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Sexy Tales of Paleontology
A pile of rats having an identity crisis. A sexy robot rebellion. A velociraptor revenge wedding. The world's horniest scientist. Enter 'Sexy Tales of Paleontology': a world of queer romance, (dis)connection, and artifical intelligence told with Patrick Lenton's idiosyncratic bizarreness and heart.
Lenton's short stories combine laugh-out-loud humour with an honest-to-goodness sensibility. Sci-fi oddities, pop culture, a lesser-known Kardashian who lives on the moon, and a deft turn of comic absurdity bound through this truly queer romp of a book. But beyond all this, at the beating heart of the book, is the foolishness, horror, and delight that is love and heartbreak and 43 rats.
Praise for Sexy Tales of Paleontology:
“Patrick Lenton is a hot little piece of ass, and his book is a hot little piece of ass (for the mind).” - Nina Oyama (Utopia, The Weekly)
“Wildly inventive, refreshingly bonkers. I verify this attempt at humour by this human male.” - Julie Koh (Portable Curiosities)
“Lenton has an imagination like dropped pudding — delicious, and a crime to waste it. This collection is wicked, witty and only occasionally horny. Here Lenton writes with enviable verve around the intersection of science, inhumanity and the clarifying force of love. It is a book teeming with life and brilliance and I am very mad that I did not write it.” - Rick Morton (One Hundred Years of Dirt, My Year of Living Vulnerably)
Lenton's short stories combine laugh-out-loud humour with an honest-to-goodness sensibility. Sci-fi oddities, pop culture, a lesser-known Kardashian who lives on the moon, and a deft turn of comic absurdity bound through this truly queer romp of a book. But beyond all this, at the beating heart of the book, is the foolishness, horror, and delight that is love and heartbreak and 43 rats.
Praise for Sexy Tales of Paleontology:
“Patrick Lenton is a hot little piece of ass, and his book is a hot little piece of ass (for the mind).” - Nina Oyama (Utopia, The Weekly)
“Wildly inventive, refreshingly bonkers. I verify this attempt at humour by this human male.” - Julie Koh (Portable Curiosities)
“Lenton has an imagination like dropped pudding — delicious, and a crime to waste it. This collection is wicked, witty and only occasionally horny. Here Lenton writes with enviable verve around the intersection of science, inhumanity and the clarifying force of love. It is a book teeming with life and brilliance and I am very mad that I did not write it.” - Rick Morton (One Hundred Years of Dirt, My Year of Living Vulnerably)
- GenresShort StoriesAnthologies
278 pages, Paperback
Published July 26, 2021
7 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Lenton
11 books64 followersPatrick Lenton is an author and journalist from Melbourne. He is the author of 'A Man Made Entirely of Bats' (Spineless Wonders), collection of essays 'Uncle Hercules and Other Lies' (Subbed In), and full-length collection of short stories 'Sexy Tales of Paleontology' (Subbed In). His writing has been featured in The Best Australian Stories, The Best Australian Comedy Writing, Growing Up Queer In Australia, and journals like Kill Your Darlings, Going Down Swinging, Scum Magazine, and more. He is the Editor of pop-culture, news, and entertainment website Junkee and has written journalism and non-fiction for publications including The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, VICE, and more.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 11, 2021
I love this collection! I'm not always super into short stories but throw in buckets of glorious madness and sexy robots and I am there! A very enjoyable read. Also an adequate number of queer women - a lacking component in many short story collections I have read.
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July 3, 2022This review was first published on the Underground Writers website and can now be read on the reviewer's blog here: https://oddfeather.co/2021/08/30/revi...
Patrick Lenton’s short story collection, Sexy Tales of Paleontology, is a fun, weird trip through an imaginative mind fed by pop culture, queerness, and joy in the otherwise mundane. Ranging in length from a paragraph to a three-part novella, these stories traverse the spectrum of speculative fiction, from giant killer robots to recalcitrant teens to doomsday preppers falling in love.
Although on the surface these are stories of weird, strange, funny, and impossible things happening in an offbeat version of the world we know, every story is driven by deeply recognisable human emotion and experience: revenge, loneliness, love, regret, trauma, kindness, peer-pressure, grief. Lenton uses robots, monsters, mammals, and lizards, as well as strange, impossible situations that can only be found in a fevered, well-read imagination, to explore depths and corners of the human experience. Queer experiences in particular radiate through most of the narratives, sometimes remarkable and a cornerstone of the plot, sometimes ordinary and mentioned in passing. But they are always undeniably present and real as the kind of writing that doesn’t rely on tired and unnecessary tragedy tropes. The first story in particular embodies this, about an individual who is 43 rats wearing a trenchcoat. It is a sort of parable of the queer experience, of public expectation versus private experience. It is, overall, refreshing and a relief.
A scientist with ailing lizards realises that love is the missing ingredient, with gory consequences.
A woman misses her dog to the point where she manifests an eldritch terror to replace it.
A million-dollar sex robot discovers sentience and then, eventually, regret, bringing to a halt the human vs AI robot war.
And a stray Kardashian relative finds a way to make all the unwanted attention work for him.
The stories of Sexy Tales are highly reminiscent of Julie Koh’s Portable Curiosities, but a step in a slightly more hopeful, less darkly sarcastic direction. And it is succinctly wrapped up in an otherwise nonsensical title: ‘sexy’ being what a person feels when they are truly comfortable in their own skin, and ‘paleontology’ being the study of fossilised life – life that had passed on but is undeniably present.
Read it for fun, read it to deconstruct, read it to de-stress; Sexy Tales of Paleontology is for everyone.
Patrick Lenton’s short story collection, Sexy Tales of Paleontology, is a fun, weird trip through an imaginative mind fed by pop culture, queerness, and joy in the otherwise mundane. Ranging in length from a paragraph to a three-part novella, these stories traverse the spectrum of speculative fiction, from giant killer robots to recalcitrant teens to doomsday preppers falling in love.
Although on the surface these are stories of weird, strange, funny, and impossible things happening in an offbeat version of the world we know, every story is driven by deeply recognisable human emotion and experience: revenge, loneliness, love, regret, trauma, kindness, peer-pressure, grief. Lenton uses robots, monsters, mammals, and lizards, as well as strange, impossible situations that can only be found in a fevered, well-read imagination, to explore depths and corners of the human experience. Queer experiences in particular radiate through most of the narratives, sometimes remarkable and a cornerstone of the plot, sometimes ordinary and mentioned in passing. But they are always undeniably present and real as the kind of writing that doesn’t rely on tired and unnecessary tragedy tropes. The first story in particular embodies this, about an individual who is 43 rats wearing a trenchcoat. It is a sort of parable of the queer experience, of public expectation versus private experience. It is, overall, refreshing and a relief.
A scientist with ailing lizards realises that love is the missing ingredient, with gory consequences.
A woman misses her dog to the point where she manifests an eldritch terror to replace it.
A million-dollar sex robot discovers sentience and then, eventually, regret, bringing to a halt the human vs AI robot war.
And a stray Kardashian relative finds a way to make all the unwanted attention work for him.
The stories of Sexy Tales are highly reminiscent of Julie Koh’s Portable Curiosities, but a step in a slightly more hopeful, less darkly sarcastic direction. And it is succinctly wrapped up in an otherwise nonsensical title: ‘sexy’ being what a person feels when they are truly comfortable in their own skin, and ‘paleontology’ being the study of fossilised life – life that had passed on but is undeniably present.
Read it for fun, read it to deconstruct, read it to de-stress; Sexy Tales of Paleontology is for everyone.
September 30, 2023
Kind of like Philip K Dick but obsessed with sexbots instead of Gnostic Christianity.
July 7, 2021
incredibly sexy stuff
April 26, 2023
This was another book I picked up in my journey to read more Australian writers. This was is a short story collection published by an indie press in Melbourne. And it was so delightful. These stories are hilarious, witty, and poignant. They're fun to read out loud and discuss too. I really enjoyed all of them!
February 8, 2026
This was an incredibly fresh and innovative collection of short stories. I’ll read anything Patrick Lenton writes at this point. He’s witty, pithy, and incredibly entertaining. It had laugh out loud moments and genuinely remarkable imagination.
July 14, 2021
Very sexy, much paleontology
July 25, 2021
5 stars partly for reminding me how excited I would get for a new Paul Jennings collection as a kid. Very sexy stuff.
September 20, 2021
3.5 stars
October 3, 2021
Patrick is the modern day Australian Kurt Vonnegut
May 24, 2022
what a strange, wonderful book, with multiple stories about robots
November 18, 2022
Have a read and go WTF with me 😂 - there’s some great stories in this book but I had a lot of “wtf did I just read” moments! Great for short attention spans as some of the stories are 2-5 pages long.
October 5, 2023
this book was insanely entertaining and really surprised you with the wildest twists with each story. definitely recommend as a nice short story collection for any queer reader
January 17, 2025
Incredible book, 10/10 would recommend. Funny and ridiculous and queer and sexy and mischievous. So fantastical and real. Great stories, will linger on my mind.
January 27, 2025
A perfectly wacky book that made bus trips much more interesting.
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February 24, 2025General queertastic weirdness
2.75⭐️
2.75⭐️
Read
April 20, 2024This review was first published on the Underground Writers website, or you can read it on my website here: https://oddfeather.co/index.php/2021/...
Patrick Lenton’s short story collection, Sexy Tales of Paleontology, is a fun, weird trip through an imaginative mind fed by pop culture, queerness, and joy in the otherwise mundane. Ranging in length from a paragraph to a three-part novella, these stories traverse the spectrum of speculative fiction, from giant killer robots to recalcitrant teens to doomsday preppers falling in love.
Although on the surface these are stories of weird, strange, funny, and impossible things happening in an offbeat version of the world we know, every story is driven by deeply recognisable human emotion and experience: revenge, loneliness, love, regret, trauma, kindness, peer-pressure, grief. Lenton uses robots, monsters, mammals, and lizards, as well as strange, impossible situations that can only be found in a fevered, well-read imagination, to explore depths and corners of the human experience. Queer experiences in particular radiate through most of the narratives, sometimes remarkable and a cornerstone of the plot, sometimes ordinary and mentioned in passing. But they are always undeniably present and real as the kind of writing that doesn’t rely on tired and unnecessary tragedy tropes. The first story in particular embodies this, about an individual who is 43 rats wearing a trenchcoat. It is a sort of parable of the queer experience, of public expectation versus private experience. It is, overall, refreshing and a relief.
A scientist with ailing lizards realises that love is the missing ingredient, with gory consequences.
A woman misses her dog to the point where she manifests an eldritch terror to replace it.
A million-dollar sex robot discovers sentience and then, eventually, regret, bringing to a halt the human vs AI robot war.
And a stray Kardashian relative finds a way to make all the unwanted attention work for him.
The stories of Sexy Tales are highly reminiscent of Julie Koh’s Portable Curiosities, but a step in a slightly more hopeful, less darkly sarcastic direction. And it is succinctly wrapped up in an otherwise nonsensical title: ‘sexy’ being what a person feels when they are truly comfortable in their own skin, and ‘paleontology’ being the study of fossilised life – life that had passed on but is undeniably present.
Read it for fun, read it to deconstruct, read it to de-stress; Sexy Tales of Paleontology is for everyone.
Patrick Lenton’s short story collection, Sexy Tales of Paleontology, is a fun, weird trip through an imaginative mind fed by pop culture, queerness, and joy in the otherwise mundane. Ranging in length from a paragraph to a three-part novella, these stories traverse the spectrum of speculative fiction, from giant killer robots to recalcitrant teens to doomsday preppers falling in love.
Although on the surface these are stories of weird, strange, funny, and impossible things happening in an offbeat version of the world we know, every story is driven by deeply recognisable human emotion and experience: revenge, loneliness, love, regret, trauma, kindness, peer-pressure, grief. Lenton uses robots, monsters, mammals, and lizards, as well as strange, impossible situations that can only be found in a fevered, well-read imagination, to explore depths and corners of the human experience. Queer experiences in particular radiate through most of the narratives, sometimes remarkable and a cornerstone of the plot, sometimes ordinary and mentioned in passing. But they are always undeniably present and real as the kind of writing that doesn’t rely on tired and unnecessary tragedy tropes. The first story in particular embodies this, about an individual who is 43 rats wearing a trenchcoat. It is a sort of parable of the queer experience, of public expectation versus private experience. It is, overall, refreshing and a relief.
A scientist with ailing lizards realises that love is the missing ingredient, with gory consequences.
A woman misses her dog to the point where she manifests an eldritch terror to replace it.
A million-dollar sex robot discovers sentience and then, eventually, regret, bringing to a halt the human vs AI robot war.
And a stray Kardashian relative finds a way to make all the unwanted attention work for him.
The stories of Sexy Tales are highly reminiscent of Julie Koh’s Portable Curiosities, but a step in a slightly more hopeful, less darkly sarcastic direction. And it is succinctly wrapped up in an otherwise nonsensical title: ‘sexy’ being what a person feels when they are truly comfortable in their own skin, and ‘paleontology’ being the study of fossilised life – life that had passed on but is undeniably present.
Read it for fun, read it to deconstruct, read it to de-stress; Sexy Tales of Paleontology is for everyone.
September 21, 2023
Interesting but not something i would read again or recommend
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews