Just as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy took us on a gleeful romp through existential musings on reality, life and the meaning of it all, science fiction's latest installment of mirthful, tongue-in-cheek philosophy is The Combat Poets of Maya, penned by Bill Johnson.

Johnson describes the book as a project inspired and begun years ago, during a time when he was literally immersed within the fringe literary scene; sleeping on a foam mat in the back of a restaurant that hosted readings attended by some names that have become synonymous with "street poetry."

Populated by a host of colorful characters that slip blithely from high-tech battle gear to battling each other for a chance to share their latest prose and lusty obsessions, The Combat Poets of Maya dances the light-years fantastic while asking some age-old questions: What is art? And is art necessary to the human condition?

Set on a planet that's a fulcrum in the struggle between the stringent control of hierarchy and the necessary anarchy of free expression, Combat Poets of Maya mischievously delights in the lack of solid answers, using memorable characters within a stream of wry, fast-paced scenes to bring us to a resolution we would be fortunate to realize here on Earth.

For more information about Poets, please email: bjscript at teleport.com

Bill's workshops and classes--and book on storytelling-- have guided me towards more depth in my stories. It's enlightening to read his fiction, TCPOM is a wild ride.

Bill Johnson has the quintessential ability to draw his readers into a world of absurd reality. The Combat Poets of Maya transports us to a universe where war poets are momentously important in active combat, the characters likeable not despite but because of their vices... all with the drollness and hilarity similar to the late Douglas Adams.