A dazzling postmodern debut collection of pulp and surreal fictions spanning the weirdest corners of literature and science fiction. The skill and strangeness on display in The Ant King and Other Stories are comparable to the debuts of Ted Chiang, Kelly Link, and Jonathan Lethem. These are stories that explore family, loyalty, power, and memory: 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.