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matt357's review against another edition
2.0
A series of overtly, probably overly political short stories, so many of these feel like feel like preaching to the choir while trying not to be too sanctimonious.
The political points here are mainly ones effecting America, and for a bunch of them only America. While there are a few good concepts here there's really not enough here to make it worth reading for those. The writing is of a high quality but not exceptional, and you can find it's like in stories with better ideas .
The political points here are mainly ones effecting America, and for a bunch of them only America. While there are a few good concepts here there's really not enough here to make it worth reading for those. The writing is of a high quality but not exceptional, and you can find it's like in stories with better ideas .
jager123's review against another edition
4.0
Why Visit America by Matthew Baker
I’m not usually a fan of short stories but this one kept me interested. The story of the USA told from different perspectives, different dimensions, just different everything. A new city being built is constructed in reverse. A world where to pay for life event celebrations you need corporate sponsorship. People uploading their memories and minds to the internet. A small town secedes from the USA and becomes America. There’s some pretty pointed commentary on recent events that is done well.
I’m not usually a fan of short stories but this one kept me interested. The story of the USA told from different perspectives, different dimensions, just different everything. A new city being built is constructed in reverse. A world where to pay for life event celebrations you need corporate sponsorship. People uploading their memories and minds to the internet. A small town secedes from the USA and becomes America. There’s some pretty pointed commentary on recent events that is done well.
annabelws23's review
3.0
I saw this advertised as a cross between Black Mirror and Stranger things, both of which it is not.
Where you find the stories of Black Mirror, more often than not, are an exploration of new technologies and their consequences, these stories are more socio-economically speculative. They explore alternative constructions of society itself rather than the world as changed fundamentally through technological advancements (with the exception of the story of a boy forgoing his body to become part of the internet). Which is fine, but it must be said I’m not a fan of these kinds of near or imagined future stories/dystopias being forever compared with the yardstick of Black Mirror. Both are equally with merit, just not the same in my mind. As for Stranger Things, this seems like a pop culture reference for the sake of a pop culture reference, I couldn’t find much in the way of 80s nostalgia seeing as they’re all set in a near future or alternative present and I wouldn’t put them into the sci-fi horror camp either.
I had mixed feelings about most of the short stories as I was reading this. I was drawn into them as concepts and I appreciated them more speculatively than as stories. There was a lot of ambition in this book, for sure.
As with all short story collections, there were some I liked more than others. The ones I liked less, I found were somewhat on the nose (the one where the rich are the underclass, and the aforementioned story of a boy giving up his body, for example). I also think certain narrative choices were surplus to requirement. For example in the first story, although I really enjoyed the linguistic/lexical aspects, the story itself went in circles to go nowhere. There were other stories I felt could benefit from small narrative cuts which were unnecessary and didn’t add much to the overall story- such as parts of the Rachel narrative in ‘The Tour’.
All that being said, I do think that these stories would translate well on screen and could be turned into compelling tv shows/films (I suppose I must concede here that this fact makes the book slightly like black mirror as it has the potential to make a good anthology series). There is clearly a wicked intelligence and satirical edge to Baker’s writing and I will be very intrigued to see where he takes his writing next.
Thank you to Bloomsbury for the proof of this one!
Where you find the stories of Black Mirror, more often than not, are an exploration of new technologies and their consequences, these stories are more socio-economically speculative. They explore alternative constructions of society itself rather than the world as changed fundamentally through technological advancements (with the exception of the story of a boy forgoing his body to become part of the internet). Which is fine, but it must be said I’m not a fan of these kinds of near or imagined future stories/dystopias being forever compared with the yardstick of Black Mirror. Both are equally with merit, just not the same in my mind. As for Stranger Things, this seems like a pop culture reference for the sake of a pop culture reference, I couldn’t find much in the way of 80s nostalgia seeing as they’re all set in a near future or alternative present and I wouldn’t put them into the sci-fi horror camp either.
I had mixed feelings about most of the short stories as I was reading this. I was drawn into them as concepts and I appreciated them more speculatively than as stories. There was a lot of ambition in this book, for sure.
As with all short story collections, there were some I liked more than others. The ones I liked less, I found were somewhat on the nose (the one where the rich are the underclass, and the aforementioned story of a boy giving up his body, for example). I also think certain narrative choices were surplus to requirement. For example in the first story, although I really enjoyed the linguistic/lexical aspects, the story itself went in circles to go nowhere. There were other stories I felt could benefit from small narrative cuts which were unnecessary and didn’t add much to the overall story- such as parts of the Rachel narrative in ‘The Tour’.
All that being said, I do think that these stories would translate well on screen and could be turned into compelling tv shows/films (I suppose I must concede here that this fact makes the book slightly like black mirror as it has the potential to make a good anthology series). There is clearly a wicked intelligence and satirical edge to Baker’s writing and I will be very intrigued to see where he takes his writing next.
Thank you to Bloomsbury for the proof of this one!
cazinthehat's review against another edition
4.0
Fun! A few that I didn’t like as much, but overall very enjoyable! He has elements of Palahniuk in his writing, sometimes humour like Pratchett, but totally in the vein of the American short story greats (Carver, Cheever, Yates) just set in an alternate reality.
willowcat's review against another edition
4.0
I’m not usually a reader of short stories but I really enjoyed most of these. The author has some really interesting ideas and most of the stories were very thought provoking.
hellsie's review against another edition
5.0
Wow, what a brilliant, thought-provoking collection of short stories this is. While I prefer some stories to others, there isn’t a single one that didn’t make me take a few moments to think about the alternate worlds that Matthew has created, so similar yet so different to our own. I’m a huge fan of this genre anyway, so I might be an easier sell than some for this kind of story collection, but I do think it’s very accessible to anyone who’s after an intelligent collection of stories that will stay in their thoughts afterwards. This is one author that I’m definitely going to be reading more of.
I must say thanks to Pigeonhole for introducing me to this author, and to the author himself for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
I must say thanks to Pigeonhole for introducing me to this author, and to the author himself for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
jimmydean's review against another edition
5.0
I’m always searching for a great short story collection but the balance can be tricky - thought this was brilliant, filled with big ideas, beautiful characters and so many memorable visuals. Can see why the film industry snapped up a bunch of these stories, and while I’ll always have an eye on film, I just can’t wait to read more from Matthew Baker.
zarco_j's review against another edition
1.0
I was really looking forward to reading this, but it was so disappointing.
I hated the formatting of the book, it was tricky to read and the story just left me flat.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest unbiased review.
All thoughts are my own.
I hated the formatting of the book, it was tricky to read and the story just left me flat.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest unbiased review.
All thoughts are my own.
hischmidtj's review against another edition
3.0
The biggest annoyance in this book for me were the needless, endless lists of things. Overall, enjoyable but I skipped a number of pages because they were just listing out irrelevant “scene-setting” details when I already got the picture. Not a bad book by any means and the stories got more unique as the book progresses.