They Cannot Not Save Us
Book Review for This Weightless World by Adam Soto
“He would destroy her trying to remember her, like listening to a favorite record too many times.”
-Adam Soto, This Weightless World
Genre: Science Fiction, Literary Fiction
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Adam Soto’s debut novel, This Weightless World, is an ambitious and thought-provoking exploration of human connection, morality, and what it means to be alive in an age where technology outpaces our ethical readiness.
When a signal from a distant star system—seemingly of alien origin—is discovered, each character is forced to confront their ambitions, failures, and hopes in a world teetering on the edge of transformative discovery. But this isn’t a typical first contact novel. Soto resists the temptation delve too deeply into the first contact trope, instead, he offers a more contemplative and grounded look at how such a discovery might impact ordinary lives.
The story centers around Sevi, a former cellist turned teacher who lives in Chicago and relocates to San Francisco after the news about the mysterious space signal in attempt to rekindle his relationship with Ramona, a programmer for Google working on a “safe-search” AI. Then there’s Eason, one of Sevi’s cello students, a black teenager who gets roped into running drugs for his cousin. They’re all impacted in different ways by the transmission.
Soto’s writing shines in its lyrical depth and its quiet, human moments. He deftly navigates themes of alienation, gentrification, environmental collapse, and the commodification of knowledge, all while threading in the looming, existential mystery of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Where the novel excels is in its emotional and philosophical weight—Soto uses science fiction not as an escape, but as a lens through which to scrutinize the very real tensions of our post-humanist world. A deeply intelligent and poetic debut, This Weightless World is a meditative, grounded work of speculative fiction that challenges the reader to consider not just what lies beyond our world, but what lies within ourselves.
