A Profound Frolic in an Unreasonable Multiverse
by
Melon.
This random and powerful thought turns the sun into a massive honeydew melon, destroying the Earth and ruining Dr. Maximilian Tundra’s day.
In another even more unlikely universe, an alternative Max discovers the mining colony on Callisto has disappeared. Not only has his new home vanished, so has every shred of human civilization in the entire system!
These two Maxes (and a few more) must discover the cause of this decoherence and save other universes – which are annoyingly infinite – from suffering the same fate.
From the award-winning author Mark A. Rayner, Beta Max takes us on a profound and absurd voyage through an increasingly existential multiverse.
Praise for the Tundraverse and Mark A. Rayner
“Snarky as Pratchett, insightful as Stephenson, as full of scathing social commentary as Swift or Voltaire, and weirdly reminiscent of LeGuin … ” ~Ernest Lilley, Amazing Stories
“Rayner is brilliant! His writing is a strange and exhilarating mixture of the cerebral and the entertaining. He doesn’t condescend to his readers, but blitzes us with ideas from an eclectic and diverse range of topics – metaphysical, physical, scientific, emotional, cultural, and random – and then trusts us to wrap our heads around all of it as we join his hero on a journey through the multiverse.” ~Karen Molenaar Terrell, author of Cosmic Connections: Sharing the Joy
Publisher: Monkeyjoy Press
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Word Count: 100000
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Continuous / Same Characters
Word Count: 100000
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Continuous / Same Characters
Laugh. Reflect. Repeat.
Skip into an existential and ridiculous multiverse, as seen through the eyes of Dr. Maximilian Tundra. Rather, through the eyes of multiple versions of the everyman, as he and his duplicates attempt to save all existence. (Even if sometimes it seems reality is tenuous and unreal.) Some versions of Max are brave. Some are ridiculous. Some are urologists. Others are wildly unprepared for their own consciousness, unable to accept they can save the cosmos.
The Tundraverse series of humorous science fiction novels and stories explodes the chosen one trope, all while challenging readers with haunting existential questions: If everything happens somewhere, does anything matter? Is an individual consciousness of value, if it’s replicated endlessly? Does time even exist? Do I want fries with that?
The only thing they can agree on is that infinity sucks!
Critics have noted the echoes of Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Neal Stephenson and Ursula LeGuin in Mark A. Rayner’s writing and storytelling. He blends satire, philosophy, and comedy with fast-moving, idea-packed narratives. Expect paradoxes, pixyish aliens, and MacGuffins galore as Rayner leaves you with a feeling that reality may be some kind of cosmic joke.
Smart, strange, and profoundly funny, the Tundraverse is where big questions meet even bigger nonsense – and leaves readers with a satisfying understanding that it’s love and friendship that really matter.
