In a New Funny Book, Fictional Characters Rebel Against Their Author
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Editorial Dept.
Hank Quense’s Character Revolt is a hilarious and satirical fantasy about fictional characters who rebel against their author. Spanning multiple invented worlds, the narrative details their chaotic quest for more desirable roles and lives. The book is a playful take on what transpires when stories stop following the script.
According to a press release from Hank Quense’s team, Character Revolt: Characters Behaving Badly is out now, via Strange Worlds Publishing.
In the book, fictional characters have finally reached their breaking point. Furious over bad storylines, unemployment and abandoned plot arcs, they unionize and launch a full-scale rebellion against the author who created them.
“I started wondering what my characters might be doing when I close the laptop,” Quense quipped. “And in my imagination, I saw them unionizing, burning my books and hunting me down for better gigs.”
Across three parallel worlds from Quense’s previously published works — Camelot, Zaftan 31B and Gundarland — Character Revolt unleashes a parade of football-obsessed knights, tentacled despots, unemployed adventurers and scheming brigands, all united by one demand: new stories and better lives.
As the author races to pacify his unruly cast, court intrigue, uproarious misadventures and metaphysical dilemmas ensue. His characters lead armed expeditions to track him down, stage lawsuits for unemployment compensation and even threaten his very existence.
Perfect for Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett fans craving political jabs, farce and fourth-wall demolition, Character Revolt lampoons the increasingly fragile boundary between creator and creation in an age obsessed with AI, autonomy and algorithmic storytelling. The result is a riotous romp where anything can happen, and everyone has an axe to grind, sometimes literally.
Reviewers have called Character Revolt “pure chaotic brilliance,” and “a riotous satire in which the author’s own characters rebel, unionize and lob insults against him.”
In this cleverly constructed, satirical clash between creations and creator, one question remains: If fictional characters can think for themselves, who’s really writing the story?
Character Revolt: Characters Behaving Badly
Publisher: Strange Worlds Publishing
ISBN-13: 979-8989116386 (Kindle)
ISBN-13: 979-8989116379 (paperback) Available from https://www.amazon.com/Character-Revolt-Characters-Behaving-Badly/dp/B0FV83RYK5
About The Author
Lecturer and author Hank Quense has written more than 25 books, including many novels and short stories in the satirical fantasy and sci-fi genres. Early in his writing career, he was strongly influenced by two authors: Douglas Adams and his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Happily, Quense has never quite recovered from those experiences. He lives in northern New Jersey, a mere 20 miles from Manhattan, the center of the galaxy (according to those who live there). He has two daughters and five grandchildren, all of whom live nearby. Quense and his family enjoy vacationing in distant parts of the galaxy. Occasionally, they also time-travel.
For more information, please visit https://www.hankquenseauthor.org/, or connect with him on Facebook (authorhankquense), X (hanque99), Instagram (hquense) and YouTube (@CreatingANovel-n9i).
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