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Tomorrow Factory: Collected Fiction
Twenty-three stories from one of speculative fiction’s up-and-coming stars, Pushcart and Journey Prize-nominated author Rich Larson.
Welcome to the Tomorrow Factory.
On your left, post-human hedonists on a distant space station bring diseases back in fashion, two scavengers find a super-powered parasite under the waves of Sunk Seattle, and a terminally-ill chemist orchestrates an asteroid prison break.
On your right, an alien optometrist spins illusions for irradiated survivors of the apocalypse, a high-tech grifter meets his match in near-future Thailand, and two teens use a blackmarket personality mod to get into the year’s wickedest, wildest party.
This collection of published and original fiction by award-winning writer Rich Larson will bring you from a Bujumbura cyberpunk junkyard to the icy depths of Europa, from the slick streets of future-noir Chicago to a tropical island of sapient robots. You'll explore a mysterious ghost ship in deep space, meet an android learning to dream, and fend off predatory alien fungi on a combat mission gone wrong.
Twenty-three futures, ranging from grimy cyberpunk to far-flung space opera, are waiting to blow you away.
So step inside the Tomorrow Factory, and mind your head.
Welcome to the Tomorrow Factory.
On your left, post-human hedonists on a distant space station bring diseases back in fashion, two scavengers find a super-powered parasite under the waves of Sunk Seattle, and a terminally-ill chemist orchestrates an asteroid prison break.
On your right, an alien optometrist spins illusions for irradiated survivors of the apocalypse, a high-tech grifter meets his match in near-future Thailand, and two teens use a blackmarket personality mod to get into the year’s wickedest, wildest party.
This collection of published and original fiction by award-winning writer Rich Larson will bring you from a Bujumbura cyberpunk junkyard to the icy depths of Europa, from the slick streets of future-noir Chicago to a tropical island of sapient robots. You'll explore a mysterious ghost ship in deep space, meet an android learning to dream, and fend off predatory alien fungi on a combat mission gone wrong.
Twenty-three futures, ranging from grimy cyberpunk to far-flung space opera, are waiting to blow you away.
So step inside the Tomorrow Factory, and mind your head.
322 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2018
127 people are currently reading
875 people want to read
About the author
Rich Larson
199 books246 followersRich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in the south of Spain, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. Since he began writing in 2011, he’s sold over a hundred stories, the majority of them speculative fiction published in magazines like Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com.
His work appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, French and Italian. Annex, his debut novel and first book of The Violet Wars trilogy, comes out in July 2018 with Orbit Books. Tomorrow Factory, his debut collection, follows in October 2018 with Talos Press.
Besides writing, he enjoys travelling, learning languages, playing soccer, watching basketball, shooting pool, and dancing kizomba.
His work appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, French and Italian. Annex, his debut novel and first book of The Violet Wars trilogy, comes out in July 2018 with Orbit Books. Tomorrow Factory, his debut collection, follows in October 2018 with Talos Press.
Besides writing, he enjoys travelling, learning languages, playing soccer, watching basketball, shooting pool, and dancing kizomba.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
January 10, 2019
Rich Larson is a young writer, with a unique voice, and a ton of talent. Our King and His Court remains one of my favourite Tor pieces, so the expectations going into this collection were super high and yet somehow met.
The imagination that has conjured these stories absolutely staggers me. We're in a world of reboots and adaptations, but brains like Rich Larson's demonstrate just why that's such a horror. Innumerable Glimmering Lights, the final story of this collection, takes a situation completely alien, uses language which should estrange the reader even further, and somehow transforms that into a bittersweet and entirely relatable story of longing, family, and belief in something bigger than ourselves. Reading this was one of my favourite parts of 2019 so far.
The rest of the stories follow a much more similar vibe, that of futures gone slightly askew, stories that dance with language to unsettle and jangle the reader's nerves, and display the expanse of that astonishing imagination. I loved that little details from earlier stories pop into later ones here and again - most of them oddly reassuring, (minor) .
There's author's notes at the end, which I vastly prefer to a short blurb before each story that inevitably spoils something. In one of them, Rich Larson expresses his hope that "this writer thing" continues to happen. If this collection is anything to go by, he's got nothing to worry about.
The imagination that has conjured these stories absolutely staggers me. We're in a world of reboots and adaptations, but brains like Rich Larson's demonstrate just why that's such a horror. Innumerable Glimmering Lights, the final story of this collection, takes a situation completely alien, uses language which should estrange the reader even further, and somehow transforms that into a bittersweet and entirely relatable story of longing, family, and belief in something bigger than ourselves. Reading this was one of my favourite parts of 2019 so far.
The rest of the stories follow a much more similar vibe, that of futures gone slightly askew, stories that dance with language to unsettle and jangle the reader's nerves, and display the expanse of that astonishing imagination. I loved that little details from earlier stories pop into later ones here and again - most of them oddly reassuring, (minor) .
There's author's notes at the end, which I vastly prefer to a short blurb before each story that inevitably spoils something. In one of them, Rich Larson expresses his hope that "this writer thing" continues to happen. If this collection is anything to go by, he's got nothing to worry about.
October 5, 2018
Tomorrow Factory
felt like such a catch when I got a review copy on Edelweiss. But then when I started reading it, it just failed to capture me. It's written well, and the ideas are fresh and quite strong, but I guess in the end it just wasn't for me.
You'll like it if you're into the eerie and cold robotic future scifi though!
The Stories Have A Running Theme
It was hard to pick out at first because the stories are so different from one another, but they do have a running theme. Having closed the last page of this book, you will see a very specific kind of world in front of your eyes, and it's by showing all these different people that the author wanted to show you the diversity of this world, I think. The running theme is pretty dystopian, like I mentioned, and that's why it was hard to read for me – it doesn't shy away from gore or just the eerie/creepy, and it certainly doesn't sugarcoat anything. Some of the stories will make you ponder the direction we're clearly heading in. Most of them highlight some problem of society or humanity as a whole, like short stories commonly do, but some of them also celebrate the more positive traits of what it is being human. The only problem with that is that it's usually not humans being... human.
Different Kinds of Consciousnesses
Which brings me to the next point. There are so many different kinds of consciousnesses here – the construct who uploaded himself into an illegal robotic body and is trying to dream. The rebel who uploaded himself into a war robot to stay alive to protect someone he loved. The alien loner who helps humans lie to themselves about how desolate and destroyed their real world is. So many different creatures, so many goals, so many points of view. That is certainly one of the most interesting points of this collection.
Being Human Is The Connection
While trying to locate the common ground of all these stories, I realized that mostly they are about AI or some other non-human consciousness, either attempting to become human, or having a hard time figuring themselves out – trying to learn to dream, trying to get a body, to experience illness or to integrate themselves with other humans, even if that means physically. It's not the only theme of the stories, but it's certainly a common one. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they don't. In a way, that made for an interesting analysis of what it is being human in general. Where does it begin and where does it stop? What makes the equation complete? What closes the circuit?
Where It Fell Short For Me
While the themes and the atmosphere were certainly interesting, and I can agree that it's a wonderful debut, I feel like it's not really for me. It was dark, brutal and I found my mind wandering at times. It felt long and I struggled through it. At times I felt like I'm not being engaged. Ultimately, that's my usual problem with short stories, because for me, it's the characters that drive a book, but even that said, the stories were too dark and too desolate. Another thing I didn't quite understand is that there were a couple of 'stories' that were a paragraph long. I must be too simple to understand the point of that.
If you're a fan of very futuristic or dystopian scifi, or even horror, then definitely read Tomorrow Fiction. But if you read scifi for the characters and a clean future, then Tomorrow Fiction is not for you.
Beware Of The Triggers
As I mentioned before, there is a lot of gore and possibly some horror elements to this book. You will naturally find violence too. It woudn't be enjoyable for sensitive or young readers.
Other Books You Might Like
Tomorrow Fiction was incredibly similar to Central Station! (Funny in a way, cause I also didn't enjoy that one a whole lot, for the same reasons.) So if Central Station was your jam, you will definitely enjoy Tomorrow Fiction.
I thank Talos Press for giving me a free copy of the book in exchange to my honest opinion. Receiving the book for free does not affect my opinion.
Read Post On My Blog | My Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
The Stories Have A Running Theme
It was hard to pick out at first because the stories are so different from one another, but they do have a running theme. Having closed the last page of this book, you will see a very specific kind of world in front of your eyes, and it's by showing all these different people that the author wanted to show you the diversity of this world, I think. The running theme is pretty dystopian, like I mentioned, and that's why it was hard to read for me – it doesn't shy away from gore or just the eerie/creepy, and it certainly doesn't sugarcoat anything. Some of the stories will make you ponder the direction we're clearly heading in. Most of them highlight some problem of society or humanity as a whole, like short stories commonly do, but some of them also celebrate the more positive traits of what it is being human. The only problem with that is that it's usually not humans being... human.
Different Kinds of Consciousnesses
Which brings me to the next point. There are so many different kinds of consciousnesses here – the construct who uploaded himself into an illegal robotic body and is trying to dream. The rebel who uploaded himself into a war robot to stay alive to protect someone he loved. The alien loner who helps humans lie to themselves about how desolate and destroyed their real world is. So many different creatures, so many goals, so many points of view. That is certainly one of the most interesting points of this collection.
Being Human Is The Connection
While trying to locate the common ground of all these stories, I realized that mostly they are about AI or some other non-human consciousness, either attempting to become human, or having a hard time figuring themselves out – trying to learn to dream, trying to get a body, to experience illness or to integrate themselves with other humans, even if that means physically. It's not the only theme of the stories, but it's certainly a common one. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they don't. In a way, that made for an interesting analysis of what it is being human in general. Where does it begin and where does it stop? What makes the equation complete? What closes the circuit?
Where It Fell Short For Me
While the themes and the atmosphere were certainly interesting, and I can agree that it's a wonderful debut, I feel like it's not really for me. It was dark, brutal and I found my mind wandering at times. It felt long and I struggled through it. At times I felt like I'm not being engaged. Ultimately, that's my usual problem with short stories, because for me, it's the characters that drive a book, but even that said, the stories were too dark and too desolate. Another thing I didn't quite understand is that there were a couple of 'stories' that were a paragraph long. I must be too simple to understand the point of that.
If you're a fan of very futuristic or dystopian scifi, or even horror, then definitely read Tomorrow Fiction. But if you read scifi for the characters and a clean future, then Tomorrow Fiction is not for you.
Beware Of The Triggers
As I mentioned before, there is a lot of gore and possibly some horror elements to this book. You will naturally find violence too. It woudn't be enjoyable for sensitive or young readers.
Other Books You Might Like
Tomorrow Fiction was incredibly similar to Central Station! (Funny in a way, cause I also didn't enjoy that one a whole lot, for the same reasons.) So if Central Station was your jam, you will definitely enjoy Tomorrow Fiction.
I thank Talos Press for giving me a free copy of the book in exchange to my honest opinion. Receiving the book for free does not affect my opinion.
Read Post On My Blog | My Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
December 26, 2018
Some short-story collections make you take your time. Others make you want to binge-read them, one right after the other, creating their own internal momentum from story to story. Rick Larson's Tomorrow Factory is one of the latter—once I'd started reading this collection, I just didn't want to stop.
This is, by the way, a good thing, and I owe a hat-tip to Alvaro Zinos-Amaro for recommending this collection.
I must admit, though, that I'm a bit jealous of Larson's prolific output, especially for one so young. (The Introduction, by James Patrick Kelly, himself no slouch in the short-story department, marvels at the same things.) Larson writes the kind of story I used to try to write.
Many of the tales in Tomorrow Factory are part of the same (or a very similar) dystopian future, where our most dazzling technologies haven't been enough to save us—and in fact have contributed to the collapse. If one were being uncharitable, these stories could even be described as one-note—Larson himself admits that he has trouble coming up with happy endings, and occasionally that pessimism gets a little hard to take. But these are some vivid snapshots of our downfall, and as difficult as they can be to witness without flinching, they do draw one's gaze back to them, again and again.
Take the first story, the award-winning "All That Robot Shit"—featuring a society of solar-powered robots that (who) have forgotten their origins, stranded on an island along with one bitter, bereaved human whose memory is unimpaired. The logics of meat and silicon intersect in completely plausible, yet surprising ways, as Mikhail struggles to escape...
In the next story—despite its existence in a culture which has already turned the phrase "a glitch in the Matrix" into a pervasive metaphor—"Atrophy" still brings chills...
"Every So Often" also revisits a common trope, and breathes new life into it. More than that I cannot (should not) say.
After that is "Ghost Girl," set in Burundi and featuring a police officer, a little girl, and her very big guardian... this one could be an Ian McDonald story (and yes, that's a compliment).
The fifth story is "The Sky Didn't Load Today," which—oh, God, just from the title you can tell it's not going to be a happy-go-lucky tale, can't you?
And so it goes. There are twenty-three stories here in all, varying greatly in length but all carrying a punch. Don't skip the Author's Notes at the back, either—Larson explains the origins of each story in what I thought were entertaining and illuminating ways.
Tomorrow Factory is dedicated to the late Gardner Dozois, who selected Larson's stories for no fewer than eight of his "Year's Best" anthology series—and with good reason. Larson's just that good at asking the central questions of speculative fiction: "What if?" and "If this goes on... what then?"
Keep an eye on this one, mates—Rich Larson is going places.
This is, by the way, a good thing, and I owe a hat-tip to Alvaro Zinos-Amaro for recommending this collection.
I must admit, though, that I'm a bit jealous of Larson's prolific output, especially for one so young. (The Introduction, by James Patrick Kelly, himself no slouch in the short-story department, marvels at the same things.) Larson writes the kind of story I used to try to write.
Many of the tales in Tomorrow Factory are part of the same (or a very similar) dystopian future, where our most dazzling technologies haven't been enough to save us—and in fact have contributed to the collapse. If one were being uncharitable, these stories could even be described as one-note—Larson himself admits that he has trouble coming up with happy endings, and occasionally that pessimism gets a little hard to take. But these are some vivid snapshots of our downfall, and as difficult as they can be to witness without flinching, they do draw one's gaze back to them, again and again.
Take the first story, the award-winning "All That Robot Shit"—featuring a society of solar-powered robots that (who) have forgotten their origins, stranded on an island along with one bitter, bereaved human whose memory is unimpaired. The logics of meat and silicon intersect in completely plausible, yet surprising ways, as Mikhail struggles to escape...
In the next story—despite its existence in a culture which has already turned the phrase "a glitch in the Matrix" into a pervasive metaphor—"Atrophy" still brings chills...
"Every So Often" also revisits a common trope, and breathes new life into it. More than that I cannot (should not) say.
After that is "Ghost Girl," set in Burundi and featuring a police officer, a little girl, and her very big guardian... this one could be an Ian McDonald story (and yes, that's a compliment).
The fifth story is "The Sky Didn't Load Today," which—oh, God, just from the title you can tell it's not going to be a happy-go-lucky tale, can't you?
And so it goes. There are twenty-three stories here in all, varying greatly in length but all carrying a punch. Don't skip the Author's Notes at the back, either—Larson explains the origins of each story in what I thought were entertaining and illuminating ways.
Tomorrow Factory is dedicated to the late Gardner Dozois, who selected Larson's stories for no fewer than eight of his "Year's Best" anthology series—and with good reason. Larson's just that good at asking the central questions of speculative fiction: "What if?" and "If this goes on... what then?"
Keep an eye on this one, mates—Rich Larson is going places.
November 9, 2018
Rich Larson's debut collection is one of the strongest--first or not--I've encountered in years. His prose is consistently taut and supple, muscular but playful. Read this collection and marvel at the range of styles, tones, ideas; at the outrageous yet plausibly conceived scenarios and the invitingly torn characters peopling them. And then find your mind further boggled by the fact that these twenty-three pieces represent but a mere sampling of Larson's vast and ever-expanding body of short fiction (over a hundred and fifty stories so far), and that he's still in his twenties. Many other fine pieces, available online--a personal favorite is "The Air We Breathe Is Stormy, Stormy"--would be worthy of their own collections, and I guarantee that you'll crave these virtual delights once you've consumed the tales between these covers.
Things click right into place with "All That Robot Shit." If you think Robinson Crusoe could have benefitted from some robot companions, think again, or at least heed the possibility that they might evolve their own creation myths and consequently not be compelled to help you. The idea of an artificial sentience developing an origin story that denies humans' role in the creation of such an intelligence harkens back at least to Isaac Asimov's classic story "Reason," but Larson innovates and expands the theme in intriguing ways, not least of which is the vernacular. Despite--or perhaps because of--the fundamental role of reception among this story's players, the ending, with the deliberate uncertainty of its final line, is memorably poignant.
I confess that the more introspection-laden, quietly emotional stories tend to be my favorites by Larson, and following suit from the collection opener we encounter "Atrophy"'s artful splintering of reality: "She'd been walking Addy to the school, crossing the bridge. Then something split the top of her head open. She'd stumbled against the railing but the vines turned to metal under her hands, and when she looked down the bright clear canal had no water, only brackish sludge, and something pale and red-spotted was lying in the mud." Technology is here applied to literally redress one's perceptions of a haunted wasteland. The details and descriptions are pitch-perfect, and I enjoy how this story continues a conversation to which have contributed Chris Beckett's similarly sense-bending "The Perimeter" and "Piccadilly Circus," as well as Elizabeth Bear's bleak "The Hand is Quicker".
Basketball, a sense of family legacy, and youthful ambition powerfully gel in "Meshed," which sees a star-athlete-in-the-making refuse a popular procedure that would allow others to experience his virtuosity from the inside. It's hard to conceive of two better opening lines: "In the dusked-down gym, Oxford Diallo is making holo after holo his ever-loving bitch, shredding through them with spins, shimmies, quicksilver crossovers. He's a sinewy scarecrow, nearly seven foot already, but handles the ball so damn shifty you'd swear he has gecko implants done up in those supersized hands."
The notion of consciousness-piggybacking crops up again in the touching "Your Own Way Back," in which a grandfather shares the skull of his grandson while waiting for a new cloned body, until he doesn't. The bridging of generations by means of an assistive technology made me recall Xia Jia's "Tongtong's Summer." More manic in pacing and brazen in its execution, "Let's Take This Viral" inexorably follows the logic of experiential innovation for non-human minds, and arrives at an arresting--no pun intended--conclusion regarding their ultimate pleasure.
The time travel moral quandary of "Every So Often" may be less ingenious than some of Larson's other ideations, but its assured grimness more than makes up for that. In addition to these highlights, The Tomorrow Factory contains three flash stories and one poem, not without their own soulful sizzle. "The Sky Didn't Load Today" manages both chilling precision and surrealism; "Chronology of Heartbreak" wields a perfectly-sharpened, irony-propelled blade to the chest. "Datafall," by comparison, well, falls short of the mark for me. But "I Went to the Asteroid to Bury You"--with its clever connection to "The Ghost Ship Anastasia"--is as good an excursion into space-travel poetics as you're likely to find.
Larson is also very good in the thriller, cyberpunk-quasi-body-horror and action modes. Enter the exhibit with the cunning hijinks of "You Make Pattaya," the Predator-esque "Extraction Request," the space operatic "The Ghost Ship Anastasia," the Venom-ous "Brute," and the prison yarn "Capricorn." The mechanized violence of "Ghost Girl" is grounded in a sensitive backstory, as is the systematized alienation of "Edited" (which contains a nice bit of continuity with "Meshed"). Linguistic mischievousness, and a colorful adolescent patois or three, inform, among others, the aforementioned "Brute," as well as the social-media-inspired "Razzibot," which posits that rawness will always be more seductive than performance. Several other stories I'll leave entirely for you to discover, though I can't resist the phrase "sentient train." Finally, "Innumerable Glimmering Lights," with its rigorous investigation into the clash between science and culture in a thoroughly alien aquatic setting, is quite literally a show-stopper.
Because Larson is a master of many trades, and the range of his effects is so considerable, the thoughtful collocation of these stories should itself be praised, and forms its own narrative. I therefore recommend proceeding in sequential order. And enjoy the candid, self-deprecating, contextually revelatory "Author's Notes," too. They may make you revisit a story or two, and with work of this caliber, that's not a bad thing.
Things click right into place with "All That Robot Shit." If you think Robinson Crusoe could have benefitted from some robot companions, think again, or at least heed the possibility that they might evolve their own creation myths and consequently not be compelled to help you. The idea of an artificial sentience developing an origin story that denies humans' role in the creation of such an intelligence harkens back at least to Isaac Asimov's classic story "Reason," but Larson innovates and expands the theme in intriguing ways, not least of which is the vernacular. Despite--or perhaps because of--the fundamental role of reception among this story's players, the ending, with the deliberate uncertainty of its final line, is memorably poignant.
I confess that the more introspection-laden, quietly emotional stories tend to be my favorites by Larson, and following suit from the collection opener we encounter "Atrophy"'s artful splintering of reality: "She'd been walking Addy to the school, crossing the bridge. Then something split the top of her head open. She'd stumbled against the railing but the vines turned to metal under her hands, and when she looked down the bright clear canal had no water, only brackish sludge, and something pale and red-spotted was lying in the mud." Technology is here applied to literally redress one's perceptions of a haunted wasteland. The details and descriptions are pitch-perfect, and I enjoy how this story continues a conversation to which have contributed Chris Beckett's similarly sense-bending "The Perimeter" and "Piccadilly Circus," as well as Elizabeth Bear's bleak "The Hand is Quicker".
Basketball, a sense of family legacy, and youthful ambition powerfully gel in "Meshed," which sees a star-athlete-in-the-making refuse a popular procedure that would allow others to experience his virtuosity from the inside. It's hard to conceive of two better opening lines: "In the dusked-down gym, Oxford Diallo is making holo after holo his ever-loving bitch, shredding through them with spins, shimmies, quicksilver crossovers. He's a sinewy scarecrow, nearly seven foot already, but handles the ball so damn shifty you'd swear he has gecko implants done up in those supersized hands."
The notion of consciousness-piggybacking crops up again in the touching "Your Own Way Back," in which a grandfather shares the skull of his grandson while waiting for a new cloned body, until he doesn't. The bridging of generations by means of an assistive technology made me recall Xia Jia's "Tongtong's Summer." More manic in pacing and brazen in its execution, "Let's Take This Viral" inexorably follows the logic of experiential innovation for non-human minds, and arrives at an arresting--no pun intended--conclusion regarding their ultimate pleasure.
The time travel moral quandary of "Every So Often" may be less ingenious than some of Larson's other ideations, but its assured grimness more than makes up for that. In addition to these highlights, The Tomorrow Factory contains three flash stories and one poem, not without their own soulful sizzle. "The Sky Didn't Load Today" manages both chilling precision and surrealism; "Chronology of Heartbreak" wields a perfectly-sharpened, irony-propelled blade to the chest. "Datafall," by comparison, well, falls short of the mark for me. But "I Went to the Asteroid to Bury You"--with its clever connection to "The Ghost Ship Anastasia"--is as good an excursion into space-travel poetics as you're likely to find.
Larson is also very good in the thriller, cyberpunk-quasi-body-horror and action modes. Enter the exhibit with the cunning hijinks of "You Make Pattaya," the Predator-esque "Extraction Request," the space operatic "The Ghost Ship Anastasia," the Venom-ous "Brute," and the prison yarn "Capricorn." The mechanized violence of "Ghost Girl" is grounded in a sensitive backstory, as is the systematized alienation of "Edited" (which contains a nice bit of continuity with "Meshed"). Linguistic mischievousness, and a colorful adolescent patois or three, inform, among others, the aforementioned "Brute," as well as the social-media-inspired "Razzibot," which posits that rawness will always be more seductive than performance. Several other stories I'll leave entirely for you to discover, though I can't resist the phrase "sentient train." Finally, "Innumerable Glimmering Lights," with its rigorous investigation into the clash between science and culture in a thoroughly alien aquatic setting, is quite literally a show-stopper.
Because Larson is a master of many trades, and the range of his effects is so considerable, the thoughtful collocation of these stories should itself be praised, and forms its own narrative. I therefore recommend proceeding in sequential order. And enjoy the candid, self-deprecating, contextually revelatory "Author's Notes," too. They may make you revisit a story or two, and with work of this caliber, that's not a bad thing.
July 12, 2019
TOC: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?6...
Highlights:
• All That Robot Shit • (2017) • short story. A man stranded on a desert island with a bunch of robots. They’re not all friendly. 4+ stars
• Ghost Girl • (2014) • short story. “Set in Burundi and featuring a police officer, a little girl, and her very big guardian…” -- APS. 4+ stars
• You Make Pattaya • (2016) • short story. Sex farce in Thailand. An extortion setup that goes wrong. 3.5 stars
• The Ghost Ship Anastasia • (2017) • novelette. Serious problems with a new bioship. Unusually for Larson, a sort-of happy ending. 4 stars. Online at http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/larso...
• Your Own Way Back • (2013) • short story. A grandfather makes a difficult choice. 3.5 stars.
Plus more good stories, and some I didn’t care for. He’s too fond of gloomy post-apocalypse stuff for my taste. It’s a good, solid collection by a significant new writer.
Alan’s review is the one to read: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
More free Larson stories:
https://richwlarson.tumblr.com/freereads
I particularly recommend "Going Endo", a sexy mil-SF short. First rate, 4+ stars. https://www.apex-magazine.com/going-e...
Highlights:
• All That Robot Shit • (2017) • short story. A man stranded on a desert island with a bunch of robots. They’re not all friendly. 4+ stars
• Ghost Girl • (2014) • short story. “Set in Burundi and featuring a police officer, a little girl, and her very big guardian…” -- APS. 4+ stars
• You Make Pattaya • (2016) • short story. Sex farce in Thailand. An extortion setup that goes wrong. 3.5 stars
• The Ghost Ship Anastasia • (2017) • novelette. Serious problems with a new bioship. Unusually for Larson, a sort-of happy ending. 4 stars. Online at http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/larso...
• Your Own Way Back • (2013) • short story. A grandfather makes a difficult choice. 3.5 stars.
Plus more good stories, and some I didn’t care for. He’s too fond of gloomy post-apocalypse stuff for my taste. It’s a good, solid collection by a significant new writer.
Alan’s review is the one to read: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
More free Larson stories:
https://richwlarson.tumblr.com/freereads
I particularly recommend "Going Endo", a sexy mil-SF short. First rate, 4+ stars. https://www.apex-magazine.com/going-e...
January 16, 2019
I discovered Mr Larson’s stories in The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2. You can read my review here.
And as I wrote back then, I found every story of Larson’s online that I could—yet only finally got around to reading them all now. But I never forgot--and have for a long time silently wondered if I’d ever see a story of mine alongside one of his...
It takes real skill to successfully integrate enough sci fi concepts into a short story to make a believable world, while also making the story accessible to a general audience. I don’t know if other sci fi authors think they’re doing that or if they’re even trying, but the genre is not unfairly derided for its incomprehensibility.
You don’t have to have read a single horror, thriller, fantasy, romance story etc to pick one up, read it and understand everything. It can sometimes seems like sci-fi readers and writers want to have their own thing and don’t want new members in their club. But the genre also has unique issues. Are you supposed to explain the Turing test every fucking time you tell a story about AI? Do you have to spell out what a Faraday cage is over and over? Can’t the reader just look up the Oort cloud on Wikipedia, ffs? (Like I have on three separate occasions because I keep forgetting what it is? I linked to it for you, if you’re now curious :P) If a reader really likes sci fi, can’t we at least assume they took a Physics 101 class?
Someone who likes near future stories doesn’t necessarily like space opera. Someone who enjoys sci fi military fiction doesn’t necessarily like alternative history. It may be that other genres have these feuds between subgenres also, but to me, the divides seem so much clearer in sci fi.
Anyway, somehow Larson does it. He writes near future, military, alternative present—loads of subgenres, and I’ve never tripped up on any of his stories.
I think “Going Endo” is the best starter story if you’re interested. The concept is wild and original, it’s filled with details and the language is zingy as hell. It doesn’t take long to read, so why not try it out if you made it this far into my review?
Here are my other favourites, of those available online:
Safe Space
The Green Man Cometh
Meat and Salt and Sparks
Extraction Request
Masked
Now I, uh, haven’t found a copy of Tomorrow Factory yet but I have to assume I’ve read all the stories, bar some that are exclusive to this book (if there are any.) I probably should’ve supported him on Patreon by now... To be fair, I did pick up his debut novel, Annex, in the summer. It’s part of a YA dystopian series. A twenty-five-year-old getting a debut novel published by Orbit Books is an achievement in itself, but I’d been hoping for something closer to a novel-length version of The Green Man Cometh, perhaps. One day I’ll get it—this guy is showing no signs of slowing down!
So if you enjoy cerebral, fast-paced and slickly written sci fi, look no further. I mean, if these stories are good enough for Tor, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Apex, io9, Interzone, Shimmer, Compelling Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction etc, they’re good enough for yo ass.
It’s with great pleasure that I close with the following:
Some other authors have ranted at me about how reading literary magazines and writing every day isn’t working, that it’s a rigged system and they’ll never make it. I don’t know if they are deliberately trying to throw me off, but I’m only human and it has worked in the past (though it won’t anymore.) I’ve also seen others deride my publication credits. They say no one knows the outlets where I get published or I didn’t get paid very much for this or that, as if that’s anyone’s business but mine.
Have a gander at this announcement, please (the urban crime anthology one.) Notice any two authors' names in particular? Yeeeehaaa!
Lol my story in the above isn’t sci fi or anything, but mentioning it completes the narrative arc I constructed for this book review is all :P
And as I wrote back then, I found every story of Larson’s online that I could—yet only finally got around to reading them all now. But I never forgot--and have for a long time silently wondered if I’d ever see a story of mine alongside one of his...
It takes real skill to successfully integrate enough sci fi concepts into a short story to make a believable world, while also making the story accessible to a general audience. I don’t know if other sci fi authors think they’re doing that or if they’re even trying, but the genre is not unfairly derided for its incomprehensibility.
You don’t have to have read a single horror, thriller, fantasy, romance story etc to pick one up, read it and understand everything. It can sometimes seems like sci-fi readers and writers want to have their own thing and don’t want new members in their club. But the genre also has unique issues. Are you supposed to explain the Turing test every fucking time you tell a story about AI? Do you have to spell out what a Faraday cage is over and over? Can’t the reader just look up the Oort cloud on Wikipedia, ffs? (Like I have on three separate occasions because I keep forgetting what it is? I linked to it for you, if you’re now curious :P) If a reader really likes sci fi, can’t we at least assume they took a Physics 101 class?
Someone who likes near future stories doesn’t necessarily like space opera. Someone who enjoys sci fi military fiction doesn’t necessarily like alternative history. It may be that other genres have these feuds between subgenres also, but to me, the divides seem so much clearer in sci fi.
Anyway, somehow Larson does it. He writes near future, military, alternative present—loads of subgenres, and I’ve never tripped up on any of his stories.
I think “Going Endo” is the best starter story if you’re interested. The concept is wild and original, it’s filled with details and the language is zingy as hell. It doesn’t take long to read, so why not try it out if you made it this far into my review?
Here are my other favourites, of those available online:
Safe Space
The Green Man Cometh
Meat and Salt and Sparks
Extraction Request
Masked
Now I, uh, haven’t found a copy of Tomorrow Factory yet but I have to assume I’ve read all the stories, bar some that are exclusive to this book (if there are any.) I probably should’ve supported him on Patreon by now... To be fair, I did pick up his debut novel, Annex, in the summer. It’s part of a YA dystopian series. A twenty-five-year-old getting a debut novel published by Orbit Books is an achievement in itself, but I’d been hoping for something closer to a novel-length version of The Green Man Cometh, perhaps. One day I’ll get it—this guy is showing no signs of slowing down!
So if you enjoy cerebral, fast-paced and slickly written sci fi, look no further. I mean, if these stories are good enough for Tor, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Apex, io9, Interzone, Shimmer, Compelling Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction etc, they’re good enough for yo ass.
It’s with great pleasure that I close with the following:
Some other authors have ranted at me about how reading literary magazines and writing every day isn’t working, that it’s a rigged system and they’ll never make it. I don’t know if they are deliberately trying to throw me off, but I’m only human and it has worked in the past (though it won’t anymore.) I’ve also seen others deride my publication credits. They say no one knows the outlets where I get published or I didn’t get paid very much for this or that, as if that’s anyone’s business but mine.
Have a gander at this announcement, please (the urban crime anthology one.) Notice any two authors' names in particular? Yeeeehaaa!
Lol my story in the above isn’t sci fi or anything, but mentioning it completes the narrative arc I constructed for this book review is all :P
January 24, 2024
Pure sci fi entertainment from start to finish.
February 8, 2021
Encore un recueil de nouvelles de haute volée pour la collection Quarante-deux du Bélial.
C'est en train de devenir une habitude, et une bonne !
Rappelons pour mémoire que cette collection a déjà offert aux lecteurs francophones moult textes de Greg Egan (recueils que je n'ai pas lus), mais également les recueils Au-delà du gouffre de Peter Watts ou encore Ménagerie de papier de Ken Liu (que pour le coup j'ai tout deux lus).
Comme pour Greg Egan, Peter Watts et Ken Liu en leur temps, le Bélial a été exhumé ses textes courts des magazines anglophones pour les publier en France pour la première fois, et il faut saluer ce travail. Car comme pour les trois auteurs susmentionnés, la qualité est au rendez-vous.
Rich Larson est un jeune auteur de Sf, dont aucun texte n'était encore arrivé jusqu'à nous, mais ce n'est pas pour autant un débutant (200 nouvelles et 1 roman à son actif , nous apprends la quatrième de couverture), nombre de ses nouvelles ayant déjà été reconnues dans le milieu littéraire anglo-saxon.
Force est de constater à la lecture, que c'est amplement mérité.
Rich Larson interroge beaucoup la question du post-humanisme, plusieurs textes prenant pour personnages ou thématique centrale les I.A. "conscientes", les consciences humaines transposable ou téléchargeable dans d'autres corps / réceptacles, et même en une occurrence, une conscience non-humaine (sans pour autant venir d'ailleurs, mais chuuuuut, pas de spoil !)
Chose rare pour un recueil de nouvelles, il m'est très difficile de trouver un texte qui se dégage (comme avait pu le faire la nouvelle Ménagerie de papier dans le recueil éponyme en son temps) des autres. La faute, ou plutôt grâce à une qualité d'écriture constante sur l'ensemble de l'ouvrage.
C'est vraiment du super boulot d'écriture, de traduction et d'édition. Merci le Bélial, et surtout merci Rich Larson !
June 6, 2023
Too many of these are just not my kind of story. The very few I kind of liked can't compete against the overload of grim and depressing, so in a fit of self-care, I'm gonna bail on the last seven stories.
I rarely enjoy enough of a collection or anthology to make even free ones worth my time. I wish this had been an exception.
I rarely enjoy enough of a collection or anthology to make even free ones worth my time. I wish this had been an exception.
October 31, 2018
I've been following Rich Larson's short stories for a few years now, but he's insanely prolific, so there's a large amount here I hadn't read yet. He's a master of the form at a young age, adeptly updating cyberpunk for the current zeitgeist. There's shades of William Gibson, Greg Egan, Paul McAuley... He's one of the very best in the current batch of SF writers. Can't recommend highly enough.
January 28, 2019
Hell of a lot of fun. At least on the surface, that's how I would describe Rich Larson’s debut anthology. Fun not necessarily in a happy sense. It can be creepy - yes, but also manage to be moving at the same time.
Tagged as one of the most interesting new voices in science fiction by quite a few editors, including the late Gardner Dozois, and having read a couple of stories in a few Year’s Best anthologies, I was really curious about this collection.
23 selected stories from over a hundred published in just a few years. That’s what you hold in your hands in Tomorrow Factory.
One of the first things that come to mind is the refreshing variety of the stories. There’s the Alien/The Thing SF meets Horror type of story - which I particularly enjoy - as in “The Ghost Ship Anastasia”, “Extraction Request” or “Brute”. There’s cyberpunk thrillers like “An Evening with Severyn Grimes” or “You Make Pattaya”. There’s robot stories with twisted new takes like “All That Robot Shit” or “Dreaming Drones”. Or even unclassifiable stuff like “Innumerable Glimmering Lights”, which seems a trippy version of Ted Chiang’s “Tower of Babylon”, with submarine aliens instead.
However, even with all this variety, one can see a trend in many of the stories revolving around how technology is the new drugs, in the sense of changing our perception of a bleak reality (like in “Atrophy”), altering our personality (like in the funny “Motherfucking Retroparty Freestyle”, and the touching “Edited”), or simply overriding our will (like in “Meshed”, probably my favorite in the collection).
Be aware though that speculation is not really a constant driving element in Larson’s science fiction stories, which is something that I understand may put off some SF readers. In the story notes, he explicitly denies buying into making it an essential element of his science fiction. Instead, he views SF more as a “collection of aesthetics”. When going through the pages of this collection, you can definitely notice how he writes from the love of that particular aesthetics. And for the fun of it.
Tagged as one of the most interesting new voices in science fiction by quite a few editors, including the late Gardner Dozois, and having read a couple of stories in a few Year’s Best anthologies, I was really curious about this collection.
23 selected stories from over a hundred published in just a few years. That’s what you hold in your hands in Tomorrow Factory.
One of the first things that come to mind is the refreshing variety of the stories. There’s the Alien/The Thing SF meets Horror type of story - which I particularly enjoy - as in “The Ghost Ship Anastasia”, “Extraction Request” or “Brute”. There’s cyberpunk thrillers like “An Evening with Severyn Grimes” or “You Make Pattaya”. There’s robot stories with twisted new takes like “All That Robot Shit” or “Dreaming Drones”. Or even unclassifiable stuff like “Innumerable Glimmering Lights”, which seems a trippy version of Ted Chiang’s “Tower of Babylon”, with submarine aliens instead.
However, even with all this variety, one can see a trend in many of the stories revolving around how technology is the new drugs, in the sense of changing our perception of a bleak reality (like in “Atrophy”), altering our personality (like in the funny “Motherfucking Retroparty Freestyle”, and the touching “Edited”), or simply overriding our will (like in “Meshed”, probably my favorite in the collection).
Be aware though that speculation is not really a constant driving element in Larson’s science fiction stories, which is something that I understand may put off some SF readers. In the story notes, he explicitly denies buying into making it an essential element of his science fiction. Instead, he views SF more as a “collection of aesthetics”. When going through the pages of this collection, you can definitely notice how he writes from the love of that particular aesthetics. And for the fun of it.
January 2, 2022
Wow. Magistral.
Dans chaque nouvelle, l’auteur a un vrai don pour dépeindre un univers en quelques lignes, et surtout, montrer en quoi ces univers imprègnent totalement la façon de penser des personnages qui l’habitent, leur quotidien ainsi que leurs relations avec leurs semblables (ou non-semblables). On explore des futurs proches ou lointains, avec une certaine prédilection pour le biopunk et le post-apocalyptique, voire les deux en même temps.
Certaines nouvelles sont moins remarquables que d’autres et un bon nombre ont une chute qui se devine aisément, mais toutes sont montées avec brio et l’ensemble est de très grande qualité. C’est parfois époustouflant, parfois mélancolique, parfois drôle et parfois très cruel. On fait la part belle aux sciences dures et aux technologies sans jamais perdre de vue le côté humain (terme à prendre au sens large, puisqu’il concerne aussi les transhumains, post-humains et non-humains mis en scène).
La lecture risque d’être ardue pour les néophytes en SF, mais les amateurs et amatrices du genre devraient y trouver plus que leur compte.
Dans chaque nouvelle, l’auteur a un vrai don pour dépeindre un univers en quelques lignes, et surtout, montrer en quoi ces univers imprègnent totalement la façon de penser des personnages qui l’habitent, leur quotidien ainsi que leurs relations avec leurs semblables (ou non-semblables). On explore des futurs proches ou lointains, avec une certaine prédilection pour le biopunk et le post-apocalyptique, voire les deux en même temps.
Certaines nouvelles sont moins remarquables que d’autres et un bon nombre ont une chute qui se devine aisément, mais toutes sont montées avec brio et l’ensemble est de très grande qualité. C’est parfois époustouflant, parfois mélancolique, parfois drôle et parfois très cruel. On fait la part belle aux sciences dures et aux technologies sans jamais perdre de vue le côté humain (terme à prendre au sens large, puisqu’il concerne aussi les transhumains, post-humains et non-humains mis en scène).
La lecture risque d’être ardue pour les néophytes en SF, mais les amateurs et amatrices du genre devraient y trouver plus que leur compte.
January 25, 2019
Whether Larson's tomorrows are just around the corner or in the far future, they tend to be equally dire. Humans, especially younger humans, are enthusiastic about all the pharmaceuticals and high tech enhancements, but they often prove to be diminishments, and in one case may destroy all life in the universe. (Kids, don't play around with old-fashioned bubonic plague.) Gender and desire are predictably fluid in these new worlds, and one of the tenderest relationships depicted involves three either highly evolved or alien cephalopods. The squid story is out of character for Larson, because most of the story explore what will being human will mean in the new worlds.
did-not-finish
July 26, 2023DNF Very Early
Look, I forgot to mark down the percentage at which I DNF, but it was during the first story so it was very early. I can't be assed to re-borrow this from the library to check.
The introduction of this book left a bad taste in my mouth from the start. It was rather sanctimonious in tone and made me feel the creeping edges of boredom, to the point I skipped over it after two pages. In the introduction, James Patrick Kelly blathers on about what makes a "new writer" and the psychology of perfecting one's craft, all the while conflating the term "writer" (which should apply to anyone who, y'know, writes) with the term "author" (the word more commonly used for someone who does this as a profession). Literally none of that has anything to do with why readers should care about the stories in this collection or feel excited to experience this "new writer" for the first time. If it does become more topically relevant later, I don't know; it lost me before reaching such a point.
After that, the first short story is the 'charmingly' titled All That Robot Shit which left me feeling exhausted from the first paragraph. It's so wordy and written in a tone that just did not work well for me at all - especially the strange way pronouns were handled. (A robot is referred to as 'he' but a man as 'it.') I think this was an attempt to get into the robot's head, but the POV didn't feel particularly solidly focused so it just got confusing and annoying fast. I also had trouble making sense of the garbled way the robot spoke, and though I recognize it as a plot device, that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I bailed around the point when the robot and human started bickering about whether to worship the sun, or something like that. It was just too weird and boring for me.
Instead of waiting for a third strike, I decided I don't feel like bothering with this collection and chose not to finish it. I don't have the mental energy to handle a book I'm very clearly not compatible with. And that's a shame, because I was kind of looking forward to the bleak dystopian vibes other reviewers cited.
Look, I forgot to mark down the percentage at which I DNF, but it was during the first story so it was very early. I can't be assed to re-borrow this from the library to check.
The introduction of this book left a bad taste in my mouth from the start. It was rather sanctimonious in tone and made me feel the creeping edges of boredom, to the point I skipped over it after two pages. In the introduction, James Patrick Kelly blathers on about what makes a "new writer" and the psychology of perfecting one's craft, all the while conflating the term "writer" (which should apply to anyone who, y'know, writes) with the term "author" (the word more commonly used for someone who does this as a profession). Literally none of that has anything to do with why readers should care about the stories in this collection or feel excited to experience this "new writer" for the first time. If it does become more topically relevant later, I don't know; it lost me before reaching such a point.
After that, the first short story is the 'charmingly' titled All That Robot Shit which left me feeling exhausted from the first paragraph. It's so wordy and written in a tone that just did not work well for me at all - especially the strange way pronouns were handled. (A robot is referred to as 'he' but a man as 'it.') I think this was an attempt to get into the robot's head, but the POV didn't feel particularly solidly focused so it just got confusing and annoying fast. I also had trouble making sense of the garbled way the robot spoke, and though I recognize it as a plot device, that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I bailed around the point when the robot and human started bickering about whether to worship the sun, or something like that. It was just too weird and boring for me.
Instead of waiting for a third strike, I decided I don't feel like bothering with this collection and chose not to finish it. I don't have the mental energy to handle a book I'm very clearly not compatible with. And that's a shame, because I was kind of looking forward to the bleak dystopian vibes other reviewers cited.
October 3, 2022
Extraordinaire créativité de ce jeune auteur que je découvre pour l'occasion.
La trentaine de nouvelles que renferment ce recueil sont pour la plupart épatantes. Un style simple et percutant, des idées plus brillantes les unes que les autres...
Parfois en quelques lignes seulement, il arrive à évoquer des futurs proches ou lointains mais toujours originaux, parfois vertigineux.
À souligner enfin le très bon travail d'édition du Belial, qui a savamment organisé le tout dans la production pléthorique de l'auteur.
Prochaine étape : le roman à paraître cet automne chez le même éditeur !
La trentaine de nouvelles que renferment ce recueil sont pour la plupart épatantes. Un style simple et percutant, des idées plus brillantes les unes que les autres...
Parfois en quelques lignes seulement, il arrive à évoquer des futurs proches ou lointains mais toujours originaux, parfois vertigineux.
À souligner enfin le très bon travail d'édition du Belial, qui a savamment organisé le tout dans la production pléthorique de l'auteur.
Prochaine étape : le roman à paraître cet automne chez le même éditeur !
July 30, 2023
C'est bien, moderne en diable et souvent original. Mais le niveau des nouvelles est très hétérogène et, à mon sens, il y en a trop. Éditeur, j'aurais choisi un format plus resserré.
July 13, 2024
Hard to pick favorites, but my personal highlights: Extraction Request, Edited, Razzibot, MFing Retroparty Freestyle, Innumerable Glimmering Lights
February 28, 2023
Coucou mes Mystigris 😉
J'ai lu La fabrique des lendemains de @richlarson Merci beaucoup aux éditions @livredepocheimagijaire pour cet très belle découverte ☺️
🄼🄾🄽 🄰🅅🄸🅂 Entre robots, extraterrestres, IA, Virtuel, cryogénisation, implants... Il y en a pour tous les goûts dans ces 28 nouvelles de science-fiction. Des histoires marquantes et fortes sur la conscience, les conditions et la place de l'être humain dans ces diverses histoires futuristes hors normes et parfois étonnantes.
L'auteur nous conte des histoires incroyables de robots, de hackeuses cryogénisees voulant se venger, de chimpanzés policiers et leurs partenaires humains mais aussi de ces amants qui ont pour seul contact leur combinaison connectée ou encore ces extraterrestres aquatiques qui n'ont jamais vu les étoiles et bien d'autres encore...
Ces nouvelles nous font voyager et nous surprennent avec des récits parfois nébuleux, compliqués et parfois totalement bizarres. Des récits bien différents les uns des autres mais toujours en noyau central une science-fiction riche et dense. Rich Larson a une imagination débordante et originale. J'ai aimé, même adoré certaines nouvelles pour leur originalité et leur spécificité.
🄲🄾🄽🄲🄻🅄🅂🄸🄾🄽 un excellent recueil de nouvelles et un très bon moment passé dans ces univers éclectiques et futuristes.
J'ai lu La fabrique des lendemains de @richlarson Merci beaucoup aux éditions @livredepocheimagijaire pour cet très belle découverte ☺️
🄼🄾🄽 🄰🅅🄸🅂 Entre robots, extraterrestres, IA, Virtuel, cryogénisation, implants... Il y en a pour tous les goûts dans ces 28 nouvelles de science-fiction. Des histoires marquantes et fortes sur la conscience, les conditions et la place de l'être humain dans ces diverses histoires futuristes hors normes et parfois étonnantes.
L'auteur nous conte des histoires incroyables de robots, de hackeuses cryogénisees voulant se venger, de chimpanzés policiers et leurs partenaires humains mais aussi de ces amants qui ont pour seul contact leur combinaison connectée ou encore ces extraterrestres aquatiques qui n'ont jamais vu les étoiles et bien d'autres encore...
Ces nouvelles nous font voyager et nous surprennent avec des récits parfois nébuleux, compliqués et parfois totalement bizarres. Des récits bien différents les uns des autres mais toujours en noyau central une science-fiction riche et dense. Rich Larson a une imagination débordante et originale. J'ai aimé, même adoré certaines nouvelles pour leur originalité et leur spécificité.
🄲🄾🄽🄲🄻🅄🅂🄸🄾🄽 un excellent recueil de nouvelles et un très bon moment passé dans ces univers éclectiques et futuristes.
January 16, 2020
I finally finished my own book club pick. 23 stories was maybe a bit long. Some of them weren’t even proper stories. Like those bullshit tracks on albums that last like 40 seconds? And sometimes the riffs are really good! Like, ‘Why didn’t you expand on that?’. And then other times they aren’t any good and you wonder what the point was. There’s a poem in there also. Meh.
I really liked the collection overall. Larson has a great imagination and has probably predicted the future an awful lot. From AI, to robot clones, to the expansion of social media in the third person and new personality modules to enhance boring ‘freestyling’. Lots of stories inspired by video games and movies like Riddick and Alien. Plus, I’m a sucker for dystopian-esque landscapes and settings. Blade Runner. John Wick. Just gorgeous renditions of a broken world. You almost want to live in it. Except, you know, it’s a dystopia. I suppose some would say we’re already there. As far as I can tell, I’m still a privileged brat so I can’t agree.
I really liked the collection overall. Larson has a great imagination and has probably predicted the future an awful lot. From AI, to robot clones, to the expansion of social media in the third person and new personality modules to enhance boring ‘freestyling’. Lots of stories inspired by video games and movies like Riddick and Alien. Plus, I’m a sucker for dystopian-esque landscapes and settings. Blade Runner. John Wick. Just gorgeous renditions of a broken world. You almost want to live in it. Except, you know, it’s a dystopia. I suppose some would say we’re already there. As far as I can tell, I’m still a privileged brat so I can’t agree.
December 19, 2020
This was a solid collection. I can't say that I loved every story but I enjoyed them overall and for the ones that I didn't enjoy as much I generally found that there were some interesting ideas or the story was well put together.
December 25, 2018
So so good! I love that each story is a deep universe you want to get lost in. Come for the sci-fi and stick around for the tech, language play and wonderfully diverse fantasies.
December 29, 2023
(More like 3.5 stars). A fine collection from a talented, prolific writer.
Rich Larson seems to take the 'short' in short fiction very seriously. He does a lot with a small amount of words, but ultimately many of the stories could use a little more breathing room. The stories have really been stripped down to their essence, with the main focus being on the creative science fiction concepts that spring from Larson's mind. However, this style of writing resembles a clear pattern that is probably at least part of the reason Larson is so productive. In his stories, exposition always leads to dialogue between two characters in the first few ten sentences, dropping hints as to the specific concept the story is trying to convey, with the concept eventually being revealed to us in the last few lines. Once you see this pattern emerging, once the feeling of repetition sets in, it becomes difficult to read this bundle in one go without feeling somewhat underwhelmed.
In addition, the style of exposition can be overwhelming. Take this opening section from the first story, "All That Robot Shit" (which I enjoyed!):
There is so much information to be gleaned that it can feel more like a chore than a pleasure. And most of Larson's stories follow a similar if not identical unravelling of events. His prose can be spartan at times but is acceptable to excellent. He is no Ursula Le Guin, but the language usually feels fresh and realistic. I do think he could benefit from a bit less swearing though, the dialogue feels a bit too 'Gen-Z' at times.
The advantage of short stories is that you don't have to commit too much time to a single story, so I wouldn't say I had regrets reading any individual story, they were all at least good to excellent. However, I do think it makes sense to read only a few stories at a time to keep the vibrant experience that Larson intended. And finally, I want to complement him on his many creative conceptual ideas, it is extremely impressive he has managed to write so many fresh stories and he does not appear to have any plans of slowing down.
Rich Larson seems to take the 'short' in short fiction very seriously. He does a lot with a small amount of words, but ultimately many of the stories could use a little more breathing room. The stories have really been stripped down to their essence, with the main focus being on the creative science fiction concepts that spring from Larson's mind. However, this style of writing resembles a clear pattern that is probably at least part of the reason Larson is so productive. In his stories, exposition always leads to dialogue between two characters in the first few ten sentences, dropping hints as to the specific concept the story is trying to convey, with the concept eventually being revealed to us in the last few lines. Once you see this pattern emerging, once the feeling of repetition sets in, it becomes difficult to read this bundle in one go without feeling somewhat underwhelmed.
In addition, the style of exposition can be overwhelming. Take this opening section from the first story, "All That Robot Shit" (which I enjoyed!):
Carver Seven listens intently. Lately the Man, who also self-designates as Mikhail and Only Human Being On This Fucking Island, has not spoken often. Instead it stares off across the sea in silence, or makes its snuffling animal sounds while excess lubricant from pivoting photoreceptors leaks down the front of its head and spatters the sand. The Man once referred to this process as crying like a little bitch.
At the moment, Carver Seven and the Man are crafting spears in the shade of a storm-bent palm. Carver Seven prefers the sunshine, where his slick, black carbon skin thrums under the life-giving gaze of Watcher-in-the-sky. He tolerates the shade for the Man’s sake.
There is so much information to be gleaned that it can feel more like a chore than a pleasure. And most of Larson's stories follow a similar if not identical unravelling of events. His prose can be spartan at times but is acceptable to excellent. He is no Ursula Le Guin, but the language usually feels fresh and realistic. I do think he could benefit from a bit less swearing though, the dialogue feels a bit too 'Gen-Z' at times.
The advantage of short stories is that you don't have to commit too much time to a single story, so I wouldn't say I had regrets reading any individual story, they were all at least good to excellent. However, I do think it makes sense to read only a few stories at a time to keep the vibrant experience that Larson intended. And finally, I want to complement him on his many creative conceptual ideas, it is extremely impressive he has managed to write so many fresh stories and he does not appear to have any plans of slowing down.
February 13, 2023
I've come a little late to Rich Larson's 2018 collection of science fiction short stories - but I'm glad I did. At the time of publication, Larson was apparently only 25, but had already managed to produce an impressively immersive and dark set of speculative stories.
The author's relative youth comes through occasionally in the writing, but more importantly in the effortless ability to capture a young feel to his characters that has no sense of being artificial. Quite a few of the stories here would once have been characterised as cyberpunk - there's often a sense of technology and human existence coming together and clashing, sometimes directly and physically with implants, at other times indirectly - particularly effectively in one of the best social media influencer satires I've seen in the story Razzibot.
There are 23 stories in all (or 22 if you don't want to count a poem) and for me there was an unusually high hit rate - there was only one that I gave up on because I found it too much hard work, but the vast majority pulled me quickly in and kept me reading. Although there's not a uniform future here, several of the stories share technological concepts and terminology - perhaps Larson took a risk that didn't quite pay of in calling his future of calling people skyping.
If I have one criticism, there could be more light and shade. A really good collection of short stories varies in length, topic and position on the heavy to light scale. Larson scores well on length variation. It would have been nice to have a few more stories set in totally different worlds or futures - but this wasn't a particular issue. But for me, too many of the stories were dark and set in a Blade Runner style tech-plus-misery future. It would have been good to have had a bit more humour, a few more gently entertaining pieces to give some light relief. And I missed that delightful old SF standby, the twist in the tale (sic), which didn't really feature.
However, that almost uniform darkness doesn't mean this isn't a great collection - and I look forward to reading more from Larson in the future.
The author's relative youth comes through occasionally in the writing, but more importantly in the effortless ability to capture a young feel to his characters that has no sense of being artificial. Quite a few of the stories here would once have been characterised as cyberpunk - there's often a sense of technology and human existence coming together and clashing, sometimes directly and physically with implants, at other times indirectly - particularly effectively in one of the best social media influencer satires I've seen in the story Razzibot.
There are 23 stories in all (or 22 if you don't want to count a poem) and for me there was an unusually high hit rate - there was only one that I gave up on because I found it too much hard work, but the vast majority pulled me quickly in and kept me reading. Although there's not a uniform future here, several of the stories share technological concepts and terminology - perhaps Larson took a risk that didn't quite pay of in calling his future of calling people skyping.
If I have one criticism, there could be more light and shade. A really good collection of short stories varies in length, topic and position on the heavy to light scale. Larson scores well on length variation. It would have been nice to have a few more stories set in totally different worlds or futures - but this wasn't a particular issue. But for me, too many of the stories were dark and set in a Blade Runner style tech-plus-misery future. It would have been good to have had a bit more humour, a few more gently entertaining pieces to give some light relief. And I missed that delightful old SF standby, the twist in the tale (sic), which didn't really feature.
However, that almost uniform darkness doesn't mean this isn't a great collection - and I look forward to reading more from Larson in the future.
January 6, 2019
A collection from a highly prolific author of short stories. The one that drew me to his writing and induced me to read his collection, "All That Robot Shit," is one of the best stories I've read in the last year. Like a few other gems in this collection, it resonates emotionally. Yes, I liked the concept of a robot learning to speak from AI processing of a sole shipwreck survivor's profane speech. But the brilliant idea of having the destroyed robot that was the love interest of the POV robot character take the name of the person the human lost--excellent. I've read this story three times, and I've enjoyed it each time.
Even the stories that didn't resonate as much for me had one thing in common: this author has mastered story cohesion. Within a story, he's taken great pains to get language consistent, and not a word strays off-topic. Each story seems to start with a speculative premise, often mining tropes of the genre, with his intro to each story identifying the source of the trope. The last one, for example, envisions squid-like water aliens drilling upward to discover the atmosphere. I got a kick out of the fundamentalists trying to stop the POV character. In another, the conceit of a social media package that guides the actions of teenagers at a party so they don't do socially awkward things is followed rigorously, with each package having a consistent effect on actions/speech. Larson doesn't go for the surreal, he doesn't go for message fiction, he doesn't try to be literary with language or use story as a puzzle. Decide on the concept and setting, hold it absolutely, output story. The result is a collection it's easy to keep reading--once hooked, this reader stayed hooked.
Highly recommended.
Even the stories that didn't resonate as much for me had one thing in common: this author has mastered story cohesion. Within a story, he's taken great pains to get language consistent, and not a word strays off-topic. Each story seems to start with a speculative premise, often mining tropes of the genre, with his intro to each story identifying the source of the trope. The last one, for example, envisions squid-like water aliens drilling upward to discover the atmosphere. I got a kick out of the fundamentalists trying to stop the POV character. In another, the conceit of a social media package that guides the actions of teenagers at a party so they don't do socially awkward things is followed rigorously, with each package having a consistent effect on actions/speech. Larson doesn't go for the surreal, he doesn't go for message fiction, he doesn't try to be literary with language or use story as a puzzle. Decide on the concept and setting, hold it absolutely, output story. The result is a collection it's easy to keep reading--once hooked, this reader stayed hooked.
Highly recommended.
May 16, 2019
I read this book all in a couple days because I just couldn't put it down. I was bumping into doorways all weekend, bumping into walls. With twenty-three stories in a single book, they're all fairly short, and even the longest stories move at a brisk pace that kept me turning pages. Which isn't to say they're all fast-paced in the action, some are more thought provoking and emotional, but never linger in one place long enough to get boring. My husband isn't a big reader and even he was compelled to read on when he took a peek at Extraction Request.
For being all sci-fi short stories by the same author, there's a LOT of variety between genres and tone. It's clear that the author enjoys experimenting with his writing and isn't afraid to try new things, and he's remarkably successful in all of them.
One of my favorite things about this book is that, at the end, Rich Larson did a brief author's note about each story, talking about his process and inspirations. Some of the inspirations surprised me, and it was fun to reread the stories and search for the faint echoes of the books, games and movies that influenced them.
Which isn't to say that Rich Larson's writing ever felt derivative. I never got the dull, dragging feeling of reading material already worn to threads by other sci-fi stories before it, because even the more common staples of the genre were transformed by the author's vivid prose and characterization (the latter is especially hard to pull off in such short stories, I consistently fell in love with the characters in just a few paragraphs of getting to know them)
For being all sci-fi short stories by the same author, there's a LOT of variety between genres and tone. It's clear that the author enjoys experimenting with his writing and isn't afraid to try new things, and he's remarkably successful in all of them.
One of my favorite things about this book is that, at the end, Rich Larson did a brief author's note about each story, talking about his process and inspirations. Some of the inspirations surprised me, and it was fun to reread the stories and search for the faint echoes of the books, games and movies that influenced them.
Which isn't to say that Rich Larson's writing ever felt derivative. I never got the dull, dragging feeling of reading material already worn to threads by other sci-fi stories before it, because even the more common staples of the genre were transformed by the author's vivid prose and characterization (the latter is especially hard to pull off in such short stories, I consistently fell in love with the characters in just a few paragraphs of getting to know them)
April 6, 2019
I saw this collection of short stories on the Newly Arrived Books display at my local library. The title intrigued me so picked it up. I had not heard of this young author before but I'm always interested in science fiction and speculative fiction. This book has plenty of both and a few things not quite fitting either genre.
Overall, I quite liked it. Larson has talent, that much is obvious. He has a penchant for gore, horror, and things with tentacles. That's fine and he does some cool things there. The stories are not arranged chronologically to his original authorship and thus creates a bit of unevenness in the quality of the writing. I had a look at the publication history at the back and figured out the chronology and compared it to the writing.
As a professional editor, I can understand why they mixed things up a bit but, also, it disallows an easier appreciation of Larson's growth as a writer. Fine. Whatever. His prose is crisp and modern, perhaps too colloquial (in his earlier stories) which may date these pieces poorly in the coming decades. His stories are often quite good but some are interesting and atmospheric, I'm not quite sure what the point was. Perhaps I need to read them again. I look forward to more from Rich Larson. Give him a read. He's good and has a ton of potential.
Favourite stories: All That Robot Shit; An Evening with Severyn Grimes; and Innumerable Glimmering Lights
Overall, I quite liked it. Larson has talent, that much is obvious. He has a penchant for gore, horror, and things with tentacles. That's fine and he does some cool things there. The stories are not arranged chronologically to his original authorship and thus creates a bit of unevenness in the quality of the writing. I had a look at the publication history at the back and figured out the chronology and compared it to the writing.
As a professional editor, I can understand why they mixed things up a bit but, also, it disallows an easier appreciation of Larson's growth as a writer. Fine. Whatever. His prose is crisp and modern, perhaps too colloquial (in his earlier stories) which may date these pieces poorly in the coming decades. His stories are often quite good but some are interesting and atmospheric, I'm not quite sure what the point was. Perhaps I need to read them again. I look forward to more from Rich Larson. Give him a read. He's good and has a ton of potential.
Favourite stories: All That Robot Shit; An Evening with Severyn Grimes; and Innumerable Glimmering Lights
August 14, 2021
Il y avait un livre (de Terry Carr) qui avait pour titre "la science-fiction pour ceux qui détestent la science-fiction". Ici, c'est un peu l'inverse, de la SF pour lecteurs et lectrices de SF. Chaque nouvelle se situe dans un univers totalement différent des autres. Il faut parfois deux ou trois pages (à un lecteur qui connait la SF) pour comprendre en gros dans quel univers on se trouve. Ca fait partie du plaisir de la SF, mais ça peut devenir un agacement quand c'est un peu too much. Ici on est parfois à cette limite. Le pire amha étant cette nouvelle qui met en scène des pieuvres sous la banquise, qui se proposent de la percer... D'ailleurs, est-ce bien ce qui se passe ? Mais aussi beaucoup de beaux récits, surtout dans la première partie du livre. Un auteur à suivre sans aucun doute.
March 27, 2022
I had not heard of Larson until I came upon this book while walking through the local library. And this type of book is exactly why I love libraries so much, finding a book that I would not have found in any other way but by chance, and loving the hell out of it. A book of short stories, some only a page or two long, and each one containing a whole world, so similiar to ours, only not. The results are varied, some make you laugh, shake your head, roll your eyes. And some are melancholic exploring a world so pure and beautiful drapped over a terrible secret like a white sheet hiding rotting furniture. I came away from this book wanting to find more of Larson's books to see what other worlds he is creating, and what secrets those worlds may be hiding.
May 10, 2021
Tomorrow Factory is the best sci-fi collection I've read in a long time from the best sci-fi short fiction writer alive!
It's hard to understate just how good Rich Larson's writing is - every story's world is so fleshed out with so few words. Just incredible talent and craft on display. His stories are often visceral and gritty, but there's good breadth with more grounded and personal entries as well.
The best stories are An Evening with Severyn Grimes, Let's Take This Viral, and Innumerable Glimmering Lights but there are too many amazing entries to mention.
It's hard to understate just how good Rich Larson's writing is - every story's world is so fleshed out with so few words. Just incredible talent and craft on display. His stories are often visceral and gritty, but there's good breadth with more grounded and personal entries as well.
The best stories are An Evening with Severyn Grimes, Let's Take This Viral, and Innumerable Glimmering Lights but there are too many amazing entries to mention.
March 25, 2025
This book really showcases what a great writer can do with short stories. The amount of character/world building Larson accomplishes in 15-30 pages is astounding, masterfully omitting tedious background narrative and only keeping the necessities. You're dropped into each narrative, all your knowledge of the world is delivered by carefully crafted narrative and dialogue queues.
The stories are a fantastic variety of sci-fi/speculative fiction. Each one is different than the last, but all are great.
At the end, Larson offers a brief description of his inspiration for each story.
The stories are a fantastic variety of sci-fi/speculative fiction. Each one is different than the last, but all are great.
At the end, Larson offers a brief description of his inspiration for each story.
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