Meet John Conner: UFO enthusiast, militant screenwriter, explosives expert, and extreme sports enthusiast. He works for an insane scientist who collects human corpses and made millions on an impossible-to-solve children’s puzzle that shoots poisonous spikes when it isn’t completed. On his days off, Conner steals genetic material for blackmail purposes with his Columbian bodyguard Tito, and hangs out with his Lego-obsessed friend Nick. His Texan lawyer, preoccupied with his own earwax, has vanished to Vietnam; a guy named Ivan has started selling sheep for sexual purposes; a famous filmmaker is working on a cinematic trilogy based on vomit. Plus he and Nick found a way to talk to the dead via a library’s electronic card catalog terminal. But even in this strange world, the meaning of life eludes him, and he needs to know the answers, or at least find a way to pay his six-digit phone bill.

The nonlinear, experimental fiction of Rumored to Exist blasts through a hyperdimensional landscape of the near-future, mutated fact, and impossible science. A combination of pop-fiction references, heavy metal speed, and hilarious parody mix the half-dozen different stories together into a nightmarish tale of post-apocalyptic America.

In addition to Rumored to Exist, Jon Konrath is also the author of the novel Summer Rain. The former zine editor maintains rumored.com and is a technical writer by trade. He currently resides in New York City.