About The Book of Autumn: For readers of Adrienne Young, Olivie Blake, Erin Sterling, Hazel Beck, and Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, a spellbinding debut about ambition, privilege, second chance romance, and ancient magic set at an enchanted school tucked among the red mesas of rural New Mexico, where a formidable pair of magicians are summoned to pursue an alleged killer. Out October 28th 2025.

Lately, I’m finding that I love books that feel like an experience. With the rise of Booktok and Bookstagram, authors are experimenting now more than ever with new, fresh ways of engaging their audiences. They include playlists, interior art, character art, bonus scenes, maps, aesthetic videos, and moodboards, all to make their stories feel more real, more immersive, more shareable, and of course, more fun.

My debut novel, The Book of Autumn, is written in the form of a research record, a collection of notes from an investigation at a haunted college in the desert where one student ends up dead and another is floating in the infirmary and growling guttural nonsense. Through entries from the floating girl’s diaries, annotations from philosophers, real-world ancient grimoires, and old religious texts, as well as footnotes from other characters interjecting with their own opinions into the investigation, Cella and her partner Max slowly piece together the clues of what’s gone wrong. The inspiration for this format was one of my obsessions—a copy of House of Leaves that consumed me. I loved how it was the sort of text you could engage with, and how you could pick up more things on subsequent reads. It felt like it wasn’t experimenting just to experiment, but to make a really entertaining and interactive experience for the reader.

I wanted to highlight six other books (plus one short story) that similarly experiment with form and structure to create an engaging and immersive experience that wholeheartedly sucks you into the story.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

One of the most widely recognized pieces of experimental literature. It focuses on found footage: a fictional documentary film called The Navidson Record which deals with the owner of a house discovering it is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Running commentary from the narrator occurs through extended footnotes throughout the text as they find themselves haunted by this story. It includes citations for works that don’t exist, appendices, and words written literally around the page. Truly a wild ride and one I suggest you try at least once.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Probably the most approachable item on this list. Emily Wilde is a curmudgeonly Cambridge professor and dryadologist, an expert on faeries. She travels to Norway to collect information on different species of faeries for the encyclopedia she’s writing with the help of Wendell Bambleby, a rival professor. It’s written in the form of Emily’s notes on faeries and what happens to her and Wendell on their exhibition, as well as footnotes of different faerie lore and culture that will help them survive their trek. It’s cozy and cute, but also a little spooky at times.

Possession by A.S. Byatt

This one follows two scholars researching the love life of two famous fictional poets. Following clues left inside diary entries, letters, and poetry from the nineteenth century attributed to the two poets, the scholars uncover the truth of their secret relationship. The novel flips between present day and past, culminating in a gorgeous narrative exploring art and ownership.

S by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams

This novel includes several inserts that supplement the text—postcards, newspaper clippings, and maps—to help puzzle together the mystery behind a book, Ship of Theseus, its fictional author, V.M. Straka, and the two college students leaving notes to each other in its margins. The book itself is aged and looks like a worn, used library book, and the notes in the margin are in different handwriting and colors that get more chaotic as you delve deeper into the mystery.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

A story within a story that spans time periods, continents, and characters, this follows a young historian who discovers a mysterious book and cache of letters in her father’s library, plunging her into her father’s past and a search for truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler who inspired the legend of Dracula. Much of the story is told in letters by her father and historical research through ancient documents. You really feel like it’s all real as you dive into the different texts. 

Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko

Another dark academia, this one follows young girl Sasha who gets a strange invitation to attend a specialized university where she’s asked to complete nonsensical tasks and read books that are impossible to read. Her education becomes increasingly absurd and intense until she undergoes a transformation. A bit of a mind trip told with no chapter breaks. Think if Kafka went to magic school.

Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather by Sarah Pinsker

Experimentation is where short fiction really shines. If you’re interested in more, I suggest checking out SFF stories and poetry. This particular piece by Sarah Pinsker is one of my favorites. It’s written in the form of comments on a forum discussing a very old, very spooky folk ballad and the ensuing search to discover its origins. The piece is very interactive and even includes a hyperlink to a YouTube version of the song.

The post Seven Works That Push Narrative Boundaries appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

In We Are Satellites, Pinsker offers an insight at what life would look like if a brain implant to make us highly functioning, multi-tasking humans, became available to the general public. The centre stage is taken by a family composed of two mothers, their teenage son who is the only person in his class to not have an implant, and their 10-year old daughter who is epileptic and cannot get an implant. What follows is a story about David’s struggles with his Pilot and young Sophie’s involvement in the anti-Pilot movement while their mom, Julie embraces the new technology to give herself a new edge at work and their school teacher mom, Val, decides to not engage.

On Effects on the Society
I loved Val and how understanding she was with her kids and wife. She has an opinion about the Pilots, but she is able to keep a distance from it, interacting only through her family’s experiences and her professional situations. Through her, We Are Satellites portrays what schools would become if students had Pilots to enhance their studying capabilities. Of course, Pilots are not magic so they won’t take a D student to A+ but they surely help them along towards a better grade.

In North America, high school subjects are often divided into Advance Placements, General and Remedial sections, with varying names in different school systems and countries. With Pilots, there is a more concrete divide between the kids who have Pilots and excel in school more easily and those who won’t or can’t get a Pilot due to medical reasons. While David is able to get a Pilot, his sister, Sophie will never be able to get one and there exist opportunities for bullying, enhanced further by this device. In India, we do not have such categories in classes—there is only one Math class for everyone and when I was teaching here in Canada, I found it interesting to watch the perceptions of the kids in advanced or tougher classes compared to others.

Through Julie we see the pressures on the workplace and how the ties between companies helps with the widespread adoption of Pilots. David had an interesting observation about the Pilots. Since he had one already, he knew what it would mean for his mom to get one too. With hyper awareness of surroundings, it is like nothing ever goes unnoticed.

Since the story spans a decade of the lives of the family, as the reader, I was able to see how this technology took hold in the population and its effects that no one had imagined. Pinkser put a lot of time and effort into researching biomedical devices and their regulations, and the book comes with a reading list of books that helped her with this one. I hope to read some of them and share about them in the coming months.

On the Pilot
It was heartbreaking to learn about David’s struggles with his Pilot but at the same time, without his POV, this story would not have had the same impact. What does it mean to have a brain implant? What does it feel like? Is it different for everyone? Can we even put into words how we feel while using it? The brain is a complex organ and movies like Lucy (2014) have given us a glimpse of what 100% brain power would look like. But to imagine what it would feel like, especially a malfunctioning version of it, is a whole other thing.

If you have ever done something because everyone else was doing it and then not enjoyed it as much, you know the confusion and misery it can cause. But when the stakes are much higher and there is no easy way to go back to how it used to be, what can one really do? – Quote from We Are Satellites

The Pilot in We Are Satellites reminds me a lot of our cell phones and social media. We started using them, not knowing what it would look like or maybe some of us did have some ideas of what we wanted it to look like. But it doesn’t always work that way. The anxiety, feelings of being left out, feeling guilty of the things we haven’t done yet (or books we haven’t read—see You Don’t Need To Feel Guilty About Books You Haven’t Read Yet), constant comparisons with other people, there is so much that comes with social media. And how many of these problems did we really envision encountering when we started? It means so much to me to have an honest conversation with my friends about what I experience online. But if there had been no way to express that and if no one would believe me because their experience was different, I would find it very hard to make sense of myself. Support systems and people are important no matter how much technology becomes part of our lives, and that is a message that We Are Satellites brings home.

A Note on the Cover
I love the cover for We Are Satellites and after finishing the book, I want to take a moment to reflect on it. It doesn’t depict an exact scene from the book, though for me, it reminds me of the conversation that Val had with Sophie when David gets his Pilot—that the two of them will not get them, Sophie because of her medical condition, and Val because of her distrust of the technology and in solidarity with her youngest child. The cover gives a dystopian, lonely vibe in this beautiful world. The older woman figure leading the little child represents the mother-child relationships portrayed in the book—a dependency that eventually goes away as kids get older. Night time is the best time to spot satellites and also the best time to spot the blue LED lights of the Pilot.

If you love realistic science fiction, a world with events that have set in motion we cannot come back from, read this book. It will make you think twice about new technologies, the unethical things companies can do to sell their products, and the information that we get when we sign up for things doesn’t have to be the complete picture. Peer pressure and government subsidies go a long way, and sometimes, it is only in the long run, that the problems and consequences start to surface. 

This book has a lot to offer and I think about all the things I haven’t mentioned— Sophie’s involvement with the anti-Pilot movement, Julie’s adoption of the Pilot as an adult, the betrayal that one feels when you expect others to guide you better—there is so much packed into these pages and I know I will come back to them!

We Are Satellites is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.

Will you be picking up We Are Satellites? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

Everybody’s getting one.

Val and Julie just want what’s best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all.

Soon, Julie feels mounting pressure at work to get a Pilot to keep pace with her colleagues, leaving Val and Sophie part of the shrinking minority of people without the device.

Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it’s everywhere? Those are the questions Sophie and her anti-Pilot movement rise up to answer, even if it puts them up against the Pilot’s powerful manufacturer and pits Sophie against the people she loves most.

Content Notes include depiction of addition, substance abuse, epileptic seizure, medical implant, accident.

The post Review: We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A reluctant medium discovers the ties that bind can unleash a dangerous power in this compelling Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy.

Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In Blade of Secrets, the first book in Tricia Levenseller’s exciting new YA fantasy duology, a teenage blacksmith with social anxiety is forced to go on the run to protect the world from the most powerful magical sword she’s ever made.

The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Set in a world of goblin wars, stag-sized battle ravens, and assassins who kill with deadly tattoos, Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief begins a ‘dazzling’ (Robin Hobb) fantasy adventure unlike any other.

How to Mars by David Ebenbach
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

What happens when your dream mission to Mars is a reality television nightmare? This debut science-fiction romp with heart follows the tradition of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, with a dash of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a hint of The Real World.

The Shadow in the Glass by J.J.A. Harwood
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A deliciously gothic story of wishes and curses – a new dark fairy tale set against a Victorian backdrop full of lace and smoke.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

For fans of The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and David Mitchell, a genre bending, time twisting alternative history that asks whether it’s worth changing the past to save the future, even if it costs you everyone you’ve ever loved.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Set in a brand-new, Norse-inspired world, and packed with myth, magic and bloody vengeance, The Shadow of the Gods begins an epic new fantasy saga from bestselling author John Gwynne.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn.

Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

One young woman faces down an all-powerful corporation in this all-too-near future science fiction debut that reads like a refreshing take on Ready Player One, with a heavy dose of Black Mirror.

Spells Trouble by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Hunter and Mercy Goode are twin witches, direct descendants of the founder of their town of Goodeville. As their ancestors have done before them, it is now time for the twins to learn what it means to be Gatekeepers–the protectors of the Gates to different underworlds, ancient portals between their world and realms where mythology rules and nightmares come to life.

We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From award-winning author Sarah Pinsker comes a novel about one family and the technology that divides them.

What May fantasy and sci-fi releases are you looking forward to? Tell us in the comments below!

The post May 2021 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Releases appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

I recently shared my thoughts about A Song for A New Day, and now it is time for the much awaited interview with Sarah Pinsker. She is also the author of the novelette “Our Lady of the Open Road,” winner of the Nebula Award in 2016. Her novelette “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” was the Sturgeon Award winner in 2014 and a Nebula finalist for 2013. If leafing through digital magazines like Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, is a guilty pleasure of yours, then you have likely read some of her work there! Sarah is also a singer/songwriter with three albums on various independent labels (the third with her rock band, the Stalking Horses) and a fourth that is forthcoming.

It was wonderful to connect with Sarah about her book and music! The best part was learning about some developments in the music industry that I had not been aware of. What feels like novelties right now, A Song for A New Day makes them into realities for everyone, as a widely-known fact. Hope you learn something new through this interview as well! Enjoy!

Your novelette, Our Lady of the Open Road won the Nebula Award in 2016 and features Luce, the main character of A Song for A New Day as well, after she has met Silva. Could the events of Our Last of the Open Road be considered part of A Song for A New Day?

They both still hopefully stand alone without each other; I think of them as companions more than parts of each other. I also have two other stories set in the world: “A Song Transmuted,” which features one of the side characters, first appeared in the Cyber World anthology, and was reprinted in Sunspot Jungle and A Punk Rock Future, and “Everything is Closed Today,” in I Will Not Go Quietly, featuring mostly different characters but a cameo from Joni as a child.

How similar are you as a person to Luce? How have your experiences differed from her in the Before?

It’s hard to say from the inside. There are similarities, but she is definitely not me. My childhood was nothing like hers. I gave her a level of on-stage star power that I don’t think I have; the fun was in writing someone who is a different kind of performer than I am. I gave her some of my touring experiences, and I think her reactions to problems may be similar to mine. We’re both reluctant to jump into new experiences.

“Just because something had needed improvement didn’t mean the solution was to cancel it entirely.” This is one of my favourite quotes from the book, because it not only speaks about industries, but also individual habits that we cultivate and then give up. Are there currently parts of the music and writing industry that need improvement to survive?

There are always things that need improvement. On both fronts, we need to get better about paying artists, and about paying everyone involved in creation, and we as consumers need to get better about paying for art when we can. Buying direct from artists or from indie stores keeps money in your community, but it’s so tempting to buy from the online behemoths when they undercut prices.

Writing pay seems in some ways more reliable than music pay, at least at low levels where you’re at the mercy of clubs’ dicey payment methods. I think publishing has a long way to go in terms of representation of marginalised voices, though I do think the industry is getting somewhat better about at least recognising that there is a market for those stories.

One of the things I love about dystopias is that they provide a glimpse into a possible future, almost preparing us for something that we know can likely come true. What factors led you to reimagine how the music industry is today?

We’re already at a point where bands are competing with your couch and your shows and the internet, and where people are becoming accustomed to not paying for music. CDs were easy to carry to shows, and people bought them and  CDs and T-shirts helped cover a band’s next meal or gas to the next town even when the take at the door was split.

They are experimenting with holograms that can do shows, so the next question is if people will take a chance on going to see a live local band if they have a chance to see David Bowie or Prince in hologram. There are already VR concerts, and I once saw an Imax 3D concert that was utterly amazing. It felt like I was sitting on stage. I could see the settings on the amps and everything on the set list. Like having the best seat in the house, without being crowded. I saw that show and thought “I can see how people would go for this instead of trying to park and stand in a club all night.” So everything on the music side felt very true to me.

What is your first memory of interacting with music, whether making it or listening to it? What suggestions would you give to someone who wants to learn to play a musical instrument?

Nobody’s asked me that one before! Hmm. Probably my two earliest music memories are putting “Puff the Magic Dragon” on my parents’ record player and listening to the lyrics and thinking it was the saddest thing I’d ever heard, and listening to my mother’s favourite Kinks album, State of Confusion, as she drove my first grade carpool. I can still sing that whole album by heart.

In terms of learning to play an instrument, I think sometimes it takes time to find the right instrument for you. I was TERRIBLE at wind instruments. Piano lessons helped me learn some things about music theory, but it wasn’t until I had a guitar in my hands that everything clicked. Oh! And I guess my other advice would be that if you want to be in a band, learn to play bass. Everyone is always looking for a bass player.

What is on your playlist right now?

The new Brittany Howard album, and also her second band Thunderbitch. Local-to-me bands Manners Manners and Santa Librada.

Did your love for music come before or after becoming a writer? What made you decide to mesh these two together in your stories, along with some science fiction and fantasy elements? How have these different aspects of you helped you evolve?

I can’t remember life without either, to be honest. I’ve always loved music and I’ve always loved writing stories. After college, when I started looking toward a career in music, I put away the fiction for a while. I didn’t feel like I was saying anything unique there. When I came back to it after years of writing only music, years in which I went to new places and played and took interesting jobs and met a lot of people, I found a voice that I think I hadn’t had before. I had a better sense of the rhythms of language, from songwriting, and I had new stories to tell, in areas that not a whole lot of people seemed to have travelled.

For someone like me who loved your book, what would you recommend we read next?

Hmmm…it depends on what you loved about it! If you like the rebellion and punk aspects, check out Annalee Newitz’s Future of Another Timeline. If you like the music, try Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall. Oh, hmm, and I guess if you just like it in general, you could also try my collection of short fiction, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, which was published by Small Beer Press in March.

Are there any books/stories that you would say influenced and shaped you as a writer?

So many! Too many to list. I read a lot of short fiction, so I’d say the short fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin and Karen Joy Fowler and Octavia Butler and Theodore Sturgeon was very influential. Kathe Koja’s novel Skin was an influence on my writing about music, even though it’s about performance art and sculpture; that’s probably the most successful novel about another art I’ve ever read.

What would you tell your younger self when it comes to writing?

Finish stories! My younger self loved writing, but was terrible at finishing stories. If I could give her advice on looking through the beginning and middle to recognise a possible ending to write toward, she’d probably have finished more. But I was also lazier then, and I think I needed to mature a little to be able to finish more stories.

Will you be picking up A Song For A New Day? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Sarah Pinsker, Author of ‘A Song for A New Day’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

If you like music, or sports (yes, sports), you need to read this book. If you read and enjoyed Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, you will like this book. This book is partly about performances, and has so much to offer, giving a glimpse of the future we are headed towards. Enjoy dystopian stories? Read this book!

A Song for a New Day is set in a world where public gatherings are illegal and, the only (read legal) way to enjoy music and sports, is through the virtual systems of StageHolo. A virus destroyed part of the world’s population and people prefer to stay home, get things delivered using drones, or drive in self-driving cars if they must commute. This is a world where the kids go to online schools and real life is in the Hoodspace.

We meet Luce Cannon, an artist who was there Before the laws changed. She was touring around the US, gaining momentum for her career, when everything came crashing down. She had to find a way to continue to make music and reach people who wanted to listen to it, bypassing the restrictions in place. People have been living in the After for so long that the 5-year-old’s who were in the Before are now in their early twenties and do not know how to function in crowds and without their devices. Rosemary is part of this generation who does not remember much from the Before. When she is hired to be a music recruiter for Stage Holo Live, she has to venture out of her comfort zone, meet new people, find the hidden pockets where music is still alive, and experience what the Before had, which the After does not.

This is an amazing story about music, finding oneself and one’s purpose, while at the same time, touching on many of the issues that we are starting to see in everyday life, the addiction to devices, in particular.

With an underlying commentary on big corporations controlling everything, data privacy and recommendations, A Song for a New Day follows Luce’s journey to bring her music to those who want to hear it as well as Rosemary’s struggle to reconcile with the the job she thought she was hired for and the one she ultimately got. The characters are strong and likeable, the descriptions of places where people play are vivid and detailed. A book I highly recommend!

Themes for Thought

If you have read any of my previous book thoughts articles, you know the drill. What follows will be how I connected with the book, highlights of major themes and quotes. As a story about creativity, I think this book warrants something different. Luce writes and performs a number of songs in this book, and for this Long Take, I’ll be using three of her songs to summarise my takeaways.

End Days

Today, we are engrossed in our devices, whether it is at parties or on the way to work. In the After, when public gatherings are no longer allowed, terrorism and deathly viruses have reduced human contact to the minimal, where else does one turn but the devices? I read Rob Hart‘s The Warehouse which talked about the future when all deliveries happen by drones and the cities as we know them are long gone. I feel A Song for A New Day provides another aspect to that world. Rather than focusing on the people making the deliveries happen like in The Warehouse, A Song for A New Day focuses on the people in the cities, trying to make a living and keep their passions alive. I am not saying the two books are meant to be related in any way, but when you are an avid reader, ideas from different authors start to come together, building a whole new world.

What really causes our demise from our current system of living? The way this plays out in Sarah’s world of multiple terrorist threats and widespread epidemic-style viruses are believable ideas. And when this does come about, how would we choose to live?

Enclosed in her Hoodie all day she sometimes came to believe there were no real people, just voices and messages and lines of code and avatars spread out across the world. – Rosemary in A Song for A New Day

Would we crave the freedom of the outside world, where we can only set cautious feet, or will we be content with the regulations and rules that keep us safe? That allow us to ‘meet’ people and not be hurt the same way? Through Rosemary, Sarah raises important questions about the future and what we loose when we shut ourselves off in our devices.

A Minor Second

A Song for A New Day teaches about valuing the connections we have with people and never taking time with them for granted. Luce meets amazing artists throughout her adventures in the Before, but it is only when life is thrown off-course by circumstances that she realises the importance of people in her life and origins. Whether it is checking in on her mother and the family she left behind, or camaraderie with her friends and roommates, she makes the best of what she has, living to the best of her abilities, keeping in mind the people she is helping along the way.

Every second, every connection matters. No matter how we connect with people, when we are present for them, we have to give them our best. Always.

I was there because I needed the energy I could only get from this connection: the elusive collision of a song, a performance, a moment, the agreement that I would try to reach them, and they’d open themselves to being reached. – Sarah Pinsker in A Song for A New Day

Manifest Independence

While independence is the belief of whether we are capable of doing something, freedom says that we are allowed to do certain things. Independence is a self-expression while freedom grants the permission. Through A Song for A New Day and Luce’s actions, this difference between freedom and independence becomes hard to miss.

People in the After do not have the freedom to enjoy public gatherings and are limited to experiencing only the music concerts (and sports) available through StageHolo, but if they truly want, they can go and find the hidden artists in their areas who will give them the experience. Luce offers this to anyone who wishes to be a part of her small rebellion to keep the passion for music alive and the ability to participate in it, physically, available.

Making music in the darkness, then music against the darkness. – Sarah Pinsker in A Song for A New Day

I immensely enjoyed reading this book and, writing this article, made me appreciate it in depth! This is definitely another one of the books I have read this year which I look forward to rereading, especially once HoodSpace gets running.

A Song For A New Day is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers. I received a complimentary copy of this book from Penguin Random House Canada and am grateful to them and the author for letting me be a part of this story. Stay tuned for an exclusive interview with Sarah Pinsker!

Will you be picking up A Song For A New Day? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

In this captivating science fiction novel from an award-winning author, public gatherings are illegal making concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music, and for one chance at human connection.

In the Before, when the government didn’t prohibit large public gatherings, Luce Cannon was on top of the world. One of her songs had just taken off and she was on her way to becoming a star. Now, in the After, terror attacks and deadly viruses have led the government to ban concerts, and Luce’s connection to the world–her music, her purpose–is closed off forever. She does what she has to do: she performs in illegal concerts to a small but passionate community, always evading the law.

Rosemary Laws barely remembers the Before times. She spends her days in Hoodspace, helping customers order all of their goods online for drone delivery–no physical contact with humans needed. By lucky chance, she finds a new job and a new calling: discover amazing musicians and bring their concerts to everyone via virtual reality. The only catch is that she’ll have to do something she’s never done before and go out in public. Find the illegal concerts and bring musicians into the limelight they deserve. But when she sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.

The post Review: A Song For A New Day by Sarah Pinsker appeared first on The Nerd Daily.