Ranging in tone from the mordant to the mournful, Mortal Laughter is amusement in a dozen different keys, major and minor, muted or molto fortissimo, and often multivocal.
With forays into the macabre, the mildly immodest and the moronic, the thirteen tales herein ask such soon-to-be-burning questions as: What does the Persian sultan who has everything want? How will the last man on Mars spend his dying hours? What do three survivors of a global holocaust do for fun in a French chateau? What the hell is "the blue screw"? If phototropism were more a matter of psychology than botany, would it be wise to drive to work as stoned as Hunter S. Thompson? Can Constable Trevor Smedley of the RCMP keep his shit together long enough to find out who killed Dr Hu (noted local gynecologist, not Time Lord)? In a parallel universe, would you friend Samuel Pepys on Facebook? How do beautiful undergrads punish nerds who correct their English? Is there an eroticism of pancakes? If, as Hamlet says, Denmark's a prison, what does that make Tim Hortons? Is karma a bigger bitch than Melody Swobe? Will the Duke of Firmbrest's bastard heed what highborn, cold-eyed Clarissa counsels, or go on as before, from lechery to lechery? And--most important of all--will Igor quit?
St Thomas Aquinas, celebrated medieval killjoy and father of present-day political correctness, called laughter a venial--and sometimes mortal--sin. If so, the author has written a wicked book and feels, like Melville, spotless as the lamb. He hopes you find his farces, feuilletons and jeux d'esprit sinfully funny, and don't repent your purchase.