A God for the Earth
 by Blaine C. Readler
240 pages, 6x9, $16.95 Trade Paper ISBN 1-59663-764-1
Sense of Wonder Press  Special Price $15.95
 

AGFTE A God for the Earth, paper            

What if the entire universe has, indeed, been created by intelligent design but humans are actually a mistake?

Allister, a high school physics teacher, humors an elderly hospital patient when the man asks him to pick a number between one and ten. But his life takes a sharp turn after he discovers that the old coot is a Mafia boss-turned-vegetable via an irreversible coma whose recovery is nothing short of "miraculous." When the mobster’s henchman, Tootsie, discovers that the attempt to knock off his former boss was not successful, Allister and the erstwhile Mafioso leader, along with his attractive, fundamentalist neighbor and a sassy high school student, flee for their lives. A series of improbable adventures confronts them as they journey toward a final rendezvous atop Angels Landing in Utah. Along the way they realize that the old man is more — much more — than simply an ex-mob boss ... and that the trials encountered on their difficult journey are not products of mere chance.

A God for Earth is a hoot! Or not.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Blaine C. Readler has a BSEE in electronics, works as a consulting engineer, holds two patents, plays guitar in blues bands, and has sailed the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. He can still run a six-minute mile, but appears deranged for five minutes afterwards. There are not many engineer jokes, but his favorite contains enough truth to hurt:

Three bourgeois men are held in a eighteenth-century jail awaiting their execution before the mobs of the French Revolution: a lawyer, a doctor, and an engineer. The lawyer is taken and placed on the guillotine and, while the other two watch through the bars, the rabble crowd cheers as the executioner pulls the cord ... but then go crazy when the massive blade hangs, quivering, after falling only a few inches. It is French custom that mis-operation of the guillotine is interpreted as an intervention by the hand of God. And so the crowd cheers as they carry the lawyer away on their shoulders.

The doctor is next and again the blade stops after a short drop, and again the peasant crowd welcomes the victim as a hero.

Finally the engineer is placed on the guillotine. The crowd is now hushed with anticipation as the masked executioner raises his hand to yank the cord. "Wait a minute," the engineer calls out, looking up at the blade about to fall. "I think I see the problem."

Of course, he has a website: http://www.readler.com.