Abstract

Are these daydreams? Science-fiction? Sketch comedies?
The sun doesn’t rise on New Year’s Day due to an operational error. An older brother walks up a stairway, aiming to go beyond the clouds, while his younger brother descends the stairs. A mysterious being from a far-off land faces off with a multiverse…

This book is a collection of fifty short stories that focus on casual everyday delusions. They are spiced with black humor that will make us laugh. The stories range from serious social satire to tales set against the backdrop of outer space or the near future, taking readers on a fun, wild ride.

The characters sometimes appear in different stories with the same names, making the reader wonder if these might be parallel worlds. One can almost imagine the author having actors in his mind coming back to play a new character in the next story. Some of them also appear in the author’s other short story collections.

These are short stories about the odd everyday lives of peculiar people who are like us yet are very different. They will make readers smile, surprise them, and leave them with a uniquely intriguing aftertaste.

Author’s Information

ASO Kamo is a writer and advertising account planner. Born in Kobe City in 1971, ASO has worked in various fields, including video games, the music industry, design, advertising, theatre, event planning, and broadcasting. The ‘@NHK_PR’ account he ran on what used to be Twitter in 2009 for NHK’s publicity became the talk of the town. ASO left NHK in 2014 and is currently involved in planning, producing, and directing ads and television programs while focusing chiefly on his writing. His past works include "The Guide Runner"(Kodansha), nominated for 35th ODA Sakunosuke award and adapted for comics and a TV movie, as well as "The World According to Cats" (Kadokawa).