The newest from Penny comes with two important caveats. First I have to say if you are stressed out by recent events and are looking for some escapist reading it is NOT THIS BOOK. It is another good story about our friends in Three Pines, but this time they have a mysterious vague and possibly deeply worrisome and catastrophic terrorist plot to contend with. And they’re not sure where to start looking, so they look a lot of places. Second, this book is clearly meant to be a partner with a second book so it’s got one of *those* sort of vague endings which might not be what you’re feeling like. There was, as is Penny’s style, a lot of interesting history to dip into. However it felt more thrillery than usual--which could be about a change in me and not a change in her--and it was a bit much for me.

This was a nice ten-year old book that segued nicely with the plague book, about what we can tell about human history from “DNA stuff.” It’s a pop science book so not too in the weeds and combines the things we know from science with anecdotes about why individual people might care, or stories about using DNA to find long-lost family, that sort of thing. The author is Australian so there’s more about Australian history than US stuff which was just fine by me.

In a future where we all have access to sentient robots but we have less access to jobs and prosperity, a woman undergoes a procedure to bring in some extra cash for her family and takes them on an extravagant “vacation” (a wild area inside the city, in a ruined world) and things go a little wrong and then go VERY wrong. A commentary on our use and abuse of technology and consumerism and how we care for one another (children in particular). Surprisingly non-didactic, well written.