Book Review: A Song for a New Day

ImageL The cover of the book is mottled light blue fading into a yellowish green. It has the feel of a concert flyer with it's monochromatic image of a woman holding a guitar and belting out a song. The top half of her faceis covered by the title that fills the first half of the book- A Song for a New Day- in capital letters. Along the side of the singer is the author's name- Sarah Pinsker- in a font that resembles words scratched into the side of a bathroom stall.

A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker is a near future dystopian cyberpunk speculative fiction novel (is that a redundant group of labels?) that centers women musicians and technology experts existing within an unjust society. This review will contain some information about the plot and characters, but I will attempt to keep it relatively spoiler free.

The story is told from the perspectives of two queer women: Luce, who is a musician and composer of what seems to be some amalgamation of rock music genres, and Rosemary, who is a computer expert stuck working for mega-corporations- Superwally and SHL- in order to survive. Live music gatherings, among other things, are illegal and Luce is doing everything in her power to keep the real-life music interaction alive. Rosemary becomes entangled in all of this when she begins working for a music corporation- StageHolo Live (SHL)- which organizes virtual concerts which can be experienced via "hoodies"- a sort of virtual reality technology that is worn by the user, allowing them to become integrated into the simulation.

I enjoyed this book and found it captured my attention and interest well. I do have to say that one thing that was difficult to follow while reading was the timeline. It seems to be set in the future. But, then there are mentions of the 30-something characters having seen Neil Young and other older artists in concert. I kept thinking, wait, are we in an alternative reality to today? Or is this a very very near future in which someone my age could have witnessed these bands and also exist in this repressive anti-music regime? It was also not clear to me exactly why music gatherings were illegal. There are some dangerous occurrences such as bomb threats and disease outbreaks at the start of the novel that I assumed would be further explained later, but the story just sort of passes over them on to the story surrounding seeking out live music in a world where it is illegal. When I started the book, knowing this premise from the blurb, I assumed that the illegality of live music was some sort of repression of free expression by an authoritarian government. However, it is explained that music itself is not illegal, only gathering for live music (as well as protests.) So, I now wonder if it is promoted to "protect" from bomb threats or plague outbreaks. This is never really made clear to me aside from the fact that the illegality is real and oppressive.

This is an acceptable way to create a dystopian environment, don't get me wrong. I don't necessarily need everything to be spelled out for me. But, when it is not, I prefer the world building to be a little more immersive than it was in this book. That said, I still felt drawn into the story. The environments that were created around live shows and everything surrounding them as well as Rosemary's lived experiences were very immersive.

Something I really enjoyed about this book was the centering of queer women as main characters. Often a story that dares to put a queer women near the center will be too afraid to center more than one woman and will supplement with less marginalized characters. This author was brave enough to build the story around the lives of two queer women. It is not entirely clear if queerness itself is also illegal along with live music, but the weaving of queer and occasional trans characters into a story with oppressive governments and corrupt megacorportations obviously says something about both backgrounds. There was a bit of the assumption of universal whiteness- characters of color were introduced by their race while other characters are assumed to be white by default. So, the handling of race could have been better. But, overall, I enjoyed the character make up in this book a lot.

In order to make this review as spoiler-free as possible, I won't say too many specifics about the plot. I will say there are some interesting twists and turns fitting in nicely with the classic cyberpunk genre (which I love.) The characters are well written, imperfect, relatable, and believable. The book is interesting with a premise I have not read about before. There are so many books in the world that I cannot say for sure whether the whole music take on the dystopia has been done before. But, it was original as far as my own experience goes.

A Song for a New Day comes out in September of 2019 and is definitely worth a read. It will likely appeal to many audiences, but it is extra special for those of us who are LGBTQ to see ourselves represented in a story in such immersive ways. The story is not about being LGBTQ as much as the characters just happen to be. Thus, it is appropriate for anyone into dystopian stories, stories surrounding musicians, and/or cyberpunk fans.