The Lion and the Aardvark

These confusing times of Internet trolls, one-percenters, toxic fame, and impending singularity cry out for clarity—the clarity found in Aesop’s 2,500 year old fables.

70 writers from across the creative spectrum bring their modern sensibilities to this classic format. Zombies, dog-men and robot wasps mingle with cats, coyotes and cockroaches. Parables ranging from the punchy to the evocative, the wry to the disturbing, explore eternal human foibles, as displaced onto lemmings, trout, and racing cars. But beware— in these terse explorations of desire, envy, and power, certitude isn’t always as clear as it looks.

The full and phenomenal extent of the writers:

Peter M. BALL * Robert Jackson BENNETT * Jason L. BLAIR

Emily Care BOSS * Nadia BULKIN * Jesse BULLINGTON * Susannah DAINOW

Richard DANSKY * Graeme DAVIS * Jim DEMONAKOS * Steve DEMPSEY

Dennis DETWILLER * Julia Bond ELLINGBOE * Ann EWAN * Ray FAWKES

Chad FIFER * Matt FORBECK * Peter FREEMAN * Katarina GLIGORIJEVIC * Ed GREENWOOD * Dave GROSS

Rob HEINSOO * Tania HERSHMAN * Will HINDMARCH * Jonathan L. HOWARD * Stephen Graham JONES

John KOVALIC * Kathryn KUITENBROUWER * Chris LACKEY * Livia LLEWELLYN * Laura LUSH * Nick MAMATAS

Adam MAREK * Julie McARTHUR * Janqui MEHTA * Silvia MORENO-GARCIA * Sarah NEWTON * Daniel PERRY

Sandy PETERSEN * JT PETTY * Ursula PFLUG * Wena POON * Epidiah RAVACHOL * Aaron ROSENBERG

Gareth RYDER-HANRAHAN * Richard SCARSBROOK * Ekaterina SEDIA * Greg STAFFORD * Greg STOLZE

Molly TANZER * Benj TENTT * Sue TRAIN * Genevieve VALENTINE * Monica VALENTINELLI * Halli VILLEGAS

Kyla WARD * Chuck WENDIG * Heather WOOD * Jim ZUB.

Cover & interior illustrations by Shel Kahn.