The first short story of this collection just crushed me. “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” is about a person who recently lost their mother and just wants to see them again in a simulation. Unfortunately, company policy is to not show clients dead people, lest they get addicted to the experience and confuse reality with fantasy. It’s all in dialogue and the tone is handled brilliantly. The rest of the stories were perfectly good, with themes of normalcy shading to insidious creepiness with societal commentary on the side, but in my opinion none of them matched the first one for sheer punch. Still, a really impressive collection overall; will definitely be keeping an eye out for other works by Fu.