Tomorrowland

In his debut short story collection, Joseph Bates (The Nighttime Novelist) establishes a house of mirrors that alternately reveals the surprising truth of life and reflects back such a bloated, grotesquely stretched-out version thereof that any hope of truth recognition is lost. Bates's stories share the sense of dangling over the cliff of reality, from the unlikely action taken in "Survey of my Exes" to the multiverse-scanning machine of "Mirrorverse." In the latter as well as in "Future Me," Bates washes the real world in straightforward sci-fi, revealing a certain restlessness to sift through alternate possibilities. At its best, the collection uses exaggerated reality and irrational otherworldliness in order to highlight elements of everyday life, such as when Bates illustrates the ambitions and loneliness of a genetic outcast in "Gas Head Tells All." Yet in some stories he takes this too far, particularly those that broach modern politics. The church-government hastily elected in "Bearing a Cross" is frightening, yes, and provides a clear parable against panicking and handing over individual liberty to a strong-armed state, but no subtle undertone or delightful truth breaks the surface of the all-too-obvious. Overall, an entertaining collection that gets bogged down when addressing politics. (Aug.)