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A review by thechanelmuse
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
4.0
"Finally, the priest rang a bell and called the ceremony to order, telling the crowd how a worldwide tragedy many generations ago had brought our country closer together. In suffering, he said, we found our heart. In suffering, we found new traditions, a way forward." (from "Grave Friends")
Beginning in the Arctic Circle in the year 2030 after a Neanderthal-Homo sapien hybrid named "Annie" is discovered in the permafrosts of Siberia and largely set in Japan thereafter, the speculative world of How High We Go In the Dark has befallen to calamity of mass deaths due to a global climate change virus.
The predicaments that follow includes a scientist conducting trials of growing human organs in an engineered pig that can speak and possess human consciousness ("Pig Son"); a comatose patient interacting with other patients in a purgatory-like liminal space ("Through the Garden of Memory"); the discovery of a black hole in a man's head ("Life Around the Event Horizon"); an interstellar travel ("A Gallery a Century, a Cry a Millennium"); and an exploration of post-plague unemployment, illusion of connections in cyber culture, depression, and suicide partners ("Melancholy Nights in a Tokyo Virtual Cafe").
The commercialization of honoring those on the verge of dying or already dead introduces new norms into this futuristic, dystopian society like shared urns ("Grave Friends"), liquified human sculptures ("Before You Melt Into the Sea"), and robotic dogs with programmed voices of lost loved ones that play on command ("Speak, Fetch, Say I Love You").
Although the 14 interconnected short stories are certainly gloomy, especially the idea alone of reading about a pandemic, illness and death while in the midst of it all, they exhibit a creative and ambitious take on dealing with loss and grief. I haven’t read/watched The Cloud Atlas nor Dr. Who yet (stop judging me
Beginning in the Arctic Circle in the year 2030 after a Neanderthal-Homo sapien hybrid named "Annie" is discovered in the permafrosts of Siberia and largely set in Japan thereafter, the speculative world of How High We Go In the Dark has befallen to calamity of mass deaths due to a global climate change virus.
The predicaments that follow includes a scientist conducting trials of growing human organs in an engineered pig that can speak and possess human consciousness ("Pig Son"); a comatose patient interacting with other patients in a purgatory-like liminal space ("Through the Garden of Memory"); the discovery of a black hole in a man's head ("Life Around the Event Horizon"); an interstellar travel ("A Gallery a Century, a Cry a Millennium"); and an exploration of post-plague unemployment, illusion of connections in cyber culture, depression, and suicide partners ("Melancholy Nights in a Tokyo Virtual Cafe").
The commercialization of honoring those on the verge of dying or already dead introduces new norms into this futuristic, dystopian society like shared urns ("Grave Friends"), liquified human sculptures ("Before You Melt Into the Sea"), and robotic dogs with programmed voices of lost loved ones that play on command ("Speak, Fetch, Say I Love You").
Although the 14 interconnected short stories are certainly gloomy, especially the idea alone of reading about a pandemic, illness and death while in the midst of it all, they exhibit a creative and ambitious take on dealing with loss and grief. I haven’t read/watched The Cloud Atlas nor Dr. Who yet (stop judging me