Children of the New Worldby Alexander WeinsteinPicador, 2016In his debut work of fiction, Children of the New World, Alexander Weinstein takes a bold and ambitious approach to answer the question of what will become of our technology-enveloped society as we digress further away from our humanity and embrace the ever-changing virtual reality of the future. The author captivates his readers with haunting and ardent stories that feel both completely foreign and terrifyingly relatable. His writing is clean and precise, jaunting the reader forward into an imagined dystopia which becomes more plausible every day. Through a series of unreliable narrators grappling with the challenge of existence while being torn between the traditions of a bygone era and the luxury and convenience of a virtual new world, Weinstein entertains his audience, but fails to completely captivate in a collection of thirteen short stories,In his collection, readers are plunged into a millennial Bohemia where families are created in laboratories and self-actualization is only the press of a button away. "The Cartographers" explains the public trade of virtually created memories and the addictive consequence of forgoing reality while "Fall Line" balances the pendulum as protagonist Ronnie Hawks forges a mundane life free from streaming his reality to a live audience. Thematically each story suggests the appeal of a minimalist lifestyle void of technological advance, as expanded technology seems to only create expanded problems. Often a chilling and harrowing prophecy, each story offers the reader a glance into the dystopian future imagined by Weinstein.In the first story in the collection, "Saying Goodbye to Yang," we are allowed to peek into the lives of the nuclear family of the new world where children can be purchased in the form of life-like, self-sufficient androids. "Saying Goodbye to Yang" generously comments on the inevitable lack of diversity a global society of the future will offer. Older siblings are often purchased for younger siblings to teach them rigid, programmed lessons about their heritage. For his daughter Mika, the father of the story purchases Yang, a Chinese android, who acts as both a big brother and a learning module. As Yang ages, his internal system fails and is beyond repair, creating a paradox where a replaceable appliance has become a beloved family member. As any parents would however, the family has grown closely attached to their robotic son and find it difficult to move on once their child becomes obsolete. Mika's parents are left with no choice but to bury their broken appliance like they would their own child after a technician coldly labels him inoperable:

The funeral goes well. It's a beautiful October day, the sky thin and blue, and the sun lights up the trees, bringing the ocher and amber of the season. I imagine what the three of us must look like to the neighbors. A bunch of kooks, burying their electronic equipment like pagans. I don't care. When I think about Yang being ripped apart in a recycling plant, or stuffing him into our plastic garbage can and setting him out with the trash, I know this is the right decision. Standing together as a family, in the corner of our backyard, I say a couple of parting words. I thank Yang for all the joy he brought to our lives. Then Mika and Kyra say goodbye. Mika begins to cry, and Kyra and I bend down and put our arms around her, and we stay there, holding one another in the early morning sunlight.

Family and the human experience continue to be an ongoing theme throughout the collection, where families of the new world are faced with a set of hypothetical complications of the future. "Rocket Night" is a whimsical attempt at dark humor in which the least-liked child each year from a local elementary school is blasted off into space against the will of the child and parents. The parents of the community gather in an annual block party which harks back to a tradition of families of the past and ceremoniously presents the illusion of support for the family of the forsaken child. Weinstein takes the liberty of pressing the matter of poverty when describing the experience of preparing the child to be launched into space.

The boy to be sent off, I believe his name was Daniel, stood near his parents, holding his mother's skirt, looking unkempt. One could immediately see the reason he'd been chosen. The mildewed scent of thrift store clung to his corduroys, and his collar sat askew, revealing the small white undershirt beneath. His brown slacks were held up by an oversize belt, the end of which flopped lazily from the side. The boy, our daughter told us, brought stubby pencils to school whose chewed-up ends got stuck in the sharpeners.

The notion of the impoverished being selected for the ritualized sacrifice of the rich is amusing, but nonetheless fails to save the story from a rushed and heavy-handed conclusion which leads us to ponder the logic behind the parent's actions. The tragic but hilarious ending image of a cosmic belt of children drifting through the void of space, with only a microphone to speak themselves about their journey, forces an immediately regretful laugh. Ridiculous and slap-stick in nature, the situation instantaneously shifts as the loneliness and abandonment sink in and force readers to reevaluate their opinion:

I imagined them drifting alone up there, speaking into their microphones, reporting to themselves about the depths of the unknown.

"Moksha" grapples with the eastern philosophy of enlightenment when our Children of the New World can purchase an illegal, mind-altering electronic shock that transports them from the ruins of the civilized world to Nirvana. Even then however, when gifted the peace and serenity of existence, the latest generation is unsatisfied and hungers for more, becoming addicted to the pleasures of simplicity and harmony. For a brief moment the user of Moksha achieves their moment of clarity unlocked by a series of electronic sounds and lights they are left in a euphoric state of acceptance. It is only when the users are left alone with the realities of the world that they have created that they desire to escape once more. Enlightenment as a controlled substance is not a foreign concept for readers. Weinstein attempts to channel Huxley's Brave New World while developing the premise for this story. Even as the effects of the expensive Moksha procedure begin to wane, the user realizes that true enlightenment and self-actualization are within the human soul. As with any mind-altering drug, the effects soon drop the user back into the harsh reality which they had attempted to escape from the beginning:

Enlightenment, it turned out, didn't last long. By the next morning, Abe could already feel the hooks of samsara tethering him to the bed. He worried about his return to the States and his menial job brewing lattes at the co-op. He found himself irritated by the noise of Kathmandu, the dust, his dirty clothes, which stank of sweat, and the humidity that already drenched his body. And so he dressed, and returned to the small shop to pay his twenty-three thousand rupees. He tasted Moksha again, only to come crashing down later that evening, realizing with deep terror that, at this rate, he wouldn't have enough money to last him till the end of the month.

The most enjoyable story, however, which lends its title to the entirety of the collection, "Children of the New World," sets the tone for the entirety of the collection. A family that has been forged within the realms of a virtual reality paradise is forced to give up their existence, wipe and reboot their virtual world after a night of self-indulgent pleasure and passion. Upon catching a virus in their virtual reality, the only option they have is to delete their existence. The couple's children will be deleted, along with their home, virtual property and everything they had spent their physical life creating. After becoming so immersed in the virtual world, the couple is faced with the reality that they have sacrificed their physical existence for an imaginative world that is lost with the press of a button. For them however, their virtual paradise was real. They grieve for the loss of their computer generated children and are forced to look within themselves as human beings to cope with the ramifications of their actions. The pairing of true, psychological grief and a non-existent virtual world is sobering for the reader, forcing them to accept the computerized investments of the couple, however ridiculous they may seem, as their real life compared to the physical existence of others.Drawing away from the passion and sorrow, the writing techniques in the story, "Excerpts from the New World Authorized Dictionary" offer a disassociated technical reading experience. Instead of the format and layout of the previously introduced stories in the collection, Weinstein attempts to imply authority while defining his world with a series of dictionary excerpts of strange and unusual terms meant to entice and intrigue the reader. Being immediately plunged into a rigid format of story, rather than a traditional approach, is overwhelmingly disorienting. Instead of presenting additional stories, it reads as though the author is simply creating terminology to support himself, supplementing the collection rather than expanding it.

wink, winking, Wink v. [from Winker:social-networking Brain/Web interface site created in 2027 by MIT student Jeremiah Jones, originally called Socialwinker] To include or exclude people in your field of vision or hearing by use of Winker's Blue-Eye® technology.

Clunky and irrelevant, this small portion of the collection will immediately divert the attention of the reader away from the heartfelt, painful scenarios in the rest of the collection and force them to not identify with the world they've been placed in, but rebel against it. The rigid, technical dictionary terms may be fantastic and imaginative, but the presentation is not as engaging and entertaining as the rest of the collection, feeling more supplementary than immersive.Weinstein sends us forward with a different type of tale. "Ice Age" changes the pace of the collection, focusing on a community of survivors stuck in a barren, uninhabitable frozen wasteland that is all but void of technology and convenience. Banded as one and surviving throughout their suffering, the colony joins together to fight against the one member of the community who exploits his wealth and his collection of ancient technological artifacts. As is consistent in Weinstein's collection, however, the society again will succumb to the allure of an easier existence tainted by the cold, inhumane hands of technology. The protagonist of "Ice Age" however, attempts to make the best of his situation by adopting a minimalist dogma that defies the societal norms in which he has rapidly been thrust into:

I don't say anything, just stand there, taking it all in: the smell of alcohol, the men emptying the shelves of knick-knacks, the windows white with snow. It's obvious what's about to happen; so clear that, even before Phil offers me a drink, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask Phil where the kids' toys are, and when he tells me, I'm going to get to them before anyone else does.

Weinstein struggles to prove his argument that although the “Children of the New World” have created the flawed society which their control hungry egos drive them farther away from basic human interaction, it is their children who bring them back and ground them once more into the reality which we know all too well. Through the eyes of their own children, the families we meet during this journey are able to realize that beyond the world of self indulgent fantasy and virtual paradise, the love and affection they so desperately seek has been within their reach the entire time.Painful, dark and occasionally brilliant, Children of the New World falls ever so slightly short of persuading the reader to abandon their precious technology for a much simpler existence. A concoction of beautiful writing, heart-wrenching storytelling and real life futuristic scenarios allow the majority of these stories ample ground to stand alone as a enjoyable read, but when compiled into a collection, they begin to feel repetitive for the reader. This collection for a new generation allows Weinstein to tap into the ideals of the new millennials and plead with them to realize the error of their technological revolution before they find themselves lost in their own creation. A powerful, gut-punching and brilliant work of fiction, Children of the New World defines the future of the household.____Dalton Gentry is a writer from Saint Joseph, Missouri and co-host of the YouTube channel Stripped Cover Lit.