THE BOOK OF SEQUELS
By
A truly funny anthology of all-original parodic sequels. Cerf (The World's Largest Cheese, 1968) and three coauthors skewer both classics (offering; for example, George Orwell's Vegetable Farm, Machiavelli's The Princess, and The Chain Letter of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (""This epistle comes to you from Phillipi. Grace be to you and peace. Spiritual gifts will be delivered unto you within four days of receiving this letter--providing you in turn send it on"") and contemporary works (Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Reverses, Pol Pot's The One-Bullet Manager, and Alice Walker's The Color Scarlett and Tama Janowitz's Slaves of Atlanta, takeoffs on Gone With the Wind). Also included: poems (""Casey II: It Ain't Over Till It's Over""), full-color movie posters (""Bambo: They killed his mother. Now it's time to get even"") and dust jackets (First Communion: An Honest to God True Story, featuring Whitley Strieber's bug-eyed alien clad in a white First Communion dress with veil and cross), paintings, and other miscellany. While some of the humor falls flat, as in the book's longest entry, Moby Dick II: Raise the Pequod, most of it is wickedly on target. (From Thus Joked Zarathustra: ""You who do not fear to be assailed by enigmas, you who are intoxicated by riddles, hear me: . . .My friends, if it were possible through the working of our allmastering wills to cross a herd of cows with a flock of ducks, what name would we give to our phantasmal creation? Prepare your spirits for the annihilating answer: milk and quackers!"")