There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

very interesting ideas and easily readable little short stories. if you want to read about some sci-fi option on how the future could look if things go wrong, defiantly worth a read!

Like any collection of short stories, some of the stories in this collection were better (and more memorable) than others. Some were really quite good, but as an overall collection I had a few issues with it which brought my rating for this book down to a 3. First, this was definitely a book more focused on ideas and atmosphere than on character - indeed, my two least favorite stories weren't even stories in the conventional sense - one was a collection of purported additions to a dictionary of the future, while the other was a pretend scholarly article from the future. The other issue was that the idea behind every story was pretty much the same - basically, they're all set in different depressing futures, nearly always because technology has alienated people from real life (with a few where the future was depressing instead because of environmental changes). This certainly made for a cohesive overall collection, but for me it got a bit repetitive over time, not to mention the relentlessly depressing overall tone. Still, it definitely was an interesting read, and as I said, there were a few stories that definitely will stick with me.

I loved this strange collection of stories. They were fun, thought provoking, weird, and touching. Definitely a collection to read again and add to my library.

First of all, I didn't realize this was a short stories collection (my mistake). Then, even if the concept of the book is absolutely interesting, I really didn't like most of it (plus: too many male characters that feel the same, no women protagonists at all).

Like all collections of short stories, some were definitely stronger than others but it was a decent collection overall.

Children of the New World is a collection of shorts stories set in the near future with new technologies (think robots and sending messages with your mind). I was immediately taken in with the first story 'Saying Goodbye to Yang' which remained my favourite throughout the whole collection. It was surprisingly touching and I kept thinking about it.

This however set the bar quite high for the rest of the collection, and I didn't like all stories as much. Some seemed rather repetitive, always about someone loosing touch with reality due to the emerging technology. Others were rather absurd, like 'Rocket Night' (in which they shoot the least popular kid to space) which made me say 'WTF?!' out loud and resulted in me getting strange looks.

But all in all I enjoyed this collection and would certainly try the author's next book!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

An absolutely perfect collection of short stories. The end of the world is coming, people, or worse yet...maybe it's not.

I've seen a lot of comparisons to Black Mirror, and I'm not surprised - they're both bleak anthology collections, extrapolating our future into the worst case scenario from our current trends. They're both amazingly well-written, creating scenarios that just won't let you look away until you <i>see</i>. And yet they're interspersed with just enough hope to let you know that maybe, just maybe, there is something worth feeling that bleakness for. And they both present as completely separate, individual stories - though there are connecting threads here and there for those who look.

A couple of these really stood out from an incredibly high-quality collection (seriously, there was nothing I didn't love, and that's unusual). Children of the New World, the eponymous short, was absolutely soul-destroying and beautiful in the destruction. You can't mourn something that didn't matter.
Migration, too was one of my favourite entries, hopeful in a George Carlin way 'The planet is fine. The people are fucked.'
It's books like this that make me really excited to read.

I was provided with free copy for review by the publisher and Netgalley. A big thanks for the opportunity

I didn't even finish this book and that really says something for me as I usually persevere right until the bitter end in case it improves. The stories are incredibly short and don't seem to go anywhere at all. They don't have a real storyline and you're left thinking what on earth was that after each one. The only coherent thing about the book is that each one has a futuristic, tech feel about it but that is it. I think it's a real shame as it had potential as the genre and topic is really interesting and unusual but it definitely fell very flat for me!

This was very....Black Mirror....and in that way that I didn't like? I don't know. Normally this is something right up my alley. Technology, terror, near future. I think I wanted to to be more.

Two standouts: "Saying Goodbye to Yang" and "The Cartographers". Both with rather predictable ends, but 'Yang' still had some heart.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A marvelous collection! Short science fiction is definetly on the rise. This collection has amazing stories on vsrious topics . A great read

There were three really solid little stories in this anthology of dystopia snippets. I say snippets because many of these stories are more ideas that haven't been fleshed out enough.
Even the best writers can't tell a good story in 8 pages. Almost all the ideas in Alexander Weinstein's compilation of Children of the New World are unique and engaging; but most just don't have enough there to really make me feel like I was told a story with characters I can remember.
Many of the stories I can barely remember the basic premise they were so short.

The three stories definitely worth reading however are: The Pyramid & The Ass, Fall Line, Saying Goodbye to Yang.

I hope Weinstein takes a concept or two and writes some substantial stories in the future. Even 100-200 pages could really be a difference maker to feel like there's a real message in his words.
I'd definitely read fiction from him again; he has a great handle on dystopian futures that are weird and odd but all very believable.

Every time I started a new story in Children of the New World, I kept thinking: surely at least one of these is going to be something less than absolutely brilliant, surely this is the one that's going to let me down. Spoiler: it doesn't happen.

The stories here are soft sci-fi, sitting in the near-future genre alongside Black Mirror, Her and Luke Kennard's excellent The Transition. A few of the stories hint at a shared universe, different points in could-be future, giving the collection a David Mitchell vibe. Virtual existences loom large. Memories are bought and sold, jobs performed remotely, social media accessed through implants rather than devices. Real-life parenthood is an anachronism: instead, couples raise clones of themselves or adopt, and buy robot siblings for their kids. Real-life relationships are replaced by artificial memories and real-life sex supplanted by impossible erotic experiences in virtual reality. Meanwhile, the real world is ravaged, depleted. The background details are just as effective in setting the scene. In one story, a baby gnaws on a discarded iPhone; in another, hybrids have been superseded by solar cars – to the point that the next-door neighbour who still insists on driving the former is depicted as the equivalent of a climate change denier.

Several of the stories come with commentary (but not preaching) built in, taking aim at the tendency for technology to create as many problems as it solves – or solve problems that never really existed in the first place. This is most obviously satirised in 'Moksha', in which spiritual enlightenment is achieved by way of an obscenely expensive, underground electrical procedure, with seekers of this high ignoring and avoiding anything that might actually make them happy; and in a section of 'Excerpts from The New World Authorized Dictionary', in which we learn that addiction to 'continual wireless therapy' leads to the creation of a social network for chronic users to provide each other with virtual support, and so on, ouroboros-like. Weinstein also works in a number of nods to climate change and what the 'new world' might mean for nature. In 'Heartland', soil has become such a valuable commodity that everyone's sold it off, turning land into clay fields; on the news, 'it's day nine hundred of the oil spill'. 'Fall Line' is set in a rapidly melting ski resort, post-'Big Thaw'. The characters in 'Migration' rarely leave their homes – they log in to school and work, order their food online – and when one of them ventures outdoors, they encounter a positively post-apocalyptic landscape of overgrown gardens and abandoned malls.

It's hard to pick favourites, but for what it's worth... 'Saying Goodbye to Yang' opens the book with a bang (rhyme not intended) and perfectly sets the tone, combining a futuristic scenario with direct, matter-of-fact narration. 'The Cartographers' is an ingenious tale, a kind of cyber-noir which feels too complete for you to have any sense of the devastating twist until the last minute. 'Children of the New World' perhaps realises the potential of the collection most successfully: I loved the humorous details (spam emails and viruses embodied as sinister or pathetic figures appearing unexpectedly in your home), but this is also the most emotionally affecting story. 'Fall Line' is one of the simplest, in that its portrait of an ex-skiier whose career comes to a halt after a terrible accident could be set against almost any backdrop – it just happens to take place in a world where people stream video through their eyes and snow is the stuff of legend. 'Migration' balances reality and fantasy as immaculately as anything I have ever read (which is something you could also say about the entire book).

What makes the stories work so wonderfully is not their vision of the future, but their human elements. It's the way in which Weinstein draws a line through the past, present and potential future to show what remains constant. There are all types of relationships here, families and couples and friendships, and almost everything about the interaction is familiar, full of sentiment and empathy and ordinary mistakes. As one character says, 'human contact is all there really is'. There are a couple of little weaknesses here and there, but nothing with the power to dull the transcendental glow of Children of the New World as a whole. A fantastic collection.

The idea behind every story is brilliant. There are memories that you can order and implant, virtual worlds that you can live in, instant messages that you can send through technology implanted in your eye.... the possibilities are endless. But each story is disquieting in the way it peels back the layers and shows the flip side to the zealous use of technology. The author shows irony at its finest in this short story collection. However, while the concept and the ideas themselves are brilliant, the characters are not. In every story, it felt like there was just a lack of emotion. Every character fell flat and seemed lifeless. There was no connection between the reader and the characters, which resulted in apathy towards the fate of said characters. Most of my time was spent musing on the interesting scenarios that the author presented rather than focusing on the lives of these characters and the difficulties they faced as a result of technology. Overall, while the concept was interesting, the characters were not, and this is why I would give this a 3.5/5 stars.

The problem with a lot of short story collections is that they’re uneven –this collection was refreshing in that the stories were unified by a theme and held together well. I enjoyed every single one of the thirteen stories included here, they were thematically similar but different in execution and ideas. They’re thoughtful and thought-provoking, which is exactly what I want from a good short story, especially good speculative stories.

All of these stories deal with technology and its potential future impacts on society, but more specifically they deal with themes of isolation, the changing nature of human relationships, and if and how those things change with the introduction of different types of technology. The humanity and the emotions depicted are familiar, but how these show up and can be expressed varies according to the technology and society around them. Weinstein covers a broad range of topics, too, a lot of them enjoyable and original twists on old ideas: android family members, memory manipulation, spirituality and the nature of the soul, slang, revolutions, virtual reality, and privacy. My favourites were: Saying Goodbye to Yang, Children of the New World, and Openness.

This collection is getting a lot of comparisons to ‘Black Mirror’ and while there are similarities (twenty minutes into the future technology and its effects – often negative – for humanity and society) I’m not sure I’d be so quick to put them in the same category. Black Mirror can be crushingly bleak and, while the stories here are not necessarily optimistic, they are a lot more human than many of the Black Mirror stories and I think it made me like them more.

The prose is strong – Weinstein can write and each story is crafted beautifully. Nothing felt too long or like it had wandered off on a tangent. They were focused, they brought the reader into the world and the ideas the story was dealing with quickly, and they each tied up nicely.

The only thing holding me back from giving this a full five stars is that in some ways I felt the collection was too limited, specifically in its characterisation. All thirteen stories, despite dealing with characters in different life situations, worlds, and narrative circumstances felt like the same person re-sleeved. They were male, in their thirties, heterosexual, and middle-ish class. I get that this in some way reflects the author’s worldview, but for a collection that thematically considers relationships, how we interact with one another, and how these change with technology I found this viewpoint overly narrow. Weinstein’s got the talent and the ideas here are solid, I just wish he had reached out a bit more in the type of characters he was thinking about and depicting to really push this collection into something great.

This was touted as a perfect read for Black Mirror fans and who I am to resist. Black Mirror just so happens to be one of the best things on television in recent years, so it's a high standard to live up to and this book manages quite nicely. It isn't quite the same thing, but it's a very serviceable second best. So that's as far as those comparisons go, but this collection actually works well and stands tall on its own two literary feet. Story after story explores the societies of near future devastated in some way or another by (mostly) the ever pervasive tech or (few others)some sort of climate crisis. For me this is the best kind of science fiction, the one that ponders the social and psychological ramifications of the personal technology, buoyantly rampant already and certainly only more so in the years to come. A lot of the stories are dealing with virtual reality, which is most likely to be the next best thing to hit the market (once they prices become more affordable and quality up to par with what it is trying to imitate) and one can only imagine what horrors that'll wreck upon the already morally/emotionally/ethically addled society. Or you can have Alexander Weinstein imagine these things for you in a frighteningly realistic manner. Not all the stories are perfect, but most are dangerously close to it, genuinely original, well written and often very similar to the emotional powerhouses of Black Mirror episodes. Until Charlie Brooker comes up with more episodes, this is a more than adequate literary substitute. Whether read as purely speculative or eerily prescient, these stories are sure to make you think. Like books ought to. Enthusiastically recommended, particularly for technology cautious individuals. Thanks Netgalley.

I still haven't quite figured out my thoughts on this one: while the stories' premises were absolutely breathtaking, the characters and the plot were often not quite as outstanding. I have been looking forward to this book for ages, it was definitely on my "must-buy-as-soon-as-possible"-list and I was ecstatic when I finally could read it. The blurb sounded right up my alley; I love speculative fiction, especially those dealing with how the changes in technology change the way people communicate and what that means for societies.

And, as I said, the premises Weinstein develops are nothing less than brilliant. He imagines worlds where all the trends of today are thought to one of the logical extremes and he managed to make me think a lot about how communication technologies change our societey and our culture. His visions are eerily believable and oftentimes very scary; his technologies are close enough for them to be realistic and maybe even possible.

Where this collection falters a bit are the characters within those settings - these are sadly not as believable and brilliant. Their reactions could have been explored more and sometimes it feels like we are barely skimming the surface. There would have been so much more to explore and so much more to write about the inner thoughts of the people within the stories.

In the end, I decided on four stars, the strengths of the premises were enough for me to mostly outweigh the negative parts. I really am looking forward to what Alexander Weinstein writes next and I am hoping for a longer story where he can really develop his brilliant ideas a bit more.

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I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Text Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!

Alexander Weinstein's debut collection of short stories focuses on the role that technology plays (and could play) as we become increasingly dependent and increasingly intertwined with it. Weinstein's prose is both lively and thoughtful with a dark, sneaky wit that forces a laugh while discussing the most serious of subjects. Weinstein does not shy away from serious issues and it is the more contemplative stories that are the most powerful, Saying Goodbye to Yang about the android Big Brother of an adopted child who malfunctions and cannot be repaired and the heartbreaking title story of a middle-aged couple's creation of an online life and family which is destroyed by scams, malware and viruses. These gorgeous stories ask what family is and what love is and just how far humans can stretch the concepts, whether we are really able to control them at all.

Unfortunately, not all of the stories ring as true or as well at these, digital red-light districts where all kinds of sensuality can be indulged, avatars that disrupt genders and relationships, the darkly funny but not quite convincing tradition of launching unpopular children into space. The problem is that many of the voices are virtually indistinguishable so that the narrators become amorphous characterless, an "I" without a real heart or soul.

This is an intriguing look at some possible futures for a society like ours, involved as we are in social media and virtual reality.
Thirteen short stories each tell a different possibility from virtual families living totally virtual lives to dystopian futures where society is struggling to survive in the face of climate change disaster.
Some things really stood out for me - the virtual children who have to be deleted after a computer virus in Children of the New World - the 'death' of a robot boy in Saying Goodbye to Yang - and the fascinating way communication has developed in Openness.
Overall I very much enjoyed the content and the originality of some of the ideas. A couple of the stories were nowhere near as strong as the rest but that's just my opinion. Other readers may have liked those the best:)
An interesting read which raises a number of (mostly scary) visions of our future.

Children of the New World blew me away with the quality of the stories included in the anthology. Like Phillip K Dick, Alexander Weinstein captivates the reader’s imagination and keeps them pondering long after the last page is turned. The best science fiction stories are those that are both plausible and thought provoking, stirring the imagination and the emotions. Alexander Weinstein does just that.

It is hard to pick a favorite from the variety of visions - a couple tormented by the loss of their virtual children, an author of virtual memories who loses himself amongst his creations, a man becomes addicted to digital enlightenment. Some stories are humorous, others disturbing, all are excellent.

5 / 5

I received a copy of Children of the New World from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

-- Crittermom