WHY VISIT AMERICA
Altered States
RELEASED OUT NOW! 368 pages | Hardback/ebook
Author Matthew Baker
Publisher Bloomsbury
In the title story of Matthew Baker’s second short story collection, the small town of Plainfield decides to secede from the United States. It renames itself America, and quickly grows into a more-or-less progressive paradise – until a ragtag militia from the States arrives to forcibly retake the town.
Why Visit America is emblematic of all of the stories here: 13 funny and moving tales that take place in USAs a step away from – but clearly connected to – the real one. In “The Transition”, a young man shocks his family when he declares that he wants to leave his corporeal body behind to live a fully digital existence. In “Rites”, the elderly are expected to commit ritualised suicide when they hit old age. “Life Sentence” explores a justice system that wipes the memories of criminals as both a punishment and a way of rehabilitating them.
Now you, as readers of this fine science fiction magazine, may be thinking: “Hang on, some of those ideas are a bit clichéd…” – and you’d be right. “A Bad Day In Utopia” is set in a matriarchal society where men are kept in zoos; and in “To Be Read Backwards” people are unearthed from the ground, live their lives, and eventually end up inside their mothers’ wombs. These were knackered gags when Red Dwarf did them in 1989.
What saves the book is that Baker writes beautifully, with wit, warmth and insight. His work is satirical, but never overly arch or ironic; you feel for his cast of lost and isolated characters, people just trying to get on with their lives in worlds as bewildering and frequently grotesquely horrifying as our own. Why Visit America may not be great SF, but it’s a fine collection of contemporary fiction, rich with pathos and insight into the uncomfortable realities of the present-day USA. William Salmon
Baker says that his dad’s VHS of Pink Floyd: The Wall was a big influence, as it taught him what a concept album is.
Satirical, but never overly arch or ironic