Welcome to the Tomorrow Factory. 

On your left, post-human hedonists on a distant space station bring diseases back in fashion, two scavengers find a super-powered parasite under the waves of Sunk Seattle, and a terminally-ill chemist orchestrates an asteroid prison break. 

On your right, an alien optometrist spins illusions for irradiated survivors of the apocalypse, a high-tech grifter meets his match in near-future Thailand, and two teens use a blackmarket personality mod to get into the year’s wickedest, wildest party. 

This collection of published and original fiction by award-winning writer Rich Larson will bring you from a Bujumbura cyberpunk junkyard to the icy depths of Europa, from the slick streets of future-noir Chicago to a tropical island of sapient robots. You’ll explore a mysterious ghost ship in deep space, meet an android learning to dream, and fend off predatory alien fungi on a combat mission gone wrong. 

Twenty-three futures, ranging from grimy cyberpunk to far-flung space opera, are waiting to blow you away. 

So step inside the Tomorrow Factory, and mind your head. 

If you’ve been keeping up with me lately, you’ll know that Annex by Rich Larson was one of my very favorite books of the year! Something about that book just worked for me on every level…gah…I just fucking loved it!! Needless to say, I was really excited to learn that Larson had a collection of short stories coming out, and thanks to Talos Press, I got the chance to read & review Tomorrow Factory!!

Short story collections can be tricky to review, no? Do you go through them one by one (there’s more than 20 here, so…nope!), or just pick out a few that really hit a nerve? Fuck, I don’t know…I’ll do my best though! 

To start with, I think Rich Larson is just an incredibly gifted writer. Getting the reader to connect with a character (or characters) in a story that’s maybe 15-20 pages is not an easy feat, and he pulls that off more than a few times here. As is the case with most short story collections (at least in my experience), there’s a few here that really didn’t do much for me. But overall, I think Tomorrow Factory is well worth your time if you’re a sci-fi fan!

There are themes & elements that pop up over & over in this collection. Things like cloning, body modification, clamps/implants designed to control/change behavior…one story even features a young boy who temporarily hosts his dead grandfather’s consciousness in his (the boy’s) mind…it’s oddly sweet & more than a little fucked up.. 

The story with the most memorable title, “Motherfucking Retroparty Freestyle” is one that really challenged me. It’s over the top with “futuristic” slang, and it’s almost a bit cartoonish in a way…but then you settle into it, and it becomes this really fucking gorgeous & heavy meditation on being a teenager, and on the pressure of trying to fit in. The kids in this story all use little chips to modify & amplify their personalities…it’s really unsettling & way too believable. Another story, “Razzibot” exists in a similar space, and paints a truly frightening picture of what social media can do to a young person.

Some other stories that resonated with me were “Atrophy” (about a small family living in an apocalyptic wasteland, only with eye implants to make things seem beautiful), and “Ghost Girl” (about a young girl scavenging in a very dangerous junkyard, with a hulking robot protecting her).

But there’s one story in this book that just fucking blew me away. “Extraction Request” reads like some deranged mashup of Predator and a Jeff VanderMeer novel, and I AM HERE FOR THAT. This is the story I most wished were a full-length novel! At the very least, I’ll hope that Rich Larson writes more military sci-fi going forward, because this story is bonkers & violent AF & weird & I just ate it up.

This is a really solid collection of speculative fiction! Check it out if you’re into weird & awesome shit! 

Thank you very much for the copy, Talos Press! Tomorrow Factory releases today, 10.16.18!!!