How High We Go in the Dark. By Sequoia Nagamatsu. 2022
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Rated 96%% Positive. Story Score: 4.29 out of 5
14 Stories :5 Great / 8 Good / 1 Average / 0 Poor / 0 DNF
How High We Go in the Dark is a masterpiece of science fiction; full of catharsis and rich with humanity in the face of illness and death. It is a near perfect “plague book.”
It is also a “Fix-Up” novel. Coined in 1975 by A.E. van Vogt to describe a novel that has been assembled out of a series of short stories: sometimes with original stories or interstitial material written later. Because of early Science Fiction’s connections to short story magazines, many of the genre’s greatest classics are Fix-Ups. Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and The Foundation Trilogy. Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Brian W Aldiss’ Hothouse. Gene Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus. This is a book that deserves to join that illustrious list.
Each story takes place in the same world, one in which a discovery made possible by melting arctic ice leads into a global pandemic that particularly targets children for a horrible death. It is painful to read, especially after the last few years of the Covid pandemic, and yet I swallowed it in two days. Nagamatsu has focused on very human characters, mostly of Asian descent, who attempt to deal with the changing of their personal worlds. Often they don’t handle things well, but they always relatable and worthy of our focus and empathy.
The stories intertwine occasionally in ways that build the richer world, but don’t intrude on the reading experience of an individual story. For example: an artwork sold by a character in one story appears on the wall of later characters story. It is only by the end where Nagamatsu starts to bring it all together, but I won’t spoil how.
There’s lots of great sci-fi here as well. Amusement parks that help euthanize suffering children. Pigs that achieve vocal sentience. Special hotels that turn into funeral homes. There are aliens and spaceships too.
In conclusion: If you can handle emotionally painful subject matter that is handled respectfully and with grace, this has my strongest recommendation.
Five of stories make The All-Time Great List as stand alones:
HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK BY SEQUOIA NAGAMATSU
14 STORIES : 5 GREAT / 8 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
How do I arrive at a rating?
30,000 Years beneath a Eulogy (2022)
Great. A father takes his daughter’s place on the arctic scientific exploration that cost her life and will eventually unleash a pandemic that kills millions. While attempting to connect with the other members of her team, the father flashes back to moments of their past to try to understand his daughters behavior.
City of Laughter (2013)
Great. A failed stand up comic takes a job at an amusement park designed to give suffering children one last fun day … and then euthanize them on a rollercoaster. While trying to find a way to hold himself together on this job, he starts a romantic relationship with a woman whose son is receiving painful experimental treatment. This is so beautiful, so painful, so intelligent. It is worth the price of the book for this one story.
Through the Garden of Memory (2019)
Good. After becoming infected by the children he was babysitting, a young man dies(?) and wakes up in darkness but aware and able to communicate with others who are also in darkness. Far above them is a spot of light and maybe, if they work together, someone could be sent through it.
Pig Son (2019)
Great. A poignant tale of a pig that was destined to help dying children, but becomes intelligent and talks to the doctor.
Elegy Hotel (2020)
Good. Painful family dynamics between rich and poor brothers. The poor brother works in an Elegy Hotel that operates as a funeral/celebration space in this booming industry, but he has extreme difficulty dealing with the death of his father and the declining health of his mother.
Speak, Fetch, Say I Love You (2017)
Good. A man and his son find healing around the repair of a robot-dog that has messages from their deceased wife and mother.
Songs of Your Decay (2016)
Great. A forensic scientist has a friendship with a man who has donated the last weeks of his life allowing experimentation on his dying body. Another bittersweet story of connection and humanity when there is very little time left.
Life around the Event Horizon (2016)
Average. How do you deal with a tear in the fabric of space time, when it is located within your brain? And might be what saves everyone?
A Gallery a Century, a Cry a Millennium (2022)
Good. A painter is part of a space crew that leaves Earth in search of a second home for humanity. As others sleep - awakening only to explore each potential new planet - this woman paints murals on the walls of the spaceship that tell the story of the crew.
The Used-to-Be Party (2022)
Good. Plague patients have started to recover and reenter the world, but so much is gone and they need to find a way to connect.
Melancholy Nights in a Tokyo Virtual Cafe (2009)
Great. Akira is part of a new underclass; those who couldn’t finish their education during the Plague Years and now are really employable. He gets a sketchy job handing out flyers for what is probably a cult, while cultivating a friendship with a single mom in virtual reality. The complex, struggling characters show incredible depth here.
Before You Melt into the Sea (2011)
Good. A dying person wishes to have their tattoos preserved and the person picked to do the works starts to form a strange bond with them from a distance.
Grave Friends (2020)
Good. A woman returns to Japan for the first time since abandoning her family for a life in America. She had come to commemorate the life of her grandmother with a communal cremation ceremony that makes her family a bit unique.
The Scope of Possibility (2016)
Good. The book concludes with a wide-angle millennia-cross tale that wraps up the variation storylines of the book. I won’t spoil the secrets here.
