Key’s stories exemplify [a] tight focus on interior experiences, zooming in on the intimate horrors wrought by fantastical technologies and events. The standout 'Spider King' features an unwitting participant in a twisted carceral experiment involving telekinetic arachnids . . . .‘Afiya’s Song,’ about an enslaved Black woman who inspires an uprising, cleverly complicates the magical Negro trope . . . . The intrusive public health system of ‘Wellness Check,’ the nightmarish interactive art of ‘Now You See Me’ and the alien apartheid of the title story showcase an active imagination and a commitment to socially-minded speculative fiction.” — New York Times Book Review
“From the first sentence of the first story, I knew I was in the hands of a gifted storyteller. Each tale in this tightly woven collection has its own voice, which pairs with the narrative. The stories are by turns heartbreaking and terrifying.” — Mary Robinette Kowal
“One of many distinctive new Black American voices in the fantasy genre, Key shows throughout these eight stories the range and ingenuity of such grandmasters as Ray Bradbury, Robert Sheckley, and Theodore Sturgeon, with whom he also shares acute empathy for human vulnerability . . . . Key resolutely carries on the tradition of the modern SF writers who always found new and rueful ways of reminding readers that no matter how much technology changes, humanity, in its loneliness, folly, and constricted vision, somehow never does.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
