A Song for a New Day

By: Sarah Pinsker

Narrated by: Dylan Moore, Nicol Zanzarella

Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Nebula Award

After a global pandemic makes public gatherings illegal and concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music - and for one chance at human connection.

In the Before, when the government didn't prohibit large public gatherings, Luce Cannon was on top of the world. One of her songs had just taken off and she was on her way to becoming a star. Now, in the After, terror attacks and deadly viruses have led the government to ban concerts, and Luce's connection to the world - her music, her purpose - is closed off forever. She does what she has to do: She performs in illegal concerts to a small but passionate community, always evading the law.

Rosemary Laws barely remembers the Before times. She spends her days in Hoodspace, helping customers order all of their goods online for drone delivery - no physical contact with humans needed. By lucky chance, she finds a new job and a new calling: discover amazing musicians and bring their concerts to everyone via virtual reality. The only catch is that she'll have to do something she's never done before and go out in public. Find the illegal concerts and bring musicians into the limelight they deserve. But when she sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.

©2019 Sarah Pinsker (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"An all-too plausible version of the apocalypse, rendered in such compelling prose that you won’t be able to put it down...a lively and hopeful look at how community and music and life goes on even in the middle of dark days and malevolent corporate shenanigans." (Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Get In Trouble)

"You'd better keep a copy of A Song for a New Day with you at all times, because this book will help you survive the future. Sarah Pinsker has written a wonderful epic about music, community, and rediscovering the things that make us human. Pinsker has an amazing ear for dialogue, a brilliant knack for describing music, and most importantly a profound awareness of silence, in both its positive and negative aspects. A Song for a New Day restored some of my faith in community, and I didn't even realize how much I needed this book right now." (Charlie Jane Anders, national best-selling author of All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night)

"Experiencing Sarah Pinsker's A Song For a New Day is like listening to a fine, well-rehearsed song unleashed live. It's a deeply human song of queer found family and the tension between independence and belonging, thoughtful and raw like the best live music. It's also a cautionary tale of what happens when we privilege convenience over connection. If you love performance - the magic of head-thrown-back ecstatic musical communion - read this book." (Nicola Griffith, author of Hild)

Not my thing but...

I thought this would be more ‘post apocalyptic’ genre but found it kind of chatty / girlie. That aside Pinsker nailed it constructing an after- pandemic scenerio. Really interesting from that perspective. Not sure I would recommend this book to people who are looking for post apocalyptic- fiction but I am glad I read it.

Fantasy or future

Liked how author pulled me into a futuristic world and also kept me grounded in live music venue. Old coffee houses provided political safety, once upon a time. Perhaps a resurgence.

Anthem for Culture Change

This story needs to be told, even as we hurtle towards all of it's dark predictions. The artist in me is inspired to go out and build a new future for our fearful and uncertain present. If you are a creative person, then this story is for you, too. Don't let the chaos of Now distract you from considering what type of world we are building. Thanks, Sarah Pinsker, for giving us a glimpse of how to move forward in this world. You couldn't have known how much your story would come to matter for 2020.

Prophetic and affirming

In a strange way, Sarah Pinsker must have had a premonition of what was coming when she penned this novel, which gives it even more mystique. An excellent listen.

Hits close to home for the year 2020

Always a big fan of dystopian stories and a lover of music, just reading the synopsis of this pulled me in. In fact, I don't if I even made it through the synopsis before deciding I needed to listen to this audiobook ASAP.

With everything the year 2020 has brought upon us, this book hits so close to home, to the degree that after being partially through the book I had to see when it was written. Still curious if Sarah Pinsker is psychic and knew what was coming.

Not only was the story great, evoking so many feels when nods to different places famous for their contributions to music were mentioned, but it is very inclusive. There was representation from a large range of races, ages, genders and sexual orientations, as well as nods to different religions, languages and abilities.

I look forward to reading/listening to more from Sarah Pinsker in the future. Go check out A Song for a New Day now!

prescient and hopeful

loved the story, felt very relevant in this moment. the theme of needing both inside and outside change makers to move a system.

The best book I’ve read in a very long time

Smart, apt, and intriguing. Can’t wait to hear more from this amazing author- she’s on my short list!!

loved this book!

This was great! Grabbed me right from the beginning and didn't disappoint in the end.

A Gauntlet Thrown

This passionate, lyrical novel, drawn from the author’s own deep experience of live music, is a challenge thrown to those who would resist oppression in all its forms. Its controlling metaphor of the infinite ways in which human beings create and express dovetails with its serious inquiry about collaboration, capitulation, subversion, self-protection, sin, and the search for redemption.

My only quibble (which you can see did not affect my ratings) arises from my legal training. The major premise of the novel depends on a set of statutory reactions to a crisis that I am reasonably confident would not survive First Amendment challenge. I am able to believe in both the mass hysteria and the political and corporate opportunism that would seek to create and perpetuate such reactions, but I don’t think the emergency exceptions to the Peaceable Assembly clause would extend this far. Because there is so much legal and constitutional misinformation out there, I think it’s important to correct such misapprehensions where they arise. However, the average reader would not notice or care about this issue (which is part of the problem), and so it would not affect anyone’s enjoyment.

Great characters, believable story.

didn't think I could get into a music story, but it pulled me right in. great book.