review: The Ant King and other Stories by Benjamin Rosenbaum

The Ant King and other stories
Benjamin Rosenbaum
224 p.p.
Small Beer Press

Benjamin Rosenbaum is certainly no stranger to Beam Me Up. I have featured several of his truly entertaining short fiction in earlier programs. Thought provoking stories like "Start the Clock" and "The House Beyond Your Sky" have entertained me as well as Beam Me Up's listeners. With both of these excellent pieces of fiction included in the publication, sandwiched in between wildly funny urban fantasy "The Ant King" and the introspective science fiction offering "A Siege of Cranes" and you can see that Rosenbaum has pulled out the stops and plans to give you a tour de force look into how his fiction operates. It is clear that there were no thematic rules set. Where Start the Clock is a disturbing science fiction piece, stories like Red Leather Tassels is a technicolor dream sequence that defies classification. Many of the stories stand well on their own, however some are tied together is a type of centralized thread. Some stories are larger than life, yet others illuminate a single moment. The Ant King and other stories could be described as a resume of Rosenbaum's talents - however for me it was like the desert cart, each amazing bite building on what came before and promising so much more in the future.

If your Science Fiction tastes lean a bit toward the Speculative, I can promise you will not be disapointed with The Ant King and other Stories.

<- to purchase this book -> - <- purchase the ebook and save a tree ->

<- free download pdf -> (other formats are available)

<- Benjamin Rosembaum's web page ->

The Ant King and other Stories by Ben Rosenbaum now available under Creative Commons

Cory Doctorow writing in Boing Boing notes that: "The marvelous Small Beer Press has put the entirety of my (Ben Rosenbaum) new short-story collection The Ant King and Other Stories under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa license and made it downloadable in a number of formats.

For those of you that are living in caves...how are you reading this? ... anyway, Creative Commons is free with restrictions. The nc sa means non-commercial and sa is share alike, meaning you can pass out as many copies as you want, long as you don't sell em. What is a bit different is that there is no nd restrictions. Which doesn't mean you can rewrite it and call it something different, but you are allow to "change" it depending on how you plan on distributing. For example, I read "the House Beyond Your Sky" and "Start the Clock" on BMU, but that was a change that was acceptable. The book is full of great stories like "The Ant King" I highly recommend downloading the book. The wonderful thing is that the hard copy is available as well if you feel like reading without carting a crapload of tech with you.

<- Small Beer Press free book page ->

Ben Rosenbaum announces The Ant King and Other Stories out in August 2008

Benjamin Rosenbaum just sent me a note to let us know that his book of short stories will be out next year. Here is a piece of what he sent:

The big news (if I haven't told you already) is that my first full-length collection of short stories -- "The Ant King and Other Stories" -- is going to be published by Small Beer Press, best small
press EVAR, in August 2008.

I will let you know more as soon as I get anything new.