Two Books, Infinite Universes, and One Extremely Loved Human Pet: Inside Our July Double Feature
July at Small Press Big Mouth Book Club is usually hot, strange, and at least a little unruly. This year, we decided to stop resisting the impulse and build the entire month around it. Our July selection is officially a Double Feature. Members will receive two books, read two distinct approaches to speculative storytelling, and join one larger conversation about love, identity, belonging, ambition, control, and care.
The first book is Jen & Gary’s Infinite (Quantum) Entanglements by Nick Gregorio, a multiversal romantic comedy filled with sex, violence, tenderness, grief, jokes, alternate realities, and the sort of tonal turns that should not work nearly as well as they do.
The second is Dave, the Space Pet by Rory AB Forrest, a forthcoming science-fiction satire about an awkward accountant who believes he has been chosen for a heroic galactic adventure. Dave is wrong about that. The aliens have adopted him as a pet.
Members will receive both books as part of July’s membership package. Because Dave, the Space Pet does not officially release until October, the club edition will be an advance reader copy. Small Press Big Mouth readers will have the opportunity to read it early, talk about it with Rory, and help begin the conversation surrounding the novel before publication.
Infinite Versions of Love
Jen & Gary’s Infinite (Quantum) Entanglements begins with a premise that is both enormous and deeply intimate: what happens when love is tested across multiple realities? Nick Gregorio takes “love comes in many forms” literally. The novel moves through multiversal possibilities while preserving a surprisingly clear emotional thread. Its world may be chaotic, but the chaos has a pulse. The book is vulgar and sincere. Violent and sweet. Funny and sad. Its genre-bending energy becomes more than spectacle because every strange variation gives the novel another way to examine intimacy, commitment, desire, and the stories people create around their relationships. The multiverse is not simply decorative. It becomes a mirror.
During July, we’ll examine how Nick controls the book’s rapidly changing tone without losing its emotional spine. We’ll also discuss what speculative structures allow writers to test about love that realism may not, and why a ridiculous scene can sometimes make the next sincere moment land even harder.
The Hero Who Is Actually a Pet
Dave, the Space Pet approaches identity from a different direction. Dave is an exhausted and socially awkward accountant whose life has not delivered the sense of importance he believes he deserves. When aliens abduct him, he interprets the experience through the most flattering story available: he has finally been chosen. To Dave, every new development confirms his heroic destiny. To the reader, the truth is obvious. The aliens are feeding him, training him, dressing him, monitoring him, and caring for him. Dave is not their galactic champion. He is their pet.
That gap between Dave’s interpretation and the reader’s understanding creates the novel’s comedy, but Rory AB Forrest does not stop at the joke. Dave’s self-deception opens a larger examination of masculinity, ambition, exceptionalism, hero worship, and the pressure to make one’s life meaningful through achievement.
The novel also raises a more complicated question: what if Dave’s new life is, in some ways, better?
He is controlled, but he is also cared for. He has lost authority, but he has gained routine, companionship, attention, and belonging. Dave continues to imagine himself inside a power fantasy even as the novel quietly asks whether being loved might offer more meaning than being important.
Why We Paired These Books
On the surface, one book is a chaotic multiversal romance and the other is an alien-abduction satire about human pethood. They still speak to each other. Both feature characters attempting to understand love through imperfect narratives. Both use speculative premises to make emotional patterns more visible. Both are deeply interested in the tension between how people imagine themselves and how they are actually behaving within their relationships.
Jen & Gary asks what remains recognizable when love changes form. Dave asks whether someone can recognize care when it does not resemble status, power, or destiny. Both novels are funny, strange, and willing to take large creative risks. Their wild premises also conceal real tenderness. That combination makes them ideal Small Press Big Mouth books and an even better summer pairing.
What July Members Receive
Every July member will receive:
• Jen & Gary’s Infinite (Quantum) Entanglements by Nick Gregorio
• An advance reader copy of Dave, the Space Pet by Rory AB Forrest
• Reader guides and discussion materials for both books
• Access to our member reading community
• Invitations to July discussions
• Access to the Double Feature Author Salon with Nick and Rory
• A replay of the salon after the live event
The Author Salon will take place on at the end of July. We’ll discuss tonal control, satire, dramatic irony, multiverses, masculinity, burnout, love, control, care, and the process of keeping an emotional heart visible beneath a book’s biggest jokes.
Members can submit questions for both authors in advance through the Discord.
Two books. Two authors. Multiple universes. One extremely confident human pet.
Welcome to July.
