LOST PLACES

A collection of sometimes-unsettling tales that champion the power of the individual voice.

A young magician pays a terrible price to assure a powerful man’s comfort. An elderly woman stages a daring escape from a nursing home run by impersonal algorithms. An artist serves her mysterious Muse—no matter the cost. In these often unsettling stories, Pinsker explores themes that have become recurring preoccupations in recent books such as We Are Satellites (2021): the rise of surveillance tech, the erosion of humanity in a world seemingly run by and for machines, and the enduring power of human connection. In “Everything Is Closed Today,” a part-time librarian is stuck with nothing to do and a dwindling bank account when a series of mysterious threats closes schools, libraries, stores, and more. In this cold and unfeeling world, it’s connecting with a group of neighborhood girls over skateboarding that begins to point to a way out. For the elderly woman on the run in “Escape From Caring Seasons,” it’s connecting with the human being behind a surveillance drone. In “That Our Flag Was Still There” and “The Mountains His Crown,” we see individuals defying totalitarian states—one futuristic, one fantastical. All together, these stories explore the aspects of our world that can’t be reduced to algorithms—the individual voice, the power of connection, and the larger, stranger mysteries we may encounter but never fully understand.

Science fiction and fantasy fans will love these strange, sometimes haunting, and ultimately empowering stories.