Other Cities,
a Chapbook
Benjamin
Rosenbaum
First printing, November 2003, 48 pp.
$6
Order here
or send a check or a money order using this
form.
Quiz:
Which "Other City" Should You Live In?
No.6
in the Small Beer Press chapbook series
is Benjamin Rosenbaum's Other Cities. Twelve of the stories
in Other Cities
were previously published as
a weekly series on Strange
Horizons. The entire series is presented here for the
first time and each story is illustrated
with the art of Boston artist and architect Peter Reiss.
Cities are seemingly inevitable,
seductive, depressing, and inebriating. In his Other Cities
series Benjamin Rosenbaum takes us on a tour of fourteen
imaginary cities:
- from "The White
City" -- where two sisters fight one another and their
fate -- to Bellur -- which celebrates its censors --
- from Ponge -- that's
already enough about that -- to Zvlotsk -- where by 1912 detective
work accounted for a third of the economy
- from Jouiselle-aux-Chantes
-- the city of erotic forgetting --
to Stin -- the city
for those who are tired of other cities --
Rosenbaum's stories illuminate
the hidden corners of the world the train rider suspects exist
at the stop after theirs, the tourist knows the locals will
never reveal, and the mapmakers keep for themselves.
Reviews
"Rosenbaum's
fertile sense of invention and his sly humor ("Ponge, as
its inhabitants will tell you, is a thoroughly unattractive
city. 'Well,' they always say at the mention of any horrible
news, 'we do live in Ponge.'") make these parables a real
treat."
-- Asimov's
"Throughout Other
Cities, compressed insight and wonder are compressed into
but a handful of words. This small book's crisp design and illustrations
mirror the elegance of the writing: recommended."
-- Xerography Debt
"Charming..."
-- Locus
"I enthusiastically
urge you to get a copy and enjoy the exciting and odd metropolises
in Other Cities."
-- Washington
Science Fiction Association The WSFA Journal Dec. 2003
"And though the stories
are tiny, they do not disappoint as a result of their brevity.
When you leave one fantastic destination behind, there is another
city right around the corner."
-- Tangent
Online
Contents
The
White City
The City of Peace
Bellur
Ponge
Ahavah
Amea
Amaau
Ylla's
Choice
Zvlotsk
New
(n) Pernch
Maxis
Jouiselle-Aux-Chantes
Penelar
of the Reefs
The
Cities of Myrkhyr
Stin
25% of the gross revenues
from Other Cities will go to the Grameen Foundation USA
(see below). If you would like to donate more to the Grameen Foundation
when you buy Other Cities please use this link here and
fill in the amount (including $6 for the chapbook), thank you.
"Other
Cities by Ben Rosenbaum is a collection of fourteen gems,
expertly cut and highly polished. Each contains, within its myriad
facets, a metropolis, brimming with mystery, insight and wonder."
-- Jeffrey Ford (The Fantasy Writer's Assistant)
"Rosenbaum's
little book of cities is like a box of very good chocolates, picked
out by a dear friend with an intimate understanding of both confectionary
and you. These vignettes are urbane without being arch, sweet
without being maudlin, mysterious without being cryptic. Cities
are the pinnacle of human acheivment: if you have any doubt, read
this."
-- Cory Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and
A Place So Foreign and Eight More)
"Benjamin
Rosenbaum's miniature stories are like tiny arrows aimed straight
at the heart of Mystery."
-- Walter Jon Williams (Dread Empire's Fall: The Praxis)
"The
eloquence and poignancy of each of these stories astonished me.
"The City of Peace," alone, is enough to make one weep.
But when read as a whole, Other Cities is not only harrowing,
but exhilarating. It's a fearless exploration into both the heart
of darkness and the soul of hope. Here, despair and joy are neither
opposites nor antagonists -- but husband and wife, brother and
sister, yin and yang. In these Cities of Humanity, you won't meet
one without meeting the other."
-- Bradley Denton (One Day Closer to Death: Eight Stabs at
Immortality)
(Want to
see the rest of Bradley Denton's quote?)
About the author:
Benjamin
Rosenbaum is troubled but hopeful. He used to live near
Basel, Switzerland, but now he is moving back to the tangled
superhighways of Northern Virginia, with his wife Esther, his
daughter Aviva, and Aviva's imaginary friends: Kiko, Makke,
and the Happy Boy. His stories can be found in Asimov's,
Harper's, Argosy, F&SF, Strange Horizons, Vestal Review, McSweeney's,
The Infinite Matrix, and Lady
Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 11.
About the artist:
Peter Reiss was born in
Brooklyn, New York. He attended The Cooper Union in New York
City; Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy; and
the University of Virginia School of Architecture. His artwork
focuses on paintings of urban landscapes and abstracted aerial
views. He now lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife,
his son, and his cats.
About the Grameen Foundation USA:
25% of the gross revenues
from the sales of this book go to the Grameen Foundation USA,
which fights poverty all over the world by establishing banks
that loan very small amounts to very poor people to start businesses,
and helping them to coordinate and pool their resources. The
effect of microcredit loans is transformative rather than palliative:
every year Grameen-style loans lift hundreds of thousands of
people above the poverty line. Because of the high repayment
rate (typically over 95%), money donated to Grameen is highly
leveraged: each dollar donated will be loaned again and again.
As borrowers become successful in their businesses and begin
saving, a Grameen-style bank becomes independent of donations.
The original Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which loans $3.8 billion
dollars to 2.54 million very poor people, is now self-sufficient.
You can find out more on
their website.
Some of the stories in Other
Cities were
previously published in the following places:
The City of Peace, Bellur,
Ponge, Ahavah, Amea Amaau, Ylla's Choice, Zvlotsk, New (n) Pernch,
Maxis, Jouiselle-Aux-Chantes, Penelar of the Reefs, The Cities
of Myrkhyr, & Stin, Strange Horizons; The White City,
The Vestal Review. The
City of Peace appears here for the first time.
