Available Now: Two Novels by Rob Brownell
Invention Is a Mother, published Nov 2022
Care Give or Take, published Feb 2025
NEW February 2025!
Clagett is dying, paralyzed by ALS. His wife Akimbo has reached her limit as his caregiver. Desperate for assistance, they stumble into the foreign world of care providers... where, in their case, the caregivers are literally from a foreign world.
Caregivers upend their peaceful country life. Clagett struggles to rely on strangers who don't comprehend his needs. Akimbo resents their invasive presence.
Their comical yet heartfelt trials lay bare the outlandish complexities of providing care for a loved one.
Published February 2025
Rob’s First Novel!
Shaughnessy is a passive bystander to his own life. He sleeps on a rented couch and relies on his programmable identiTee to maintain a façade of the normalcy he’s spent his whole adult life avoiding.
When his father is sidelined by a disease that is either psychosomatic or fatal, Shaughnessy reluctantly agrees to replace him at work – literally.
The search for meaning in absurdity has never been more desperate. Or ridiculous!
Published November 2022
Awards for Invention Is a Mother
Chanticleer Humor/Satire, 2023
Chanticleer Science Fiction, 2023
Visionary Fiction Category
Humor/Comedy/Satire Category
American Legacy Book Awards, Visionary Fiction Category
Reviews of Invention Is a Mother
“Full of boozy wormholes, sentient appliances, multiple Jesuses, and many other colorful sci-fi abstractions, this book will make you think, feel, and smile.”
—Dan Marshall, Author of Home Is Burning
“Rob Brownell extends the subterfuge of our current world of avatars and on-screen personas a few steps into the future, and it’s a wonderfully terrible place. ”
— Alison Jean Lester, Author of Glide
“A quirky cast, an unlikely hero…fans of oddball science fiction are going to love Invention Is a Mother.”
—Bill Burnett, Co-Author of Designing Your Life
“A sharp, wickedly funny look at science, fiction, life, death, pitch meetings, insane flights of fancy and technology that will either kill you or save you. I loved it.”
—Will Leitch, author of How Lucky
Meet Rob Brownell
Rob Brownell worked as a product designer for thirty-five years before turning to his life-long passion of writing following his ALS diagnosis. The absurd humor oozing out of his writing is distilled from 100% authentic encounters in the corporate realm and 8 years living with ALS.
He is the author of two novels. Invention Is a Mother, published 2022, was written entirely using voice recognition software. Care Give or Take, published 2025, was written using eye tracking technology.
Rob passed away in February 2025, shortly after completing Care Give or Take.
The group warmed up, like a chorus running through scales, by sharply critiquing management’s business acumen and their understanding of the physical world. They followed that with particularly vicious commentary about the choice of font in the placeholder logo. When everyone was suitably incensed about their time being wasted, they set to the business of idea generation.
— Brainstorming, the psychotic break of engineering, Invention Is a Mother
She wanted to encourage him, but he was right. Overt strength of personality flowed down through the women in their family. He and their father were strong in the same way that quicksand is a danger—she understood it to be true but assumed she’d never see it for herself.
— Sammy thinks of Shaughnessy, Invention Is a Mother
JUICY GOSSIP!
BREAKING NEWS!
JUICY GOSSIP! BREAKING NEWS!
“It’s an orphan disease. It’s not called that because it would orphan your children, though that would be completely accurate. It’s called an orphan disease because it’s rare. The disease lacks market presence, so to speak.”
— The neurologist explains, Invention Is a Mother
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