Jamie Espinoza is a Bubblegum Friend. What is that, you ask? That’s easy, he’s one out of a million who can understand the language of The Bubblegum People. Who are they? That’s a little harder to explain.

The BP are other worldly beings who came to earth and started a sitcom in 1982, which became the most popular television show to ever exist. It ended war, brought people together, decreased crime and rates of suicide, and is generally considered to have made the world a far better place to live. People found a reason to be good to each other. Oh, and extraterrestrials made contact to get their autographs.

When Jaime meets the BP, he gets swept up into their drug-fueled, A-list lifestyle, making friends with celebrities like Jack Diver and maybe even a few you thought were long gone. But when Jaime meets notorious crime lord Gideon Clearwater, he begins to question the BP’s motives, and agrees to secretly keep tabs on them for the gangster.

Felipe Espinoza is a criminal who works for Gideon. He’s also Jaime’s brother. Gideon orders Felipe to steal alien technology from a secret lab, and Felipe agrees on the condition that all his debts will be paid. Makes sense, right?

As the two brother’s stories split and then reconverge, they crawl a Los Angeles you have never seen before. Gangsters, aliens, alien gangsters, magical beings, advanced technology, celebrities, drugs, wild parties…they catapult Jaime and Felipe into a spiral that can only end in chaos. Fantastic.

…coming someday hopefully.

The Bubblegum People is my thesis for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing for Southern New Hampshire University. What started out as a plan to write something fairly straightforward has basically careened into full-on science fantasy. Also alternate history and Hopepunk am I saying that right?

The plan is to get it sold to a traditional publisher, but barring that, I will put it up for sale on Amazon. I know it is going to be a hard sell. It has so many insane concepts and story lines that the book doesn’t necessarily fall any one genre in a neat package. I’m sure every new author probably says or thinks this, but to the best of my knowledge, The Bubblegum People is a truly unique story filled with magic and aliens and gangsters. It’s one part Yo Gabba Gabba, Godfather, Entourage, Pulp Fiction, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and even a little Bill and Ted. Think “Teletubbies doing drugs while using magic powers as they party to extreme heights in Los Angeles”.

I hope people read it.