[Optimutt]

Terry Pratchett. Granted he is about the only one that I have read, as there are very few names out there that I'm aware of. Jim Hines' Goblin series is currently at the top of my list following George Carlin's "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops". I read an interesting exploration titled something along the lines of "The Handbook for Heroes". I can't remember who the author or what the real title was, but it had a funky Evil Overlord who had graduated from his Evil Overlord class and had some funkified doomsday device and an assistant who didn't like wearing her tight leather outfit.

James, I second Kat's statement, I'd love to read a humor book by you.

[KatG]

Oh excellent, James! And now I want to read Banger's thing too, drat it.

That you are a physics student, er Sheepie 2? (got a sheep and a sheep salesman now,) is a definite plus, because you'll know what boundaries there are. How far you can go is pretty much as far as you want, but if you can balance it partly with scientific realism, that might be a good approach, especially if it is the physicists who do the destroying.

Obvious folk to check out, if you haven't already (and there is a thread on humorous sf in the SF Forum archives):

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker series -- the biggest of the sf comedy pile
Parke Godwin -- Waiting for the Galactic Bus
Robert Asprin -- Phule's Company series
Spider Robinson -- Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories
Brian Daley -- Terran Inheritance trilogy
Harry Harrison -- Stainless Steele Rat series

You'll see that most of these stories, while they may have good dollops of science in them, tend to use the science as a jumping off point for adventure, but there are a lot of other ones out there and you may find some better reference points for what you are trying.

[Hereford Eye]

Shame on you, KatG!
How could you omit the original, the funniest of all sf writers who rarely worried about the science but was always concerned with the politics: Keith Laumer.

Do you suppose SheepSalesman is making a pitch to be Rocket Sheep's agent? While the product is undoubtedly valuable, requiring oneself to be nice to Sheepie all the time seems more than a normal human being should willingly undertalke.:p:D

[SheepSalesman]

My name actually comes from a inside joke between my friends and me a while back. Though perhaps people would be more willing to purchase sheep if they came with rockets attached... hmmm... I smell a new market.

But on the comedy SF front, I recently purchased "Road to Mars" by Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame) at a used book store. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I have high hopes for it.

As for my earlier comments about what I called "ridiculous science" (that's not a quote, I just like the looks of quotations), the science starts off as real physics that the leaders in the field are doing today and says "What if they succeed at some of things they're currently trying to do, and accidentally kill half of the people on earth and rip space/time a new one". The ridiculous bit comes from the fact that it's unlikely to be as big a disaster if it ever actually occurs, but at least I'm giving the physicists something to try to live up to.

-SS

[James Carmack]

I think the real trick, Salesman, will be writing it in such a way that you manage to garner an audience outside physicists and physics students. I'm not saying you need to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but I imagine you'll have quite a time getting people to laugh about M-theory.

[Dr. Kleiner holds up a bit of yarn]
Dr. Kleiner: Imagine this is the universe, Petrus.
[Dr. Kleiner pulls out one string and the strand unravels]
Dr. Kleiner: This is what we did.
Petrus: The universe is made of yarn? Does that mean God does crochet? He's like my grandma.
[Dr. Kleiner pinches the bridge of his nose]
Dr. Kleiner: Why do you liberal arts majors even bother taking science classes? Why don't you go write a haiku about the angst of your navel lint or whatever it is you people do?
Petrus: I did that last semester. They said I can't reuse old projects.

[lin]

Yes! I read everything I could be Laumer when I was a kid. His Retief was so much cooler than Bond, and much funnier.

[lin]

To be safe, set it in a bar, on a desert Island, carrying an "End Is Nigh" sign, onstage in the Catskills, farting, living with a mother-in-law, or somehow involving a priest, a Mexican, and an Arab.

[KatG]

I didn't mention him because I haven't read him and he somehow wasn't on my reading list. But I'll add him. Right now, I have lists of names scattered all over the place -- I've really got to get it organized. There are a lot of writers -- hard to keep track.

Also, Christopher Moore, who does satirical fantasy, also did one that could be nominally considered sf -- Fluke. It might help with how to combine science research with the funny. And there are several hundred comic fantasy writers of course, Terry Pratchett probably being the best of them, but probably concentrating on comic sf would help you more.

I think James is correct about keeping the laymen in mind. However, if you can put some real science in it, that will earn you points with sf fans. There's a sort of suspicious mistrust of comic sf in the genre, because of a general paranoia about what and what does not constitute true sf, but at the same time, they like humor.

[Rocket Sheep]

Unfortunately, those who have read it haven't seemed to deem the deaths of hundreds of people as dark, and the "obvious" social commentary has gone over the heads of all but one person who has read it

Too dark for the US? Try Aus or the UK. We like things a shade darker, and good social commentary on the US we find interesting. Vandermeer is doing things at a level of dark we think of as normal... but we didn't have "burbling saditude" or meerkats.

Also if the obvious social commentary has gone over the heads of all but one, you probably need to make it a bit more obvious. You are writing for the audience after all, and if they're not "getting" it... who are you writing for?

[Rocket Sheep]

Shame on you, KatG!
Do you suppose SheepSalesman is making a pitch to be Rocket Sheep's agent? While the product is undoubtedly valuable, requiring oneself to be nice to Sheepie all the time seems more than a normal human being should willingly undertalke.:p:D

Undertalke? Is that where you buy enough drinks for us to slide under the table and we have one of those conversations (talke talke) that can only occur while drunkenly slumped on an alcohol soaked carpet under a table? :p

PS. I hate it when people are nice to me all the time.