Probable Claus

Santa Claus isn't jolly anymore. He's a CEO.

For a century, Nick Claus has traded magic for metrics, optimizing the North Pole into a sterile corporate machine. But when he pushes the factory's "Joy-Per-Hour" efficiency to the breaking point, he doesn't just miss a quota...he blows the workshop off the map.

Now, the factory is in ashes, the elves are on strike, and the "Holigarchy" (the shadowy governing body of holiday figures), is threatening a hostile takeover.

To make matters worse, a Silicon Valley tech mogul named Sonny Yu has launched "Click-Mas(TM)," a disruptive rival service armed with an army of drones and an AI that predicts wishes before they happen. Sonny has the inventory Nick needs to save Christmas, but he isn't sharing.

Nick has one choice: Go off the books, off the grid, and onto the Permanently Naughty List.

He recruits a black-ops crew of "unmanageable assets" to pull off the greatest heist in history:

• Socket: A rogue engineer banished to the geothermal vents for building unauthorized rocket sleds.
• Tinsel: A deceptive gift-wrapper who can hide a Christmas tree in a sock box.
• Blaze: A reindeer grounded for fifty years for breaking the sound barrier and refusing to fly in formation.
• Flaherty: The Union Boss who just wants his pension-and an apology.

From high-speed chases in a stealth-titanium sleigh to a showdown in a server farm, Nick must outsmart an AI that knows everything, a military general hunting "The Anomaly," and a tech bro who thinks he can optimize the soul out of the holidays.

From the author of "A Kick In The Ads," the first fiction novel from Tim Burt delivers a high-octane, satirical adventure about what happens when you try to optimize magic, and why the best gifts can't be found in a spreadsheet.

(c)2025 Tim Burt Media, LLC. Published by CapeTownPress.com.