{"product_id":"oddballs-short-story-collection-1","title":"Oddballs: Short Story Collection","description":"\u003cp\u003eODDBALLS: A Short Story Collection\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTen twisted tales of misfits, madness, and the beautiful chaos of being human.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuddy Devine's debut short story collection \u003cem\u003eODDBALLS\u003c\/em\u003e is a wild ride through the stranger corners of existence—where ghosts solve their own murders, time-traveling janitors rewrite history, and the apocalypse arrives not with a bang but with the year's first snowfall in a millennium.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese aren't your typical short stories. They're raw, unfiltered snapshots of people on the edge: the ones society forgot, the ones who never quite fit in, the ones still searching for meaning in a world that stopped making sense long ago. From psych wards to parallel universes, from Washington Square Park to the literal end of time, Devine crafts worlds that feel simultaneously alien and achingly familiar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInside you'll find:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA man whose \"friends\" might actually be symptoms of his undiagnosed mental illness—and his desperate attempt to break free before they destroy him completely.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo gay ghosts turned amateur detectives, solving their own serial killer case from beyond the grave while uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of power.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA high school student who accidentally invents a working time machine just to avoid embarrassment, only to get stranded in the 1960s with his wheelchair-using best friend and meet his legendary grandfather in a psych ward.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA civilization where winter hasn't existed for a thousand years, and the first snowfall might signal either salvation or total annihilation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn aspiring rock band in 1980s New York whose keyboardist unknowingly has bagels and coffee with Lou Reed—and tells him his unreleased lyrics are terrible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Victorian gentleman displaced in modern-day New York, struggling with autism, heartbreak, and the crushing realization that Oscar Wilde's era of romance is long dead.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA cosmic horror story where a doctor's obsession with evolution leads to experiments that blur the line between human and hawk—creating monsters that wait in the wings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd more strange, heartbreaking, darkly funny tales of the beautiful disasters we call people.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThese stories ask the hard questions:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhat if your depression, anxiety, and self-destruction weren't character flaws but actual entities trying to kill you?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCan you solve your own murder if you're already dead?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhat happens when the last romantic in the world realizes he was born in the wrong century?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHow do you maintain hope when the apocalypse is just another Tuesday?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDevine writes with the manic energy of someone who's seen too much, felt too deeply, and refuses to pretend everything's okay. These are stories about neurodivergent people trying to survive in a neurotypical world, queer people searching for connection in the cold digital wasteland of modern dating, artists and dreamers who refuse to give up even when the world tells them they should.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe prose is conversational, urgent, and unapologetically messy—like overhearing the most interesting person at a party tell you their life story at 3 AM. Devine doesn't believe in tidy endings or easy answers. Life is complicated, people are contradictory, and sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh at the absurdity of it all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the supernatural to the painfully real, from science fiction to psychological horror,\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eODDBALLS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cstrong\u003erefuses to stay in one genre.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Kobo eBook","offer_id":46716322742482,"sku":"4a64c9b0-3c49-3d27-8640-4428b74ee1de","price":20.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/image_4c210dae-f2e2-4bd8-9279-afa08fc3d535.jpg?v=1771686322","url":"https:\/\/www.indigo.ca\/products\/oddballs-short-story-collection-1","provider":"Indigo","version":"1.0","type":"link"}