9 stories
Sandman Slim
The Sandman Slim series is a fantasy/supernatural/occult/noir collection of novels. Each book is narrated by James "Sandman Slim" Stark, a half-human/half-angel magician who returns from Hell to exact revenge on the people who sent him there.
Horrorstör
The novel follows a group of people that have stayed overnight at ORSK to investigate strange acts of vandalism, store manager Basil and his employees, Amy and Ruth Anne. The book particularly focuses on Amy, who is unhappy because she views her work at ORSK as an unfulfilling dead-end job. During a patrol of the store, Amy and Ruth Anne come across fellow employees Trinity and Matt, who have snuck into the store to record paranormal phenomena, and the homeless bum Carl, who has been sleeping in the store without anyone knowing. Although the group decides against calling the police, Amy reveals that she had called them earlier over some minor strange occurrences earlier in the night.
Welcome to Night Vale
The Man in the Tan Jacket is back in Night Vale and he has been leaving strange pieces of paper with people, all of which say "King City". While Night Vale is used to the strange and bizarre, the Man in the Tan Jacket's arrival puts the town at odds. Jackie Fierro, the owner of the town pawn shop, is determined to figure out the mystery behind both the man and the paper. Meanwhile, Diane Crayton has her own issues: her son has been changing and while this is average for most teenage boys, her son is literally a shape shifter and looks different each time she sees him. When she begins to see her son's father around town and Josh begins to show new interest in the man, Diane knows that this cannot end well.
Jailbird
The novel is narrated by protagonist Walter F. Starbuck, a man recently released from a minimum-security prison in Georgia after serving time for his small role in the Watergate Scandal. Jailbird is written as a standard memoir, revealing Starbuck's present situation, then coming full circle to tell the story of his first two days after being released from prison. Through Starbuck, Jailbird discusses the history of the American labor movement, alongside corporate America, McCarthyism, the Nixon administration, and Watergate.
My Best Friend's Exorcism
The year is 1988 and Abby has just started her junior year of high school in South Carolina. She's glad to have her best friend Gretchen at her side, as they have been inseparable since they met at Abby's 10th birthday back in 1982. One night they decide to try taking LSD, only for Gretchen to disappear into the woods and return home a few hours later. Her friends are concerned, but Gretchen claims that nothing happened. Her actions belie her words, as Gretchen begins acting increasingly more erratic, prompting Abby to suspect that Gretchen might actually be possessed by a demon.
Breakfast of Champions
Kilgore Trout is a widely published, but ignored and virtually invisible writer who is invited to deliver a keynote address at a local arts festival in distant Midland City. Dwayne Hoover is a wealthy businessman who owns much in Midland City, but is becoming increasingly mentally unstable. The novel is achronological and frequently shifts focus between Hoover and Trout, as well as supporting characters like Wayne Hoobler, a man who wants to work under Hoover, and Kurt Vonnegut himself, who appears as the author of the book, having power over the world and his characters' actions.
Player Piano
Player Piano develops two parallel plotlines that converge only briefly and then insubstantially, at the beginning and the end of the novel. The more prominent plotline follows the protagonist, Dr. Paul Proteus (referred to as Paul), an intelligent, 35-year-old factory manager of Ilium Works. The secondary plotline follows the American tour of the Shah of Bratpuhr, a spiritual leader of six million residents in a distant, underdeveloped nation.
Cat’s Cradle
At the opening of the book, the narrator, an everyman named John (but calling himself Jonah), describes a time when he was planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed. While researching this topic, John becomes involved with the children of the late Felix Hoenikker—Frank, Newton, and Angela Hoenikker. John travels to Ilium, New York, to interview the Hoenikker children and others for his book.
The Sirens of Titan
Malachi Constant is the richest man in a future America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he attributes to divine favor which he has used to build upon his father's fortune. He becomes the centerpoint of a journey that takes him from Earth to Mars in preparation for an interplanetary war, to Mercury with another Martian survivor of that war, back to Earth to be pilloried as a sign of Man's displeasure with his arrogance, and finally to Titan where he again meets the man ostensibly responsible for the turn of events that have befallen him, Winston Niles Rumfoord.
