Publishers Weekly
12/23/2019
Set in the near future, Weinstein’s troubling and compassionate collection (after Children of the New World) imagines some dire ramifications of social media and robotics. In the sweetly comic “The Year of Nostalgia,” a dead woman returns in the form of a hologram, complete with memories and personality traits assembled from her social media accounts and diaries. Leah, the reanimated woman’s daughter, discovers a more adventurous, free-spirited version of her mother than the Midwestern housewife she remembered, since the hologram has been programmed to act on her desires for travel and romance. The portentous “Beijing,” set in a future version of the city so polluted that it’s only possible to navigate by stopping at stations that dispense breathable air, follows a gay American expatriate whose lover has become addicted to having his memories removed through microsurgeries, leaving the men’s relationship suspended in the present. In the chilling “Childhood,” the robot “son” of a suburban couple observes his older robot sister becoming addicted to illicitly smoking her “emotion card” through a glass pipe. Though some of the stories lean on intriguing concepts without developing complete narratives, the collection convincingly explores many potential effects of social engineering. Channeling Ray Bradbury with contemporary allegories, Weinstein will make readers think twice about their relationship to technology. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Universal Love:
Funny and terrifying. . . .Universal Love picks up where [Children of the New World] left off.
--Ann Arbor Observer Weinstein made a big splash in SF with his debut collection and follows it up with nearly a dozen stories that are just as creepy and will fit right in if you're watching Black Mirror. . . .In dark times, we get entertainment that reflects the world we've made. Welcome home.
--Kirkus Troubling and compassionate . . . .Channeling Ray Bradbury with contemporary allegories, Weinstein will make readers think twice about their relationship to technology.
--Publishers Weekly
These are deeply imaginative and compelling stories, written with exquisite poise, that bring the speculative and uncanny very close to home. Weinstein is here to remind us that questions of technology, of the future of our world, are also, always, questions of human intimacy and human care.
--Jennifer Mills, author of Dyschronia Praise for Alexander Weinstein: "The timely, nuanced stories in Alexander Weinstein's Children of the New World are some of the most brilliantly disconcerting fiction in recent memory...As with George Saunders or Ray Bradbury, Weinstein's satiric ingenuity seldom overpowers his deep compassion for our wayward species....The resulting cautionary tales are superlatively moving and thought-provoking, imbued with disarming pathos and a palpable sense of wonder and loss."
--David Wright, The Seattle Times Seductive...Weinstein's stories whistle with a cockeyed, formidable intelligence, and he is not afraid to provoke.... At their finest, Mr. Weinstein's stories contain moments of moral complexity and, even more challenging--and more moving--moments of grace."
--The New York Times A darkly comic look at how far people will go to hold on to the devices that are replacing human experience.
--The Washington Post
Kirkus Reviews
2019-12-23
Eleven new stories about our potentially weird future.
Weinstein (Children of the New World, 2016) made a big splash in SF with his debut collection and follows it up with nearly a dozen stories that are just as creepy and will fit right in if you're watching Black Mirror. The opener, "The Year of Nostalgia," comes especially close to that particular flavor; it concerns a family trying to deal with grief by interacting with their hologram relatives. In "Beijing," we find people living in the last days of the climate crisis erasing unpleasant memories of the things that hurt them most. "Comfort Porn" takes the concept of Tinder and similar apps to an unpleasant destination. Really, it's all a prescient warning about technology, not that we really need a warning at this point. In "We Only Wanted Their Happiness," indulgent parents give their kids access to information that turns them into little monsters. "True Love Testimonials" is, yes, a little weird, with its post-Tinder confessions about how to hook up with, say, a guy you can make look like your ex, or hosting "morphing orgies." Things get stranger. In "Childhood," the kids...malfunction, and we'll leave it at that. Inevitably, in "Sanctuary," we discover aliens, but in the most unusual and dangerous place imaginable. Time travel? Sure, why not? In "Infinite Realities," we meet someone trying to find the version where they get it right, for once. We're running out of time, so to speak, but there's something to say about abandonment in "Mountain Song" and, finally, another dry look at the end times in "Islanders."
In dark times, we get entertainment that reflects the world we've made. Welcome home.
