Sabrina P. Ramet

Caf Bombshell: the International Brain Surgery Conspiracy Sabrina P. Ramet

Most of the action taking place in this story occurred in the mid-1980s, when the threat of industrial pollution was already well known. The narrator was perhaps one of the first to realize that industrial pollution was interconnected with a vast international conspiracy of brain surgeons. He found evidence of this conspiracy not only in the proliferation of brain surgery clinics and in their activities, but in coded messages embedded in bus schedules, in syringe marks on fruit, even in television commercials. Although he played only a minor role in the struggle against the brain surgeons, he felt it was his duty as a living being to record these strange events exactly as they occurred, so that the truth could be known. "Hilariously zany, brisk, and suspenseful, and so strange in an otherworldly sense that you cannot stop turning the pages - I kept muttering "what the.!" to myself - Café Bombshell is a Montypythonesque rendition of the incredible adventures of two stuffed rabbits and their wards. Reading the novel was a lot of fun, and it lifted my spirits in some unexpected ways. This is a genuinely unique piece of writing." - Gordana P. Crnkovic, University of Washington "Ramet's first novel takes us on a surrealistic rollercoaster ride blending in psychedelic adaptations of events from the author's life into a hilarious, wacky adventure that takes the reader from one side of the Pacific to the other and back, with a short jaunt into outer space, culminating in a world-saving song-and-dance-routine climax in Las Vegas, in which two stuffed eco-terrorist rabbits and an assortment of robotized weasels play the decisive role. Filled with a menagerie of unforgettable animal characters and told through the eyes of an apparently paranoid character worried about brain surgery, this story also incorporates a serious critique of environmental destruction, as well as swipes at corporations and their aggressive marketing campaigns." - Vjeran Pavlakovic, NCEEER Research Scholar in Zagreb.