This Weightless World

A literary debut subverting classic sci-fi tropes set in gentrified Chicago, Silicon Valley, and across the vastness of the cosmos.

From the streets of gentrified Chicago, to the tech-boom corridors of Silicon Valley, This Weightless World follows a revolving cast of characters after alien contact upends their lives.

We are introduced to Sevi, a burned-out music teacher desperate for connection; Ramona, his on-again, off-again computer programmer girlfriend; and Sevi’s cello protégé Eason, struggling with the closure of his high school; after a mysterious signal arrives from outer space. When the signal – at first seen as a sign of hope – stops as abruptly as it started, they are all forced to reckon with its aftermath. In San Francisco, Sevi fights to find meaning in rekindled love; and Ramona – determined to build an AI to prevent mankind’s self-destruction – begins to feel the weight of past mistakes. And in Chicago, Eason measures his commitment to an estranged childhood friend against the chance of escaping neighborhood troubles.

A dazzling deconstruction of science-fiction tropes, This Weightless World looks to the past for a vision of the future.