In this pair of novellas, *Stepping Stone* had a more interesting plot and likeable characters. Truman is the senior mailroom employee at a big company in the near future, with not much of an outside life, but something strange happens and he starts making connections with others and figuring out more about himself. *Love Machine* has uncomfortable sexually explicit scenes as part of its story about a Co-Mind that is taking people into itself. There are interesting parts in this book too, but these connections are made forcibly and will be triggery for some. Still, both these stories take a thoughtful approach to modern society and the near future (dystopic but not without hope), as a natural part of the story. ( )

This book is two novellas, each upside down from the other and beginning at either cover. I read only one. It was a bit of a struggle, but I really wanted to read it through to the end. There was a lot of repetition in the book, I thought, and so it was not as exciting a read as previous Mosley works. I only read one novella, Stepping Stone. That was enough for now. ( )