The Alternate Reality News Service Series

Big floating heads! Conscious cars that tell their owners when the mechanic from the garage down the street is ripping them off! Women suing General Motors for paternity! The Alternate Reality News Service sends reporters into other dimensions and has them write news articles about what they find there. What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys is the second collection of news, reviews, interview, advice columns and, yes, obituaries - after all, people in other universes die, too. If you don't like this reality, choose another! "Anyone with even a shred of a sense of humour should pick up this book.” (Antony Jones, Science Fiction and Fantasy Web site) "Nothing is without the potential for humor in Nayman’s mindset, and he twists, puns, and snarks his way through the morass of human life, helping us laugh at the sometimes utterly ridiculous world around us. Be prepared to laugh when reading What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys.” (John Ottinger III, Grasping for the Wind Web site)

Luna for the Lunies! is the third collection of Alternate Reality News Service stories. The Alternate Reality News Service sends reporters into other dimensions and has them report back on what they find there. Robots who rue their consciousness! Alien invasions foiled by bureaucrats! A successful conclusion to the war on squirrels! These and many other stories are followed by the intrepid Alternauts of the Alternate Reality News Service. In addition to courageous reporting, the Alternate Reality News Service features two advice columns: Ask Amritsar (about love and romance and technology) and Ask the Tech Answer Guy (about anything to do with technology except love and romance). Readers are encouraged to submit their own questions for the advice columns to the author's Web site, Les Pages aux Folles. Charles de Lint, in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, called the first collection of Alternate Reality News Service stories, Alternate Reality Ain't What It Used To Be, "one of my favorite books of 2008." Antony Jones, on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Web site, said it was "one of the funniest, most compelling and just craziest books I have read since Douglas Adams first put pen to paper." "Be prepared to laugh when reading What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys," John Ottinger III wrote about the second collection of Alternate Reality News Service stories on the Grasping for the Wind Web site. The Alternate Reality News Service. If you don't like this reality, try another one!

It’s crazy out there. No, really crazy. Crazier than we can imagine. And, we have pretty vivid imaginations when it comes to the crazy. When this affects your relationship with your life mate, your offspring, your other family members, your auto mechanic or your AI-enhanced toaster oven, it can be hard to know what to do. When relationships get so confusing that the federal tax code starts to make sense, who can you turn to for help? The Alternate Reality News Service’s two advice columns, of course: Ask Amritsar and Ask The Tech Answer Guy. Award pining columnist Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff about love and romance and technology and stuff. The Tech Answer Guy, two-time runner-up for the Nobel Prize for Used Tissue Paper Art, answers questions about technology and anything other than love and romance. It’s a thing with him. Don’t ask. The first collection of their columns, The Alternate Reality News Service’s Guide to Love, Sex and Robots, is now available in all major formats, and will be released soon in convenient pill form.

The Alternate Reality News Service is proud to announce its latest collection of paper cutting edge journalism! Oww! Better put some disinfectant on that reportage! The Street Finds Its Own Uses for Mutant Technologies is the fourth book in the series of humourous science fiction journalism. In this volume, killing people with guns made by 3-D printers, then melting them down and using the materials to create sculptures becomes an art movement. A satirical Web site’s reputation comes into question when it accidentally publishes a true story. Long passages of exposition from speculative fiction stories make their way into the Info Dump on the outskirts of the city. And, the war on doughnuts takes some unusual – but unusually tasty – turns. Sweet!

The seventh Alternate Reality News Service collection features news, reviews, interviews and other journalism from other universes. One chapter of the book focuses on how the Home Universe Generator(TM), the technology that allows ordinary people to look into other universes (without actually being able to travel there), is being employed by different people around the world, including in Russia, Africa and Scotland. Another chapter focuses on the politics of the United States of Vesampucceri, which, in its universe, is the world's leading idiotocracy (rule by the stupidest). “Completely unique, Alternative Reality Ain’t What It Used to Be is one of the funniest, most compelling and just craziest books I have read since Douglas Adams first put pen to paper.” (Antony Jones, Science Fiction and Fantasy Web site, on the first book in the series)

The Alternate Reality News Service sends reporters to other dimensions and has them write news articles about what they find there. In ARNS and the Man, the news organizations' journalists focus on the United States of Vesampucceri, the world's foremost idiotocracy (government by of the stupidest, by the stupidest, for the stupidest). Whether it is the war on donuts, steps to roll back efforts to curtail Global Hot as Hellification or constant, constantly inappropriate Presidential tweeps on Twitherd, the Alternate Reality News Service bravely reports on it all. "Amusing, sardonic political and social satire..." John Shirley "Ira skewers American politics in a way only a Canadian can, with absurdist wit and wisdom." Michael Ventrella

"Dimsum Agglomeratizatonalisticalism spent three weeks in a neck brace, a legacy of whiplash from the government.s constantly changing positions. Francis Grecoromacolluden was found wandering around downtown Washburningdington in Stupefying Snailman pjs, mumbling to himself about moon craters and ocelots, a victim of PDS (Political Derangement Syndrome). Anoinette de la Boulebardier sighed once, sent out a prayer to the god of cottage cheese and entered a fugue state from which doctors cannot seem to rouse her. "Nobody said reporting from Earth Prime 1-6-7-1-8-2 dash psi, where the United States of Vesampucceri is the world's leading idiotocracy, was going to be easy. "Reader, you have been warned." E Deplorables Unum is the second book in Ira Nayman's Alternate Reality News Service Vesampucceri trilogy - collect the whole set!

What do people want out of life? Aside from love, obviously. And, the respect of their peers. That goes without saying. And, a job that doesn’t make them want to claw their eyes out with an eagle’s talons. Can’t imagine anybody applying for a job that makes them want to claw their eyes out! And, a sexual partner that isn’t only thinking of his own needs when we – Okay, we could go on. But, the answer that we’re looking for here is: meaning. Meaning. We want to know why absurd things happen to us in our lives. We want...? Right. Meaning. Of course, life is a chaotic soup whose recipe is a constantly changing mix of often unsavoury ingredients, and nobody appears to have a copy of the cookbook (although, god knows, many people claim to). Where can you find somebody to help you through the maze of chicken gumbo and cabbage borscht broths? The Alternate Reality News Service, of course! Our advice columnists are happy to help you navigate the incomprehensible menu of bisques, consommes and chowders to find the meaning at the bottom of your personal soup bowl! In What the Hell Were You Thinking?: Good Advice for People Who Make Bad Decisions, you will learn: * what to do if your bosses go into a mystery room and don’t come out for three weeks; * why it may not be a good idea to reveal your online porn viewing preferences to anybody actually online; * how to act when events you see in your Home Universe GeneratorTM appear to be happening in your own universe; * what it means when a player in the online girl’s game Cotton Candy Mountain starts talking about jihad, and; * what people are actually doing when they use a miniature rake on their tongues. You may not find the meaning you need in your own life (that’s why readers are encouraged to submit their own questions), but at least you’ll be able to laugh at the absurdity of whatever the hell other people were thinking. What the Hell Were You Thinking?: Good Advice for People Who Make Bad Decisions may not be as good as your mom's chicken soup, but at least it won't nag you to tell it when you're going to get married! Praise for The Alternate Reality News Service’s Guide to Love, Sex and Robots “This book was so funny that it caused me a couple of sleepless nights, because I couldn’t stop reading the questions and answers.” (Seregil of Riminee, Rising Shadow)

What a ride the McDruhitmumpf administration has been! The President’s choice for a vacant Extreme Court nomination turned out to be a horde of illegal four year-olds invading the United States of Vesampucceri who cooperated with Special Prosecutor Robert Meullitallover’s witch hunt at McDruhitmumpf golf courses while Attorney General Jeff “Self-regard” Sesspoolpandemic” morphed into William Katiebarrthudor and everybody agreed that the biggest threat to the greatest idiotocracy that the world had ever seen was not Fenwickian interference in the next election, but butterflies. After a while, all of the scandals sort of blend together, don’t they? And, this is only two and a half years into Ronald McDruhitmumpf’s presidency. Can you imagine the shape the country will be in if he gets a full eight years? Neither can we. But, the reporters of the Alternate Reality News Service will be there to bring it all to you. At least, those of us who survive with our sanity (our dignity was surrendered when we took this gig) intact... THE ALTERNATE REALITY NEWS SERVICE When we break the news, it stays broken! Angels of Our Bitter Nature is the final book in the Vesampucceri trilogy, which includes ARNS and the Man and E Deplorables Unum. Collect the whole set!