by Jim Shepard
First published 2016
A global corporation operates from a narrow Greenwich Village alley, pulling strings that control entire nations. In nursing homes, nanotechnology awakens dormant memories in elderly minds, flooding them with forgotten decades. An alien creature with bird-like features becomes the unlikely mascot for a major league baseball franchise, bridging worlds through America's pastime. These scenarios emerge from the minds of acclaimed writers who have ventured beyond their usual territories into speculative fiction. Steven Millhauser, Junot Díaz, Amiri Baraka, and Katharine Dunn lead this literary expedition into futures where technology malfunctions and society transforms. The stories examine what happens when pulp fiction concepts receive serious literary treatment. Each tale explores the collision between human nature and technological possibility, revealing how extraordinary circumstances expose ordinary truths about power, memory, and connection.
Genres: short-stories, science-fiction, literary-fiction, speculative-fiction
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: collision-of-worlds, ordinary-people-extraordinary-circumstances
Setting: Greenwich Village, America
Period: Future
384 pages · Kindle Edition · Tachyon Publications