Postal

In 1997, game studio Running With Scissors released its debut title, Postal, an isometric shooter aimed at shocking an imagined pearl-clutching public. The game was crass, gory, and dumb—all of which might have been forgivable if the game had been any fun to play. Postal gained enough notoriety from riding the wave of public outrage to warrant a sequel. And DLC. And a remake. And, perhaps most surprising of all, a Golden-Raspberry-winning feature film adaptation directed by the infamous Uwe Boll. In this thoughtful and hilarious tag-team performance, Brock Wilbur & Nathan Rabin probe the fascinatingly troubled game and film for what each can tell us about shock culture & mass shootings, interviewing the RWS team and even Boll himself for answers. Like it or not, Postal is the franchise that won't die—no matter how many molotov cocktails you throw at it.

'Always push your luck because no one else would push it for you.' Imprisoned in Ankh-Morpork, con artist Moist von Lipwig is offered a choice: to be executed or to accept a job as the city's Postmaster General. It's a tough decision, but he's already survived one hanging and isn't in the mood to try it again. The Post Office is down on its luck: beset by mountains of undelivered mail, eccentric employees, and a dangerous secret order. To save his skin, Moist will need to restore the postal service to its former glory, with the help of tough talking activist Adora Belle Dearheart. Who happens to be very attractive, in an 'entire womanful of anger' kind of way. But there's new technology to compete against and an evil chairman who will stop at nothing to delay Ankh-Morpork's post for good . . . 'One of the best expressions of his unstoppable flow of comic invention' The Times Going Postal is the first book in the Moist von Lipwig series, but you can read the Discworld novels in any order.

“[Pratchett’s] books are almost always better than they have to be, and Going Postal is no exception, full of nimble wordplay, devious plotting and outrageous situations, but always grounded in an astute understanding of human nature.” — San Francisco Chronicle The 33rd installment in acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, a splendid send-up of government, the postal system, and everything that lies in between. Suddenly, condemned arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig found himself with a noose around his neck and dropping through a trapdoor into . . . a government job? By all rights, Moist should be meeting his maker rather than being offered a position as Postmaster by Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork. Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may prove an impossible task, what with literally mountains of decades-old undelivered mail clogging every nook and cranny of the broken-down post office. Worse still, Moist could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it means taking on the gargantuan, greedy Grand Trunk clacks communication monopoly and its bloodthirsty piratical headman. But if the bold and undoable are what's called for, Moist's the man for the job—to move the mail, continue breathing, get the girl, and specially deliver that invaluable commodity that every being, human or otherwise requires: hope. The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Going Postal is the first book in the Moist von Lipwig series.

This book examines the economics of the postal sector through three lenses: snapshot and trends, models, and opportunities. In the years to come, the Universal Postal Union plans to develop its role as a knowledge centre for the postal sector from these perspectives. At this time of radical transformation of the postal sector, it is important to understand how the sector has evolved historically, how it is connected with the economic system, and where it is heading. This book thus first presents a long-run view, focusing on incumbent operators over the last three decades, and then describes their development in the last five to ten years. It also offers a real-time picture based on daily “big postal data”, revealing one of the greatest opportunities for the sector in terms of forecasting and product design.

In 1889 uniformed post-boys were discovered moonlighting in a West End brothel frequented by men of the upper classes. "The Cleveland Street Scandal" erupted and Victorian Britain faced the possibility that the Post Office-a bureaucratic backbone of nation and empire-was inspiring and servicing subversive sexual behavior. However, the unlikely alliance between sex and the postal service was not exactly the news the sensational press made it out to be. Postal Pleasures explores the relationship between illicit sex and the Royal Mail from reforms initiated in 1840 up to the imperial end of the nineteenth century. With a combination of historical details and literary analyses, Kate Thomas illustrates how the postal network, its uniformed employees, and its material trappings-envelopes, postmarks, stamps-were used to signal and circulate sexual intrigue. For many, the idea of an envelope promiscuously jostling its neighbors in a post boy's bag, or the notion that secrets passed through the eyes and fingers of telegraph girls, was more stimulating than the actual contents of correspondence. Writers like Anthony Trollope, Eliza Lynn Lynton, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, and others, invoked the postal system as both an instrument and a metaphor for sexual relations that crossed and double-crossed lines of class, marriage, and heterosexuality. Postal Pleasures adds a new dimension to studies of the era as it uncovers the unlikely linkage between the Victorian Post Office and the queer networks it inspired.