An incredible book, spanning time and space, but more importantly made up of the personal stories and experiences of individuals, each linking to create a picture of the world and those within it.

The subject matter was a little on the depressing side but the individual stories were beautifully written and I liked how they overlapped and bled into each other as the book progressed.

The emotions this book made me feel were so powerful it took me off guard. I felt warmed and broken, hopeless and hopeful, emotionally drained and satisfied. This is such a vivid tale of humanity it hits every nerve possible and I couldn’t put it down. The way the book is written is so wonderful. Each chapter it’s own snapshot of a person navigating their way through life after a global disaster, not vastly dissimilar to the pandemic we have been struggling through ourselves. But each story ties in to a larger picture. Each character only a single degree of separation away from the next. The power this book holds is the way it opens a window into lives so believable it feels real. And you can’t help but take that feeling with you into the real world, knowing that everyone around you has their own tale. And that we are all in this together one way or another.

I have no idea how to even begin talking about this book.

It kind of doesn’t help that it opens with a delirious letter from the editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury telling you how this book is all that and a bag of chips, which is just one of those moments when you remember how so many different worlds publishing encompasses. I mean, never in a gazillion years is the editor-in-chief of a publishing house going to lose his ever-loving shit over something from a romance imprint, no matter how artistically and financially successful it is.

Anyway, I was off-put and resentful, because the business of selling art is complicated, and too much emphasis on the selling can make it hard to respond authentically to the art, and good God could I hear the grinding of capitalism’s ever-turning wheels as I skimmed past the introductory orgasm of the editor-in-chief.

But then.

Oh my, this book. It is a genuinely remarkable piece work.

And, honestly, I’m not sure how, because a book about a pandemic—even a SFnal one—should by rights feel crass and exploitative at the moment, shouldn’t it? Instead of harrowing, cathartic, and ultimately deeply, profoundly hopeful? I think it helps that the plague in the book, released by melting Arctic ice, has absolutely nothing in common with any other plagues the globe may or may not have recently experienced. It’s not even airborne so there are no reference to masks or any of the other COVID-inspired changes to our current day-to-day lives. Basically, and this was a narrative high-wire act that left me breathless with admiration, it managed to be emotionally resonant while also feeling very much its own thing.

The book as a whole consists of a series of stories—moments in time—between loosely connected characters as the plague runs its course. This starts from its initial release in the Arctic in the not-too-distant future and then deeper, and further, into a world still recognisable and yet utterly changed. While several of the latter stories take on more explicitly science-fictiony themes, especially as the narrative comes full circle with itself, what it never loses its focus on people and the connections between them (the connections, I suppose, between everything).

I guess the closest comparison for me—and probably one that will come up often—is Cloud Atlas. But (and I say this as someone who loves that book) imagine a Cloud Atlas less interested in showing you how clever it is, and more interested in showing you its heart.

I won’t lie, this is a harrowing read (especially in the wake of our own pandemic) and, wow, is there a lot of death in it, but it’s also so unexpectedly tender. While fear and loss and destruction sweep the world, we read about characters navigating troubled families, dealing with loss, falling in love, creating art, seeking connection. Something I found deeply fascinating about the book was its exploration of all the ways society might change if death on a massive scale became a long-term constant in everyone’s lives, particularly its inevitable entanglement with capitalist enterprise. There’s something inevitably bleak about these ideas (for example the eulogy hotel chains that allow the bereaved to efficiently, and for the right price luxuriously, say farewell to their loved one or the euthanasia theme park aimed at giving doomed children one last wonderful day) but what stops the book tumbling into abstract dystopia or a gruelling grimfest is the way each story unerringly finds its human centre. It’s a frankly incredible accomplishment in terms of narrative precision, thematic control and sharp, economical characterwork.

How High We Go In The Dark is an intense and powerful read that finds beauty amidst horror, compassion amongst destruction, hope in the depths of despair, and humanity, always, in everything. I kind of felt like I was getting my heart turned inside out for much of the experience but this book left me dazzled and moved, and perhaps even a little bit changed.

This book is devastatingly good. It's a grim and darkly prophetic set of interlinked short stories set during a pandemic.

*sigh* I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of "what if Covid19 but in the future?" novels. But this one is special. The sci-fi is sublime and realistic. It draws very firmly from the art of the possible - including the terrifying euthanasia roller coaster.

And, it is terrifying. I had to put the book down between each chapter to gather my courage for the next onslaught.

Remember how Joey from Friends dealt with scary books?

Yeah, that's what I wanted to do with this.

And yet, in the middle of this awful pandemic, there's something cathartic about reading how it might go in the future. The little asides remind me of the infomercials in the Robocop movie, or the ever present advertising in Blade Runner.

I've read a lot of Black Sci Fi over the last few years, but this is the first Japanese-American focussed book that I've read. The author skilfully weaves his characters together to give us a wide variety of people through which to view the end of the world.

And a talking pig.

It slowly builds up the terror - always dwelling on the human experience of the individual, never straying to the global level. And then gently releases us from its grasp into something surprisingly beautiful.

You may find it extremely upsetting to read - but it is an outstanding experience.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy. The book is released in January 2022 and I urge you to preorder.

This is a remarkably difficult book to review, partly because it's really hard to categorise. It's literary dystopian science fiction? Maybe? With a heavy emphasis on humanity and death. Now, full disclosure, even though I'm a pathologist, reading about death is not a fun time for me and there is a lot of death in this book. Starting in the future (2030), when the melting polar ice caps have led to the discovery of the body of an ancient girl and the re-emergence of a deadly virus, it probably doesn't sound like the most appealing subject matter in these difficult times. However, the virus is a nothing that resembles a known disease, which made it easier to read.

This is not a long book but a huge amount happens, without being overly dense. It consists of many different stories, with some connecting threads and characters, but with very separate narratives. The toughest one for me is the section about a theme park for terminally ill children that is, essentially, a euthanasia park. These unknowing children get to have one good final day. What's fascinating about this book is the exploration of how humanity and earth will deal with death on a massive, continuous scale. The funerary hotels and the whole culture around death is really fascinating.

The writing is tight, the dialogue excellent and the characters entirely believable, even in those settings that are entirely unlike our current existence. Some characters aren't particularly likeable (but doesn't that make them even more believable?) and some of the sections are a little more impenetrable than others. I'm not sure what I make of the very final section that ties it all together. I'm not sure it was necessary, to be honest, and it was a slightly weak ending, for me, but all of the stories and all of the people more than made up for that.

This book isn't a laugh a minute, and sometimes it's extremely bizarre, but it's well worth checking out with, of course, the warning that there's so much death. So much. It looks inward, into a network of coma dreams, and it looks outward (upward) to the stars, and it is certainly deeply thought-provoking.

Rating: 4 stars (grim but entertaining)
TL;DR: A book about melting ice caps and a virus and so much death but also fascinating, compelling and very readable.

I received an ARC through Net Galley.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is best described in my opinion as a blend of science fiction and slice of life, spanning multiple interweaving threads of characters and plotlines. Told as a series of short stories with common characters, our story starts as an archaeological dig in Siberia unleashing a virus upon the world. This leads to: elegy hotels, end of life theme parks, VR cafes and reconnection through avatars, shared coma experiences, and a voyage across the stars, to name a few. The author mainly uses first person, but there is one addition of both second and third person narratives that really bring forth the required result of a sense of urgency and loneliness required.
The literature is concise and to the point. It is rare to have a story that is sub 300 pages cover so much ground and evoke such a clear mental image of the scenes and emotional baggage that humanity seems to find itself in time and time again. Dialogue is succinct, descriptions of characters appearances are few - for they simply are not needed - and a real sense of connection and interaction between our cast of characters comes across as genuine. They are real conversations and situations people would be having, given the circumstances of the story.

I have few criticisms, as they all reflect my personal depiction of what I want as a reader of literature that spans this sort of scope:.
1) I feel - though I may be in the minority - that a dramatis personae list would be beneficial, either as a list at the end of the novel, or as a heading of who you are as a character at the start of every chapter, would have made my reading experience more enjoyable.
2) Alongside this, a timeline, again at the end of the book or the year the current chapter is set in, would have given me an expectation
3) One final critique would be the addition of maybe 2 or 3 points of comic relief. It is a dark book, dealing with dark themes, and even though there is light at the end of the tunnel in regards to salvation, I had to stop twice to reflect and give myself breathing room to move on.

I would buy this book and I will be recommending it to the vast array of my peers when it is available to do so.