Despite being in space for less than 10 minutes, reports are pouring in that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin venture into outer space has already caused several galaxy-wide brick-and-mortar bookstores to close up shop.
“As of three minutes ago, we just sold our last plutonium copy of If You Give a Cthulhu a Wookie,” said Ktai-Erfocna, owner of independent bookstore chain Intergalactic Borders on Planet Golatron. “Honestly, I’m surprised we even made it this long. ZXYarnes & Wobble in the next galaxy over laid off all its workers as soon as they heard Bezos was on his way out here. We had a good millennia-long run. Nice thing is I can now get back to my hobby of building model starships that blow up Death Stars like the one Amazon’s already building right over there.”
One nearby independent intergalactic bookstore on Mars says they’re determined to hold out against the overwhelming competition from Amazon, though.
“Did you see how long that little wiener just lasted in space?” Third Place from the Sun Books owner Marvin Marxian. “He’s all hype and no telepathy. Last time I checked what everyone was thinking on Earth without asking, buying books from people who love books around other people who love books will never go out of style. And when the Earth meets its demise by either global warming or me finally figuring out how to blow it up, I’ll own the only independent bookstore in the galaxy the humanoids can flock to – isn’t that delightful?”
At press time, the Mars Rover was picking up satellite imagery of Marxian holding a lit stick of Acme dynamite on the construction site of a new Amazon Books store a moment too long and blowing himself up.
