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Published by ECW Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
Gear up for laughter in the hereafter as Socrates sets out to assassinate every soul who can remember the mortal world
“Filled with wordplay to die for, Randal Graham’s latest dizzying, irresistible life-after-death satire tackles perennial existential questions with humor and hunger.” — Foreword Reviews on Afterlife Crisis
What do you get when a narcissistic megalomaniac plagued by daddy issues leads a horde of angry zealots, xenophobes, and ornery incels on a crusade to Make the Afterlife Great Again? You get an out-of-this-world adventure in which history’s greatest minds face an apocalypse that could make Armageddon look like a cotillion.
You also get Nether Regions, the third installment of Randal Graham’s Beforelife Series. Picking up the threads of Beforelife and Afterlife Crisis, Nether Regions reveals what happens when two of the afterlife’s best-known residents have a baby: the first one born in the hereafter. That baby holds a secret — one that sets off an adventure featuring Socrates, Albert Einstein, Nostradamus, Elizabeth I, Sigmund Freud, Neferneferuaten, and at least 200 Napoleons, all doing their level best to keep the afterlife from turning into hell.
“Filled with wordplay to die for, Randal Graham’s latest dizzying, irresistible life-after-death satire tackles perennial existential questions with humor and hunger.” — Foreword Reviews on Afterlife Crisis
What do you get when a narcissistic megalomaniac plagued by daddy issues leads a horde of angry zealots, xenophobes, and ornery incels on a crusade to Make the Afterlife Great Again? You get an out-of-this-world adventure in which history’s greatest minds face an apocalypse that could make Armageddon look like a cotillion.
You also get Nether Regions, the third installment of Randal Graham’s Beforelife Series. Picking up the threads of Beforelife and Afterlife Crisis, Nether Regions reveals what happens when two of the afterlife’s best-known residents have a baby: the first one born in the hereafter. That baby holds a secret — one that sets off an adventure featuring Socrates, Albert Einstein, Nostradamus, Elizabeth I, Sigmund Freud, Neferneferuaten, and at least 200 Napoleons, all doing their level best to keep the afterlife from turning into hell.
Excerpt
He thinks, therefore I am.
Narrative convention dictates that any human-shaped shadow gliding along a moonlit rooftop is proceeding with malice aforethought and up to no good. When the edges of that shadow hint at pointy bits resembling rifle barrels, grappling hooks, and blades that stubbornly fail to glint in the moonlight, the suggestion of sinister intent is thrown into what you might call sharp relief. When you see the shadowy figure vault across an alley and settle into what could only be described as “a tactical position,” it’s best to ditch your assessment of this figure’s state of mind and focus instead on putting as much geography as you can between yourself and ground zero.
He thinks, therefore I am.
The shadowy figure of present interest did have something on its mind, but you couldn’t call it malice aforethought. As for whether the shadowy figure was up to no good — he’d be the silhouette most likely to insist that good and evil are contestable, ideologically informed notions that inescapably depend on one’s current frame of reference, prevailing social mores, and assorted contextual factors he’d explore through numerous questions that were as pointed as the knives on his bandolier.
That’s just the shadowy figure’s way.
He thinks. Therefore I am.
That was the thought that presently burrowed into the shadowy figure’s brain. It was one of the worst thoughts he’d ever had; one of those pesky neural spasms that turn up at four a.m. and jackhammer their way to the forefront of your mind, like a repeating scrap of melody that you can’t entirely place and, after it replays in your head about 230 times, makes you wish you’d never heard of music at all. It was grating in the way that chewing aluminum foil is grating, as ignorable as a kidney stone, and precisely as much fun as spotty Wi-Fi.
Not to put too fine a point on it: it wasn’t a thought the shadowy figure liked, the figure in question being the “I” in the phrase “He thinks, therefore I am.”
The thought did have the virtue of being true, in as much as the shadowy figure would admit that truth existed. But it was dangerous. It was a wound. It ignited a mental brushfire that threatened to burn this shadowy figure’s thread from the tapestry of Detroit.
Narrative convention dictates that any human-shaped shadow gliding along a moonlit rooftop is proceeding with malice aforethought and up to no good. When the edges of that shadow hint at pointy bits resembling rifle barrels, grappling hooks, and blades that stubbornly fail to glint in the moonlight, the suggestion of sinister intent is thrown into what you might call sharp relief. When you see the shadowy figure vault across an alley and settle into what could only be described as “a tactical position,” it’s best to ditch your assessment of this figure’s state of mind and focus instead on putting as much geography as you can between yourself and ground zero.
He thinks, therefore I am.
The shadowy figure of present interest did have something on its mind, but you couldn’t call it malice aforethought. As for whether the shadowy figure was up to no good — he’d be the silhouette most likely to insist that good and evil are contestable, ideologically informed notions that inescapably depend on one’s current frame of reference, prevailing social mores, and assorted contextual factors he’d explore through numerous questions that were as pointed as the knives on his bandolier.
That’s just the shadowy figure’s way.
He thinks. Therefore I am.
That was the thought that presently burrowed into the shadowy figure’s brain. It was one of the worst thoughts he’d ever had; one of those pesky neural spasms that turn up at four a.m. and jackhammer their way to the forefront of your mind, like a repeating scrap of melody that you can’t entirely place and, after it replays in your head about 230 times, makes you wish you’d never heard of music at all. It was grating in the way that chewing aluminum foil is grating, as ignorable as a kidney stone, and precisely as much fun as spotty Wi-Fi.
Not to put too fine a point on it: it wasn’t a thought the shadowy figure liked, the figure in question being the “I” in the phrase “He thinks, therefore I am.”
The thought did have the virtue of being true, in as much as the shadowy figure would admit that truth existed. But it was dangerous. It was a wound. It ignited a mental brushfire that threatened to burn this shadowy figure’s thread from the tapestry of Detroit.
Product Details
- Publisher: ECW Press (September 20, 2022)
- Length: 408 pages
- ISBN13: 9781770414716
Raves and Reviews
“Graham draws from both today’s headlines and ancient myths to create a world like no other, and never hesitates to ask huge philosophical questions in the most outlandish of settings. Biting, witty and whip smart.” — The Miramichi Reader
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Nether Regions Trade Paperback 9781770414716
