Zoe has new job. Managing a superhero with random powers is hard enough. Decoding the secret structure of existence is going to be a real challenge.Zoe Alexakis is starting a new job. Working in the movie business has always been a dream. She should feel lucky. She does feel lucky. She does. Really.Working as an assistant to the script coordinator for a Hollywood production company may not be what she imagined (it is, in fact, a long way from what she had imagined) but she is at least in the front door, rubbing shoulders with actors and directors. Zoe's first project is to guard against script discrepancies on a blockbuster movie production about a new superhero: Random Man. It is a difficult assignment, for Random Man is not your typical superhero: an insurance agent who, having accidentally grabbed the business end of a molecular randomizer, now finds himself with a collection of superpowers he can neither predict nor control. One minute he can fly, the next minute he cannot. Super strength, speed, vision, the works, all randomly available until, suddenly, they are not available. How then does one go about enforcing consistency in a script about a man who epitomizes inconsistency and unpredictability on a heroic scale? And yet, the Random Man script is the least of Zoe's problems. Far more pressing is her need to decode the secret structure of existence. Her options include luck, destiny, self-determination, divinity and, yes, randomness, all battling it out for dominance on Zoe's bus commute to and from the studio. Who's to say, really, although there are plenty of datapoints in Zoe's life with some persuasive influence, including her dead twin sister, a seemingly immortal cat named Lucky, Dr. Ayaan Patel, the Indian self-help guru bubbling advice through her earbuds, Charley, the stylish force-of-nature that is her mentor-employer, the Schrodinger's box of Zoe's Los Angeles apartment, the potbellied, potato-faced convenience store clerk selling lottery tickets, Paul, the actor cast in the role of Random Man who seems to have lost control of his eyebrows, and Dexter, the thief holding Zoe's stolen luggage for the ransom of information about her day.So, yes, Zoe feels lucky. But is she? That, actually, is the problem.Random Man is a novella. While it is available for purchase separately, Random Man is also included in a larger work of short fiction by Owen Thomas entitled This is the Dream.
Autorentext
Owen Thomas is a life-long Alaskan living on Maui because life is too short for long winters. He has written six books: "The Lion Trees" (which has garnered over sixteen international book awards, including the American Writing Awards, the Amazon Kindle Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, the Book and Author Book of the Year, the Beverly Hills International Book Award and, most recently, a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards); "Mother Blues," (a novel of music and mystery set in post-Hurricane Harvey Texas, Finalist for the American Writing Awards and the Book Excellence Fiction Award, and collecting a Bronze in the Readers Views Reviewers' Choice Awards); "Message in a Bullet: A Raymond Mackey Mystery," (the first in a series of detective novels, shortlisted for the Best Mystery Book of the Year by Forward INDIES Book of the Year Awards and collecting a Silver from the eLit Book Awards); "The Russian Doll: A Raymond Mackey Mystery" (the second book in that series); "Signs of Passing" (a book of interconnected short stories and novellas, and winner of fourteen book awards, including the 2014 Pacific Book Awards for Short Fiction, the Indie Reader Discovery Award, the Great Southwest Book Festival, has garnered placements at the Paris, London and Los Angeles Book Festivals and was also named one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2015 by Shelf Unbound Magazine); and "This is the Dream," (a collection of stories and novellas that explore that perplexing liminal distance between who we are and what we want; Finalist for the American Writing Awards and the International Book Award in short fiction, and collecting a Bronze in the Readers Views Reviewers' Choice Awards). Owen maintains an active fiction and photography blog on Facebook, Tumblr and on his author website at www.owenthomasliterary.com.
For the ninth consecutive year since he has been measuring his commercial success as an author, Owen has not won the Orange Prize for Fiction. Also, to great acclaim, he has not won the Man Booker Prize. Most recently, in April of 2020, Owen was not nominated for a Pulitzer.
Owen makes his home in Alaska and Maui, Hawaii. When he is not writing, Owen can be found recreating and taking photographs in the grandeur of these wonderfully picturesque locations. Some of these photos are posted on Owen's photo blog, 1000 Words per Frame.
