Humanity’s greatest minds have ensconced themselves in a tower of intellect. Inside, an everlasting colloquium promises to emerge with the best blueprint for a global utopia. But the big brains of these isolationists come at a cost: the sardonic pygmoids stand no higher than four feet.

That cost has just skyrocketed. When a fire threatens to wipe out the apogee of human genius, Bryson, a low-level utopianist, must escape the tower with humankind’s only formula for advancement. Under the direction and scorn of his mordant superior, Palmer, he must also carry the humiliation of using dreaded labor and puny muscle to crawl free. Trammeled in the tower’s garbage chute, Bryson faces an even greater heat than the flames rising all around him: the hauteur and pomposity of his insolent peers.

Get “Opposite Land” now and watch the deserving destruction of sinecure, the ultimate reversal of The Fox and the Grapes.