How High We Go In The Dark

 

Author:  Sequoia Nagamatsu

Begun: Feb 7th 2025

Finished: Feb 8th 2025

Type: Audiobook on Libby

Narrators: Julea Whelan, Brian Nishii, Keisuke Hoashi, MacLeod Andrews, Jeanne Sakata, Greg Watanabe, Kurt Kanazawa, Matthew Bridges, Kotara Watanabe, Brianna Ishibashi, Joe Knezevich, Micky Shiloah, Stephanie Kömüre, Jason Culp.

Rating: 9.5/10

Wow.

Just....Wow.  

As a review I read so accurately and succinctly put it: "Bro, this s**t is wild".

What an amazing book.

I cried many times.  How can someone make me bawl my eyes out over a pig called Snortorious P.I.G., never mind the kids?  And the kind, kind people in the dark.  They inspire me. 

I have *opinions* about the cause of it all, but I won't air them here.  

What an amazing collection of stories. 

From the summary: "In 2030 a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. 

Once unleashed the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.  

In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son.  A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects develops the capacity for human speech, a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe."