This is a series of short short-stories that deal with the future or near future, in most cases with a dystopian bent. The collection is slightly uneven; some of the stories reading as an idea waiting to be fully developed than a finished work. That may be in part, by the nature of the narratives: from short to concise. But if you are ever curious about taking a look at what other people think when they think about the future, this may be a book for you.

This book is a collection of some fantastically told SciFi short stories. If you are a SciFi fan and a futurist, you must read this book. ( )

This is a collection of short SF stories by a number of writers, with the stories grouped by themes. I disliked most of the stories in the Virtual Persons theme and found them very similar to each other. In the Post-Brain section "Anomaly in the Rythm" by Viraj Joshi was entertaining with an interesting twist. Under the theme of Disease, "The Needs of the Few" by Jennifer Rohn was my favorite. In the Conflict section, "Safe From Harm" by Tim Maughan was the best in the section and the book as a whole.

Vital Signals: Virtual Futures Near-Future Fictions is the latest volume of stories organized by Virtual Futures, a conference/salon/”group of renegade philosophers (per their website) that has been working out of the University of Warwick since 1994. Their goal is to use science fiction “as a tool for criticizing, interrogating, and navigating possible tomorrows.” This particular collection of stories features pieces that range from slight vignettes to in-depth new worlds written by established sci-fi writers, science journalists, scientists, civil servants, and more. These diverse thinkers were selected to, “provide tentative situations that may be manufactured by the activities of the present…” and “to quantify an ambiguous reality so that we stand a chance of shaping an uncertain future.” (from Ward, O’Hara, and Oram’s introduction).



Things do not look great – most of these writers are projecting some very negative consequences in the very near future aided on by income inequality, social media’s domination of information, and a damaged ecosystem. Divided into four sections, Virtual Persons, Post-Brain, Disease, and Conflict, they cover a lot of ground. It’s not hard to tell which stories were written by professional writers, but even the roughest prose is both brief and brings forward interesting points. I flagged a little in the middle, but was buoyed by both the occasional very clever idea, and the handful of truly strange and gonzo takes (I’m looking at you, Antoine Saint-Honore with your ‘CHOLESTOROL5.9 BigFLY’). I also hope that Brendan C. Byrne wrote more in the very possible but very disorienting world of ‘An Excerpt from the Post-Truth and Irreconcilable Differences Commission’, because it gave me great hope and great pause.



I feel like this book would go best with a discussion group or conference – looking at each story and tracking how our technology is getting us there, and how can we incentivize change to avoid it. As a collection of stories, it falls a little short, but as a series of thought experiments, it is engrossing. I am inspired to go back to the previous volume and find some more. ( )

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.

Vital Signals is a collection of short science fiction stories by various authors, with the stories grouped into four different sections/themes. I actually really like this format - the short stories are thought-provoking and, due to their length, many left me thinking further about the world in which they are set, the characters they are about, or what happens next. I don't read many short stories, but I think this anthology was a really interesting format. ( )