David Eagleton, Sum: Forty tales from the afterlives ** 1/2

Sum is a collection of 40 vignettes about possible versions of what happens after you die. For example, from the version that gives the book its title:

In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the events reshuffled into a new order: all the moments that share a quality are grouped together. You spend two months driving the street in front of your house, seven months having sex. You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet.

 Each "story" is two or three pages long, basically long enough to establish its premise and toss in a last minute twist that is meant to be thought provoking. It's a good idea, but in practice most of the pieces stop before they get to the part about what the experience would be like. And many of the setups were vague and/or sophomoric.

I read the book aloud to Evelyn, and only a few of the stories sparked interesting discussions. The most successful one was "Narcissus," in which humans were designed as devices for collecting data about the Earth, but our makers are frustrated because we only collect data about ourselves.