Your Utopia is a follow-up to Curse Bunny- it’s a collection of short stories that delves into technology, featuring robots, spaceships, and futuristic corporations. True to Bora Chung's style, there's always a peculiar twist. I think that the stories keep getting stronger as you progress through the collection. I’ll outline some favorites here: 

The opening story, "The Centre for Immortality Research," ostensibly about extending life, actually critiques capitalism and the rigidity of large organizations. It has a somewhat irreverent tone through the whole thing, where more and more ridiculous scenarios keep happening but corporate life must trudge on. 

"The End of the Voyage" presents a dystopian view of a disease that induces cannibalism, evolving into a narrative about religious existentialism. On the longer side, but, I think it really nails the ideas of horror in space, dread of others, etc. 

The title story “Your Utopia” examines the fallibility of machines, Asimov’s Three Laws and how it can be seen as detrimental to non-human intelligences, and also underscores the importance of environmental preservation. Honestly I love a good robot and this didn’t disappoint. 

“To Meet Her” is really powerful once you know more context of why it was written. I won’t spoil it, but I think it has a lot going for it. 

Overall, pretty please with it, and couldn’t put it down on the Sunday afternoon/night that I picked it up. 

This was a surprisingly reflective collection and a significant departure in tone (and perhaps even style) from Chung’s previous short story collection, Cursed Bunny. While Cursed Bunny leaned into the weird and classic horror, the horror of Your Utopia is more insidious and reminiscent of what I would say is a reflection of our world today and the possible direction it’s heading towards. This short story collection puts utopia and dystopia in conversation with each other with technology in mind. Each story grapples with the meaning of a “better” world as a result of technological advancements, if that actually is the case or not. Relatedly, “hope” and “empathy” are contentious concepts in this collection as each story switches between perspectives of the human and nonhuman, often resulting in a different emotional response, depending on who is speaking and what the theme happens to be. I also found the afterword from the author particularly illuminating, as it went into some of her inspirations and reflections on real-world circumstances, ultimately, adding layers to already complex stories.

I enjoyed most of the stories for different reasons, but I was especially taken to “A Song for Sleep,” which was told from the perspective of a highly advanced elevator who is drawn to an elderly resident of the building it operates in. I was really taken to how emotionally impactful this story was in how it reflected on what it means to be human from the perspective of a nonhuman.

While I did find that I wanted some of these stories to be a bit more fleshed out, they weren’t unsatisfying by any means. I’m really impressed by the depth of this collection and the questions it poses about the world we are (and could be) living in.