The Tragedy of King Leere — Steven L. Peck

Like those three dimensional objects that look entirely different depending on the angle from which you view them, this novel presents a number of faces. From one direction you will see a conventional adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear set in the American West. However, if you view the book a few steps to the north, you will see a novel that is more Margaret Atwood than Shakespeare: a post-climate-change-catastrophe tale about a transgenic-goat rancher named Leere, the self-styled King of the La Sals Mountain Range in Utah. And from another angle still, the novel becomes a meditation on ecology, land, place, and consciousness! And like most of the really great adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, there are transgenic porcupines and semi-sentient BattleDredge attack robots. Funny, tragic, and timely, King Leere explores futures that may materialize sooner than we think.