In "The Other Animals", a worm breaks up with a snail, a vulture contemplates the act of killing, a whale falls in love with a song, and more.
This funny, moving collection of eight stories - written by a crew of scientists, literary writers, and comics, and informed by animal behavioural science - explores what animal perspectives can show humans about the world we all share. It includes stories by Daniel Mallory Ortberg ("Something That May Shock and Discredit You"), R. Eric Thomas ("Here for It"), Ken Liu ("The Paper Menagerie"), Lulu Miller ("Why Fish Don't Exist"), Kelly Weinersmith ("Soonish"), Shruti Swamy (O'Henry Award winner), Max McClure ("Grist"), and Kaeli Swift ("Biosphere").
Cover art by Noah Grigni.
***
(Audible Originals, 16 January 2020, 3 hours 10 minutes, audiobook, @audibleuk Original Podcast, free with membership, various narrators)
***
***
This was a mixed bag of short stories for me. Unfortunately, for the most part they just didn't work. I'm not sure why. I loved the idea behind the stories, writing from the POV of a variety of animals. In many of the stories, this POV simply doesn't work, making the story a bit unclear and confusing. Too many times, any sense of writing from the POV of an animal is lost entirely a couple of minutes into the story. The final story, Rectangles is the only one to get it right.