Review Detail

What worked: Haunting, powerful portrayals where future technology offers not only innovation but hope. This collection of short stories is both insightful and gives a sucker punch with their versions of a future world. So many emotions are sure to arise by reading this collection.

Some of my favorites:

CADENCE by Charlotte Nicole Davis where a nonbinary teen finds not only their voice with a mod, but runs into someone who once had a deep connection with the donor while she was alive.

MELANITIS by Junruda Petrus-Nasah is very insightful with the question of what determines oppression after a procedure goes wrong.

THE MEMORY OF SOIL by Wendy Xu is in graphic novel format and tells the story of a young girl in 2347 and her interaction with an AI and listening to soil.

**And my favorite has to be SMILE RIVER by A.S. King. This story shows the generational push of those to silence women's truth by forcing a surgical procedure on them to always smile and punishing them if they dare to feel. Powerfully written with its message of the cost of those who fight against a system in hopes of saving all.


An insightful glimpse into a future world where new technologies are used to better mankind but also can come at a cost. Each tale will have readers ponder a future world. Totally recommend.