Delighted to be with you today to share my thoughts as part of the blog tour for A SONG FOR A NEW DAY by SARAH PINSKER. My thanks to the author and publisher for letting me be part of it all!
ABOUT THE BOOK
An unnervingly prescient, Nebula-award-winning novel explores life in a world permanently locked down in the aftermath of a pandemic.
BEFORE
.Luce Cannon is on the road. Success is finally within her grasp: her songs are getting airtime; the venues she’s playing are getting larger. But mass shootings, bombings and now a strange contagion are closing America down around her. The gig Luce plays tonight will turn out to be the last-ever rock show as the world’s stadiums, arenas and concert halls go dark for good.
AFTER.
Rosemary is too young to remember the Before. She grew up, went to school and worksin the virtual world of Hoodspace. Working for StageHoloLive, which controls what is left of the music industry, her job is to find new talent, search out the illegal backroom jams and bring musicians into the Hoodspace holographic limelight they deserve. But when Rosemary sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.
PRAISE FOR A SONG FOR A NEW DAY….
‘Sarah Pinsker has written a wonderful epic about music, community, and rediscovering the things that make us human’ Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky.
‘The combination of technothriller, rock-and-roll novel, and rebellion in a dystopian world make for a riveting, sweet, funny, angry, gorgeous read’ Cory Doctorow, author of Walkaway.
‘A compelling book about the importance of music – and any sort of art – in a world where it seems like the least essential thing. This is an expertly drawn post-catastrophe world peopled by compassionately written characters’ Ann Leckie, author of Ancillary Mercy.
‘An all-too plausible version of the apocalypse, rendered in such compelling prose that you won’t be able to put it down … A lively and hopeful look at how community and music and life goes on even in the middle of dark days and malevolent corporate shenanigans’ Kelly Link, author of Get it Trouble.
‘Woven through Pinsker’s meticulously crafted future of technology-enabled isolation and corporate-consumerist powerlessness is a stirring anthem against the politics of fear. A dazzling tale told in multiple voices, with not a single note out of place. This is the lyrical protest song that we have always needed, perhaps more so now than ever’ Ken Liu, author of Grace of Kings.
‘Cements Pinsker’s status as a rising star in the world of speculative fiction … A gorgeous novel that celebrates what can happen when one person raises her voice’ Kirkus.
‘This excellent debut novel by Nebula winner Pinsker establishes her as an astonishingly impressive writer of day-after-tomorrow SF … This tale of hope and passion is a remarkable achievement’ Publishers Weekly *STARRED REVIEW*.
‘In A Song for a New Day, liberty and creative endeavour are compromised by political and socioeconomic reality. Pinsker presents a frighteningly real near-future US … Pinsker movingly charts Rosemary’s coming-of-age story as her world and Luce’s collide’ Guardian.
PUBLISHED BY HEAD OF ZEUS
PURCHASE LINK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Pinskeris a singer, songwriter and author. Her short storieshave won the Nebula, Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick Awards.Currentlyfinishing her second novel and fourth album, she lives with her wife in Baltimore, Maryland and can be found online at Twitter and Author Website
MY REVIEW
Imagine a world in Lockdown! A world without live music! After our experiences in 2020, this concept is our reality – hopefully for not much longer though! – and in this book it explores that life where people have to access a virtual world to ‘experience’ music. For those brought up in the ‘lockdown’ world, they see this as a great invention, but for others who lived and worked in music beforehand, you just cannot beat the real thing of seeing concerts in the flesh and they try to bring back that world.
In the before world, Luce is just hitting the big time in music! Sell out concerts, music played on the radio – all her dreams are coming true! And then the world shuts down and her life is changed again. She struggles to find meaning in the world without music, so she’s driven underground.
For Rosemary, her only experience of ‘live music’ is online via the virtual world and she finds herself working for the company that has to search out new talent, so their ‘gigs’ can be put online for people to watch and pay for. As she crossed the country she begins to get the buzz about ‘real music’ and she finds herself in the company of Luce and her new band and begins to understand why so many are unwilling to ‘sellout’.
I loved the passion and energy in this book. It really captures that love people have for hearing live music and being part of a crowd in a room where the energy is electric. That cannot be replicated in the virtual world and Rosemary gets to see this for herself and changes her viewpoint of the company she is working for.
This is a book that will resonate with so many of us after our experience of the past year – all that you worked for taken away from you just like that, and there’s nothing you can do about it! Be grateful for the humans who continue to create and won’t be silenced!!
★★★★
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