Welcome To Dystopia

I was fortunate to get a review copy of Welcome To Dystopia from OR Books through NetGalley. It is a collection of 45 short stories based on the current world, with a main focus on the Trump administration. Since 45 reviews are quite a lot, I will be splitting this into 5 reviews each of 9 stories so this will be the first review in a series.

Sneakers by Michael Libling

I thought that the story was good and a realistic prediction of the future. The characters well well developed and felt like there was more to them than what was presented in these few pages. However, I did feel that the ending was a little unclear.

re: Your Wedding by Ruth Nestvold

I quite liked the way that this story was told through a series as emails. The communication between an American and a European meant that we got to see how countries communicate in this world. I did think that it was a bit vague though.

Everything is Fixed Now by K.G. Anderson

I did think that the formal tone in these emails took away from the storytelling and made it harder to read than the previous story. This made the plot hard to follow. I felt that there was no real characterisation or reason to care about the characters.

His Sweat Like Stars on the Rio Grande by Janis Ian

I thought that this was a nice story with well-defined characters. It felt realistic but not dystopian or beyond belief, it could be a new story tomorrow and I wouldn’t be too surprised.

Agnosia by J.M. Sidorova

Again, I felt that this story could be headline news tomorrow and was not too futuristic for my taste. It did, however, have a good plot with nice relatable characters.

The Adventure of You by Paul La Farage

I found that this book was confusing as it was written as a set of writing exercises. It meant that there were few characters with little to no information about them. There was also no plot or world-building and left me wanting something more.

♋ by N. Lee Wood

This was an interesting take on the story as the main focus was healthcare in America and Australia. Again this story was told through emails, but the world building and character development were well done. I did feel that this was not futuristic as this is how I perceived American healthcare to work today.

Birds by Deepak Unnikrishnan

I liked this story as it was simple and easy to follow. However, I did wonder what it was doing in this anthology as it felt out of place. I was also slightly confused about how the magic? worked in this story.

The Only Constant by Leslie Howle

I really enjoyed this story and thought that it was well developed and had good characterisation. The plot and world building were great, and I wish that this story could have been longer.