A Song for a New Day

Starred review from June 10, 2019
This excellent debut novel by Nebula winner Pinsker (after the collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea) establishes her as an astonishingly impressive writer of day-after-tomorrow SF. Band leader Luce Cannon is devoted to writing rock music and performing it live, even though threats of terrorism and disease have led Americans to retreat into solitude, connected only virtually. Rosemary Laws has grown up in impersonal, shallow isolation, but music awakens her, and she strains against the restrictions that are supposed to be keeping her safe. Luce plays clandestine concerts for tiny audiences while Rosemary, whose job is to find illegal musicians like Luce and build them into virtual reality stars, struggles to steer the monolithic StageHolo entertainment corporation toward more humane activity. Without shortcuts or heartstring-tugging tricks, Pinsker shows how people whose personalities and backgrounds seem incompatible can be united by art, and how the need to feel safe can be less important than the need to create together and share joy. She handles both intimate emotions and extrapolative worldbuilding with aplomb. This tale of hope and passion is a remarkable achievement. Agent: Kim-Mei Kirtland, Morhaim Literary.

July 15, 2019
A post-apocalyptic tale about the power of art and the urgency of human connection. Luce Cannon is on tour with her backing band when it happens. Shootings and bomb threats have already become common, but then there's an attack on a West Coast baseball stadium just before the band is supposed to go onstage for a sold-out concert in the nicest theater they've ever played. The concert is canceled, and soon so are all public gatherings. Cut off from performing, and with no real home to go back to since she left her Orthodox Jewish family rather than come out to them as queer, Luce is adrift. Rosemary Laws never knew Luce's world. She grew up after the attack and the pox. She works in virtual reality all day. The one time she went to a bar, it was a virtual bar--with the cocktails "droned to her doorstep." But her first "live" concert experience takes her breath away. So when she gets a job offer from the company that produces those virtual reality concerts, she takes it even though it'll require actual travel into the real, live world. The story of how Luce's world--our world--turns into Rosemary's is vividly rendered and chillingly plausible. But it's what happens when Luce and Rosemary collide, when Rosemary finally experiences human connection in all its messy beauty, that makes this story so unusual, and powerful, and cements Pinsker's (Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, 2019) status as a rising star in the world of speculative fiction. A gorgeous novel that celebrates what can happen when one person raises her voice.

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Starred review from August 1, 2019

All Luce Cannon wanted to do was perform for a live audience. With a song hitting the top charts and a tour in place, Luce was nearly world famous. Then the bomb threats began, became realities, and deadly viruses were unleashed, causing the government to shut down public gatherings. Now human connection comes through virtual means, and concerts are performed secretly and illegally. Activities are divided into the Before and the After. Rosemary Laws spends her time as a virtual customer service specialist for a business conglomerate, from her bedroom. When she's offered the chance to discover musicians for a virtual concert firm, she's ready to enact change, even if that means going out in public. Queer women Luce and Rosemary are realistic characters, and as their worlds collide, they learn to adapt to the society as it is now. VERDICT Pinsker's first novel (after Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea: Stories) depicts a moving alternate future in which technology provides everything a person could want, except human contact. Themes of virtual reality, humanity, and music are threaded throughout this melodic story. [See Editors' Picks, "Fall Fireworks," p. 25.]--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2019
Luce Cannon's music is taking off; in a world of fear and bomb threats, her concerts are a place for people to gather and connect. But when terror attacks and a deadly virus spread across the U.S., the government bans large public gatherings. People shift to attending concerts and sporting events through immersive virtual reality in the privacy of their own homes, and work, eat, and even travel in isolation. Rosemary Laws grew up in this new world, and cautiously sets off to start her dream job?recruiting artists to buy into VR concerts?encountering real crowds and cities for the first time. Pinsker's first novel (after the excellent short story collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea, 2019) is a riveting and plausible look into what our world could be if we become consumed with fear and dependent on social media. It is also a love letter to live music and underground shows, imagining futuristic musical innovations and the punk rebel scene that could emerge in response to a closed-off world. Pinsker tells her story through the eyes of two complex queer women who ground this fascinating, emotional narrative.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)