Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea is a 2019 short story collection by Sarah Pinsker. It includes thirteen stories, each incorporating elements of speculative fiction, most notably science fiction and fantasy.

Contents

• "A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide"
• "And We Were Left Darkling" (originally published in Lightspeed, 2015^[1])
• "Remembery Day"
• "Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea" (originally published in Lightspeed, 2016^[2])
• "The Low Hum of Her"
• "Talking with Dead People"
• "The Sewell Home for the Temporally Displaced"
• "In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind" (originally published in Strange Horizons, 2013^[3])
• "No Lonely Seafarer" (originally published in Lightspeed, 2014^[4])
• "Wind Will Rove"
• "Our Lady of the Open Road"
• "The Narwhal"
• "And Then There Were (N-One)" (originally published in Uncanny Magazine, 2017^[5])

Themes

Several critics noted the atmosphere of loss, nostalgia, music and reinvention throughout the collection.^[6][7] Gary K. Wolfe, in a review for Locus, wrote that memory "may be [Pinsker's] characteristic theme".^[8] Publishers Weekly wrote that "In all of Pinsker’s tales, humans grapple with their relationships to technology, the supernatural, and one another."^[9] Michelle Anne Schingler of Foreword Reviews observed that yearning was integral to many of the stories in the collection.^[10]

Many of the protagonists of the stories in some way rebel against or break the norms of their society.^[11] Many stories feature characters whose communities have been displaced in some way,^[12] and the impact of social and technological change on culture is a recurring theme.^[13] Kirkus Reviews wrote that "Pinsker’s characters are often loners dedicated to idiosyncratic artistic pursuits".^[11]

The collection also prominently features LGBT characters,^[9] and many of its themes tie into gender and sexuality. Alexander Carrigan of Lambda Literary noted that "Pinsker presents characters who are all over the LGBT+ spectrum, and in many cases, it allows for further reading and exploration of each story’s themes and characters."^[14]

Reception

The collection received critical acclaim, and was given starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Foreword Reviews, and Booklist.^[9][15] It won the 2020 Philip K. Dick Award,^[16] and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award—Collection, losing to Brian Evenson's Song for the Unraveling of the World.^[17]

The collection was included in B&N Reads list of "The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of March 2019".^[18] It also appeared on lists of the best books of 2019 by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,^[19] Fantasy & Science Fiction,^[20] and BuzzFeed.^[21]