Black Friday Meets Mission Impossible in a World Both Surreal and Familiar

Arcata, CA – What would happen if everyone on Earth had everything they wanted? How does our materialistic and consumer-driven society shape our humanity? If this present civilization of seemingly endless economic growth ended, what would humanity become? Debut author Phil Granchi utilizes satire to explore these questions and more in Mart of Darkness, a comic dystopian thriller that invites readers to both laugh and reflect on the state of the world.

Mart of Darkness explores these questions through the eyes of its protagonist, Ted K, a slacker, wanna-be screenwriter who survives on temp jobs. With no real marketable skills and not much writing talent, he finds himself having obtained a temp job which places him on a government Special Forces unit assigned to neutralize Kurtis McAlsteinetti, the CEO of AllMart, who has lost touch with reality and is plotting to take down the world’s economy. Alternately bewildered and terrified, Ted gives the reader a first person point of view as the team journeys, both literally and allegorically, through the vast expanse of the sprawling AllMart flagship store. 

Author Phil Granchi transports us into the surreal world of modern-day consumerism in this wildly and darkly comic dystopian/sci-fi thriller.  You will laugh out loud throughout this journey into the “Mart of Darkness” in which we see the manifestation of shopping-gone-wild in a world that looks a good deal like our own.

John Kelly, Detroit Free Press
5-stars

Together they cross hundreds of square miles, face off zombie shoppers, Purple Poncho People, “Converts,” and brave their way through special promotions like McAlsteinetti’s famed “Black Light Blowout.” Peril lurks in the aisles as they cross an inland sea of close-out DVDs, aptly named the Videocean, and snake through the wild canyon of 55-gallon drums of pickles known as Gherkin Gorge. As a comic retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with proper homage to Apocalypse Now, the team is progressively downsized through a series of tragic and comedic mishaps.  With the team growing smaller and uncountable obstacles in their path, can they make it to the Mezzanine and their meeting with AllMart Senior Management? Will they be able to complete their mission? And what role does K, with his “special skills” (or lack thereof), have to play in what awaits them?

To say that this book is cleverly written is an understatement, it is truly a work of art,
a comedy satire, blended with science-fiction and fantasy, guaranteed to take you on
the adventure of a lifetime. Highly recommended!

Susan Keefe, Midwest Book Review and Columbia Book Review
5-stars

Granchi draws from his career background, including roles such as project geologist, production artist, web producer, and improvisational comedian, combining these experiences to bring the reader Mart of Darkness. During a stint as a graphic artist for marketing agencies, Granchi noticed that the same almost mystical language and ideas used to promote credit and convince consumers to “increase your buying power” actually permeates our society in many different forms. Trained as a scientist, he says, “I naturally started wondering what would happen if you extrapolated that thinking into the absurd future where people might literally structure their own lives around buying stuff, to the point where they actually lived inside a huge store in a symbiotic relationship with the store itself. Mart of Darkness was born. “

Granchi’s skillfully written satire shows humanity at its best and worst, giving readers the chance both to laugh and to consider the global trajectory of humanity…humor is the dime that the story turns on, keeping it from becoming overly preachy or moralistic even while inviting the reader to consider where we’re all going and who we are becoming.

Jessica Tofino, Educator and Writer
5-stars

“Mostly, I want people to laugh at the book,” says Granchi. “I don’t want to point fingers at anyone. We’re all participating in what’s happening in the world right now. The world and economy as we’re experiencing it won’t last forever. It will change, we just don’t know when and what that change will look like. Along with that, we’re all on this planet together and we might as well get along and have some laughs along the way. No matter what, we need each other.”

Mart of Darkness and Granchi’s comedic genius deliver perfectly timed humor to counter the darkness of the last year. Whether you’re an adventure buff, sci-fi lover, enjoy satire, or are just in need of a book that will keep you laughing, Mart of Darkness hits the spot. Grab your copy today!

Mart of Darkness, is available the author’s website www.allmartstores.com and on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.

Everyone gets everything they want. I wanted a 3-day temp job, and for my sins they gave me one. 

I was going into the world’s largest discount store to witness the end of our civilization and didn’t even know it yet.

I saw the fearsome zombie truth approaching me across the green lawn of my quiet artistic life: This was not a simple 3-day automatic temp job that would allow me to pay my rent. And I had not been hired to create a few MetaPoint slides for some presentation they were giving.

At the end of the day, I suppose most newspapers, magazines, networks, blogs, portals and vortals were unwilling to relay his prophetic message detailing the implosion of Western Civilization, as well as his role in it, given that they were owned by the very corporations that were hoping he would go away. And even though he sold it pretty hard, the whole trippy-dippy Einstein vs. quantum physics angle didn’t do much to spice up his prediction that our great technological nation and many others like it would soon be toast.

…the whole world knew the guy had moved on from reality as we knew it. It didn’t take a psychiatrist, or even a first year MBA student, to know the guy had left the building in every possible way.

Whatever point of no return we were headed toward had been passed. All possible permutations of a successful mission according to the scheduling algorithms had failed and we had entered into a new phase of impossibility.

Sitting there in the turret, with our purpose even more obscured and our leader rendered powerless, I hit a wall. I wanted the damn thing to end. I was a near washed-up production artist, convincing myself that somewhere inside me was a screenplay that someone else would bring to light. More than anything, I wanted my quiet, insignificant life back.

I entertained the possibility that a divine enforcer had arrived and was about to announce the reckoning of all beings. It was that same heart-stopping void that appears in your chest when you’re speeding along the highway and see the lights of a state trooper appear in your rearview mirror. It is that internal organ-kicking, inescapable admission that we have not behaved with righteousness, that we were in fact going 85 in a 65, and that we will be called to account for our wrongdoing.

Religion in my family was little more than elaborate wallpaper that was present in our house but had no influence on our daily lives. Still, armed with little hope and with some hidden blackness about to consume yet another member of our team, I allowed my eyes to drift toward the ceiling.

…what we later described as a barbecue was yet another attempt at seduction. But the fare and its presentation were far from being desirable in any way that the darkness of our higher minds might harbor—rather, it was aimed toward the most primitive parts of our animal brain.

That’s when I remembered why this guy looked familiar. He was Gunnar Bjärniæløågson, the unpronounceable Norwegian cinematographer who disappeared a few weeks into Schmerzhogg’s first shoot…In terms of his popularity, he was no ABBA, but he had his following among serious aficionados of Scandinavian documentary film-making. I felt honored to meet him after all these years.

I was feeling stronger, too…Perhaps suspecting for the first time that my part in all this was not yet complete. As long as everyone else didn’t know what the hell was going on, I was no worse or better prepared to throw some special skills onto the canvas of human history than anyone else.

The people in that room controlled entire industries, took home salaries that could be mistaken for population figures in Asia, and held stock options that could, and sometimes did, fund their own individual interplanetary space programs. It was all right there, so close, and I’m not above saying that I wanted a piece of it.

I’m sure it was my turn to say something, but in his presence I blanked like a first grader on a thermodynamics exam. There, inside the corporate offices of the profit dynamo he had built in the same number of years that it had taken me to get to page 57 of my screenplay and build a preposterous amount of consumer debt, I’m not sure what he expected.

Whether that message might have been offered to anyone else who showed up in his office that night remained unclear. Was I chosen to hear his rant? The progressive downsizing of Watson’s team, plus my forgotten childhood connection to McAlsteinetti made the case defensible. Or was I simply someone who stumbled in out of the rain? Who, against lottery-like odds, had known him years before? I’ll never know.

 “Then things start to get really interesting….Trust me, this is the end. The entire planet will sink back into the Dark Ages. But it won’t seem so bad, as Dark Ages go. You might say that I’m actually trying to facilitate this process at multiple levels. “

Her sunken eyes that hadn’t slept for days spoke the horror of what she was thinking. Her mission had been to stop McAlsteinetti from taking down the economy. That was now all but guaranteed and no one could stop it. The question that remained—who would we all be when the darkness lifted?

IN THE Press

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