Your Utopia, a new short story collection from Bora Chung, author of the Booker International-shortlisted and hugely popular Cursed Bunny, would be easy to pigeonhole as sci-fi stories. They all take place in the near or distant future, but are so full of fresh observations about the current state of civilization it borders on uncanny. The entire collection is uncanny, too, as well as hilarious, petrifying and hugely evocative. It might draw comparisons to the Black Mirror series: it’s as compulsory readable as that show was watchable. 

The eight stories in this book explore topics of idealism and utopia, loss and immortality as well as more gory subjects like cannibalism. Certain stories, like the shining example of The End Of The Voyage, were clearly influenced by the recent pandemic. Others, like A Song For Sleep and the title story, bring forward unique narration – they are written from the perspective of an elevator and AI car respectively. 

There is a fear Your Utopia could strike a reader as borderline depressing at times, but the collection offers an insightful and fully engaging overall reading experience and is worth persevering with. As long as one doesn’t overthink it…