In his new book, "Why Bad Things Happen to Good Parrots," Arik Bjorn, creator of Pastor Pillow and the "Christian Right Weekly Round-Up," is determined to dig his way to the center of the theological mountain-even if all he has is a trusty garden trowel: "I have always wanted to aim my keyboard directly at the Creator and ask several pointed questions not about how to live, but about why we are alive." In the title essay, "Why Bad Things Happen to Good Parrots," Bjorn presents a heartfelt reflection 20 years in the making on Theodicy, or the Problem of Evil, "under the collective shadow of Aslan, Frodo and Freddy Kreuger." In "Magic Chickens, Lemon Seeds & a Universe Sans Unicorns," he wonders why the Creator presented us with this Universe, so absent in miraculous lemon trees, when human beings seem so good at inventing more interesting ones. And with "The Science Fair at the Edge of the Universe," Bjorn contemplates Creation prequels, such as a divine spicy midnight snack that may have led to the Big Bang. In the concluding short story, "Vonnegut Lives," the author makes up for the fact that writer Kurt Vonnegut left our Little Blue Planet without appropriate ballyhoo.