“Like Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood, Jim shows us an exciting and absorbing future world that is neither zombie-land nor un-relatable utopia. I’m a busy person, but I could not put his book down. ” [...] read more

This book was strange, innovative, and had depth. A satisfying read! What I particularly liked was that there was no clear resolution of the issues the writer puts forward: we don't reach a decision of what the best societal system is, although all the pros and cons of the different systems in his partly dystopian post-apocalyptic Earth are discussed. We know what's better, but we are also given to understand that human constructs aren't perfect, and what about AI? This grey approach (instead of the black-and-white approach people favor these days) is very much to [...] read more

This week's Wednesday Reads book review is the really fascinating The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide: to New New England and Beyond by Jim Infantino. Random Fact: I sort of want a unicycle, now. [...] read more

What I Was Reading About that book I didn’t want to finish: It’s a look into the future called The Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide to New New England , a 2018 novel by Jim Infantino . He’s a Boston-based musician who fronts and writes most of the material for the band Jim’s Big Ego . I bought a hard copy online from his site after noting a Black Friday special he hawked on Twitter. I took my time finishing it not because it’s bad or boring, but because it’s full of provocative speculative [...] read more

Some genuinely new ideas on society in an absorbing & amusing sci-fi context Before we even crack the book, let's talk about the title. The bible of humorous sci-fi also of course contains the word Guide in it. But whereas Douglas Adams takes on the whole galaxy (repeatedly making the point of how insignificant our own blue planet is in the big picture), Jim Infantino's focus is narrower: the U. S. , specifically New England, specifically New New England, in the [...] read more

“I love how your book lets me see the world so beautifully / differently. It’s a powerful altered state. Freeways look so archaic! I’m also enjoying the way you gift wrap things so we can discover them. I love the subtle way you planted the sound of the song: The Age of Aquarius -within the name of the hotel. And here on page 44, I love the way you call Marto’s travels a book tour. In this future, the tour isn’t just for promoting a book, it’s for creating it. So if [...] read more

Debut author Infantino launches his cli-fi series in a post-apocalyptic U. S. Infantino sets his Wakeful Wanderer series on an Earth devastated by catastrophic climate change. Rising sea levels caused a “Great Tide,” a doomsday event that sent North America into anarchy. The poor and self-righteously angry hunted and killed the wealthy in a murder spree known as “The Vengeance. ” Many of those same mobs (and some surviving dynasties) filled the power gap, ruling regions in a feudal style. An exception to the force and brutality is the “Interconnected,” high-tech humans with neural implants [...] read more