Reality is boring. Steven Millhauser provides an alternative.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s latest book, “Dangerous Laughter,” is a collection of 13 short stories so imaginative they seem almost disdainful of the ordinary.

Like much of his work over the past 37 years — 11 books and counting — the stories in “Dangerous Laughter” center on fictional inventions and societal movements that escalate in absurdity until they either contradict themselves or collapse entirely.

The book opens with “Cat ‘n’ Mouse,” a story that mimics the Tom and Jerry cartoon, complete with sticks of dynamite, mouse traps and numerous cat decapitations. From the get-go, this opening ‘cartoon’ lets the reader know what they’re in for: the wild imagination of Millhauser.

Although Millhauser won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his novel “Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer,” he is equally recognized for his inventive short fiction. As a case in point, the author’s 1989 short story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” was adapted into the 2006 film The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti.

Millhauser’s “Dangerous Laughter,” released in paperback by Vintage ($15) last month, is broken into three major sections — “Vanishing Acts,” “Impossible Architectures” and “Heretical Histories” — all of which are based on the expansion of a single eccentric idea.

“The Dome” conceives a world in which domes of “transparent Viviglas” encapsulate houses, providing climate-controlled gardens and lawns. This concept, however, takes on a life of its own, progressing from domed houses, to blocks, to cities, on up.

In a similar narrative progression, “A Change in Fashion” describes a scenario in which a designer, Hyperion, popularizes a style of large, shapeless dresses that increasingly conceal their wearers’ bodies: “Women, who had gradually been disappearing into the hidden spaces of the new style, had at last become invisible.”

Millhauser’s stories are, however, more than bizarre fantasies. “Dangerous Laughter” is a multitasking work of fiction; entertaining, but with undertones of social criticism. In “The Wizard of West Orange,” a librarian, employed by a famous inventor known as the Wizard, gets involved in a series of experiments involving the haptograph, an instrument that simulates tactile sensations with remarkable precision. Like other stories in the collection, “The Wizard of West Orange” reveals both the wonders of invention and the dangers of obsession and the artificial.

Each story included in “Dangerous Laughter” entices the reader with fun and ridiculous concepts that grow increasingly complex — and scary — until the world is contained in a giant dome and women are wearing 50-pound dresses. What Millhauser’s collection represents, in essence, is a series of 13 laughable nightmares.

Reach A&E editor Joe Darda at arts@dailyuw.com.