In the near future the United States are going into lockdown mode after several bombings and the spreading of a virus has lead to a huge number of deaths. Anti-congregation laws are established, schools and businesses are closed, and the people are encouraged to stay at home and avoid contact with others.

The combination of two main characters working in the music business, which makes the act of making music a huge part of this novel, and a science-fiction turn on how said business, and also life in general, might work in a more digitally oriented world, should have been right up my alley. But maybe the timing just wasn’t right for this one.

Song for a New Day is arguably the first COVID-19 novel even though it came out Sep 10, 2019, months before the pandemic hit. But the book got so much right—from single person occupancy on elevators to the problems of doing online concerts—that anyone reading it during the pandemic would assume it was written by someone who had seen the actual Covid-19 world. I can only imagine what it must have been like for the author to see the horrors she imagined in her book come to life just a few months later. I know that cons are using the novel as exhibit A on panels on SF as prediction and the problems of writing.

The book starts off with Luce, a musician, performing the last concert before everything was cancelled due to bomb threats that evacuate hotels, performance spaces, and anything public. After a bomb explodes a baseball stadium, killing over a thousand people, no one wants to risk any public gathering. Then a mysterious illness hits.

An unspecified number of years later Rosemary, a 24-year old who still lives at home, under the strict control of her parents, works remotely at a SuperWally Vendor Service Center using a Hoodie, a virtual reality device. Her life changes when a service call from StageHoloLive leads her to attend her first virtual concert. She originally applies for a position at StageHoloLive as an upload supervisor, which she was qualified to do, but is hired as an artist recruiter, a job that requires her to leave the safety of her home and go out into the world. She starts looking for illegal gatherings of listeners of live music, to recruit the performers for StageHoloLive. She meets Luce at one of these concerts and tries to recruit her. But Rosemary soon discovers the shocking truth about StageHoloLive.

Sarah Pinsker, in addition to being an award-winning author, is also a performing musician so the descriptions of the life of Luce ring true. Much of the book is a paean to the power of live music and Pinsker’s passion for music shines through. At one point Luce performs under a pseudonym, in a tiny venue, thinking “I was there because I needed the energy I could only get from this connection: the elusive collision of a song, a performance, a moment; the agreement that I would try to reach them, and they’d open themselves to being reached.” Only a musician could have written that.

Song for a New Day won the Nebula award and was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award. Anyone interested in music should read this book as should anyone interested in how close science fiction can come to predicting the future.

A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker is a dystopian science fiction fantasy involving a pandemic. Seeing that I’m late with this review I had to keep reminding myself with this one that it was written and published pre-Covid times. I’ve said all along that our Covid pandemic seemed like something out of one of my fantasy books and here we have a story exactly like that.

The world within A Song for a New Day was hit with a virus very much like we have had in real life. One of the characters, Luce Cannon, was a musician who had become a big star and out performing when the virus hit. Of course the world went on lockdown to try to contain the virus while many people didn’t survive.

Afterwards big gatherings remained banned in the world and the only way to enjoy things like a concert was through virtual reality. Rosemary Laws works for a company that brings those concerts to life and doesn’t really remember a time people went in person while Luce misses those days of being onstage and performing.

The story would alternate between Luce and Rosemary and was easy to follow between them as they both have a different look on the world. There was plenty of action going on and it was extremely engaging as the characters tried to bring the world back to what it was as the powers that be wanted to keep it locked down and going through a pandemic in real life just made it that much more compelling to read. Perhaps living through a lockdown made this one even better knowing how the world is without the human contact that propelled this story but overall I gave this one four and a half stars and really enjoyed reading it.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I wanted to like this so much...but this book bored me to tears. The characters were all so hard connect with or even like. The story itself felt unmoving and pointless. I'm so disappointed, given that the plot is actually a very interesting idea. After a global attack/pandemic/mass panic, everything is shut down and artists are fighting against Stage Hollow, a massive media conglomerate to get their music heard by real people. Sounds interesting, right? It was anything but. There was all of this "build up" to the final act of the book...but the finale was a letdown.

By all means, give this book a shot because other reviewers have enjoyed it. Apparently, I'm in the minority here. I wanted to love it, but it just didn't happen.

What a book! I cannot recommend it enough. This story runs parallel to our current times yet carries a positive message that will not dissuade you from reading. If you are a lover of rock bands and band origin stories this book will especially resonate with you.  Great writing, realistic futuristic world and a needed message at this particular time in our lives.

What a timely story this turned out to be given our current Pandemic situation! This story, the story of two women, Luce and Rosemary, centers around a "Before" and "After" of a virus that is sweeping the nation, killing millions and drastically changing the way people live their lives. Sound familiar? All social interaction is done in virtual space. Rosemary has only ever heard music in virtual reality via a hoodie that she wears which is distributed by the SHL corporation, with whom she has been employed. She is hired as an artist recruiter who is to find new acts for SHL. This leads her to Luce, a singer/songwriter, who is no longer able to perform as she did in the Before.

Overall, this book hits on what we all must forsake and let go of, if we chose to live in fear. Being able to connect with others is a theme in this story and the balance of fear and living your life while continuing to deal with the threat of reality of situations is a huge theme that serves as the umbrella for virtually all of the action in the story. The story is engaging, interesting and a thoroughly good read. I have recommended this to several readers lately and they have all enjoyed it.

When I was a teenager, I fought tooth and nail with my parents to go to rock concerts. I couldn’t live without the powerful rush of live music, the electric energy of a pit full of moshing punks screaming their lungs out. I’m not a spiritual person, but I consider a concert venue to be my church; being crushed by the crowd and singing myself hoarse are my sacraments. There is a special kind of community in experiencing music from within that throng, a raucous and rambunctious joy: singing together, moving together, enthralled by a band we love. It’s an incredible experience, and Nebula Award-winner Sarah Pinsker’s debut novel A Song For A New Day absolutely nails the feeling.


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This is a book of quiet apocalypses and loud rock music. It takes place in a frightened, fragile near-future America in which mass shootings, terror attacks, and disease have made large gatherings illegal. The world changes overnight: no more live sporting events, no more concerts, no more malls, nor schools, nor mass transit. The government sweeps in and puts an end to all of it. (Only for our safety, of course.) Technology steps in, creating a device called a “hoodie” that lets a person experience life via safe and sanitized VR. Now you can attend all the games and concerts you want, without ever leaving your home. It’s so much better than spending a show crammed up against a smelly metalhead, right? So much better than being gunned down by a vigilante with a manifesto to promote.

Not according to Luce Cannon. She’s a one hit wonder who holds the dubious honor of having played at one of the last concerts before they were made illegal. Her story begins in the past, in a world reeling from the aftershocks of a string of terror attacks and in the throes of a deadly pox. Luce (who previously appeared in the Nebula-winning novelette “Our Lady of the Open Road,” available in the author’s collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea) tries to keep playing shows but is stymied by new rules and a cowed populace. In frustration, she sinks some of that rock star money into a few row homes, and beneath them carves out a secret underground venue, where she endeavors to keep the dream of live music alive. She’s a dystopian future’s answer to Joan Jett, a fierce woman guitarist who refuses to play by any rules but her own.

But then Rosemary walks into her life and ruins everything.


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Rosemary is young, ambitious, and in over her head. She quits a steady VR job at a huge corporate conglomerate to become a talent scout for a company called StageHoloLive, which capitalized on the restrictive new laws to become the be-all end-all in musical entertainment in this brave new world. She leaves her one stoplight town to seek new bands to bring into SHL’s clutches. A tipoff leads her to Luce’s front door, and what results is a tumultuous tour dramatic enough for an episode of Behind The Music.

Awkward Rosemary, afraid to be in the same room as so many other people, manages to stumble into Luce’s good graces and find a place for herself within the live music scene. She discovers the undeniable magic of in-person performances; VR can’t replicate the feeling of a bass rattling your bones or drums synching with your heartbeat. For Rosemary, it’s like the first hit of a new drug, heady, and wonderful, and oh so crave-able. Luce takes her under her wing, helping her navigate the world of illicit performances, illegal venues, and the bands who thrive within them.

Naively, Rosemary excitedly reports back to her overlords, only for SHL to rush in, determined to eliminate potential competition for its massive virtual entertainment empire. Thus begins a journey for both Luce and Rosemary, who work together to right wrongs both large and small, and find a way to make a sterile, scared world into something more vibrant.

As a die-hard concert-goer, I can say with some authority that Pinsker knows he stuff. She has clearly spent her time in the pit, and writes beautifully about the life-changing power of a good guitar lick. She revels in the details—the mundane realities of being a small-time touring musician, and how those few moments on stage can make it all worth it. But the SFnal content isn’t mere background noise—Pinsker also writes a deeply compelling, all too plausible dystopia. This is a novel both sobering and joyful, reveling in the excitement of breaking rules and spitting in the eye of a government trying to force you to conform.


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The characters feel incredibly genuine, and will seem especially so to anyone who has spent time playing music or attending shows. The author describes the energy of crowds so viscerally it feels like you’re standing in one. Characters both major and minor are given life and purpose, and none come off as caricatures or cartoons. Both Luce and Rosemary are involved in same-sex relationships, and they are captured in a way that feels both organic and ordinary; Pinsker weaves the women’s sexuality into the larger fabric of their lives rather than making it their defining trait. They are people, multi-faceted and complicated, and the dialogue between them is snappy and sharp, with a lyrical flow befitting so musical a book.

The novel ends on a slightly discordant note—it is an ode to resistance more than an anthem of rebellion. But it keeps the hope alive, and that’s maybe enough for now—at least until Pinsker returns to this darkened stage for an encore performance. I’d love to see the aftermath of what Luce and Rosemary have wrought, and maybe to watch the dystopia come tumbling down around them. I feel like I’ve been left hanging off the barrier, screaming for one more song. So it goes: eventually the lights always come up, the sound of music ringing in your ears.

In a dystopian world where public gatherings have been made illegal, one woman raises her voice to stand up for the power of music, art, and human connection. A beautiful story that will definitely speak to the heart!

I am one of those rare people who, although I absolutely like music, don’t tend to listen to it much. I’m usually listening to audiobooks or podcasts! But even I can say there is something about music and having that in common with another person that can be magical. Often, I find that listening to music with others gives this sense of shared experience, where the emotions each person is feeling are in sync, even if they are different. Our hearts elevate together and calm together.

The idea of not being able to connect with other people is a terrifying one. In A Song for a New Day, a terrorist attack on a major stadium just before the band takes the stage leads to a decision to make public gatherings illegal. It is to help keep people safe. And yet, what sort of life are people living in the wake of this decision?

For Luce Cannon, she feels like she has lost her place in the world. Primed to take the stage before the attack, she now has no where to go. Her family turned her away when she needed them most, and now she holds small illegal concerts, trying to find a way to reconnect with others.

Rosemary Law grew up in the world that has banned public gatherings. She has a job that requires no contact with humans at all. Her first experience with a virtual concert fundamentally changed her. So when she takes a new job finding musicians and organizing virtual concerts, Rosemary is forced to go out in public. And when Rosemary finally experiences not only the power of music, but the power of human connection, she may be the voice that can make a difference.

I wasn’t prepared for how much this book would effect me, but its such a beautiful story. The idea of missing out on those connections with others—that is a powerful story! Seeing Luce lose her way, and Rosemary begin to discover what she has so long been sheltered from made me really think about the world we live in, and how virtual connections can’t quite replace what we get from real human connections. This one is full of heart!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.

In Pinsker’s near-future character study A Song for a New Day, public gatherings have been outlawed after a series of devastating terrorist attacks. This brings an end to live music shows, legally speaking, so StageHolo arrives to fill the void. Users wear a Hoodie to “attend” pre-recorded shows in virtual reality Hoodspace, which begs the question: how do these bands get discovered in the first place? Enter Rosemary Laws – green thumbed, good-hearted, naïve-minded, and StageHolo’s newest talent scout. Rosemary is given an expense account and a directive to find the Next Big Thing amidst the barely thriving illegal underground music scene. What she finds is Luce Cannon, one-hit wonder whose near-fame arrived a split-second before the world changed and left her behind. Luce is a fierce performer and advocate for live music, generous with fans and friends alike. Rosemary wants StageHolo to sign Luce’s band – and many of the others she finds in Luce’s circle – but fails to realize in time that her activities threaten to overturn the delicate ecosystem that fostered all that talent in the first place.
A Song for a New Day features engaging characters and sets up its themes and conflicts nicely. It does feel a bit padded as it goes on though. I constantly felt overwhelmed by backstory details, and the more we learn about this future history the less credible it seems. The resolution also strains believability, and left me with a sour taste.

A Song for a New Day features an intriguing back and forth between one of the last big musicians of a pre-terror world and an employee of an enormous corporation who begins to discover what life outside of the new digital world is really like. The characters are complex, showing us a wide range of emotions as they navigate new territories within their respective timelines. At its core, we see the power of music, both on individuals and on the world at large. It’s an interesting take on a dystopian future, featuring solid writing and in-depth character growth.

Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker
9/10/19 Berkley
What would a month be without a good apocalypse? Author/Musician Sara Pinkser calls on her combined talents to tell this story about the day (live) music died in America, killed off by anti-gathering laws after a series of terrorist and epidemic events, and replaced by holographic concerts and big media domination. There are two main characters, Luce, who was a rising star when the troubles started, and Rosemary who was only 12. Now it’s a decade or so later and they’re on a collision course that will change both of them, and just maybe the rest of us as well. Set largely in Baltimore, the author’s home city, it conjures up a vivid picture of both the town and a world where music has gone underground and people are afraid of any contact with others. If you’ve read Asimov’s Naked Sun, you’ll recognize the beginnings of the agoraphobic civilization he portrayed there. I enjoyed this a lot, even the endnotes, which I read while listening to the author on Spotify, which was oddly like listening to music while watching movie credits.

Before, people gathered in public spaces to watch sporting events and live music shows. Before, we shopped in malls, gathered in groups out in public, like it was No Big Deal. Before, Luce Cannon was a young musician on the verge of making it big, on tour with her band and promoting her big song, "Blood and Diamonds". But mass shootings, terror attacks, and deadly viruses unleashed in public spaces have led to life in the After, where public gatherings are illegal and people live in their homes, getting everything they need droned in from the big Superwally box superstores. Rosemary is a twenty-something who barely remembers Before; she remembers her time in the hospital, recovering from the pox, and she remembers "Blood and Diamonds" helping give her the determination to heal. Now, Rosemary spends her days in Hoodspace - interactive hoodies that connect wearers to a virtual world - as a customer service representative for Superwally, until the chance to view a concert through provider StageHoloLive introduces her to a new career as a talent scout. Working for StageHoloLive, she gets the chance to travel the country in search of those little places where people still find ways to gather, listen to live music, and celebrate human connection, but if something is too good to be true, it probably is.

Told in two stories: in the first person, by Luce Cannon and in the third person, from Rosemary's point of view, A Song for a New Day is about the human spirit and revolution through positive change. Luce's story begins in the Before, and leads us through the series of attacks that bring us to life After. Rosemary's story picks up in the aftermath and stands as a contrast between the desire to be safe and the desire to live authentically. There is strong world-building and character development, with LGBTQ characters and a character-building plot point about an inclusive religious community.

While not written for YA readers, this would absolutely work for high school readers who enjoy sci-fi and dystopian fic. Sarah Pinsker is a Nebula Award-winning author and a songwriter. You can find audio on her website.

Stevie‘s review of A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker
LGBT+ Science Fiction published by Berkley 10 Sep 19

There’ve been times recently, usually when I’ve been following the news a little too closely, that I wonder whether we’re all wandering unwittingly into a dystopian future of our own making. And that’s exactly what happens in this novel where fear of potential threats, rather than any current danger, has all but confined people to their homes, with almost all interactions taking place virtually and most essential needs being catered for by drone delivery services. Told from two points of view along separate, intersecting timelines, we get to see what happens when a government’s knee-jerk reaction to a terror threat, followed by an unrelated disease outbreak, becomes the accepted way of life for people who had been living in a world not far removed from our present.


Luce Cannon is an up-and-coming music sensation before the world suddenly changes, touring medium-sized venues with a hired backing band, and tipped for bigger stardom in years to come. When a terror threat forces guests from their hotels, Luce puts on an impromptu concert in the car park. Then, the following night, the threatened bombings of stadiums becomes a reality, and Luce’s band becomes the last to play live in front of a large audience. Returning home to wait for the threat to die down, and for theatres to reopen, Luce has to face a second catastrophe in the form of a highly contagious infection, which kills indiscriminately, and leaves survivors heavily scarred. Luce does what she can to help those affected, while, increasingly, money starts to come in from her record sales. Eventually she realises that life is unlikely to return to what she calls normal anytime soon, even after the terrorists and the infection have been quashed, and uses her royalty payments to support other artists who still want to play to live audiences, despite the ban on gatherings of more than a very few people.

Fast-forward a decade or so and to Rosemary Laws, who has grown up knowing nothing of live music or of attending school in any way other than online. Working in a customer services job from the safety of her bedroom, Rosemary first becomes aware of the outside world through being gifted a ticket to a virtual concert by one of the bands performing on the biggest music network. Rosemary is overwhelmed by her experience, and soon finds herself recruited by the network as a talent scout, seeking out musicians and bands who are currently playing only for friends or in illegal basement concerts, and offering them contracts with her employer. All too soon, Luce and Rosemary’s worlds collide and both have to figure out what is most important to them about how music is shared and disseminated.

I loved this book. Both our protagonists were lesbians, and there were plenty of other LGBT+ characters in their lives, but there was no big romance for either of them, and that made their choices all the more poignant and meaningful. Having one protagonist reflect on her Jewish heritage and what it meant to her in times of trouble was a bonus. The two plot arcs were all too believable, as were the dilemmas both women faced if they were to be true to themselves and to their friends, while striving to make the world a more open one for musicians, artists, and fans alike. An excellent first novel and now I want to track down some of the author’s short stories while waiting for her to produce more longer works.

Grade: A

Sarah Pinsker has written a captivating dystopian/speculative fiction story that prominently features music. While this is not my usual genre it blends two of my favorite things music and books, and I loved it! Pinsker’s Love and appreciation for music especially live music comes across loud and clear in this story. Luce Cannon(Got to love that name) is a musician on the way to the top when the government calls for a halt to all live concerts. Not only concerts but most large social gatherings have been banned, do to continuous terrorist attacks. Rosemary spends her days working from home in customer service for a Walmart/Amazon hybrid. She is given an amazing opportunity to attend an online concert. This leads to a job offer to travel and search out bands who are willing to perform these online concerts. Luce and Rosemary’s haves cross one day at a underground banned concert. Luce and Rosemary are on opposite sides of the issue, will Rosemarys actions cause Luce to go further underground? So what will happen when the two meet up again? Will this be the “day the music died”?

Luce was A dynamic character with a tremendous passion for music and performing live. Rosemary was a quieter character but I found her to be a little more sympathetic I could really understand her inner conflict. The story was much more character driven than plot driven. I think dystopian/speculative fiction fans who are desiring a lot of world building might be a little disappointed, I myself wish the lead up to why the world was this way was addressed more in the book. But I don’t think this impacted my overall enjoyment of this riveting story. This really was a love letter to music and a warning letter to the Reader. While the idea of attending a concert from the comfort of your home Mike sound fabulous, we really don’t ever want to lose the human connection.

This book in three emojis: 🎫 🎼 🎸

The nitty-gritty: Sarah Pinsker’s love of music shines through in this wonderful debut, where two women might just have enough moxie between them to change the world.

I suppose you could call A Song for a New Day dystopian fiction, but it’s unlike any dystopian I’ve ever read. This story is full of hope, and even better, it’s full of hopeful characters. Luce and Rosemary are as different from one another as night and day, but they do have a few important similarities. They both love music, and neither one of them ever gives up. This combination makes for an unusual futuristic story that is less about the science fiction elements and more about the characters and their relationships.

The story switches back and forth between two main characters. Luce is a talented musician, on the cusp of becoming a household name after her song “Blood and Diamonds” takes off. But on the eve of an important live concert, disaster strikes the United States. In the span of an evening, venues all over the country like stadiums and concert halls receive bomb threats, and society begins to crumble. When the threats continue—along with actual bombings—a set of strict laws called the congregation laws go into effect, and people are no longer allowed to come together for things like music concerts, sporting events, or even attend amusement parks or museums. Musicians, unable to legally perform for fans in public, begin to go underground, and secret bars and clubs pop up everywhere. 

At the same time, an insidious viral disease is spreading, claiming the lives of those people who don’t seek medical help soon enough. The combination of the disease and the bomb threats has caused people to become alienated from each other. People rely on “Hoodies,” virtual reality headgear that allows you to “be” with other people, when in reality everyone is safe in their own space.

Told in another timeline, Rosemary is a young woman living in the After—after the bomb threats and the pox swept across the country. She’s lived on her family’s farm her entire life, and at the age of twenty-four has a good job at Superwally, an Amazon-like store where employees work from home and use Hoodies to conduct business with others. Rosemary is a competent customer service representative and retreats to her bedroom each day to do her job. One day, she’s invited by a vendor to attend a virtual concert, something she’s never done before. The concert, an eye-opening experience, show her that there might be life outside of the farm and Superwally, and so she takes a risk and accepts a job as a “talent recruiter” at StageHoloLive, a company that produces live concert experiences in a safe, VR environment.

As you might suspect, Rosemary’s and Luce’s paths will eventually converge, and when they do, things will not go smoothly at all.

Pinsker touches on some important themes in her story, like how one person can start big changes, and no one exemplifies this more than Rosemary. Rosemary is an interesting character. She’s extremely naive when the story begins. She’s never been on a bus, been to a live concert, or stood in a room with a crowd. She’s terrified of being touched, probably because of the danger of disease which still lingers. Rosemary even has panic attacks when she finds herself in a room with a crowd of people for the first time, and I felt terrible for her. And she’s not perfect. She makes plenty of cringe-worthy mistakes, especially when she meets Luce and her band, but she actually learns from those mistakes, which was refreshing. The reader gets to see her gradually change her world view, which was delightful. When she leaves home for the first time, she must navigate new cities where people still gather in public, and her job requires her to seek out and attend illegal music concerts. I loved how much she grows by the end of the book, and even more, I love how organic and natural that change felt.

Luce is also a wonderful character, and I’m so very happy that Pinsker didn’t turn her into a caricature of a rock star. Luce genuinely cares for other people and usually puts others before herself. She has a rocky relationship with her Jewish family, who cannot accept the fact that she’s gay, but she loves and forgives them anyway. And best of all, Luce is consumed by music. She cannot imagine any other life for herself, and she takes risks in order to preserve that life. She has a unique perspective because she’s lived both in the Before and the After, and I love the little details Pinsker adds that show her awareness of how drastically things have changed. In one scene, she and her roommates start a “Don’t Forget Normal” list where they write down everything they remember from Before on the walls of their apartment. It was poignant and heartbreaking.

And of course, there is the music. Pinsker is a musician herself, and her experience adds a unique flavor to the story. Luce’s life on the road, going from gig to gig, isn’t easy at all, but her love of music is powerful enough that she and her fellow musicians will gladly suffer in order to do what they love most. All the details Pinsker adds about lugging heavy instruments around, sleeping in cars, and the blood, sweat and tears of live performances make the experience of being a musician jump off the page, and I could practically hear the thrum of the bass and the squeal of the amps.

I did have some issues with a couple of things. I’ll admit the dueling timelines were confusing in the beginning. It took going back and rereading a few sections to realize that there are about twelve years between the initial bombings and the point where we meet Rosemary. The story seems to go from “today,” what I imagined might be 2019, to the “future” in the blink of an eye, where virtual reality is commonplace and everyone goes around with Hoodies in order to communicate. Self-driving cars are also mentioned in this future, and the superstore Superwally seems to own just about all the market share on anything you need to buy (And the products are all delivered by drone. No need to leave the house!). What would have helped me a lot, and other readers I suspect, would have been a date designation at the beginning of each chapter.

And let’s talk about the Hoodies for a moment. I cannot for the life of me picture what a Hoodie looks like. I love the idea of being able to not only use Hoodies as a separation device from other people, but the ability to literally do anything in “hoodspace” was pretty cool. But is it like a sweatshirt hoodie that you simply pull over your head when you need it? Or is it more like a helmet with a clear plastic cover that protects your face? I need some artists out there to create some fan art for A Song for a New Day so I can see what one looks like!

But in the end, these issues really didn’t matter much. Pinsker doesn’t wrap her story up in a neat little bow at the end, and I was OK with that. Instead, she suggests that perhaps the future is about to change for the better. Rosemary and Luce are both brave enough to take leaps of faith and follow their hearts. A small change could be nothing more than a ripple on the surface of a pond, or it could be a rock that starts an avalanche. I turned the last page with a feeling of hope, and that’s a wonderful feeling to have.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

I thoroughly enjoyable Sci-Fi novel based on a post-apocalyptic society where people are no longer allowed to gather in groups. Most people live their lives aseptically, using virtual mediums and technology to have experiences. A Song for A New Day brings the reader into the depths of the music
underground.

**I received an ARC from NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Power of music could never be defeated, silenced, destroyed even at the apocalyptic world threatened by full of terrorist attacks that prevent people gather at the outside to share their joy, spirit, excitement, fun, entertainment, laughs at the open concert arenas.

There are so many amazing quotes emphasizes the importance of music in modern people’s lives as listed below:

“Where words leave off, music begins”

“Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of the spirit and never dies.”

“So where words fail, music speaks…”

It is the universal language of mankind which fills the cup of silence. It is also language of the spirit which opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife…

And let’s get back to our story-line:

Luce is a gifted musician who is determined enough fight against the odds because she doesn’t have any intention to surrender without a fight. Her music can be silenced! People need tunes to express their joy, sadness, depression, loneliness, emotional turmoil and they need band artists’ performances to gather all those emotions and pour down with the lyrics and rhythm to feed their souls and feel alive again!

Terrorist attacks created a brand new, terrifying world full of scared people who locked at their own places, couldn’t be brave enough to take a step to the outer world because of contagious deadly virus’ presence.

NO MUSIC, NO PUBLIC, NO HUMAN CONNECTION. Poor future people turned themselves the reluctant prisoners and worst fact about their lives is even the prisoners can listen music and gather together the prison back yard!!!

So they designed a new cyberspace to prevent the madness of people who were trapped inside their heads. This is HOODSPACE helps you connect with the virtual reality by wearing a hoodie!
So Luce resumes performing at the illegal concerts and her path with Rosemary crosses. Rosemary accepted the job as music talent, obliged to bring the music back to the virtual reality and she needs cooperation of Luce.

No need to tell more, you need to read the rest of the story to learn what happened with those characters and did they win the fight against restrictions of listening to the music freely and having a proper, real human contact.

Plot is intriguing, terrifying (especially for me because music is the second best thing feeding my soul and my body at the same time. Number choice is always Chardonnay but yes maybe I should write some alternative sci-fi, horror about the people who were suffering lack of booze in the future world and becoming insane!) and characters especially badass, gifted, tough, fighter Luce is my favorite.

So luckily this time I didn’t use my hands for my fantasy of struggling or slapping one of those villain characters. I used them to applause the writer’s creative thinking and the virtual music notes she inserted inside my head!

So I really enjoyed this book dystopian, controversial, original, unique work by giving my supportive, entertaining and somewhat chilling FOUR FULL STARS!
Let’s finish this with the words of one of my favorite guitarists at the universe:

“Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.” ― Keith Richards

Special thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for sharing this amazing work of talented author Sarah Pinsker in exchange my honest review.

A Song for a New Day takes a fascinating--and at times haunting--look at a future in which the threat of mass danger, from bombs to shootings, has become so large that large public gatherings have been banned and are now illegal. There are 'congregation' laws that limit how many people can be in one place at a time and that regulate the size a building must be in concordance with how many people live there. Additionally, there was a disease that swept through the country and further encouraged people to remain seclusive and not venture out into areas where large groups of people gather that can spread germs.



A Song for a New Day switches POV between Luce, lead singer of a band, and Rosemary, a woman who has been living a fairly secluded life with her family while working virtually from her home. Luce's POV starts out in the past and slowly merges with Rosemary's present day, which presented some really interesting perspectives and background throughout the story. Luce is a bit like your typical musician/rocker, desiring nothing but to connect with others through her music and live her life touring around and sharing her music. The social changes that take place in this future-esque world hit musicians like Luce extremely hard and she has to sort of adapt to a new way of life and a new sneakier method of showcasing live music. Luce is an impressively tough and adaptive woman that adds such an interesting perspective and has one of the biggest life changes throughout the book that we get to see.



Rosemary was a really interesting character for a few reasons, most of which pertained to her sheer ignorance to most things that we take for granted everyday. Her complete lack of knowledge regarding how concerts even work, her naivete and innocence on what it's even like to visit somewhere far away from her home--especially a larger city such as Baltimore--and so many more relatively normal (for us) experiences. Experiencing all of these things through the lens of someone who grew up in a world in which taking the public bus, visiting a busy city, or even eating at a restaurant sans individual enclosed booths was genuinely fascinating. Pinsker really did a marvelous job of conveying her naivete and new experiences; she really noted every new thing Rosemary experienced and made it feel so plausible and authentic. It almost made me sad at times to see the things that were so foreign to Rosemary and how much we love doing those things today--imagine a world like that with no public gatherings, ever. Rosemary grows a lot over the course of this book and I liked seeing her journey, though I do think some aspects could have been developed a bit more.



As mentioned, there was a lesser but still prominent disease angle at play at this book and I was interested in its effect on the current state of things as well. However... I was slightly confused as to why it was also included. I felt as though the book could have easily just focused on the congregation-related issues and been just as strong; the disease only seemed to exacerbate people's fear and lead to more struggles for our protagonist. Perhaps its purpose was simply to showcase the fear that can so easily spread among the pubic, but it seemed like a somewhat unnecessary addition to the plot.



Despite my confusion over the disease storyline, I still appreciated everything else this book explored. I found this to be a really nuanced and interesting look at what this future filled with fear and danger would be like when taken to the extreme. I haven't read any other work from Pinsker before this one, but I will be sure to check out more from her!



Overall, I've given A Song for a New Day four stars! I was fascinated by the concept and overall thoroughly enjoyed this one, though there were still just a few issues I had with it.

I don’t get to read many new-to-me authors these days, but I really enjoyed Song for a New Day, by Sarah Pinsker. The cover alone was enough for me to say, “Yes, please!” Though it easily fits under the “Dystopian” umbrella, I was mostly taken with the author’s treatment of the passage of time and the necessity of creativity (specifically, the performance of music and the relationships formed between artist and audience) as it’s shared via human interaction. And, while it took me several chapters to stop overthinking the merging timelines, I wound up completely engaged by the halfway point in the narrative.

Song for a New Day is set in the present-day/very near future United States and follows our main characters, Luce Cannon (one of my favorite pseudonyms for a character to date), and Rosemary Laws. Here, the world is divided into two aspects: the Before, and the After. In the Before, we meet Luce, a touring musician on the verge of making it big. Told in the first person, life for Luce functions much as it would now—traveling with her bandmates, working hard to make a name for herself, and looking forward to whatever might be coming next. I found Luce to be the more interesting character, and it was through her that I became attached to the narrative as a whole.

In the flip side, or the After (presented in the third person), we’re introduced to Rosemary, who works as a VR tech help desk operator for Superwally, a megacorporation that sells anything and everything that could possibly be needed or wanted, and delivers those items to a customer’s doorstep within hours. So people never have to leave their homes. Sound familiar? Having little memory of the Before, Rosemary is almost fully indoctrinated, conditioned to accept the commodification of her identity and fear human contact. I had more trouble understanding and sympathizing with her, even though I liked where she seemed to be heading by the end.

Initially, there are several facets of this story that will seem familiar to many: societal upheaval, state-proliferated fear backed by parasitic corporate greed, reality displaced by VR gear and pervasive marketing, etc. But, it is as Luce and Rosemary’s respective timelines converge in the After that Song for a New Day really begins to take on a unique shape. Terrorist attacks and a population-diminishing virus have driven nearly everyone into government-mandated/self-imposed isolation. From this point, the two POV’s connect and then separate before meeting again, one never coming completely untethered from the other, regardless of the debris field between them.

It’s difficult to whittle everything in Song for a New Day down to a single truth. Luce gives a solid rant outside the gates of Graceland that essentially does as much, but there are as many possibilities as there are audience members—which is really a good thing. It’s likely to vary by user experience. We, not big companies or the government, ought to be actively shaping our future. The author’s treatment of experience was more hauntingly subtle, suggesting that the acquisition of knowledge only runs one way: for better or worse, we can’t un-know that which we’ve sought to learn. Regardless, Song for a New Day was a nice surprise, and I’m looking forward to other titles by this author in the future.

As with a lot of people, music has played a defining role in my life. I never really played an instrument (fifth-grade trumpet does not count), but it was always there in the background guiding how I viewed the world. However, my tastes and attitudes in the past few years have changed greatly from my punk and power metal days of high school to a more individualized and private set list of artists scattered throughout Bandcamp. I find myself mesmerized by the subdued vibrancy of vaporwave more often than not, and I get easily separated from current popular tastes, making it harder to share my favorites with those around me. So when I heard there was a novel about illegal underground concerts in a future where public gatherings are outlawed, my interest was piqued and the folks at Berkley were kind enough to indulge me. Song for a New Day, by Sarah Pinsker, is a reflective yet energetic story about the power of music to create community in a time of extreme alienation.

Pinsker’s novel follows Luce Cannon, a musician on the cusp of stardom, whose future of playing for her fans ends with everyone else’s. Luce is on tour when bomb threats start to permeate the nation, causing a wave of uncertainty and fear that anywhere could be hit. As she plays her last known concert, one of the threats is actually carried out, killing hundreds of people. Afterwards, an epidemic of disease leads to laws banning public gatherings, followed by companies eager to offer services that allow people to stay in their homes. Rosemary Laws, a second protagonist, grows up in this new world, known as ‘the After’. Her parents move to a farm to increase their sense of safety, further increasing their isolation from a progressively more insular world. She barely remembers what it’s like to have lived in ‘the Before’, spending most of her time in a virtual space that allows her to do her job from afar. When she is presented with a chance to do something different, Rosemary seizes the opportunity and takes a job at StageHoloLive to search for new musical acts in person. This seemingly unrelated chain of events facilitates her eventual run-in with our other lead, Luce Cannon.

The main story is a joy to read as Pinsker interweaves her two narratives together, creating a mentor/student relationship where both character’s take turns in each role. Luce’s story starts with the slow and fairly realistic creation of the After, eventually digging into her attempts to cope within the new paradigm. The anonymous terror threats paired with the outbreak of a deadly disease lead to a self-imposed isolation that everyone seemed “okay with” in order to secure a safer life. Through Luce’s eyes, the reader is shown an incredibly personal account of the events, getting piecemeal snippets of the events as they occur. The author’s choice to focus on the everyday effects really drew me in, tying me to Luce and the people she surrounds herself with. On the other hand, Rosemary’s story highlighted the contented alienation most people would probably have resigned themselves to. Her parents isolating her to keep her safe, leaving her with a dead-end job, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. Seeing Rosemary learn how to navigate in a society she barely understood and learn how to be around other people was engaging and empowering.

While the story was enjoyable, Pinsker’s characters made it all the more impactful. Rosemary and Luce felt incredibly human. Their decisions have real consequences that sometimes didn’t get cleaned up, making their journeys feel all the more personal. Rosemary’s need to explore the world paired with her culturally imposed naivete put her in some dangerous situations. Luce had a defiance to her that was whispered with every breath. However, it seemed to become a feeling of comfort, allowing her to explore her music without exploring herself or the world around her. These two dynamics played off each other extremely well, each character’s actions affected one another like dominoes. Pinsker’s ability to portray self reflection touched me deeply, as the thought processes Rosemary and Luce both went through felt very relatable. Their ability to screw up, and then pick themselves up and try again with a different approach was inspiring. Pinsker avoided making these moments feel cheap by grounding them in very deliberate and reconciliatory actions that felt natural to the character’s sensibilities.

The book’s themes of rebuilding community and self discovery dripped off every page, supported heavily by Pinsker’s approach to narrative. The entire book felt deliberate, blending style and substance almost seamlessly. The dual narrative allowed her characters’ insecurities to play off each other, giving the story a more natural flow. Pinsker highlights this duality by writing them in different perspectives, Luce being written in the first person, with Rosemary in the informed third person. It allowed me to sink into Luce’s world-weary and largely individualized defiance and feel the comfort of “doing what I can.” Rosemary becomes the perfect contrast, as her careless curiosity and need to prove herself drive a lot of the action. The third person style allowed me time to reflect, as if another person were there, guiding the introspection. There were a few cheesy moments, but they didn’t stick out in any seriously intrusive ways.

There is so much to talk about with this book, it’s honestly hard to contain within a few paragraphs. Pinsker has an amazing ability to write concerts in a way that puts the reader in the thick of it. There is a rawness to the story that pulled me along and left me needing more every time I had to set the book down. It made me yearn for the pit in the middle of a show, screaming the lyrics at the top of my lungs, shoulder to shoulder with other euphoric strangers. On top of all of that, it made me think about how I engage with the people around me in my everyday life; how it’s easier to just put on my headphones and walk through the world to my own prescribed beat, instead of opening my ears to those around me. It’s tough and scary to think about building or participating in a community, let alone actually doing it. It isn’t any easier in Song for a New Day, but it makes the work feel worth doing.

Rating: Song for a New Day – 8.5/10

-Alex