This Weightless World

"What of our current moment is ephemeral, and what is part of some unstoppable machine? By starting with one of the big 'what ifs'—extraterrestrial contact—Adam Soto charts his own course in looking for the answer. At once utterly ambitious, moving, and intimate, This Weightless World stretches from domestic protests to centuries-distant planets, all while exploring the delicate hopes of its characters. I couldn't stop reading. The ending was unforgettable. I can't believe Soto pulled it off!" —Kawai Strong Washburn, author of the PEN/Hemingway Award-winning Sharks in the Time of Saviors "This Weightless World filters its alien encounters and deep-space expeditions, its dreams and anxieties about the centuries to come, through the beating hearts of a few struggling, yearning, fumbling, desperate, modern-day human beings. It's not so much a novel of ideas, asking, 'What does the future hold for us?,' as a novel populated by characters who can't stop asking themselves that same question. Reading it, I was reminded that caring about the fate of the planet is really a matter of caring about the fates of its billions of distinct and individual inhabitants, with their billions of distinct and individual futures." —Kevin Brockmeier, author of A Brief History of the Dead "This Weightless World is pure polyphony. Adam Soto sets programmers alongside revolutionaries, the contours of love alongside the coruscations of code, the power of classical music alongside the beauty of video games, and he does it all with total authority. Here it is: the social novel for the 21st century." —Robin Sloan, author of Sourdough