Better Than It Sounds/Literature A-J

These books really aren't so bad, once you start reading them. Highlight the title, after you guess.

Please sort new titles alphabetically to avoid double-entries.

Wal-Mart''}}: A male blood elf somehow becomes the most famous and sought after person in a digital world. Oh, and did we mention that he is actually a she? Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': In a totalitarian world, a man has philosophical discussions with himself, has sex whenever he is alone with his girlfriend for longer than ten minutes, then gets tortured. Wal-Mart}}'': As above, but with a bitchin' guitar solo. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart because she reminds him of his lost love. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': A 27 year old Jewish man races about London in 1716, kicking ass and taking names while trying to discover who murdered his father. Wal-Mart''}}: A Japanese teen must assassinate a warlord to prevent his girlfriend from marrying his adopted father. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart''}}: A young boy and a runaway slave raft down the Mississippi River. The author will shoot you if you try to analyze the plot. Wal-Mart''}}: A bratty Italian kid skips school, goes into showbiz, gets conned out of his money, nearly gets hanged, and ends up making an ass of himself at a theme park. A strange woman and a talking insect try to make him see the error of his ways. Wal-Mart''}}: Childish tycoon destroys his cousin's life and makes her the mother of the Prophet just to get in her pants. Wal-Mart''}}: Girl pursues a lagomorph into a land ruled by playing cards, bad logic, and nursery rhymes. Wal-Mart : The Book (vol 1). Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart''}}: A man is let out of prison and is hired as chauffeur and bodyguard to a weird man who's conducting a secret war against another bunch of other weird people. The story is occasionally interrupted for history lessons or stories that are almost completely unrelated. Wal-Mart''}}: The son of a supporting character from the above book has his girlfriend and identity stolen by the long lost brother he never knew he had. Except the brother is actually him. Sort of. The events of the previous book are only briefly alluded to. Wal-Mart, all the greenery has returned, but is now red. The descendants of the survivors in bunkers wage a genocidal war against other survivors with odd patterns on their skin (and some with psychic powers). Also, there's a Japanese Shogunate in New England. Wal-Mart. This book was written by a rock star, and is set on the other side of the world from his home. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart''}}: Talking animals re-enact the history of the Soviet Union. Including parts that hadn't happened -- yet. Wal-Mart learn a lesson about equality and playing by the rules. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart''}}: Kids fight slugs by turning into animals. Wal-Mart''}}: Extremely nasty villains are defeated, but the focus is on the main character's development from a lonely smartass badass with relationship issues to... a domineering badass with relationship issues, a harem and out-of-control socially unacceptable magical powers. Wal-Mart''}}: Elderly brother and sister adopt an orphan who loses her temper, lets her imagination run away with her, holds a grudge, and generally gets into trouble. Everyone is charmed. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': A young girl is married off to a powerful man who is notorious for killing all his brides the night after he beds them. She tells him an exceedingly convoluted tale that is designed to keep him in suspense so that he will keep her alive to hear the end of the story. This story lasts at least 2.74 years. Also the bride's little sister shares their bridal bed with them because she enjoys the stories and presumably also the sex. Wal-Mart}}'': Chicago doesn't exist, the machines of Tesla are used to fight hoboes, and "lobster" actually means "otter". Also, this book was written by a Personal Computer. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart, ending with the best kind of souvenir. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart''}}: A precocious preteen finds out that fairies are real, and decides to kidnap one and hold her for ransom to fund his criminal empire. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart ensues. Also, humans are bastards. Total bastards. Every last one of us. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart before realizing she's working for the bad guys. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Expect long filibusters. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart whilst attempting to avoid his boss's constant demands for him to follow correct procedure when lodging paperwork. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart where many of her peers are reincarnations of other arthurian characters. The first is a book but the sequels are mangas. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': More than a decade of teenage girls babysitting. Wal-Mart}}'': Pale boy steals rock and saves government. Then poor girl destroys statue so pale boy can save government. Then pale boy destroys government. Wal-MartWal-Mart proves to be the better person in the end. Wal-Mart}}'': Japanese teenagers go on a field trip, discuss their favorite rock-and-roll songs, and violently murder one another. Wal-Mart and his gang of master con-artists discover that most of the things they've invented are actually true. Wal-Mart}}'': A young woman with a fear of exploding tires names herself after a town, adopts a turtle, and gets a job from a woman who assists aliens. Beans have very little to do with it. Wal-MartWal-Mart improves diplomatic relations with Denmark by killing a man who lives in his mother's basement. Then kills the guy's mother, and eventually dies fighting a grouchy miser. Wal-Mart}} : An evil empire led by a cyborg almost subjugates all the greatest warrior tribes in India by convincing them that they are so militarily incompetent that killing their soldiers would be agonizingly boring. A second robot from the future comes back in time into the hands of a Byzantine general who rallies them all to the task of butchering mooks. Wal-Mart, goes nuts, and pulls out her teeth. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. This is considered to be a positive ending. Oh, and there is considerable dispute as to the meanings of some passages. Wal-MartWal-Mart Wal-MartWal-Mart! Wal-MartWal-Mart". Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}: Horse talks about his life. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart: A Love Story}}: Wannabe writer from Indiana moves to San Francisco, falls in love with a vampire, and fights another vampire with the help of some frat boys and a hobo. Wal-Mart! Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart says it's bad. Two other people, who are among the smartest people on earth, go on a quest to stop being happy. Wal-Mart}}: A naive young silk farmer and a geriatric ex-criminal, attempting to discover a breakthrough in pediatric medicine, get sidetracked into overthrowing the government and playing matchmaker for dead people. Wal-Mart has a lot of thoughts about things that are too small, too big, or too far away in time and/or space to directly verify. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Based on a card game. Wal-MartWal-Mart Wal-Mart}}:  Hippies in a 1976 that never was try to stop pacifistic alien lobsters from taking over the world. Wal-Mart}}'': A large funny-looking critter causes nightmares all over the world from the bottom of the ocean. Wal-Mart}}'': A group of bored people walk to visit the site where somebody died. On the way, they tell stories in hopes of winning food. Wal-Mart}}'': Teenage underachiever whose life philosophy is derived from misremembered song lyric gets into misadventures in New York. Wal-Mart syndrome whines a lot. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart Wal-Mart}}'': A reclusive, middle-aged, single industrialist invites young children to tour his business, which is operated by undocumented immigrants who live in the facility. As the tour progresses, he allows most of the children to be injured, deformed, or (possibly) killed while his employees sing songs mocking their poor moral character. He then bequeaths the entire works to the last child standing. Wal-Mart}}'': The reclusive, middle-aged industrialist takes his new heir and the family on an elevator ride to a space hotel, where they rescue the survivors of an alien attack. Later, two of the kids' grandparents accidentally turn themselves into babies while another one briefly ceases to exist. Wal-Mart}}'': Spider tricks farmer into worshiping his dinner. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Which tries to kill people. Wal-Mart and murders people before getting run over by a pink semi truck. Wal-Mart}}'': An extremely successful London financier is forced into an intervention by his best friend on Christmas Eve. The intervention requires him to meet ghosts. Eventually, he abandons his old principles. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart}} Wal-Mart calls on unseen people to kill her. Wal-Mart}}'': Magicians who work for the British government regulate magic, travel to parallel universes, and die. A lot. Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart}}'': Girl finds an alternate universe in a closet. Jesus is shaved. Wal-MartWal-Mart}}'': Four siblings wonder where they are and then must prove their identities to someone who was looking for them even though he didn't believe they were real. Jesus helps Bacchus destroy a bridge that is confining a river god. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart anymore. Wal-MartWal-Mart}}'': Two children escape school. They fall off a cliff. Things keep going downhill from there. Jesus sends a king to help them get back at their oppressors when they return. Wal-MartWal-Mart}}'': A boy steals a horse and runs away from home. Jesus forces him to meet a girl. Wal-MartWal-Mart}}'': Two children play with rings. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. But it's okay; Jesus lets all the good people live inside his tiny stable forever and ever, amen. Wal-Mart'' }}: Warlords fight over a pig. Wal-Mart'' }}: Warlords fight over a pot. Wal-Mart'' }}: Girl visits her ancestral home. Wal-Mart'' }}: Boy who raised pig goes looking for a mirror, but gets sidetracked. Wal-Mart'' }}: Boy who raised pig leads an army against the guy who owned the pot. Wal-Mart'' }}: Three old women find a baby and give him to their adoptive son. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart Wal-MartWal-Mart named after a monkey. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Meanwhile the protagonist thinks. Wal-Mart}}'': Accident-prone girl finds that she is one of the three faces of God. Everyone else thinks she's a boy. Wal-MartWal-Mart ensues. She ends up becoming legally a man. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart save the day by running away from things. Wal-Mart scares the enemy away by levelling half of the city they're fighting over and killing a public official. He also shoots a couple who are happily in love for seemingly no reason. Wal-Mart blows up a refinery to deal with a few robots. Wal-Mart shoots an old flame in the name of religion (with some help from his sidekick) and threatens to kill a former schoolmate over another woman. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart teams up with his girlfriend, a drug addict, a renegade cop, and a popsicle salesperson to take down a thief who stole an ancient artifact. Wal-Mart shoots his best pupil for falling in with the wrong crowd and literally kicks the ass of the man responsible. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart made in a bar. Wal-Mart freeze to death. Wal-Mart}}'': The world government takes to marooning juvenile delinquents out in the middle of nowhere. One such group becomes particularly troublesome. The reader is intended to root for them. Wal-Mart}}'': A Spaniard melts. Wal-Mart}}'': A mercenary learns he has more in common with his enemies than he wants to believe. Wal-Mart goes to war. Wal-Mart}}'': A girl has second thoughts about running away from home after her new mom threatens to rip her eyes out. Wal-Mart}}'': Guy gets arrested because he can't read. Tries digging a tunnel out of prison, but never gets to use it. Proceeds to ruin nearly everyone else's lives. Wal-Mart}}'': After learning he had no reason to run away from home and hide his identity, a Native American insurance salesman saves the woman he loves by teaming up with the world's stupidest trickster. Wal-Mart}}'': Guy kills old lady and her sister to prove his ideas. Turns out he was wrong. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}: In this Star Wars'' book involving time travel, a self-doubting former protagonist from an FPS joins forces with three other guys in a quest to blow up a ship full of rocks out in the middle of nowhere. Much puking ensues. Wal-Mart leads her to examine the history of the Holy Roman Empire's postal service. Wal-Mart}}'': A romantic comedy about international finance in which a nerdy hacker and his tomboyish girlfriend discover that their grandfathers saved the world from Nazis by solving math problems. Wal-Mart}}'': The great-great-great-great grandfathers of the aforementioned nerd couple saved the world from Louis XIV. Also by solving math problems. Wal-Mart}}'': A man on a boat reminisces over his time in college. Wal-Mart}}'': A foolhardy man travels across Western Europe with a harem girl and a wizard, only to crash a party and become a slave. Wal-Mart}}'': Intrigue and cryptography in France and England! Wal-Mart}}'': The foolhardy man from before steals some Spanish gold, gets tortured by the Inquisition, and then goes home. Wal-Mart}}'': More intrigue in England; also features lots of discussion about finance. Wal-Mart}}'': An old man nearly gets blown up and is too scared to investigate, so he visits a mental hospital. Wal-Mart}}'': The old man and his friends try to capture a notorious criminal, but the criminal is also trying to capture himself. Wal-Mart}}'': Isaac Newton dies. He gets better. Wal-Mart}}'': A beleaguered ad man neglects his family as he tries to save his failing company, but a clumsy, slobbering St. Bernard makes this summer one they'll never forget! Wal-Mart}}'': A homeless vet comes to town hoping for a menial job only to wind up mentoring an important heiress. Said task is harder than it sounds. Wal-Mart}}'': Historic events happen in another country. Wal-Mart}}'': A boy and his father plot to steal livestock from their neighbour. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart where an evil version of the Mormons wants to destroy the world for Cthulhu. Only Elvis, a teenage cyborg and a ninja nun can stop them. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart hikes to the center of the universe because he feels like it. Wal-MartWal-Mart lets a kid die so he can talk to a wizard. Wal-MartWal-Mart travels to New York to make friends. Wal-MartWal-Mart smack-talks a train. Wal-MartWal-Mart talks about the time he lost his virginity. Wal-MartWal-Mart fights jedi robots. Wal-MartWal-Mart goes back to New York to solve an existential crisis while his son is born without him knowing it. Wal-MartWal-Mart for him, and. Fans get really pissed off. Wal-Mart: The Book Wal-Mart}}'': Angry people hire a professional to off someone they don't like. After much preparation, all falls apart because someone can't handle a few thousand volts to the testicles. Wal-Mart}}'': Nearly everyone on Earth goes blind, allowing bioengineered plants to run amuck. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart by hunting down the stolen decorations on a belt. Much gratuitous riddle-solving ensues. Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart Wal-MartWal-Mart he was supposed to be looking for, and proceeds to turn lead into gold. Yes, Neal Stephenson wrote this book. Stop looking at me like that. Wal-Mart}}'': A wimp keeps a diary. Wal-Mart''}}: An orphan studies physics. Wal-Mart}}'': A man gets his sofa unstuck from the stairwell, with help from an old college professor. Wal-Mart}}'': A foreigner has issues with an old man's assistant. Wal-Mart}}'': A detective looks for a cat, but doesn't find it. A lot of things happen that are never explained. Wal-Mart}}: People travel through space on the back of a giant turtle, have adventures, and discover things that we take for granted in modern society. Major characters include a perennial coward, a crabby old woman, an ape, a despotic tyrant, a recovered alcoholic middle-aged chain-smoking cop, and a 6-foot-tall dwarf. Wal-Mart and discover that the best use of magic is not to use it. Wal-Mart drag a kingdom into the future to get rid of its new king. They end up replacing said king with his court jester. Wal-MartWal-Mart with the help of a handmaiden and the world's greatest mathematician. Meanwhile, a lot of mummies are very, very unhappy about their sleeping arrangements. Wal-Mart}}. Sequels ensue. Wal-Mart at playing Fairy Godfather. Wal-Mart, and only a college dropout, his girlfriend, and a talking dog can save the day. Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart Wal-Mart. There, he reunites with some old friends, argues politics with the most polite revolutionaries in the world, and saves the day with pottery. Wal-Mart from being framed for murder. Wal-MartWal-Mart and his granddaughter can stop them. Wal-Mart from a drought. Meanwhile, his colleagues travel to a deserted island, and accidentally inspire the invention of natural selection and sexual reproduction. Wal-Mart try to conquer a mountain kingdom, but are driven out with the help of an old lady, a wishy-washy priest, and an army of psychotic smurfs. Wal-Mart and a bad guy can't swear properly. Wal-MartWal-Mart by commissioning the most accurate clock ever made. They end up relying on the help of a school teacher, a rogue bureaucrat, and a milkman. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart, and a vampire, a werewolf, and a dwarf get drunk. Wal-Mart, all because she picked a bad time to take up Morris dancing. She ends up killing him with a kiss, while a horde of little blue men take a bookworm prince to Hell and back. Wal-Mart and convinces an entire city to abandon the gold standard. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart deals with his self-esteem issues. Wal-Mart). Along the way, she saves the life of an abusive father, starts a brushfire, and calls her ex-boyfriend and his fiancee a knave and a whore, respectively. Meanwhile, her friends wreck a bar, put it back together the wrong way, and drive a policeman to quit his job and get in touch with his roots. Wal-Mart is in full effect, and the biggest threat is untested magical remedies. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}} Artist mopes because girlfriend is dead. At her request, he is put through Hell--but at least a poet he admires greatly is there to guide him through it. He gets better, but even then he has a long journey ahead of him. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}: Old man moves to England and leeches off young women while he's there. Eventually, their friends hunt him down and kill him with knives. Wal-Mart'', but without Edward. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart by being sent away and never allowed to see the elderly dragon's son again (outside of a once-a-month dream). Wal-Mart. Together they faff about, pull pranks on a general and trick two battling armies into thinking they're from heaven. Wal-MartWal-Mart, a knightly caste make use of sentient, time-traveling dragons to protect their home from rains of alien fungus. Wal-Mart}}: South Africa takes over the world. Wal-MartWal-Mart in his household. Wal-Mart''}}: A man dreams about going on a quest to climb a mountain that no one has ever seen so he can blackmail the gods into taking him to a city that he saw in a dream within a dream. Wal-MartWal-Mart makes a huge fuss over a dead reptile. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart and his jail-bait goth girl daughter battle the forces of darkness. The main character says "Hell's Bells" a lot. Wal-MartWal-Mart!}} Wal-MartWal-Mart Wal-Mart, is mugged, wrecks a night club, nearly gets killed by a scorpion, and gets into two fights with his probation officer. Everything burns down. Wal-Mart. Also, a plot to kill a mob boss backfires. Three buildings get a truck-sized hole blown in them. Wal-Mart, getting over an old girlfriend, and getting into fights with people WAY out of his weight-class. Wal-MartWal-Mart Wal-Mart. Also, a guy ticks off an entire nation by stabbing everyone in the heart with fire. Wal-Mart. Also, a guy meets an old girlfriend, makes an entrance, discovers strange things about his dog, makes out with his step-sister, and blows up an ancient cavern. Wal-Mart. In the process, he finds out his girlfriend only likes him because of a secretary. Wal-Mart serves as a viable defense mechanism, and a whole lot of ghosts go "Boo!" Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart status. Wal-Mart''}}: Boy named after a mouse helps locals improve their drug-filled sandpit, despite unfriendly wildlife. The government disapproves. Also, Cinnamon lets you see into the future. Wal-Mart helps desert hobos declare Jihad on the universe. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart recruits his old fencing instructor to try and trick him into having sex with his wife. He ends up faking his own death in order to force the public to accept his lover's children as his legitimate heirs. Wal-MartWal-Mart gives birth to a creepy kid who grows up and robs a library. Wal-Mart''. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart uses increasingly extreme measures in his search for man with eye problem, then uses said man to deal with an old enemy. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart and destroying the world. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart games even more so. Wal-MartWal-Mart games even more so. This time the main character is shorter. Wal-MartWal-Mart helps them, largely by riding around and yelling stuff. Considered by some to actually be as bad as it sounds. Wal-Mart''}}: An unexpected visitor causes neighbors relations to break down. Wal-Mart}}'': A wolf in a zoo and an african boy tell each other their life stories. They then open their eyes. Wal-Mart}}'': A detective irreversibly compromises a famous manuscript to save her uncle. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': The detective finds herself in a plot in a plot to save the world, and inadvertently meets God and allows the author of the book to publish a new story. Wal-Mart}}'': The detective and an exiled prince play cricket to determine the fate of the world. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart, but not until after she turns him into a jackass. Wal-MartWal-Mart? Wal-Mart}}'': A sports writer and his fat friend find creative ways to break the law and piss off middle-class conservatives. Wal-Mart}}'': A story about a kitty solving a gruesome murder mystery. Was later adapted into film. Wal-Mart}}'': A man beats himself up. Lots of people think this is a good idea. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart''. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': A young girl falls in love with her writing tutor. He's still seeing his ex-wife. Wal-Mart}}'': A bunch of warriors steal territory from natives, get pissed off when said natives eat their children. Wal-Mart}}'': A confused young man starts to understand his life for the first time after he has an operation, only to have it slip away from him after his favorite animal dies. Wal-Mart That's all anyone remembers. Wal-Mart. Smart Is Bad. Improving Your Lot In Life Is Also Bad. Any questions? Wal-Mart}}'': Three Italian history geeks set out to defraud conspiracy theorists. One of them dies of cancer because the Qabala somehow penetrates his cell walls, and the second one witnesses the third one killed by a conspiracy group they had invented over the right to take over the world with a non-existent secret plan based on a laundry list. Wal-Mart}}'': A writer living in an over the top fantasy world tries to write some serious fiction but can't take it seriously, so he decides to write some fantasy that reads like serious fiction. It makes more sense when you actually read it. Wal-MartWal-Mart. A sterile mutant ruins everything. Wal-Mart play an extended game of solitaire. Someone comes along and messes it up. Wal-Mart in which a mathematician loses his memory. Wal-Mart}}'': A widower chases after a serial killer whose killing spree is the widower's own fault. Nowadays, most people confuse the widower's name with the killer's. Wal-Mart}}'': Four eccentric, aristocratic distant cousins exchange letters discussing why one has amnesia. They discuss Hegel and Engels and variously crossdress, take opium, elope and clean stables. There may be something supernatural going on, or possibly not. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart accuses him of murdering Lawrence of Arabia by drilling a hole in his chest with a pyramid, and he nearly gets turned to stone by a woman with an infinite series of nested handbags for a brain. Wal-Mart ensues. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart witches to be collectively implausibly badass. Also, a teenager is almost executed for taking part in a con game. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart in a swordfight. Wal-Mart priest, and a local girl get religion and go on a road trip to a monastery. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart for no good reason. Wal-Mart-flavored locals. Wal-Mart ninja, a lizard with a shotgun, and a normal human who happens to be a colossal asshole. Wal-Mart, while the rest of the cast cools their heels off-page. Wal-Mart, rendering the whole thing pointless. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Oh, and ambushes. Wal-Mart}}'': An expatriate is blackmailed into a job. Wal-Mart}}'': A young boy gets, and then deserts, a very important job. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart YA novels. Wal-MartWal-Mart than before. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart neighbor as part of an elaborate plan to retrieve a magical fiddle. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': Young woman who can talk to birds tries to convince people she's a princess. Yellow braids are a terrifying motif. Wal-Mart}}'': A teenaged head of state is not allowed to leave his house. The guy keeping him there engages in acts of domestic terrorism with a slingshot. Wal-MartWal-Mart Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': An obscenely rich embezzler tries to get into his neighbor's cousin's pants. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart. Doesn't fight at all, but gets sad and nostalgic when he sees people do it. Are you getting the basic idea of these yet? Wal-Mart}}'': Young man suffers from mental illness, hallucinates, desecrates a grave, then murders his family. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart Casefiles}}'': After one of the brothers' girlfriends is blown up, they discover that their city is very corrupt. Wal-Mart}}'': A girl watches people do things and writes about it in her notebook. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': At his new school, a boy learns magic and tries to stop a teacher from stealing a rock. Wal-Mart}}'': The whole school is endangered by a girl writing in her diary. It takes a full school year to resolve the situation. Wal-Mart}}'': A boy worries about meeting his godfather and later decides that he should try to kill his best friend's pet. Wal-Mart}}'': The villain scores a major victory by letting the hero win a big cup. Wal-Mart}}'': A school bureaucrat is outraged when students take an interest in their education. Wal-Mart}}'': A boy finds a really cool book and learns from it. This turns out to be very bad. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': An old man on a boat sailing upriver tells his fellow sailors a long yarn about when he was a young man sailing up an ostensibly different river into the heart of a dark continent. He journeyed for many months in search of a man who had gone before him, but that man promptly dies upon being discovered so the sailor turns around and gets the hell out of Africa as fast as he can. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart! Technically speaking. Wal-Mart''}}: Earth receives a message from outer space. Scientists try to decode it. They fail. Wal-MartWal-Mart who want to turn Stalin into a vampire. Wal-Mart''}}: Ordinary man from an ordinary planet (which has recently been torn down) goes galaxy- and dimension-hopping with a hot scientist, a perpetually unhappy robot, an alcoholic daredevil, and a narcissist with two heads and three arms. Or, a man loses his home and fails to find a decent cup of tea. Wal-MartWal-Mart, and meets the galaxy's most influential cat fancier. The ordinary man and his friend the daredevil get stranded on prehistoric Earth with some of the most useless people in the galaxy. Along the way, they all stop for lunch at the end of time. Wal-MartWal-Mart cricket players. Wal-Mart''}}: The ordinary man finally gets to go home and get a girlfriend. God's parting words to all creation turn out to be Wal-Mart''}}: The ordinary man learns he has a daughter; a reporter helps a group of amnesiacs who become interested in astrology. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart make sure their paperwork is in order. Wal-Mart''}}: The narcissist and the daredevil look for missing cargo. Wal-Mart''}}: The maiden voyage of a cruise ship is plagued with trouble. Wal-Mart''}}: The leader of an army is interrupted while making plans. Wal-Mart and C. L. Moore}}: An author thinks a fellow author is male when she's not. Then they get married and write together. Wal-Mart produces machines he doesn't understand. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': A boy falsely convicted of stealing a pair of tennis shoes is sent to a summer camp where they do nothing but dig holes all day long. Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart in Spain. Wal-Mart}}'': Long-lived woman blows things up. A lot. With the help of a six-legged cat. Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart present. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart, marries a wife he doesn't like and another he does like, and broods a lot. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart, and creepy as hell. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart. Later he fights a djinn. Go figure. Wal-MartWal-Mart All it takes is one song. Wal-Mart}}'': A failed playwright, an asshole priest, a French guard, and a horribly deformed bell-ringer all want to bang a 15 year old gypsy girl; everyone except the soldier and the playwright die horribly. The story is constantly interrupted to deliver educational lessons on medieval architecture. Wal-Mart}}'': A girl is trapped in the woods and must fight to the death with other teens. Her biggest hang up is wondering which of two boys she likes better. Wal-Mart}}'': Soviets try destroying one of their own submarines. They are unsuccessful. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart that he had sex with during war game simulation of the battle of Agincourt. This also does not turn out the way he wanted it to. Wal-MartWal-Mart space deity. Wal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart''}}: A stammering cripple pretends to be retarded so his family doesn't murder him. Becomes king of the world in the sequel. They later murder him. Wal-MartWal-Mart, and the survivors must escape its grasp so they can kill each other. Wal-Mart}}'': Machines malfunction time and time again, and experts try to fix them. Wal-Mart Trilogy''}}: Every conspiracy theory you have ever heard is true. Ever. Or at least, that's what They want you to think. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart He is then rescued by the newspaper's editor, who proceeds to attempt to convince the detective that he's actually his partner and that this whole thing has just been one big paranoid delusion. Meanwhile, a reporter goes on an underwater adventure with talking dolphins. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': A sarcastic nerd details the history of the computer industry, occasionally going off topic in order to discuss such things as illiteracy, societal distinctions, human nature, the meaning of life and... Disneyland. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart ensue}}. Wal-Mart}}'': A junior tennis player from an endearingly screwed up family smokes pot and former drug addicts try and live their lives while Canadian terrorists try to find a videotape. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart. Wal-Mart}}'': A lonely little boy and his oversized insect friends have adventures in an over-sized piece of fruit. They eventually settle in New York. Wal-Mart}}'': Uptight but independent teacher falls for mopey rich man. Wal-MartWal-MartWal-Mart battle the forces of darkness. Contrary to what the title would have you believe, the title character does not die at the end. , since you asked. Wal-Mart}}'': Two professional men's rivalry causes problems for England. Meanwhile, a man with unusual hair forcibly entertains a young noblewoman and a black servant. Wal-Mart}}'': A monk, a shapeshifting monkey, a perverted pig, a former general of Heaven, and a dragon prince travel in order to obtain a set of religious texts. Wal-Mart}}'': An adopted orphan sasses his teachers, runs around naked and sets fire to a cat. Wal-Mart}}'': Ambitious wildlife park fails because of a disgruntled employee and a serious, unexpected flaw in the breeding program. Chaos theoretician predicts that the wildlife park will go wrong before it does, but says there is no way to know (before it happens) how it will go wrong.
 * A town in West Virginia demonstrates civilized standards by killing large numbers of people. Those around them naturally consider this to be a satisfactory demonstration as it is the primary proof of civilization in this time like most others.
 * Or: A man learns to love his brother. This is considered a bad thing.
 * Or: The world is ruled by amnesiacs that can't do basic maths.
 * Or: young women splash around in a freezing river to make sure nobody cheats the system.
 *  : A boy and a girl are unable to go into their respective family businesses. They leave home, bump into each other, and decide to go hang out with the boy's best friend.
 *  : The friend is digging a big hole. This is a bad thing.
 * : Newly reunited with his girlfriend, a teenaged ninja tries to overthrow a warlord whom he himself had put in power in a previous installment.
 * : A couple's marital issues ruin their country.
 * : The author of the above novels attempts to give the series some closure by writting a prequel set 18 years before the main series.
 * : A child and his mentor try to leave their home town.
 * : The child, now a man, recruits a girl and a raccoon for his project.
 * : In-flight accident threatens airplane sale. Yellow journalism conspires to make it worse.
 * Or: Normal girl tries to cope in a world that operates by the laws of abstract mathematics.
 * : Girl gets entangled in a game of chess after walking into a mirror, and encounters more bad logic and nursery rhymes.
 * Or, on a dull afternoon, girl plays chess against a kitten and they are both so bored that they fall asleep.
 * : Ordinary girl saves the president then falls in love with his son.
 * : Man waxes on the subject of conformity, kills people in his spare time.
 * Alternately: A yuppie murders people. Nobody notices or cares.
 * : An atheist monk living in a monastery he can only leave once every ten years discusses math, plays with triangles, and discovers and infiltrates an alien spaceship with a time travelling crazy old man.
 * Or: A fable about talking animals who overthrow the farmer where the moral of the story is about the dangers of murderous totalitarianism.
 * Or: Communist farm animals overthrow the farmer and fail to build a windmill while pigs play poker.
 * Or, four "idiot teenagers," a gloomy bird, and a television junkie with an endless appetite skip school to hang out in a barn.
 * Or, a resource-seeking nation is assaulted at every turn by terrorist insurgents.
 * Or, a fourteen year old kid has to save his older brother from a snail that won't leave him alone.
 * Or, six teenagers (one of whom is technically mute) and a bird discuss politics, history, science and ethics before turning into bugs.
 *  : A guy invents the lightbulb, and is exiled for it. Later, he discovers first person pronouns. This demonstrates that Communism sucks.
 * Or: All the smart kids get tired of being bullied, so they leave and hide out in the wilderness for a few years. The world falls apart without them, and all the bullies die. Still expect long filibusters.
 * : a children's classic in which two pre-teens assume full responsibility for four infants and toddlers on a deserted tropical island, with only the local wildlife and a cranky recluse for company. Surprisingly, not a horror story.
 *  : Middle class businessman flirts with nonconformism, then drops it like a hot rock.
 * : Cyborgs EAT PLUTO!!!
 * Or: Racist begins a campaign of genocide against his friends' neighbors. He's the hero.
 * Or: A king tries to build a cafeteria for his men. Serial killing ensues.
 * : A world is built from scratch. A Middle-Eastern shepherd is promised might and wealth for his successors for no apparent reason.
 * : A conflict between immigrants and locals is resolved violently; the immigrants leave.
 * : You no can haz cheezburger.
 * : The Holocaust is thwarted by a beauty queen and an until-recently-forgotten benefactor to the king.
 * : Correspondence from an imprisoned preacher to a church far away. There are castration jokes.
 * A bronze footed albino with eyes made of fire and a sword coming out of his mouth tells a man of the future.
 *  : Emotional, sensitive, complete badasses endure torture while waiting for a prophesied savior. She arrives and is also tortured, driven half mad, nearly killed, and is emotionally sensitive to the point of instability. All the vast magical power in all the realms is not enough to prevent this. Finally she commits partial genocide to save the world.
 * : Aforementioned wannabe writer gets a minion and passes on his new "condition" to a blue hooker.
 * : Four boys go on an adventure to find a corpse.
 *  : The parish priest experiences a religious vision and decides that god wants him to become a burglar. In the second half of the novel, he spends most of his time hanging out with prostitutes.
 *  : The same parish priest and his doctor go on vacation.
 *  : The parish priest becomes the leader of a rebellion against the city government but spends much of his time trying to hook up with a prostitute.
 * : Clueless German boy moves house, hates it, makes friends with a prisoner and decides to go to jail.
 * Or: The future is perfect, but some people still aren't happy.
 * Or: How a pill becomes a law.
 * : Old men tell stories. One tells the story of a miraculous delivery.
 * : A military veteran, now a monk, helps solve murders.
 *  : The half-sibling of a spendthrift firebrand frames him for murder while a monk heroically plays with small children. Everyone just remembers the part about Jesus and the inquisitor instead.
 * Or: a poor defenseless rabbit is persecuted by a cat. A dog fails to interfere most of the time.
 * Most works by the same author: Anyone who isn't a white Christian/Atheist male virgin is evil.
 *   A young optimist learns the hard way that life is not really all that great.
 * : A squadron of insane soldiers try to not die in the war. Paradoxical bureaucracy gets in the way of that.
 *  : A girl turns into a cat thanks to an ancient Egyptian artifact. Meanwhile, cats fight over who has a mummified sardine. It's resolved with the destruction of said sardine and a wedding.
 * : Two cats trade stocks online to help their financially-inept owners.
 * Or: A bunch of children learn a harsh lesson about the perils of business.
 * : Oddly-dressed dropout steals money from admirers and is kicked out of sex rehab.
 * Or: A bunch of dead people harass a wealthy, reclusive industrialist, depriving him of sleep. He eventually gives in to them. This is considered good.
 * : A boy, girl, and wolf destroy a demonic bear by going on a nature scavenger hunt.
 * : The boy has an island holdiay and learns that he can posses things, which makes a group of people want to kill him. Meanwhile, killer whales take revenge.
 * : The group of people kidnap the wolf in order to open up Hell, with plans to control the demons via a pretty stone that everyone wants. They fail when one of them commits suicide.
 * : The boy is made an outcast, goes temporarily insane for a while, and is dicked around with by the girl's mother. It ends when the girl's mother is shot by the boy's realtive.
 * : The boy swears revenge when his relative is killed. He both fails and succeeds at it.
 * : A spoiled little girl steals from her brother on a regular basis.
 * : A young boy dies, then is forced into an apprenticeship without his mother's consent.
 * : Guy Fawkes blows up Parliament. Bonfires still ensue.
 * : Two feuding Italian families try to remember how to sing.
 * : A young photographer takes pictures of multiple locations at once.
 * Alternatively: Children play hide & seek and save Jesus with the help of Santa.
 * Alternatively, a boy's uncle falls in love with a seven feet tall foreign aristocrat lady, and tries to start a health spa in another dimension. As a result Jesus saves the boy's dying mother with an apple from the Garden of Eden.
 * Or: An orangutan facilitates the apocalypse by dressing a donkey as a lion.
 *  : Said girl destroys and creates divinity in huge, god-ridden city while falling off tall buildings and stealing pennies.
 *  : Girl goes on a quest to find her brother, and finds out that she is a runaway bride. She sets fire to a blizzard and destroys a palace after running around naked in it. Oh, and there are vampires and werewolves and unicorns.
 *  : Girl is sent to military school and gets over her fear of riding. Incest becomes more and more appealing.
 *  : A down-on-his-luck noble marries for money. He doesn't cheat on his wife and is still married to her at the end.
 *  : A farm kid saves his hometown from invasion by picking a mushroom. In the process, he accidentally gets a girlfriend.
 *  : An 80-year old goes into a coma. Three college students, their professor, and an army captain try to convince everyone that he's fine. Later, they nearly get killed by the Zerg but are saved by their worst enemy.
 *  : A newbie spy is sent undercover as a minor officer in a new brigade, but ends up commanding it after all the other officers are struck by lightning. Said spy then proceeds to hold off a force that outnumbers him 6 to 1 by playing chess, creating a fire hazard, and making a really big magnifying glass out of air. In the epilogue, someone turns off a light bulb. This is a incredibly momentous event.
 *  : An army commander breaks his enemy out of out of prison and escorts him to the opposing army, all in order to stop his new boss. Meanwhile, a married couple and an old guy go hiking. At the end of the book, a volcano erupts at the most dramatic point possible and a guy who takes the G.W. approach to facts is shot.
 *  : An army commander, accompanied by his pale barbarian girlfriend, a catapult-building scholar, and an old spy sails to a neighboring kingdom full of angry dog-men who want to kill him, in order to escape all the other people who want to kill him and to save the angry dog-men from a race of mind-controlling bugs. Meanwhile, the army commander's mother, his bodyguard, his girlfriend's father, and a noblewoman with a flaming bird negotiate a truce with a tribe of yetis.
 *  : The world develops a serious pest problem. To combat it, an army commander sails over land. At the end, a mountain gets up and tries to kill everyone. It doesn't succeed. In the epilogue, the army commander has a child out of wedlock with a woman who spends half her time insulting his species, and people keep deadly spiders as livestock and eat their vomit.
 *  : She's an alpha-wolf-in-training. He's a gay viking. Together they fight trolls.
 * : Medieval pop stars return home.
 * : Three kids sail a boat. One of them learns a married couple's names.
 * : Five siblings visit the ocean for the first time. Clothing is made.
 * : A young girl has an interactive history lesson.
 * Alternatively, three kids and a middle-aged man start a revolution. History ensues.
 *  : A scientist, her assistant, a journalist, a rabbi, and a government agent climb a ladder.
 * : The Grim Reaper screws his mother and keeps killing his girlfriend. Unicorns are jerks.
 * : A salesman dies.
 * : A small town becomes overrun by reporters after it is featured in a novel that the author didn't write.
 * : The three heroes, one of which is still a king, travel the country saving shiny reptiles by killing demon bitches. One of the heroes becomes obsessed with a puzzle.
 * : People discover God in a Nevada ghost town. Turns out he can be a giant dick.
 * : A slacker who flunked out of college is forced to accompany a moronic tourist and his luggage around the world.
 * A tourist marvels at the world, while his guardian is extremely afraid of it.
 * : The guys from the last story narrowly avoid falling off the planet, then hang out with a short-tempered old man for a while. The slacker learns that saying what's on his mind could either save or destroy the world.
 * The only one who can save the world is a college dropout.
 * A young girl, accompanied by a cranky old lady, goes on a long journey to learn to not use magic.
 * An old lady tries to get a girl into a high ranking school. Sexist remarks ensue.
 * : A boy's new job nearly brings about disaster after he saves the life of a princess.
 * : The least powerful wizard in the world is the only one who can stop the machinations of the most powerful wizard in the world.
 * Or a brick in a sock beats magic.
 * : Death is forced into early retirement and befriends a plucky old lady. Meanwhile, a dead wizard and his new friends try to stop a shopping mall from being built.
 * : An old lady and her co-workers go on a road trip, unravel fractured fairy tales, and try to stop the old lady's long-lost sister from giving a princess a Happy Ending.
 * Three women and a cat travel, argue and subvert happy endings.
 * : God appears as a decrepit tortoise to a halfwit with perfect memory.
 * : A teenage girl is drafted into her grandfather's job, which conflicts with her efforts to save a handsome young man from his new guitar.
 * : A band of conspirators try to poison a dictator in an unusual fashion. This would be a bad thing. Meanwhile, pottery robots try to become free by building their own king.
 * : Policemen try to stop a war, and along the way find out they were mistaken about who wanted to start it in the first place. Also, one of them unwittingly gets messages from an alternate universe in which one wrong move got everyone he knows killed.
 * : A fossilized pastry is stolen, thus putting in danger the continued existence of a 1,000-year-old government and all its allies.
 * : Elderly barbarians try to blow up the home of the gods.
 * : High-placed copper on the trail of a murderer spends most of the book talking to himself. A future tyrant is bullied by his classmates. People die pointlessly.
 * : A young girl confronts her insecurities, her dissatisfaction with her new job, and a mind-invading monster.
 * : A recently deceased con-artist attempts, on the orders of a tyrannical dictator, to revive a post office. He falls in love with the chain-smoking head of a golem-rights charity, and exposes an even worse con artist with a forged telegram.
 * : The chief of police goes on holiday, and finds crime. Quite a few crimes, actually. He is assisted in his investigations by a gentleman's gentleman, a writer of children's books, a chief constable who lives with his mum, and a rather strange goblin.
 * : Inept wizard tries not to do anything interesting, and fails.
 * : A magical talking box tries to ruin eveyone's day, and partially succeeds.
 * Or: Poet goes to hell.
 * Or: A ghost hires a lawyer to help him invest in English real estate.
 *  : A female slave and an elderly dragon roadtrip across China in order to visit the beach.
 *  : The female slave and the elderly dragon's son hang around with the Emperor of China for a while. They run away when they realise he's kind of a dick.
 * : South Africa wins the American Civil war with machine guns.
 * : A vampire tries to trick a detective into a starting a war, an old enemy goes on rampage. Everything burns down.
 * : A guy meets his half brother, works at a porn studio, has his hand burnt off, executes a very bad cover-up, and nearly gets stabbed by a porn star. Also, people are killed by falling objects. Most of a homeless shelter and a school burns down.
 * : A lot of people fight over an old book, we meet a coroner who likes polka, another failed date ensues, and a guy gets away with far more than he should via a legal loophole. Guys in Ringwraith cosplay and a very old corpse get involved.
 * : Demons try to end the world by kidnapping a 11-year-old know it all, a guy avoids being assassinated by ordering a doughnut, and an aquarium gets flattened.
 * : Mayans kidnap a child. A detective enlists unlikely help to get her back, and in the process has sex with a crazy monarch, eats a godly donut, consults pizza for advice, loans out some antique weaponry, and takes care of a pest problem. After it's all over he falls off of a boat.
 * : A medical fraud opens millions of kids' hearts without a license. (Credit must go to this AV club article.).
 * : To escape a murder plot, one half of a pair of twins forgets the other half is alive, and the other goes on a trip to the desert, meets their father and fuses with worm goo.
 * : An angry woman discusses politics and history with the giant worm who rules the galaxy. They both know she is trying to kill him with the help of his pet zombie. Later the worm marries another woman, and the first woman marries the zombie.
 * Or: A dead guy rants at length about the horrors of race-mixing.
 * Or: Some doctors discover that the corpse of an ugly boy has an alien face on its crotch.
 * : Unhappily married ranchers debate the exact meaning of Genesis 4:16.
 * : Young man travels to a Middle-Eastern country that he saw in a near-death experience, inadvertently setting in motion a chain of catastrophic events.
 * : The orphan is all grown up and feels torn between which of her cousins she wants to marry. The one she's leaning toward really just wants her money.
 * : Ordinary jerk grows to embrace his destiny as a Fugger.
 *  : Jerkass cashes in on evangelicalism, ruins many lives.
 *  : 10 year-olds start World War III.
 *  : A centuries-old war hero, accompanied by a cocoon and their daughter the Internet, travels to to the home of a young girl, where he marries her after discovering that trees are actually pigs.
 *  : A centuries-old war hero tries to protect the cocoon and the tree-pigs as the government prepares to blow up their planet. His daughter, the Internet, teleports him outside of the universe where he creates clones of his brother and sister with his mind.
 *  : Asian girl convinces the government to shut down the Internet. Internet moves into the trees and then into the body of a girl. Boy makes out with the Internet.
 *  : A chicken gives birth to a Triceratops. A Congressman ignores the startling implications of this discovery and demands the dinosaur be put to death.
 * : Boy attacks horses because he can't deal with his religious/bestiality fetishes. Psychologist thinks he's better off untreated.
 *  : A man gains the love of a woman by repeatedly deceiving her using her pet tortoise, and several other tortoises.
 *  : This book no longer exists.
 * Or: Television turns people into idiots. One guy rants at length about this.
 *  : A young man looks for his talking ant.
 * Alternately, a politician is brought low by a rumor that is never fully explained, and can only be saved by a letter his wife wrote, that is also never explained. The rest of the book is unrelated and plotless.
 * Alternatively, "bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk"
 * : A policeman has an accident and wakes up in the past. Is he hallucinating? Or has he really travelled back in time? And can he use his modern-day detective techniques to solve a baffling murder?
 * : In order to become initiated, the younger warriors go on a life-threatening journey into the heart of their worst enemies' homeland so that they can drink from a lake.
 * : A horse loses his memory. His father goes insane.
 * : A warrior finds out that his wife is his sister, except then she's not. In order to get his home back from invaders, he sets it on fire.
 * "": A blue man, any army general, two women and a burn victim try to convince an old guy that his life was interesting.
 * : A satire of Victorian society in which a lawyer travels to other dimensions, and is arrested for trying to start a new religion. Oh, and the women of the protagonist's homeworld can accidentally stab people by sneezing.
 * : A timid marine biologist stumbles upon a secret undersea conspiracy after glimpsing the phrase "Bite Me" scrawled across a whale's fluke. His investigation eventually leads him to a secret submarine city ruled by his old college professor where he is seduced by an alien and ultimately
 * : A young girl runs away from home to improve her vocabulary.
 * : An anti-social architect rises to the top of his profession despite the machinations of an evil newspaper columnist.
 * Or: A father walks out on his ugly kid, and is surprised when the kid doesn't like it. Father then abandons promise to try getting kid a girlfriend, and is surprised again when kid doesn't like it.
 * : A bioengineered supersoldier/ delivery girl gets caught up in the middle of a power squabble over the right to control the Earth's energy supply. On the advice of her adoptive father, she gets the hell out of there as soon as she can.
 *  : Named after a quote from an in-universe rambling philosopher. The collective ninjas attack the planet from two books ago, despite it having nothing of value.
 *  : The head of the Scottish ninjas (who is not, in fact, a Scottish ninja himself) runs around town with his valet, his archnemesis, and a mortician, hiding from a matched set of government functionaries.
 *  : A less than popular senior girl with an obsession with a boy dies and still has to attend school.
 * Or: In a world with no emotions an old man touches a boy and teaches him of love and joy. He then tortures him with memories of pain and suffering. The boy then steals a baby and flees into the cold wilderness.
 *  : A guy gets turned into a donkey and listens to some stories while searching for the cure.
 *  : A fourteen-year-old surfer pursues the school geek while his twin acts on delusions of grandeur. Meanwhile, a girl breaks her arm, heals it, and gets kidnapped by talking coyotes.
 *  : A boy cuts off power to a town because the voices in his head told him it was a good idea. Elsewhere, a group of kids decide to kill anyone more talented than they are.
 *  : Some kids want to go to an island. Others want to leave it. Teenagers try to form a working government. They pretty much fail. An anorexic babysitter becomes depressed.
 *  : A young boy has trouble interacting with the other children. A bunch of teenagers stop fishing. A new mother realizes that her kid is just growing up so fast.
 * You know, that doesn't actually sound that bad. How about the blurb of the copy which I bought about six months ago: It came close to putting me off completely.
 * : A village girl spends a long time weighing the pros and cons of becoming a princess.
 * : The diary of a maid locked in a windowless tower for a few years.
 * More accurately: After getting screwed by capitalism, a family moves from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression to find work. They get screwed by capitalism again.
 * : An American soldier is hunted across Europe for his penis, which can predict rocket strikes. There are 200 other characters, including Malcolm X, dodo hunters, a platoon of African Nazis and a lightbulb.
 * : The title is Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.
 * : The early years of a misanthropic drunk who falls in with a group of Nazis and repeatedly fails to get laid. And fights a lot.
 * : Misanthropic drunk gets fired from several low-paid jobs. And fights a lot.
 * : Misanthropic drunk gets a steady job which he hates. And fights a lot.
 * : Misanthropic drunk is able to retire from work, and so spends most of his time being grouchy and sleeping with the entire female population of North America. Fights a little less this time.
 *  : A man loses his mind.
 * Or: Globally feared mass murderer tries to murder baby boy, kills self instead. Years later, the boy and his schoolmates kill the murderer several more times to cure the boy's chronic migraines.
 * Or: A group of kids is told not to go in a room. They disobey and save the world from an bad guy.
 * Or: The same kids enter a secret room with a giant snake in it. The hero kills the snake and a younger version of the bad guy from before.
 * Or: The bad guy from before takes a vacation.
 * Or: The bad guy rigs a tournament in an elaborate plot to gain his power back (which he likely came up with during the year long vacation in the last book). He succeeds and kills someone that no one really cared about anyway.
 * Or: The hero and bad guy hear a vague prophecy that may actually be about a side-character.
 * Or: A boy realizes he likes his best friend's sister, gets to be the new professor's favorite (despite doing absolutely nothing to earn it aside from being famous and taking advice written in his textbook), and gets private history lessons from the headmaster that will eventually lead to the downfall of the villain...but not in this book, as the villain doesn't make any significant appearances (in the present) and doesn't even interact with the boy.
 * Or: The hero cheats in school while the bad guy takes another break.
 * Alternately: A boy and his friends skip school.
 * Or: A boy spends a year trying to kill a man. He eventually succeeds.
 * : Arranged Marriages are no fun. Especially between a bird and a snake.
 * : A rich young boy is seduced by several ill people because he and they both believe he has magical semen. His alcoholic godfather, a recently fired film critic, pretends to write his father's biography while making a fool of himself at every opportunity.
 * : A guy gets pulled into an underground kingdom. He brings it down trying to escape.
 * : Supermen pose as rednecks.
 * : A headhunter kills his strongest rival and then commits suicide.
 * : Five astronauts destabilize an extraterrestrial regime in order to survive.
 * : Hallo, hallo, ich bin dein Ohrwurm.
 * : A man's radio controls his life.
 * : A swindler stows aboard a liner in order to gain custody of a girl who is a natural hypnotist.
 *  : Higher drug quality nearly results in Communist takeover.
 *  : Government sends woman on diplomatic mission to a planet full of space Saudis. It works surprisingly well.
 *  : Author realizes the Cold War is over, afflicts space Soviets with the French Revolution to keep things current.
 *  : Takes a break from the blowing things up for one-on-one duels and angst.
 *  : Main character's budding business kills innocents, profits anyway. More angst.
 *  : Awkward love triangle goes horribly awry. The events of the title do not occur until two-thirds of the way through the book.
 *  : Main character wanders around in a jungle, leaving her countrymen to fend for themselves.
 *  : Main character pays irrelevant social calls to her friends while other characters do all the awesome stuff. There are two different spoilers in the title.
 *  : Self-serving politicians fuck things up horribly.
 * Alternately, a man with relationship issues finds out he lives in GOD. But not really. Another guy falls in love with a rabbit. Yet another guy writes a book that makes so little sense that it kills the second guy. The whole thing is deconstructed by at least ten thousand people.
 * Alternatively, a pretty boy falls in love with his ninety-year-old housekeeper.
 *   A girl, a dog, and a boy take care of an elderly fellow's home while he is in the hospital.
 * Or: A man tries to reduce noise pollution in a mountainous area. He fails. This is considered a good thing.
 * Alternatively: A curmudgeon learns that you can’t steal an abstract concept after committing serial burglary, animal abuse, and grand larceny.
 * : Guy tries to bring Catholicism to retarded midgets. This does not turn out the way he wanted it to.
 * : Starship crewman has love affair with rapidly aging (from his perspective, anyway) space Hawaiian.
 * : A boy unravels his fragmented past by going on a bike ride.
 * : Girl has to rescue her polar-bear husband (whilst pregnant), because she looked at him in his human form. Based on a Norwegian fairy-tale.
 * : The reporter gets into a love triangle with a pot smuggling anarchist submarine captain and a pair women who later turn out to be, and the editor hangs out with a bunch of weird people who all give him contradictory explanations about what is going on. Lots of sex is had by all.
 * : Effete French boy suspects that all his girlfriends are secretly lesbians.
 * : An African-American man moves to New York. He is not, nor does he ever become, invisible - but try to tell that to him!
 *  : America tries fascism, it doesn't work.
 * Alternatively, a stubborn old newspaper man loses everything for his beliefs.
 *  : Cut-throat businessmen, scientists attempt to capitalize on failed safari venture. Underestimate logistical challenges of wildlife management.

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