These dark, witty, and occasionally mournful stories will thoroughly satisfy readers looking for creative new dystopias.
Dispatches from the hyperconnected, hypersurveilled future.
The editors of this SF anthology bill it as a “full, visceral, and vital portrait of a world in rapid evolution,” and in many ways the collection delivers on that promise. Like all the best science fiction, these stories look at our present through the lens of some possible futures. Key themes emerge, including surveillance capitalism, artificial intelligence, and climate change. The world we see here is hyperconnected and yet uber-alienating, full of potential for ever shinier tech but lacking much opportunity for genuine, joyful humanity to thrive. There are some brilliant, haunting stories—a gonzo sendup of corporate culture ("Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company" by Kevin Nguyen), a minithriller about a smart-home assistant with a mind of its own ("Warning Signs" by Emily J. Smith), a time-travel tale about the gentrification of the past ("Trojan Horses" by Jess Zimmerman), a too-close-to-home parable about aliens who arrive on Earth as refugees ("The Wretched and the Beautiful" by E. Lily Yu). There’s also some invigorating experimentation with form, including fiction in the form of operating instructions ("Hysteria" by Meg Elison), school paperwork ("Exemption Packet" by Rose Eveleth), text messages ("U Wont Remember Dying" by Russell Nichols), and a simple list ("An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried" by Debbie Urbanski). The dystopian realities of social media and late-stage capitalism are everywhere, with a ghost becoming a backdrop for selfies ("Ernest" by Geoff Manaugh), soldiers livestreaming from the front lines ("Headshot" by Julian Mortimer Smith), thousands of people lining up to toil meaninglessly in "entropy mills" ("Busy" by Omar El Akkad), and financial advisers pitching the zombie apocalypse as an investing opportunity ("Zombie Capitalism" by Tobias Buckell). Overall, this collection presents a sort of paranoid/defiant vision of the future in which everything and everyone is for sale but almost everything of value has been lost. Don’t look here for (much) hope, but do read these short, biting, vibrant stories for their wit, inventiveness, and verve.
These dark, witty, and occasionally mournful stories will thoroughly satisfy readers looking for creative new dystopias.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-3746-0266-6
Page Count: 496
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
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BOOK REVIEW
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