Alexander Weinstein

13 somewhat connected stories about the possible future(s) - the connections are minimal and if you are not looking for them, you may miss them. They are not needed - each story stands on its own but they make it clear that we are looking at the same future and not just separate independent ideas. And Weinstein's idea of where we are heading is somewhat scary - between the technology and humans being humans, the future is not a very happy place.

In Saying Goodbye to Yang, a family had purchased an android, Yang, to help with keeping the culture of their adopted daughter's real parents alive. And one day Yang malfunctions throwing the whole family into examining their own reactions to him - not very unexpectedly what was supposed to be a machine had turned into a son. I loved the introduction of the neighbors and their interactions with the family - it is not just machines that one does not see when they do not look under the surface.

In The Cartographers 3 friends have a very successful business of selling memories - strap yourself in a chair and you can be back where you want to be. Except they seem to be getting too good for their own sake - separating reality from what they produce is not always easy - after all they succeeded because their memories were so real. The ending was devastating in more than one way - even if one could have seen it coming if they allowed themselves to.

Heartland plays on the love for the land - what really matters when we talk about the land and what happens to the jobs connected to the land when the top soil disappears. And when a man is that disillusioned, can he be the slayer of monsters for his children - or does he turn into one of the monsters?

Excerpts from The New World Authorized Dictionary is exactly what it says on the tin - a few records from a dictionary where the usage examples are from the late 2020s -- showing the world in its downfall. On its own it is a pure speculative piece - a list of ideas - but it also adds some of the connections and support for the other stories.

Moksha has a young man looking for enlightenment in Nepal - as generations of people had done - except that the usual drugs are replaced with technology of course. It was the weakest story for me - both predictable and almost boring.

Children of the New World is a cautionary tale about virtual reality and the risks in getting too attached in it. It is a lyrical and sad piece about what makes us human. I am not surprised that this ended up being the title of the whole collection - in some ways, this is also the most relatable story as well.

Fall Line took me by surprise. A professional extreme skier who ended his career after a really bad fall is trying to survive while the snow seems to be disappearing from the places it always had been falling. It is a life of waiting - people waiting for him to come back, everyone waiting for the snow to come back. Until it does.

A Brief History of the Failed Revolution is an pseudo-academic article (with footnotes and sources) about consciousness in the era of connections. It's very short and just as the Dictionary story earlier in the collection, it is all about the ideas.

Migration is another story of the submersion of the real world into the virtual and what happens when you chose the virtual to be your real one. Similar to Children of the New World in some ways but less nostalgic and sad.

The Pyramid and the Ass shows a world where reincarnation had become common place and not improved things much. What happens if a memory from a life that could not have been start intruding on your consciousness?

Rocket Night was the most horrific of the future tales in this collection and it managed to achieve it without even trying to present anything bad. Once a year, the least liked child in a school is strapped into a rocket and sent to the sky. It is a very short tale and it is not even that action which sends the shivers down one's spine - it is the narrator's attitude towards it.

Openness deals with what happens when you open all your thoughts and dreams to your partner. Ensuring one's privacy is one of the things we are all very conscious about and this story takes that to a possible ending.

Ice Age is set further into the future that all the other tales and probably some time after Fall Line - there are enough indications that the snow that started at the end of the previous story had led to the conditions in this one. The snow just started and never stopped and now the survivors live on top of the packed snow - trying to survive in the few places where it seems possible. Except that one family seems to refuse to fall in line with the rules - and everyone else decides it is time to do something about it. Until it turns out that humans are humans - in all possible way.

An enjoyable collection which makes one think about where we are heading. I am sure everyone is sure that none of these stories will ever be possible - but look deeply into it and you may realize that the kernels for each of them are in our past already.… (més)

DNF @ 27%

It has emotional depth of a teaspoon. Can't say there is anything new in terms of ideas.
Protag characters are bland, very similar, and white-straight-male.
Women are essentially nonentities when they are present.

Here's another thing - there's no commitment from author. Ideas have no real bite: there's no in-depth exploration, no feelings hitting you in the kidneys or kicking you in the teeth. There's no emotional punch.

VERDICT : AVOID LIKE PLAGUE… (més)

3.5 Stars

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

Children of the New World is a collection of shorts stories set in the near future with new technologies (think robots and sending messages with your mind). I was immediately taken in with the first story 'Saying Goodbye to Yang' which remained my favourite throughout the whole collection. It was surprisingly touching and I kept thinking about it.

This however set the bar quite high for the rest of the collection, and I didn't like all stories as much. Some seemed rather repetitive, always about someone loosing touch with reality due to the emerging technology. Others were rather absurd, like 'Rocket Night' (in which they shoot the least popular kid to space) which made me say 'WTF?!' out loud and resulted in me getting strange looks.

But all in all I enjoyed this collection and would certainly try the author's next book!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!… (més)