Hyperspace Pizza

Dumped by his girlfriend for a vampire role-playing game character, Big Jake Wells is back living with his mom, drowning in debt, and driving a pizza delivery car held together by duct tape and wishes. But if he can scrape enough to make his ex's party in Chicago, he just might turn things around. Especially if he can perfect his recipe for Deep-Fried Nutty Bars on a Stick in time. On the coldest night of the year, a prank order sends Jake to the weird, forgotten town of Colfax, Iowa. There, his car is boarded by Violet Annie Moss, a woman in a full Victorian gown who claims she's on the run after beating the living hell out of Charles Dickens. She's either another gamer who's taken her role-playing too far, or she's telling the truth: she's a time-travel agent from a secret government program. Either way, she's got a wad of cash and a desperate need for a ride to Chicago, where a mutual friend told her Jake was heading. Jake, seeing a miracle (and a payday), agrees to drive her. Everything good starts in a getaway car. What follows is a bizarre, hilarious, and surprisingly heartfelt road trip through a frozen Midwest, as Jake and Violet navigate car crashes, cursed butts, co-workers with really strong opinions about The Last Jedi, and the fundamental absurdity of love. Jake is trying to win back a girlfriend who's outgrown him, and Violet says she's chasing a man who lived in a history she can't seem to change. Together, they're a pair of broken romantics armed with Little Debbie cakes, a flimsy top hat, and a car that may not survive the trip to the end of the block. Hyperspace Pizza is a raunchy, clever, and surprisingly tender tale about finding your place in a timeline that doesn't make sense (specifically, late December of 2017), the fine line between reality and the stories we tell ourselves, and the profound magic of junk food. ADAM SELZER is the Stonewall Honor-winning author of more than 20 books, including young adult novels for Random House, Simon & Schuster, Flux, and others. Previously published as I Beat Up Charles Dickens, this revised edition is the "novelization" of the rock opera Hyperspace Pizza by The Limited Time, and features adult versions of several characters from Adam's books for younger readers. He now mostly writes nonfiction books on Chicago and New York history.