The Ant King: and Other Stories - Softcover

Rosenbaum, Benjamin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931520534 ISBN 13: 9781931520539

Publisher: Small Beer Press, 2008

Synopsis

"Rosenbaum's The Ant King and Other Stories contains invisible cities and playful deconstructions of the form. In "Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, With Air-Planes,' by Benjamin Rosenbaum"—yes, his name is part of the title—the author imagines a world whose technologies and philosophies differ wildly from ours. The result is a commentary on the state of the art that is itself the state of the art."
—Los Angeles Times Favorite Books of 2008

* "Give him some prizes, like, perhaps, "best first collection" for this book."
—Booklist (Starred review, Top 10 SF Books of the Year)

"Featuring outlandish and striking imagery throughout—a woman in love with an elephant, an orange that ruled the world—this collection is a surrealistic wonderland."
—Publishers Weekly

"Rosenbaum proves he’s capable of sustained fantasy with "Biographical Notes," a steampunkish alternate history of aerial piracy, and "A Siege of Cranes," a fantasy about a battle between a human insurgent and the White Witch that carries decidedly modern undercurrents.... Perhaps none of the tales is odder than "Orphans," in which girl-meets-elephant, girl-loses-elephant."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Urbane without being arch, sweet without being maudlin, mysterious without being cryptic."—Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

"Lively, bizarre, and funny as well as dark, sinister, and sensual."
—Boston Phoenix

A dazzling, postmodern debut collection of pulp and surreal fictions: a writer of alternate histories defends his patron’s zeppelin against assassins and pirates; a woman transforms into hundreds of gumballs; an emancipated children’s collective goes house hunting.

Benjamin Rosenbaum’s stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and McSweeney’s, been translated into fourteen languages, and listed in The Best American Short Stories 2006. Shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula awards, Rosenbaum’s work has been reprinted in Harper’s and The Year’s Best Science Fiction. He lives in Switzerland with his family.

About this title

About the Author

Benjamin Rosenbaum (benjaminrosenbaum.com) grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and received degrees in computer science and religious studies from Brown University. His work has been published in Harper's, Nature, McSweeney's, F&SF, Asimov's, Interzone, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and Strange Horizons. Small Beer Press published his chapbook Other Cities. He and his family live in Switzerland.

From Publishers Weekly

Plausible-fabulist Rosenbaum's debut collection of 17 short stories is inconsistent, but it includes some speculative gems. The thought-provoking Start the Clock takes place in a near future where a virus has stopped the human aging process, forcing millions of people to live forever as preadolescents. The title story is an absurdist masterwork about a man in search of a woman who has been turned into yellow gumballs, abducted and hidden away in a lair guarded by a giant roach. Most notable is World Fantasy Award–finalist A Siege of Cranes, which blends elements of horror, epic fantasy and religious mythology in the tale of a desperate man seeking a nightmarish enemy that has destroyed his village and killed his wife and child. Featuring outlandish and striking imagery throughout—a woman in love with an elephant, an orange that ruled the world—this collection is a surrealistic wonderland. (Aug.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Small Beer Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1931520534
• ISBN 13: 9781931520539
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272