Excerpt from Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

In the time when the animals were men

In the time when the animals were men, Coyote was living in a certain place. "Haikya! I have gotten so tired of living here-­aikya. I am going to go out into the desert and cook." With this, Coyote took an RV and drove into the desert to set up a lab. He took along ten loaves of Wonder bread and fifty packets of ramen noodles. He took whiskey and enough pot to keep him going. He searched for a long time and found a good place. "Here, I will set up-­aikya! There is so much room! There is no one to bother me here!"

Coyote set to work. "Oh," he said, "haikya! I have so many tablets of pseudoephedrine! It took me so long to get! I have been driving around to those pharmacies for so long-­aikya!" He crushed the pseudo until it was a fine powder. He filled a beaker with wood spirit and swirled around the powder. He poured the mixture through filter papers to get rid of the filler. Then he set it on the warmer to evaporate. But Coyote forgot to check his thermometer and the temperature rose. It got hotter and hotter. "Haikya!" he said. "I need a cigarette-­aikya! I've done such a lot of hard work-­aikya!"

He lit a cigarette. There was an explosion. He died.

Cottontail Rabbit came past and touched him on the head with his staff. Coyote sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Honored Coyote!" said Cottontail Rabbit. "Close the door of the RV. Keep it closed. Do your smoking outside."

Coyote began to whine. "Ouch-­aikya! Where are my hands-­aikya? My hands have blown off." He whined and lay down and was sad for a long time. Then Coyote got up and made himself hands out of a cholla cactus.

He began again.

He ground the pseudo. He mixed it with the solvent. He filtered and evaporated and filtered and evaporated, until he was sure all the filler was gone. Then he sat down and began scraping matchboxes to collect red phosphorus. He mixed the pseudo with his matchbox scrapings and iodine and plenty of water. Suddenly the flask began to boil. Gas started to fill the air. It got in his eyes, his fur. He howled and scratched at his face.

He choked on the poison gas and died.

Gila Monster came past and sprinkled water on him. Coyote sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Honored Coyote!" said Gila Monster. "Use a hose. Stop your flask, fill a bucket with kitty litter and run the hose down into that. The gas will be captured. Trap it and watch it bubble and boil, there in the flask. Don't breathe at all if you can help it."

Coyote began to whine. "Ouch-­aikya! Where is my face-­aikya? I have scratched my face off." He ran down to the river and made himself a face out of mud and plastered it over the front of his head. Then he began again. He crushed the pseudo and evaporated it. He scraped the matchboxes and bubbled the flask into the bucket of kitty litter. He mixed the chemicals and cooked his mixture and filtered it and added in some Red Devil lye. He watched his thermometer. He was careful not to breathe. He cooled the mixture down and added in some camping fuel and shook it up and jumped up and down for glee when he saw the crust of crystal floating on the liquid. He started to evaporate off the solvent but was so excited that he forgot to keep his tail out of the fire. He was dancing round the lab, lighting everything on fire with his tail.

The lab burned down. He died.

Southern Fox came past and touched him on the chest with the tip of his bow. "Honored Coyote!" he said. "You must keep your tail out of it! That is the only way to cook."

"Ouch-­aikya!" whined Coyote. "My eyes, where are my eyes-­aikya?" Coyote made himself eyes out of two silver dollars and started again. He crushed the pseudo. He filtered and evaporated it, he mixed and heated and bubbled the gas. He filtered and evaporated some more, and then he danced up and down. "Oh, I am clever-­aikya!" said Coyote. "I am cleverer than them all-­aikya!" He had in his hands a hundred grams of pure crystal.

Excerpted from Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru. Copyright © 2012 by Hari Kunzru. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.