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Changelog
In the long-awaited follow-up to his debut collection Tomorrow Factory, Rich Larson plunges us through a multiplicity of futures.
Ranging in length from byte-sized drabbles to elaborate novelettes, the twenty-six stories assembled in Changelog rove from the sands of biopunk West Africa to the scarred hull of a generation ship to the dismantling of time itself — exploring the symbiosis of humanity and technology at every stop.
Ranging in length from byte-sized drabbles to elaborate novelettes, the twenty-six stories assembled in Changelog rove from the sands of biopunk West Africa to the scarred hull of a generation ship to the dismantling of time itself — exploring the symbiosis of humanity and technology at every stop.
376 pages, Paperback
First published September 2, 2025
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About the author
Rich Larson
75 books5 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 22, 2025
An extremely well-rounded collection!
I read the first story, "Painless" years ago, and it stayed with me - always popping in my thoughts at random times - so when I saw this new collection, I was very excited. And it didn't disappoint; the stories were very different from one another but all had that characteristic feel of the author to them: interesting themes, intriguing ideas, beautiful (and sometimes gross) imagery, and masterful world-building. I had to pause between stories to really take them in and think about them before continuing.
Some of my favorites of this collection include "You Are Born Exploding", "Verweile Doch", "Tidings", "Failsafe" and "In Event of Moon Disaster" ... making this list, it's really hard to stop just listing all of them. :'D
I read the first story, "Painless" years ago, and it stayed with me - always popping in my thoughts at random times - so when I saw this new collection, I was very excited. And it didn't disappoint; the stories were very different from one another but all had that characteristic feel of the author to them: interesting themes, intriguing ideas, beautiful (and sometimes gross) imagery, and masterful world-building. I had to pause between stories to really take them in and think about them before continuing.
Some of my favorites of this collection include "You Are Born Exploding", "Verweile Doch", "Tidings", "Failsafe" and "In Event of Moon Disaster" ... making this list, it's really hard to stop just listing all of them. :'D
August 28, 2025
Rich Larson writes the most kick-ass, creative and sharply edged short stories in science fiction. And he writes a lot of them – 250 by his count. The extensive bibliography in the back of this book bears him out.
This is his second story collection, and it's full of imaginative stories about people in difficult circumstances, crazy technology, offbeat places and jazzy slang that he seems to have made up. (If someone else has come up with the term 'climmigrants' for climate immigrants, I haven't seen it.)
Lots of harsh things happen in many of his stories. Some of them border on horror, with horrible things happening to people's bodies. Still, he's not intentionally setting out to be a horror writer (at least I don't think so), that's just the world he sets his stories in.
There's a loosely woven shared universe in some of his stories, but it's a light touch and you wouldn't know it unless reading a bunch of them together, like in this collection.
In a way, Larson reminds me of the early cyberpunks: The prose is taut, creative, sometimes flashy but always for effect not just for show. In a speculative fiction genre that seems dominated by fantasy these days, he is showing there's still a lot of juice in good old fashioned speculative technology based science fiction. A good example that sets off my cyberpunk radar is the longest story, 'Quandri Aminu vs. the Butterfly Man'.
Sam J. Miller writes the introduction. No mean craftsman himself, he calls himself the Salieri to Larson's Mozart: He sees what Larson does and thinks"Man, I wish I could do that. That's what I'm trying for, and this 'kid' is doing it so frequently, story after story".
Treat yourself to one of the sharpest and most imaginative voices in science fiction today. Read some Rich Larson. He makes it easier: the bibliography in the back indicates which stories are available to read for free on his website: https://richwlarson.tumblr.com/freereads.
This is his second story collection, and it's full of imaginative stories about people in difficult circumstances, crazy technology, offbeat places and jazzy slang that he seems to have made up. (If someone else has come up with the term 'climmigrants' for climate immigrants, I haven't seen it.)
Lots of harsh things happen in many of his stories. Some of them border on horror, with horrible things happening to people's bodies. Still, he's not intentionally setting out to be a horror writer (at least I don't think so), that's just the world he sets his stories in.
There's a loosely woven shared universe in some of his stories, but it's a light touch and you wouldn't know it unless reading a bunch of them together, like in this collection.
In a way, Larson reminds me of the early cyberpunks: The prose is taut, creative, sometimes flashy but always for effect not just for show. In a speculative fiction genre that seems dominated by fantasy these days, he is showing there's still a lot of juice in good old fashioned speculative technology based science fiction. A good example that sets off my cyberpunk radar is the longest story, 'Quandri Aminu vs. the Butterfly Man'.
Sam J. Miller writes the introduction. No mean craftsman himself, he calls himself the Salieri to Larson's Mozart: He sees what Larson does and thinks"Man, I wish I could do that. That's what I'm trying for, and this 'kid' is doing it so frequently, story after story".
Treat yourself to one of the sharpest and most imaginative voices in science fiction today. Read some Rich Larson. He makes it easier: the bibliography in the back indicates which stories are available to read for free on his website: https://richwlarson.tumblr.com/freereads.
February 6, 2026
The foreword to this book describes Rich Larson as underrated, which is the understatement of the year. There's not a single weak link in this cyberpunk/biopunk anthology. It's like a good version of Black Mirror, focusing on the human and fallible. It had me by the first story when someone's eye implant is infected; this future is grounded and lived in and messy and sometimes beautiful.
It's hard to pick a favourite, and I haven't, but the standouts to me include "Animals Like Me," which is a delightfully horrifying take on Elsagate, "Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man," which takes us to a grimy, crime-ridden Nuuk with a tough-as-nails queer heroine and surprising compassion at its core, "Tidings," which is the most hopeful story I've read in a good long time, but in a cool way not a twee way, and "You Are Born Exploding," which is devastating and brilliant.
It's hard to pick a favourite, and I haven't, but the standouts to me include "Animals Like Me," which is a delightfully horrifying take on Elsagate, "Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man," which takes us to a grimy, crime-ridden Nuuk with a tough-as-nails queer heroine and surprising compassion at its core, "Tidings," which is the most hopeful story I've read in a good long time, but in a cool way not a twee way, and "You Are Born Exploding," which is devastating and brilliant.
January 20, 2026
Ratings:
Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man - 5 stars.
The Old Man - 5 stars.
Headhunting - 4 stars.
Valhalla - 4 stars.
Last Nice Day - 4 stars.
Tripping Through Time - 4 stars.
You Are Born Exploding - 4 stars.
Painless - 4 stars.
All Electric Ghosts - 4 stars.
In Event of Moon Disaster - 4 stars.
Cupido - 4 stars.
Animals Like Me - 4 stars.
Still Life of a Death Broker - 4 stars.
Verweile Doch (But Linger) - 4 stars.
Meat and Salt and Sparks - 4 stars.
Dale Dale Dale - 3 stars.
Tidings - 3 stars.
Smear Job - 3 stars.
Like Any Other Star - 3 stars.
Brainwhales Are Stoners, Too - 3 stars.
Our Lady of Perpetual Disdain - 3 stars.
Safe Space - 3 stars.
Complete Exhaustion of the Organism - 2 stars.
Horizon Event - 2 stars.
Failsafe - 2 stars.
Night Shift - 1 star.
Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man - 5 stars.
The Old Man - 5 stars.
Headhunting - 4 stars.
Valhalla - 4 stars.
Last Nice Day - 4 stars.
Tripping Through Time - 4 stars.
You Are Born Exploding - 4 stars.
Painless - 4 stars.
All Electric Ghosts - 4 stars.
In Event of Moon Disaster - 4 stars.
Cupido - 4 stars.
Animals Like Me - 4 stars.
Still Life of a Death Broker - 4 stars.
Verweile Doch (But Linger) - 4 stars.
Meat and Salt and Sparks - 4 stars.
Dale Dale Dale - 3 stars.
Tidings - 3 stars.
Smear Job - 3 stars.
Like Any Other Star - 3 stars.
Brainwhales Are Stoners, Too - 3 stars.
Our Lady of Perpetual Disdain - 3 stars.
Safe Space - 3 stars.
Complete Exhaustion of the Organism - 2 stars.
Horizon Event - 2 stars.
Failsafe - 2 stars.
Night Shift - 1 star.
January 29, 2026
Rich Larson is one of the greatest short story writers of the current age - perhaps any age. He writes a kind of (post-)modern cyberpunk, gritty and often violent, cynical but with a great deal of heart. He has an untamed imagination, which by and large he uses to craft near futures that seem uncannily, often terrifyingly possible.
I cannot recommend this collection highly enough. I'd say the same about Tomorrow Factory: Collected Fiction, and if you want proof, many of the stories can be read for free at Clarkesworld, Tor-dot-com (now Reactor) and elsewhere online.
Larson is incredibly prolific, but also incredibly consistent in quality.
Only a few of the stories in this collection suffered a little from hackneyed storylines or the glibness that can be hard to avoid in a "drabble" (a flash fiction, typically limited to 100 words). Some of the best stories in this collection are the most fanciful - the chimpanzee detective, the boy who can stop time...
But the most beautiful, horrifying, touching story is the quietly devastating "You Are Born Exploding", in which a far-too-privileged woman lives through a future pandemic while trying to bring up her toddler on her own. Slowly we learn details about this pandemic, and we learn more about the protagonist, who becomes deeply sympathetic. It's slowly told, unlike most of Larson's fiction, and the pace suits the elegiac tone as the story proceeds to its inevitable conclusion. By halfway through you pretty much know how it's going to end, but Larson's writing is such that it hits just as hard even so.
I cannot recommend this collection highly enough. I'd say the same about Tomorrow Factory: Collected Fiction, and if you want proof, many of the stories can be read for free at Clarkesworld, Tor-dot-com (now Reactor) and elsewhere online.
Larson is incredibly prolific, but also incredibly consistent in quality.
Only a few of the stories in this collection suffered a little from hackneyed storylines or the glibness that can be hard to avoid in a "drabble" (a flash fiction, typically limited to 100 words). Some of the best stories in this collection are the most fanciful - the chimpanzee detective, the boy who can stop time...
But the most beautiful, horrifying, touching story is the quietly devastating "You Are Born Exploding", in which a far-too-privileged woman lives through a future pandemic while trying to bring up her toddler on her own. Slowly we learn details about this pandemic, and we learn more about the protagonist, who becomes deeply sympathetic. It's slowly told, unlike most of Larson's fiction, and the pace suits the elegiac tone as the story proceeds to its inevitable conclusion. By halfway through you pretty much know how it's going to end, but Larson's writing is such that it hits just as hard even so.
Read
May 1, 2025A big thank you to the author and publisher for an ARC of this collection!
CHANGELOG is perfect for fans of Blade Runner and Black Mirror with stories that span across biopunk, military sci-fi, space opera, the cosmic, exploring addiction, trauma, and the webbing of relationships through narratives both quiet and action-packed. Gritty and raw, Larson brings us tales reminiscent of classics like 1984 and worlds eerily palpable in their depictions of our far futures.
CHANGELOG is perfect for fans of Blade Runner and Black Mirror with stories that span across biopunk, military sci-fi, space opera, the cosmic, exploring addiction, trauma, and the webbing of relationships through narratives both quiet and action-packed. Gritty and raw, Larson brings us tales reminiscent of classics like 1984 and worlds eerily palpable in their depictions of our far futures.
February 1, 2026
Changelog is one of those rare short story collections that genuinely left me buzzing after I finished it. I loved almost every page of it, and it’s easily one of the strongest SF collections I’ve read in the past few years.
My personal favorite is the opening story—I won’t name it here to avoid spoilers, but it hit me like a freight train and set an incredibly high bar right from the start. The weird thing is, I genuinely struggle to pick a clear number one because so many of the pieces are excellent in different ways. There’s barely a dud in the whole book.
That said, a handful of the very shortest pieces (the micro-fictions and sudden-flash ones) did feel a bit out of place to me. They’re clever, sure, but they didn’t carry the same emotional or intellectual weight as the longer stories, and I think the collection would have been even stronger without them. Personal taste, of course, but they stuck out like sore thumbs amid the heavier hitters.
Larson’s style is deliberately brutal, raw, sometimes almost unpleasant—and that’s exactly why it works. The prose is stripped-down, muscular, frequently ugly in the best possible way. It’s not polished Ted Chiang elegance; it’s closer to the jagged edges of early Peter Watts or the unflinching physicality of certain Greg Egan stories, but with its own very distinct flavor. That harshness is necessary: these are stories about transhumanism, bodily autonomy, late-stage capitalism, surveillance, grief, and the many ugly ways people (and post-people) hurt each other. A smoother, prettier style would have felt dishonest.
Several of the stories are disorienting on first read. You’re dropped straight into the deep end—unfamiliar slang, fragmented perspective, half-explained tech—and for the first few pages you’re not entirely sure what’s happening or why you should care. Then the final third or the last paragraph lands, everything snaps into focus, and you realize you’ve been holding your breath. That delayed-explosion structure is used masterfully in at least half the collection, and when it works, it really works.
There was one story, though, that completely defeated me. Even after re-reading it twice I had no idea what it was actually about. I had to cheat and ask an AI to explain the subtext and the intended reading to me. Embarrassing, maybe, but also a testament to how dense and uncompromising some of Larson’s ideas are. Not every story needs to be instantly legible, but that one felt like it crossed the line into private language.
Minor complaints aside, Changelog is a hell of a book. Rich Larson is now firmly on my personal Mount Rushmore of living SF writers, right up there with Greg Egan, Peter Watts, Ted Chiang and Thomas Ha. If you like your science fiction smart, mean, visceral, and more than a little unsettling, this collection is a must-read.
Highly recommended.
My personal favorite is the opening story—I won’t name it here to avoid spoilers, but it hit me like a freight train and set an incredibly high bar right from the start. The weird thing is, I genuinely struggle to pick a clear number one because so many of the pieces are excellent in different ways. There’s barely a dud in the whole book.
That said, a handful of the very shortest pieces (the micro-fictions and sudden-flash ones) did feel a bit out of place to me. They’re clever, sure, but they didn’t carry the same emotional or intellectual weight as the longer stories, and I think the collection would have been even stronger without them. Personal taste, of course, but they stuck out like sore thumbs amid the heavier hitters.
Larson’s style is deliberately brutal, raw, sometimes almost unpleasant—and that’s exactly why it works. The prose is stripped-down, muscular, frequently ugly in the best possible way. It’s not polished Ted Chiang elegance; it’s closer to the jagged edges of early Peter Watts or the unflinching physicality of certain Greg Egan stories, but with its own very distinct flavor. That harshness is necessary: these are stories about transhumanism, bodily autonomy, late-stage capitalism, surveillance, grief, and the many ugly ways people (and post-people) hurt each other. A smoother, prettier style would have felt dishonest.
Several of the stories are disorienting on first read. You’re dropped straight into the deep end—unfamiliar slang, fragmented perspective, half-explained tech—and for the first few pages you’re not entirely sure what’s happening or why you should care. Then the final third or the last paragraph lands, everything snaps into focus, and you realize you’ve been holding your breath. That delayed-explosion structure is used masterfully in at least half the collection, and when it works, it really works.
There was one story, though, that completely defeated me. Even after re-reading it twice I had no idea what it was actually about. I had to cheat and ask an AI to explain the subtext and the intended reading to me. Embarrassing, maybe, but also a testament to how dense and uncompromising some of Larson’s ideas are. Not every story needs to be instantly legible, but that one felt like it crossed the line into private language.
Minor complaints aside, Changelog is a hell of a book. Rich Larson is now firmly on my personal Mount Rushmore of living SF writers, right up there with Greg Egan, Peter Watts, Ted Chiang and Thomas Ha. If you like your science fiction smart, mean, visceral, and more than a little unsettling, this collection is a must-read.
Highly recommended.
March 1, 2026
If there is one thing to immediately impress someone when opening this collection, its Rich's *small font* bibliography at the back, which is longer than some of the his stories. Seeing that, you should know that what you're about to get into has a wide net of themes, emotions, and characters.
From Mars (the lonely former killer who cannot die) to Elisabeth (a mother who's child is infected with a xenovirus) to Cu (a sentient Chimpanzee detective) to Benny (a drug addict who made a deal with Aliens) and more and more, you can see Rich weave anything he imagines into an immersive experience all to break your heart at the end.
If you're searching for a primer on sci-fi short stories by one of the most prolific contemporary writers, buying this collection is no choice.
From Mars (the lonely former killer who cannot die) to Elisabeth (a mother who's child is infected with a xenovirus) to Cu (a sentient Chimpanzee detective) to Benny (a drug addict who made a deal with Aliens) and more and more, you can see Rich weave anything he imagines into an immersive experience all to break your heart at the end.
If you're searching for a primer on sci-fi short stories by one of the most prolific contemporary writers, buying this collection is no choice.
September 23, 2025
Easily one of my favorite SF short story collections. Larson has the unique ability of dropping the reader into a story & world building that is realistic and feels fleshed out in a few short paragraphs. His stories are engaging, creative, and has such a wonderful rhythm to them. This is a must read book of 2025 for SF readers & one that should be nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and other awards and should take home the prizes. Definitely one I'll be returning to again!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews