Bound Together 2023: Fiction: Tech and Sci-Fi
Science fiction gets a modern twist from writers Cory Doctorow, Jennifer Egan, Annalee Newitz, and Allie Rowbottom.
AESTHETICA, By Allie Rowbottom
SOHO PRESS • NOVEMBER 2022 • 264 PAGES • $27 HARDCOVER
Anna is a 35-year-old cosmetic salesperson preparing to undergo an operation that promises to undo changes she made to her face and body when she was a teenage influencer on social media. The day before the procedure, a journalist asks Anna to reveal damning information about her former manager, a man who encouraged her to get plastic surgery. In this nightmarish rendering of our age under the choke hold of social media, Allie Rowbottom explores the extreme methods women may undertake to meet society’s oppressive standards for their bodies.
THE TERRAFORMERS, By Annalee Newitz
TOR BOOKS • JANUARY 2023 • 352 PAGES • $29 HARDCOVER
Destry is a ranger with the Environmental Rescue Team, a multiplanetary organization that helps different worlds preserve and shape their ecosystems. Her mission on Sask-E is to terraform the planet, but the startling discovery of a civilization living inside a volcano gives her pause. Soon, Destry is forced to choose between her loyalty to the Environmental Rescue Team and her new friends on Sask-E.
THE CANDY HOUSE, By Jennifer Egan
SCRIBNER • APRIL 2022 • 352 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
In this 2023 Alta Journal California Book Club selection, a 40-year-old tech genius named Bix Bouton develops an app that allows people to download their memories—and to share them. Hungry for relevance, which he had in the 1990s, Bix releases his invention with little thought to the consequences. Soon people either are hooked or avoid it entirely and are shunned by the rest of society.
RED TEAM BLUES, By Cory Doctorow
TOR BOOKS • APRIL 2023 • 224 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
Cory Doctorow’s favorite protagonist, Martin Hench, takes us on a journey into the soul of Silicon Valley. The 67-year-old accountant lives a nomadic lifestyle in a converted tour bus, and his money-laundering expertise has made him wealthy and a friend to tech industry titans. This time, his skills have led him to a cryptocurrency scheme from which he may not emerge.
