The Wasp Child

Rasmussen’s debut novella, a clever but clumsy dark sci-fi spin on Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, paints a familiar picture of a misfit preteen. In the research colony of Meridian, Kesh, a strange fosterling, is bullied by his classmates for being unable relate to the adults who are trying to raise him and struggling with his schoolwork. After cruel fellow students dump him in the eerie rainforest surrounding the colony, Kesh is rescued by a queen sansik, a huge, intelligent native insect, who takes him back to her hive and slathers him with a foul-smelling goo that begins his transformation into the parasite wasp he’s secretly been all along. With the help of “Queenie” and Aster, his only human friend, Kesh navigates his bizarre coming-of-age; unable to exist between the human and sansik worlds, he must find his way to adapt to life with alien beings rather than commercially oriented humans. Horrific buggy details occasionally make this sincere parable stomach-turning reading, but there’s no denying the atmospherics. It’s imperfect, but entertaining. (Mar.)