Sleep Has No Master

Can we tell the difference between our dreams and reality? In his latest collection of short stories and flash fiction, Jon Konrath dances between metafiction and nihilism in an absurdist world of geek culture where cancer is the latest fashion trend, books have been replaced in schools with episodes of Barney Miller, time travel is possible but annoying because of the commercials, and mutant krill/human hybrids perform special forces military operations in Iran. Each story either shows the narrator’s past in a land called Bighikistan, or peeks at his subconscious in a series of insomnia-influenced dreams and nightmares. In the 27 fast-paced stories that make up Konrath’s bizarro compendium, themes drift from finding meaning in life (“Oil Change Introspection Therapy”), political extremism (“Tree AIDS and the Slurpee Abortion Speech”), and sexual fetish (“The George Washington Buttplug”). The absurdism challenges and humors readers with taboo subjects such as big-budget snuff film cartoons, franchised bondage dungeons in airports, and hundreds of protestors self-immolating themselves because of a nationwide McRib ban. Filled with dark humor and outrageous stylings, this compilation drifts through a paranoid Kafkaesque dreamscape parodying the information overload of the modern world.