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A gleeful Ant King rewards his faithful purple-fedora'd henchmen
Okay, the time has come to judge the Ant King Derivative Works Contest!
It's a hard thing to judge a contest with such a disparate bunch of differently ingenious entries. How do you compare a beautiful piece of electronic music to a Bulgarian translation of a short story? It's like comparing ants and oranges.
Nonetheless, I have to pick three winners, so here they are:
- I really love Stephen Plotkin's reimagining of the historical basis for the legend which became "A Siege of Cranes".
- I'm enchanted by Laurel Amberdine's composition "The Orange". Frankly, I'm picking this because I love the tune, and I'm honored that it's associated with "The Orange" in the composer's brain; I'm not sure I fully appreciate its connection to the actual story. (It sort of feels more like a soundtrack to the short story "The Ant King" than to "The Orange", but what do I know?)
- I also really like Sharon Rosa's "book cover" for "The Ant King: a california fairy tale"
If you guys can email me ("info" at this hostname) with your snail addresses, I will get you signed and doodled-upon books.
I'm delighted by the other entries as well: Arachne Jericho's Mobipocket version, Lise Andreasen's highlighting of the meta-narrative aspects of "Biographical Notes..." , David's band "A Siege of Cranes", Aaron DaMommio's fifteenth Other City, E's joke and Zvi's tarot deck proposal.
Because they are well established in the field and I've worked with them in the past, I feel like Petar Toushkov's Bulgarian translation of "Falling" and Starship Sofa's podcasts of The Ant King and (this week!) of The House Beyond Your Sky really deserve their own "pro" category. I'm grateful as always for their work!
Last but not least, I am very excited about a derivative work which was not part of this contest: Nick Fox-Gieg's animated film of "The Orange":
Posted by benrosen at March 8, 2009 12:19 PM | Up to blogWe Are Ruled by the Company We Keep
One fateful, lazy day in early summer, a kitten was born who knew with absolute surety that it was destined to rule the world. For a year, it practiced as all kittens do. Finally, finally, God came to the kitten and said "Today, you are a cat. Go, and rule."
At last.
When the cat played, taifuns killed thousands. When the cat slept, men started wars. The cat would eat and eat, and famine swept the lands, until the people cried in their sorrow, "Dear God, have mercy!"
Finally, finally, God relented. After fourteen years, the cat died as all kittens do. Why God chose an orange next no one knows, but for a time there was perfect peace until one fateful, lazy day in early summer, it was eaten by a friend.
peace
Matt
