Children of the New World

Children of the New World is a 2016 anthology of short stories by speculative fiction author Alexander Weinstein. Containing thirteen short stories all set in or around the year 2026, the anthology focuses on the psychological and emotional experiences of solo protagonists in their indefinite environments. The stories take place in future worlds where the pace of life has accelerated dramatically and society has evolved down almost unintelligible avenues. Even still, the technology of this future has outpaced humanity’s rate of adapting to or making sense of it. The cumulative vision of humanity Weinstein presents is one with shaky moral and intellectual foundations trying desperately to catch up, but committing many failures along the way. The collection received attention for its rich depiction of the possible inner lives people may experience in humankind’s near future.

The anthology’s first story is called “Saying Goodbye to Yang.” It takes place in a society in which advancements in robotics and machine intelligence have enabled the creation of uncannily human androids. The unnamed narrator purchases a “robot brother” named Yang for his daughter in order for her to have a childlike companion.

Some stories in the anthology advance further into the future, depicting the point where humans discard physical robots and move into virtual realities. The transition into wholly virtual worlds enables individuals to fabricate memories of events and things that never happened or existed. In one such story, titled “The Cartographers,” an engineer codes virtual memories into individuals’ mind repositories. The engineer’s work illuminates many of the demands such customers have. In another story, “Moksha,” humans achieve enlightenment through virtual reality, while the story questions whether real enlightenment can be attained this way.



Some stories take a slightly darker turn, exploring technology’s downsides and misuses. The eponymous story, “Children of the New World,” follows a couple who strive to gain love and affection in their lives but only flounder. They retreat into a digital enclave in which they spend virtual “family time”—they have no real children—with virtual children. In their ignorance about the pitfalls of parenthood, they soon cross into a dark moral universe.

Most of Weinstein’s stories fixate on technological change. In “A Brief History of the Failed Revolution,” a team of scientists learns how to inject desired chunks of information into human consciousness. Believing that they can use this tool to finally connect to and affirm the human soul, the experiments that proceed raise many new ethical questions. This particular story uses the literary form of the academic paper to ironically make explicit the illusion of existential progress in the face of ethical shortfalls.

Numerous characters in Children of the New World journey through their strange technological and social contexts trying to better understand themselves. In “Moksha,” a protagonist named Abe goes to Kathmandu trying to achieve enlightenment. As Abe progresses geographically, he feels more and more removed from his identity, and fondly recalls his limited, imperfect, but real and beautiful life.



Indeed, most of Weinstein’s characters are torn by the tension between advancing into a brave new world and returning to the memories, people, and natural emotions that they love or are used to. For example, the story “Migration” can be generalized as the common story of an estranged father trying to reconnect with his child. Though the connection does not come easily, it arrives unexpectedly when they share the experience of bouncing a ball against an abandoned toy store. In “The Cartographers,” a protagonist named Adam misses having a normal family and close friends.

The anthology’s final story, “Ice Age,” suggests an altogether different attitude toward the future. The world it depicts is post-technological, having destroyed itself in some kind of apocalypse. The remaining population survives through an icy epoch and returns to a hunter-gatherer culture. Devoid of digitization, automation, and even most manual tools we take for granted, they build ice shelters and barely scrape by. The story ends ominously after an individual acquires a tool that reintroduces a power differential to their community.

The conclusion of Weinstein’s anthology can be read as a suggestion that humankind might be exploitative by nature. However, his stories also suggest the possibility of redemption and the utilization of our free will to introduce ethical boundaries and renounce our exploitative impulses. Children of the New World is therefore as much an inventory of our present collective unconscious, extended into the future, as it is a grouping of speculative and inventive stories.