Christian Bentulan

Everybody Shrugged Christian Bentulan

Hold tight to your car, French fries, beer, cigarettes, fluoride toothpaste, sexy underwear, bacon, butter, coffee, and anything else that tastes good, feels good, or is fun to do because here comes Congress to ban it. Professor Gardy Lavager leads the government's campaign to outlaw popular products deemed harmful to your health, and the military is stripped of guns because war is hazardous too. But Major Tony Farina of the Army's clandestine MADCOM force sets out to serve his own nefarious ends by subverting Lavager's research in the name of national security while shadowy foreign interests prepare to leverage the imminent chaos. The ensuing Harmful Substance Race spells the difference between peace and global bedlam as Gardy Lavager fears for his life from enemies at home and abroad. From the Pentagon to the Oval Office to a forgotten Army base, into the halls of academia and off to a shadowy European castle, an endearing cast bumble at cross purposes so outlandish you must keep reading to see how this delightful poke-in-the eye is resolved. Jump from the absurd to the ridiculous, careening between satire and reality in this side-splitting tale of government overreach on steroids. In a deft and entertaining finesse of a classic macroeconomic conundrum, Everybody Shrugged describes the ultimate government policy-depriving us of both guns and butter.