Cover image from Goodreads.com
Seven years ago, the Simulators announced that the world was a simulation. To make sure people never forget this fact, there are weekly reminders that appear, in completely different fonts, over people’s heads and the Impossibles; physics-defying anomalies like an upside-down frozen tornado, a tunnel where time passes as normal inside but once you emerge you find only a second has passed, and even a Hollow Flock of fluffy animals with no mouths or eyes.
In this world, a group of people board a tour bus to see some of these Impossibles over the course of a week. Included are an Influencer who’s very pregnant, two nuns and a Rabbi, a cancer survivor and his friend, four octogenarians, an old woman in a wheelchair and her nurse daughter, and a person who spends most of their time reading. After the first stop, a woman joins them, a woman who wants to be reunited with her daughter but knows she’ll die before she gets there. This woman has written code to create a simulation, which the government acquires, and people are out to kill her.
There’s a lot of characters to keep track of, but the author does a good job in making sure the reader doesn’t get too lost. The narrative style is casual, even when infodumping scientific information. While there’s no way I could bend my brain to understand a simulation, I never felt out of the loop.
As the characters go from one Impossible to the next, the Influencer pivots her platform to gain views, the coder frantically tries to figure out how to create a back door into the simulation she created, and the senior nun tries to write a novel about God and simulations.
The novel is told from the Simulators’ pov, which is interesting and not too alien. This pov gives the opportunity to highlight humanity and our quirks in a way that’s amusing and poignant.
There’s a reveal at the end that was beautifully done by the author, but I won’t spoil it here. I will absolutely seek out other work by this author.
Should Be Writing 