Reviews

The Touches by Brenda Peynado

tnm94's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

shellbellbell's review

4.0

Warning: Written pre-COVID, this short story is about a post apocalyptic world where humans live in total isolation to prevent the spread of viruses, except when in VR. Sometimes it can be cathartic to read about an extreme version of the shitty thing you are experiencing.

Read for free here: https://www.tor.com/2019/11/13/the-touches-brenda-peynado/

cynt's review

sad medium-paced

1.75

hapikohw's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I don't know why I stopped a month ago. I finally remembered this short story, ate it up, and it has become my favorite short story so far. Even over Metamorphosis, wow.

Something about the as above/so below of the virtual utopia clean and the real world in ruin dirty.

How even a world of your own creation, your wildest dreams as long as you can afford to code it, is still nothing compared to the physical reality of being a human being - even at its worse, its filthiest.

I just really ate this world - well worlds - up. But the characters, the yearning, the fear. So, so good.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Confinement, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pregnancy, and Sexual content

heniaakbar's review

challenging emotional

3.5

"All the superbugs—microbes and viruses that evolved immunity to antibiotics, that melted out of the polar ice caps and were released into the oceans, bugs we hadn’t seen for a million years"

So the setting of this story is basically in 2030?

My only complain is that the glitching is not explained. What happened?

 

lizabethstucker's review

3.0

Life is separated into clean and dirty. Clean was living virtually, locked into a tiny cubicle from birth, cared for by an an assigned robot, and hooked up to an all-encompassing system for hours at a time. Dirty is the real world, filled with plagues and viruses and what the narrator calls filth. Things get more complicated as robots glitch, an accident puts the narrator into quarantine, and a phone number leads to something scary.

There's a layer of disconnection due to a lack of physical contact that cannot be fulfilled by robot hugs and virtual touches. Add to that the narrator's extreme fear of the dirty world. She actually has counted the number of real physical touches in her life. Very intense, more so during our current Pandemic and the separation of friends and family. Also extremely weird. I don't know what to say about this one, but I suspect it will linger in my memory for quite a while. 3.5 out of 5.

faraha's review

4.0

This is a very short story, only 26 pages. So it is hard to say too much without giving it away. This takes place in a world that has been decimated by disease. People now reside in solitary cubicles, never seeing or touching another human, and live their life in a virtual world. The people rely on robots for everything, but what happens when they start to break down?

I enjoyed the writing. I like short stories, but I feel like this has the potential to be a really interesting novel. There were unanswered questions and there is so much about the world I would like to learn more about. I enjoyed this for what it was. Lovers of sci-fi/ dystopian stories would like this.