Rick Moody/Larry Doyle

Thu., July 29, 7:30 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org.

by Will Stone

reading/signing

Rick Moody and Larry Doyle's latest novels transport a common earthling trope — the struggling writer, the angst-ridden adolescent — via spaceship into an orgy of sci-fi gimmicks. Oozing with extraterrestrial subplots and flesh-eating twists, Moody's The Four Fingers of Death (Little, Brown) and Doyle's Go, Mutants! (Ecco) use this melodramatic genre as a launching pad for futuristic excursions into the outermost nebulae of our human natures. Best-selling author of The Ice Storm and Garden State, Moody taps into a '60s horror-film-inspired 2025 America, slightly updating the technology (jet packs, surgically implanted PDAs), but retaining all the classic agendas of bio warfare and Mars-based paranoia. In a vortex of sci-fi/horror pop culture, Go, Mutants! follows suit. Author of I Love You, Beth Cooper and formerly a writer for The Simpsons, Doyle touches down on the emotionally fraught surface of high school, where the young protagonist must overcome more than just the cosmic shadow of his super-villain father. These two interstellar storytellers will pair up to present their novels and possibly even their paranormal sources of inspiration.