While I've liked some of Lethem's work in the past, there wasn't much in this collection that I enjoyed. Some of the stories are interesting from a lit studies perspective, but they too often felt like exercises without significant thought behind them.

Jonathan Lethem has been entertaining me for over 25 years with his wit and imagination. This collection is a bit uneven, and I admit having to struggle with otherworldly subjects. His longer books, featuring life in New York, are preferable, but I did enjoy a chance to become acquainted with his shorter works.

Thirty-one stories, dozens of themes and countless innovations, A Different Kind of Tension will engage the imaginations of all readers.

It’s fascinating to see how creative minds viewed what the future might look like from the past. Lethem's visions are more expansive than jet packs and flying cars. My favorite stories in this collection move from the retro to high-tech seamlessly. It is impossible to tell if any specific short tale was composed in the 1980’s or 2020’s. Bob Dylan, mind-altering substances, Star Wars, Brooklyn, punk-rock, our characters embody cool corners of space familiar to Baby-Boomers and Generation X.

Standout scenes include a swinger party in which any drugs or alcohol consumed is transferred between characters by kissing, gridlock traffic jams so long that drivers fantasize about being elsewhere by watching palatial real estate demonstrations on screens in their car, carny-types who set up low-rent virtual reality stations to allow audience members the chance to watch what hungry players will do in a second-life type environment. We get to jump from analog to cyberpunk, from literary to experimental.

Other highlights include the man engaged in a sales presentation on Skype who bleeds more profusely with each passing minute, the boy who discovers truths about himself and his father while living in a commune filled with compelling mini-stories in every room, and the apartment burgled and the police's special spray outline people among the missing objects.

Every dart thrown by Lethem hits the board, some strike the center of the bullseye.

Thank you to Ecco Books and Netgalley for a review copy.