This Weightless World

August 16, 2021
Soto’s debut, a purported alien contact novel, disappoints, arguably lacking both aliens and contact. Like characters in a 1970s New Yorker story, his raft of protagonists drift verbosely through purposeless lives—among them Sevi del Toro, a cellist who settled for teaching rather than performing and endlessly regrets it; his ex-girlfriend Ramona, a hacker turned Google employee who can’t find a reason to use her skills; and Eason, one of Sevi’s students, who’s tugged into drug-running by his cousin. Their angst gains an external focus when, on New Year’s Day 2012, SETI announces the discovery of an intentional radio signal emanating from the distant planet Omni-7xc. The focus could as easily have been the Occupy movement or the Syrian war, two among many big-issue cameos, but it all ends up just fodder for the characters’ internal churn. The signal eventually stops, and neither characters nor reader care much. The lone truly science fictional narrator, astronaut He Zhen, develops a distinct perspective on the meaninglessness, but she’s removed from the others by culture and light years, so what insight she gains is as drearily empty as all the rest. Sci-fi fans can skip this one. Agent: Marya Spence, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

September 1, 2021
Humankind's first contact from a far-away planet is devastatingly short-lived in Soto's debut. It's New Year's Day 2012, and the people of the SETI Institute make an astonishing announcement: They have proof of extraterrestrial life. About 75 light-years away, a planet called Omni-7xc is sending some kind of signal. What that signal is meant to communicate is hard to pin down, but before anyone can even wrap their minds around it, it disappears. Many people are of the opinion that whoever was reaching out from Omni-7xc decided humanity wasn't worth building a relationship with, a pretty plausible explanation considering nuclear war, poverty, oppression, and all those other societal ills most folks were happy to ignore until they discovered they were being watched by another civilization. Though the novel gestures toward wider global reactions, Soto wisely focuses on a few specific humans: Sevi, a disillusioned former music teacher; his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Ramona, a Google programmer working on a top-secret project; and Eason, Sevi's cello student, who's reeling from the death of a childhood friend. The three of them grapple with the question of how anyone can be a moral person in a world where the vast majority of individuals are powerless to make a meaningful impact against institutional and systemic problems like racism, gentrification, and state violence. Soto's characters are finely drawn, as are their philosophically thorny conflicts with each other. Ramona and Sevi's divide over her work at Google gets the furthest into the weeds of Soto's questions about personal accountability in an unjust world, but Eason's journey toward processing his friend's death and deciding what to do with his own life will linger the longest in readers' hearts. Amid the discovery of alien life, a touching meditation on humanity.

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November 24, 2021
In Soto's debut novel, the notion of extraterrestrial life plays out like a global thought exercise: What if aliens sent an unmistakable signal from a distant planet, only to stop sending before its meaning could be understood? Soto wisely centers this complex scenario on three disillusioned protagonists: Sevi, a music teacher who regrets not becoming a professional musician; his ex-girlfriend Ramona, a Google programmer working on an artificial intelligence project; and cellist Eason, Sevi's student, hoping music will lift him from the gang life that recently took his friend. When discovery of the signal is announced on New Year's 2012, they, like the rest of the world, take a hard look at their purpose on Earth. At first, potential alien contact sparks well-intentioned social, environmental, and political movements to better the world; but hope falters when the signal stops, giving rise to the theory that perhaps humanity isn't salvageable. Readers may debate whether this constitutes a science fiction novel, given the plot's lack of actual alien contact, but it is a fascinating, sometimes depressing, lens through which to view the human condition.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.