The Ant King

June 23, 2008
“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.

Starred review from August 1, 2008
Its pretty irritating that, while Rosenbaum has had stories nominated for virtually every sf and fantasy award worth receiving, he hasnt won any yet. Since hes both genres most adroit story writer inages, that doesnt seem right. He can satirize the Silicon Valley dynamic to a T in a surrealist fairy tale: see The Ant King. He can rush through a multivolume fantasy saga in a mere 30 pages without sacrificing a single stock character: see A Siege of Cranes. He kicks butt on the beloved-slash-dreaded narrative and narratorial conventions of Austen and her spawn: see his Sense and Sensibilityand dont miss the Lovecraft allusion. He handles the metareality thing direly and lightly at the same time: see The House beyond Your Sky. He whips up a newly discovered book of the Hebrew Bible to attest Gods mercy even to monsters: see The Book of Jashar. He conjures a bioengineered future in which choice has trumped ontogeny: see Start the Clock. Moreover, in each story (there are 17 in all), he changes tone on a dime without shattering continuity. So give him some prizes, like, perhaps, best first collection for this book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)