33 Frivolous Pricks is a genre-bending satire that follows an adjunct professor in dystopian L.A. on a surreal journey involving time machines, social decay, and a cast of eccentric misfits. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I wanted to squeeze more juice out of the time machine story I did a few years back in “Hollyweird Needs” using the two locations I know and like to make trouble in the most—Los Angeles, CA., and Kyoto, Japan.

I connected the two cities this time by placing the unhappy daughter, half Japanese, of one of the time travelers into Kyoto and coming up with one powerful sub-plot that has the girl on a reckless mission to burn down the renowned temples of the city.

How did you balance the dark social commentary with the whimsical and surreal elements of the story?

Blending dark humor with high stakes is what I like to do, weaving together elements of horror, comedy, and philosophical inquiry to create a narrative that questions the nature of time itself and humanity’s place within its flow.

I did this by depicting many catastrophes of US twentieth century life and placing the distressed time travelers within them, hopefully giving these historical periods more emotional weight, making readers feel that they’re living everything alongside the cast.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

I think the exploration of human nature brings huge amounts of depth to the adventure as we follow characters grappling with consequences both personal and universal. The philosophical elements emerge naturally from the story, examining time, choice, and mortality in ways that linger in my mind.

Which character or subplot was the most enjoyable for you to write, and why?

New characters are always the most challenging and inevitably rewarding. Charlie, the girl with the power of pyrokenises, sets out to destroy what she sees as the beautiful things in her life and surroundings—which happen to be the magnificent structures of Kyoto.

And tracing Pinky Bell’s development is always fun, as she comes to terms with the inscrutable power that has been given to her by that little bird from the Sarawak jungle, the cuckoo shrike, that interconnects almost all of my stories.

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