In these four stories, Douglas Lain explores the painful and mysterious chasms in the hearts and minds of people who want to break out from their lives, but find themselves becoming stagnant and self-destructive. Unable to escape or move forward, they lose themselves in the past and present, hoping for some insight that will lead them to a brighter future. Readers of Philip K. Dick, Donald Barthelme, and Kelly Link will rejoice in the work of Douglas Lain.
Featuring:
THE LAST APOLLO MISSION
09/11 was an inside job. What nobody knows, except for writer Paula Austin, is that Stanley Kubrick was one of the men behind it all. With help of Nicholas Cage, of course.
RESURFACING BILLY
In a near-future city where radioactive trash is seeping up through the soil, one man creates a chewing gum that just might solve the planet's trash problem, while trying to prove to a Big Brother-like school that his son's behavioral problems are completely normal before they mandate a lobotomy.
ALIEN INVASION/COFFEE CUP STORY
Aliens have finally invaded, but apathy has overtaken the planet and nobody seems to care about the flying saucers in the sky. The tensions in a young couple's relationship rise to the surface as they discuss what the alien invasion means, or more to the point, what it doesn't mean, in this satirical mash-up of alien invasion and realist "cup of coffee" stories.
CHOMSKY AND THE TIME BOX
A tech blogger travels back in time and becomes obsessed with a twenty-two minute period in the Chicago O'Hara Airport on November 16th, 1971, when Noam Chomsky and Terence McKenna nearly met. But nothing goes according to plan in his repeated attempts to change the course of history, which entail kidnapping Chomsky and subjecting hostages from the Chicago O'Hara to footage of Ronald Reagan.
Douglas Lain's short fiction has appeared in many magazines and journals here and abroad. Since 2009, he has produced the weekly podcast Diet Soap, interviewing a wide range of fascinating, engaging people with insights for the new millennium: philosophers, mystics, economists, and a diverse group of fiction writers. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.
