Last Sunday I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival with the very cool Dan Braum, and we hung out at the Small Beer Press booth for a while. Gavin Grant, the shrewdest capitalist and slickest salesman in all of New England, talked me into buying The Ant King, Ben Rosenbaum’s new collection of short stories (as well as some other goodies).
I started thumbing through it, and ended up reading a whole story, and then read another whole story, and now it seems to have bumped its way to the front of the line ahead of two other books I’d been in the middle of reading before. (Alway a sign that a book is hottt stuff with at least three t’s.)
In the title story, this poor guy’s girlfriend turns into a hundred gumballs just when they were about to have a romantic first-kiss moment, and then he has to rescue her from the evil Ant King’s hideout deep in the bowels of a water park. How can a story not be amazing with a plot like that?
In another story, an orange takes over the world. Metaphor?
Ben’s stories (we Bens have to stick together) are definitely of the slipstream/surrealist school, of the best kind. A good surrealist story is like a good drag act: it bends conventions in unpredictable and interesting ways but never takes itself too seriously. Plus, sparkly outfits. That’s exactly what Ben Rosenbaum’s collection is like.
Bread & Magic 
I’m glad you liked it! Thanks for the kind words.
Sparkly unpredictable drag act is exactly what I was going for. Let me know how you like the rest!
Thanks for dropping by the site, Benjamin. You are our first official VIP guest! My reading has alas been slowed down a bit by this thing known as my “day job,” but I’m still managing to read at least one story a day on the subway. “Biographical Notes to ‘A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Airplanes'” was especially pleasurable. The zeppelins, wisdom ants, and espionage are wonderful mixed in with the philosophical digressions on the nature of causality. Probably one of the most engaging and imaginative alternate history shorts I’ve ever read. I love the way it goes beyond the usual “if x happened differently, then perhaps y would also have gone differently” – and then both the substance and form of the story embody that approach.
Excellent! I’m glad you liked it, and the alternate me would be too, if he, you know, existed. 🙂