” 
In the meantime, The Straw That Broke is available in print, ready to delight all readers. 

What the critics are saying about the ENCYCLOPEDIA MOUSE series: 

“Pollinates post-cyber-punk with headier poetry than the genre has yet known. - Andrei Codrescu, 
Author and NPR commentator 
Storytelling which is subtly, wickedly funny. - The New Orleans Times-Picayune 
Tom Whalen is one of the most gifted and prolific of contemporary American avant-garde writers … a master of this genre. - George Garrett, Dictionary of Literary Biography 
Tom Whalen twists our notions of what is real. - Christine Spivey, New Orleans Review 

About the author:
Tom Whalen is a novelist, short story writer, poet and critic who has written for Agni, Asymptote, Bookforum, Brooklyn Rail, Chicago Review, The Iowa Review, Film Quarterly, The Literary Review, the Washington Post and other publications. His books include Dolls, Elongated Figures, The Birth of Death and Other Comedies: The Novels of Russell H. Greenan, and the novels Roithamer’s Universe and The President in Her Towers. Whalen currently lives in Stuttgart, Germany, where he teaches film at the State Academy of Art and Design. See author on You Tube.

His latest book is the science fiction, The Straw That Broke.

13 comments:

nurmawati djuhawan said...

thx u for hosting this giveaway, Tom :)

collenga said...

Sounds like a great sci-fi book. Thanks for sharing!

Spg Chlomo said...

Sounds like a great sci-fi book. Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

Thank you for this giveaway!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Thanks for the chance to win <3 This book sounds awesome!!

wendy Hutton said...

this book sounds great, good luck to you

Unknown said...

Thanks for the awesome giveaway<3

Unknown said...

Hi tom, your book sounds good, I was reading the reviews on amazon as well and they are really good too, so must be a great book!! Thank you for the giveaway too

Ally Swanson said...

Congrats on the new book Tom! I really enjoyed reading the description. This sounds like such an interesting read! My question for the author, Tom Whalen would be: How do you start developing the story? Like for instance, how do you get inspired for it? Do you already know how your story is going to end before you even start writing it?

johnthuku0 said...

Thank you for the wonderful giveaway.

justwin4once said...

I can't wait to read this - I always like reading comedy. Laughter is the best cure for anything.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the chance!