This year’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer went to Yu, very deserving based on this story. Yu uses the metaphor of a wasp colony enslaving a bee hive in a thought-provoking, original way to discuss colonialism and rebellion.

Lovely, well-written short story about wasps and bees who can speak and write. There may be a political message embedded that I don't agree with, but I wasn't hit over the head with that message and felt that the author left space for me to have my own thoughts and interpretations. Very interesting read that's short but memorable.

Read it. You must read this...a short story. A political fable that has all the bits we love. Stunning. Beautifully written and a force to be reckoned with. I think this author is extremely talented and her tale so well developed I read in one go and took my attention from everything else I had been doing. Do yourself a favour and read Lily Yu! 4 stars.

4.5 stars for “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (2011, free at Clarkesworld). 2012 Hugo award nominee and 2011 Nebula award nominee (short story)The village of Yiwei has an uneasy truce with the many paper wasps that live in and around the village, until one day, when a boy throws a rock at a wasp’s nest, causes it to fall to the ground, and is badly stung. His angry mother scalds the fallen nest and kills the wasps inside.In this way it was discovered that the wasp n...

Bees are on the what now?Hugo- & Nebula-nominated short story. Read it here. Listen to it here.

"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" is an interesting and thought-provoking take on colonialism and rebellion, and it's a story that I've gone back and reread several times because I adore both the storyline and the lyrical quality of the writing. One of four Hugo Award nominees, and one of my favourite stories of the group. You can read this story here.

Currently reading through the hugo-nominated short stories for 2012. This is one of the two stories this year that doesn't deal with parent-child relationships and is set in a more visibly alien place. It lacks the obvious resolution found in other short stories but instead fills my thoughts with many strange and intricate images of wasps and bees at work.

"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu3+

This is one of the best short stories that I've read in a while. What I loved most about is that it's a statement presented in a clever way. I can't think of any type of reader who wouldn't enjoy this wonderful, beautifully written, tale.

4 starsSome stories are impossible to describe in a way that does them justice, and this is definitely one of those stories. I could say it’s about what happens when a swarm of wasps enslaves a nearby bee colony, and the bees, slowly but surely, begin to revolt, thanks to a group of secret anarchists living amongst them . . .I could say it’s a clever political allegory akin to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but with insects instead of pigs and an interest in imperialism instead of Marxism-Leninism...

This was definitely different from other short stories I have read. This narrative follows wasps and bees as they battle for power. A human makes a guest appearance once or twice, but the insects are the stars. I really enjoyed the details and descriptions. It is fascinating when you realize you were made to feel sympathy for a group of buzzing creatures with pointy needles attached to them. The parallels between the bees/wasps and humanity are also fun (but not so fun if you really think about

Pretty good even if a tad too simplistic.

The story here by E. Lily Yu is worth five stars unto itself, a story on the politics of bees and wasps and the journeys that take some to new heights and leave others in a pile of dried husks. Yu surprises constantly, upping the stakes without ever making the insect life too alien...just enough. Speculative in its most sublime sense. I didn't much dig into the second story in here from Erin M. Hoffman, as it got mired too much in clunky world-building and never moved me along. A basic essay on

Originally posted at: http://thebookplank.blogspot.com/2015...I came across this story when I was look for World Fantasy Awards nominated and winning stories. The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees a WFA nominee back in 2012, it was further nominated for HUGO and Locus awards and won the Nebula award back in 2011. A whole lot of praise for E. Lily Yu, and it is well deserved. The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees is a hard story to place in a category, the best suited post would b...

Read as part of the 2012 Hugo voter packet.A very “heavy” (for lack of a better word) tale about the last hive of a special type of wasps (cartographers), who enslave a nearby bee hive and in exchange for servitude and tribute teach, the bees their knowledge. Such slavery combined with education leads to a not entirely unexpected outcome. Reading this, I had images of the British Empire at its peak, followed by its inevitable decline, and I’d be curious if American readers had similar colonialis...

Bizarrely brilliant. The relationship between wasps, bees, and humans in this story represents relationships that different countries and groups of people have had with one another over the course of the past several hundred years of history, i.e. colonization, imperialism, Orientalism, first-world exploitation of third-world countries, etc. The ending is a bit strange or obtuse, so you can read into it what you will; I think I was just left scratching my head.

Rating is solely for “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu, nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and other awards. An excellent story: "A fable-type of story about intelligent wasps and bees, with political overtones", per Tadiana -- though it comes to an abrupt ending. Recommmended. Online at http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/yu_04...

Borges and Calvino, and Macchiavelli. Charming, melancholy, detailed, vague, realistic, magical. The ending is very much up to your own personal take on the story. This short story will leave you pondering for days.One of four finalist for the 2012 Hugo Award: short story category.I classify this tale as a fantasy, but the author makes a compelling counterpoint. She states that the study of bees and wasps is a function of biology which is a science. Cartographer Wasps and Anarchist Bees is a wor...

Short story read online.Interesting use of hive insects to tell a story of colonization, oppression, and culture. I'm also interested that the author apparently considers it hard SF (see her comments at Clarkesworld). I don't know much about entomology, so I can't comment on the behavior of the insects, but there's a lot packed into the story. Well written, but didn't really stand out to me.

I feel like maybe I missed something here. Or maybe the 'something' just wasn't there. I liked the set-up, the conflict between the two insect species and the revolutionary faction amongst the bees. But I didn’t feel that it all pulled together.