Fiction. In this novel, by poet and essayist Mark Wallace, a scientist creates gilled human monstrosities that are also avatars of the possibility of imaginative transcendence. Experimentation in language and in the laboratory produce equally vertiginous results. "In these worlds, ideas and narratives flurry madly and wink out like sparks, the dead walk, and the monstrous is never far away. Part Lovecraft, part de Sade, part B-horror movie, part philosophy,...