When you write a book about a world that doesn’t exist, or maybe does but we just can’t see it, you better have a good reason. Some are grand, like holding a dark mirror up so humanity can see their twisted faces, or, to poke a stick at people’s insistence that life isn’t funny at all. Others are less grand, like trying to make people smile a bit. What you don’t expect is people to say things like,

Since I’ve never read anything like this before, there’s nothing to compare it to. I’ve been ver...