SIMON’S DREAM

Distinguished by its experimental format but not much else, the post-apocalyptic Fog Mound trilogy concludes with happy reunions among its cast of talking animals, a more or less decisive battle with the reptilian Dragon Lady and light shed at last on what became of humans. In chapters that arbitrarily alternate between heavily illustrated prose and Buller’s sequential, graphic-fiction-style panels, Thelonious Chipmunk and friends soar off on a flying sofa to defend Fog Mound from the Dragon Lady and her invading army of ratminks. Meanwhile the tiny human survivor Bill recovers his ability to speak (in spades) and reveals at length that humanity had largely wiped itself out through a combination of Too Many Cleaning Products, the GreenBerry virus, careless genetic experimentation and a Road Rage War. Uh-huh. In a jumbled dream at the end, an ancestral chipmunk tells Thelonious that the survivors either headed off into space or changed themselves into small furry creatures, then signs off with the insight that “somehow, life always goes on.” Fortunately, this aimless, confusing and, as it turns out, agenda-driven cautionary tale won’t. (Graphic fantasy. 10-12)