Sequoia Nagamatsu is an American novelist, short story writer, and professor.

Much of How High We Go in the Dark (2022) was written before Covid.

This book is a series of short stories. Some better than others.

This pandemic — the Arctic Plague — starts in 2030 when a prehistoric female came to light having melted out of a glacier in Siberia.

A previously unidentified pathogen from the past was reactivated — and quickly spreads around the world.

How High We Go in the Dark is made up of more than a dozen discrete episodes, separate beads along the narrative timeline from the discovery and release of the virus, through the worst years of the pandemic, on into its lingering aftermath.

The book then leaps 6,000 years ahead, revealing how decisions taken now might lead to radically divergent futures. …

Guardian Review

The virus disproportionately kills children.

The first story is of an amusement park — City of Laughter —where children infected can enjoy one last, fun-filled day before riding a roller coaster designed to kill them.

The second story is excellent. A pig used in plague research learns how to talk.

After that … none of the other short stories jumped out for me. I skipped some.