Gore Vidal meets Philip K. Dick: These stories present electric messiahs, identity constructs, the Beatles, and even nuclear Armageddon as comic foils for Lain's everyman characters. Here is an America where the packets of Sea Monkeys that arrive in the mail contain secret messages and the girl next door can breathe underwater. With "Last Week's Apocalypse", Douglas Lain arrives with a punch line and a warning.