A review by 30something_reads
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

adventurous dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

4.75


These visions of modern life wrestle with themes of death and technological consequences, guilt and sexuality, and unmask the contradictions that exist within all of us.

There are some absolute bangers in this collection of short stories.*
  *Edit: I actually just increased the star rating. The more that I think about it, every one of these short stories were bangers in their own right. I was trying to come up with what I may not have liked but even the story that I liked least had some phenomenal moments that made my skin crawl so like... bravo?

I think the ones that resonated the most with me were:

Pre-simulation Consultation XF007867- This is like the darker side of the holodecks from Star Tek.
Time Cubes- A dystopian nightmare, honestly.
#ClimbingNation- Me, a non-thriller reader: this would be an amazing plot for a Thriller novel. I will always support women's wrongs.
Twenty Hours- Remember that Netflix show, Altered Carbon? But make it with 3D printers and the weird middle-aged white couple next door.
Bridezilla- Actually this one reminded me of an essay titled "We Swarm" by Sabrina Imbler in How Far the Light Reaches where they are discussing salps (which kind of have a similar if not entirely more benign description as the sea monster in this short story.) Totally unrelated I guess but I think about that essay a lot. 

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