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Beyond the Stars: Space Opera Anthologies #1
Dark Beyond the Stars: A Space Opera Anthology
Eleven of today's bestselling authors join forces to bring you these tales of action, adventure, and brilliant imagination. From humanity's first contact with alien life, to the challenges of space travel, to colonies established light years from Earth, this anthology celebrates the wide sweep of space opera at its most sublime. There are worlds beyond worlds out there to explore, and millions of stories spinning across the galaxies. So sit back and be transported ... to the dark beyond the stars.
Contents:
* Foreword (Dark Beyond the Stars) • essay by Julie E. Czerneda
* Containment (2015) [Stories of Singularity • 2] / novelette by Susan Kaye Quinn
* Nos Morituri Te Salutamus (2014) / short story by Annie Bellet
* Protocol A235 (2015) / short story by Theresa Kay
* Winner Takes All (2015) / novelette by Elle Casey
* Carindi (2015) / novelette by Jennifer Foehner Wells
* Animal Planet (2015) / novelette by Patrice Fitzgerald
* The Event (2015) / short story by Autumn Kalquist
* Dragonet (2015) / novelette by S. M. Reine [as by Sara Reine]
* Lulu Ad Infinitum (2015) / novelette by Ann Christy
* To Catch an Actor (2015) / short story by Blair C. Babylon
* 2092 (2015) [The Chronos Files] / novella by Rysa Walker
.
Contents:
* Foreword (Dark Beyond the Stars) • essay by Julie E. Czerneda
* Containment (2015) [Stories of Singularity • 2] / novelette by Susan Kaye Quinn
* Nos Morituri Te Salutamus (2014) / short story by Annie Bellet
* Protocol A235 (2015) / short story by Theresa Kay
* Winner Takes All (2015) / novelette by Elle Casey
* Carindi (2015) / novelette by Jennifer Foehner Wells
* Animal Planet (2015) / novelette by Patrice Fitzgerald
* The Event (2015) / short story by Autumn Kalquist
* Dragonet (2015) / novelette by S. M. Reine [as by Sara Reine]
* Lulu Ad Infinitum (2015) / novelette by Ann Christy
* To Catch an Actor (2015) / short story by Blair C. Babylon
* 2092 (2015) [The Chronos Files] / novella by Rysa Walker
.
346 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 4, 2015
88 people are currently reading
584 people want to read
About the author
Patrice Fitzgerald
40 books66 followersPatrice Fitzgerald is an indie author, publisher, attorney, and intergalactic singer of songs. She has been publishing herself and others since 2011 and is the force behind the BEYOND THE STARS series of space opera anthologies. Patrice is thrilled to introduce Captain Wu and her STARSHIP NAMELESS crew in her most recent trilogy, written with the inimitable Jack Lyster.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
December 12, 2019
Disclaimer: there are eleven short stories in this collection. I only read two of them. Annie Bellet's and S.M. Reine's. Because I'm despicably picky like that.
➽ Nos Morituri Te Salutamus by Annie Bellet: 4 stars.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know, this one isn't radically original, but it's entertaining and it's fast-paced and it's action-packed and it's deliciously darkish and there. Also, bloody shrimping brilliant female lead. Because Annie Bellet, so DUH. Also also, Annie Bellet wrote it. In case you didn't know. So QED and stuff.
➽ Dragonet by S.M. Reine: 4 stars.
Because dragons. In bloody shrimping space. And because Enemy Mine-type feels. Also, bloody shrimping brilliant female lead. Because S.M. Reine, so DUH. Also also, S.M. Reine wrote it. In case you didn't know. So QED and stuff.
And now let's dance and stuff.
➽ Nos Morituri Te Salutamus by Annie Bellet: 4 stars.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know, this one isn't radically original, but it's entertaining and it's fast-paced and it's action-packed and it's deliciously darkish and there. Also, bloody shrimping brilliant female lead. Because Annie Bellet, so DUH. Also also, Annie Bellet wrote it. In case you didn't know. So QED and stuff.
➽ Dragonet by S.M. Reine: 4 stars.
Because dragons. In bloody shrimping space. And because Enemy Mine-type feels. Also, bloody shrimping brilliant female lead. Because S.M. Reine, so DUH. Also also, S.M. Reine wrote it. In case you didn't know. So QED and stuff.
And now let's dance and stuff.
August 24, 2015
Space was once the primary focus of speculative fiction. Lately, though, science fiction authors have concentrated mostly on the dystopian genre. While this has produced many great books, the majority of them have been solidly rooted on planet Earth. That makes this anthology both unusual and welcome. My addiction to science fiction reading began with Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, on planets far from here. The possibilities for stories in space have always seemed endless. I’m happy to say that this book adds nicely to the vast existing catalog of space exploration sagas.
While all of the stories are set in space and touch on some common themes, each of them explores different elements, from military service to industrialization to exploration, with characters both human and not. I had planned to rate each story individually, but finally decided against that. Of the eleven stories, I would rate only two of them at less than five stars. I feel it would be rude to single out those two, but it’s also difficult to pick favorites. Still, I’m mentioning a few.
For All the Feels – Nos Morituri Te Salutamus, 2092, and Carindi; all contained expertly portrayed emotion. Also, special cheers for Containment, Dragonet, and Lulu Ad Infinitum; these were wonderfully unusual stories that have room for sequels.
This book is a solid collection of great entertainment. Averaged over the eleven stories, I’d marked it at a bit over 4.5 stars. I’ve rounded that up to five stars. Note that I received a complimentary copy of this book from one of the authors. I’m glad I had the opportunity both to read it and to review it. Highly recommended reading!
While all of the stories are set in space and touch on some common themes, each of them explores different elements, from military service to industrialization to exploration, with characters both human and not. I had planned to rate each story individually, but finally decided against that. Of the eleven stories, I would rate only two of them at less than five stars. I feel it would be rude to single out those two, but it’s also difficult to pick favorites. Still, I’m mentioning a few.
For All the Feels – Nos Morituri Te Salutamus, 2092, and Carindi; all contained expertly portrayed emotion. Also, special cheers for Containment, Dragonet, and Lulu Ad Infinitum; these were wonderfully unusual stories that have room for sequels.
This book is a solid collection of great entertainment. Averaged over the eleven stories, I’d marked it at a bit over 4.5 stars. I’ve rounded that up to five stars. Note that I received a complimentary copy of this book from one of the authors. I’m glad I had the opportunity both to read it and to review it. Highly recommended reading!
September 28, 2015
DARK BEYOND THE STARS is an unexpected treat
So on Facebook awhile back, there was this guy lamenting that teh wimmens was ruining SF, and he was particularly incensed that a new anthology was out with nothin' but chicks in it, man. What's this world coming to?
Poor guy. I suppose he's only read poor sad excuses of SF writers like Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold . . . well, the list keeps going on, doesn't it?
But this alleged fan thought an all-female anthology was some kind of awful thing. I guess he never noticed the many, many anthologies where it's nothin' but dudes. Guess he just took that for granted.
But the great part about this fellow's rant was that I discovered the above-mentioned anthology, DARK BEYOND THE STARS, edited by David Gatewood. A lot of folks like our above-mentioned wimmen-intolerent "fan" say "it should just be about the stories, man!"
And so it is.
"Containment" by Susan Kaye Quinn has one of the better-drawn artificial intelligences I've read about in some time. The Mining Master of Thebe (a satellite of Jupiter) is a "machine-sourced intelligence" who checks out a mysterious situation that seems mundane at first but could lead to something transcendent.
Kudos to Quinn for finding something new in a genre that's seen everyone from ST:TNG's Data to Hal of 2001 exploring similar territory.
In "Lulu Ad Infinitum," Ann Christy relates the story of Lulu, a woman coping with the near-destruction of her spaceship, which is designed to terraform alien planets to resemble the Earth. But the disaster has left her without a crew. The title might give you a clue as to who comes to the rescue -- several times over!
Other authors take us to a stranded ship orbiting a red giant, a card game with a lot more at stake than usual, and plenty of other colorful scenarios. A pretty successful anthology, overall, and I'll eagerly await any other volumes in this series that might come along.
So on Facebook awhile back, there was this guy lamenting that teh wimmens was ruining SF, and he was particularly incensed that a new anthology was out with nothin' but chicks in it, man. What's this world coming to?
Poor guy. I suppose he's only read poor sad excuses of SF writers like Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold . . . well, the list keeps going on, doesn't it?
But this alleged fan thought an all-female anthology was some kind of awful thing. I guess he never noticed the many, many anthologies where it's nothin' but dudes. Guess he just took that for granted.
But the great part about this fellow's rant was that I discovered the above-mentioned anthology, DARK BEYOND THE STARS, edited by David Gatewood. A lot of folks like our above-mentioned wimmen-intolerent "fan" say "it should just be about the stories, man!"
And so it is.
"Containment" by Susan Kaye Quinn has one of the better-drawn artificial intelligences I've read about in some time. The Mining Master of Thebe (a satellite of Jupiter) is a "machine-sourced intelligence" who checks out a mysterious situation that seems mundane at first but could lead to something transcendent.
Kudos to Quinn for finding something new in a genre that's seen everyone from ST:TNG's Data to Hal of 2001 exploring similar territory.
In "Lulu Ad Infinitum," Ann Christy relates the story of Lulu, a woman coping with the near-destruction of her spaceship, which is designed to terraform alien planets to resemble the Earth. But the disaster has left her without a crew. The title might give you a clue as to who comes to the rescue -- several times over!
Other authors take us to a stranded ship orbiting a red giant, a card game with a lot more at stake than usual, and plenty of other colorful scenarios. A pretty successful anthology, overall, and I'll eagerly await any other volumes in this series that might come along.
December 12, 2015
This was a great short story collection. I was a little unsure of what a space opera short story would look like, even though I'm a big fan of the genre. The authors each do a wonderful job constructing their world for the reader and telling an exciting story in just a short amount of time. Not all the stories were as good as others, but that's the case with every short story collection. I liked several of the stories well enough to research the author and add one of their novels to my to-read list. A couple of my favorites were Containment by Susan Kaye Quinn and Carindi by Jennifer Foehner Wells.
August 25, 2015
The Dark compilation is a series of stories with a similar space opera type theme or setting: most take place in the deep dark reaches of outer space, far from Earth. Each story is followed by a short author’s interview, often with some surprising questions. I enjoyed getting to know a bit more about each author, especially those who were new to me.
Story One: Containment. By Susan Kaye Quinn. A beautiful and thought provoking tale about the transformative power of art, even upon manufactured intelligence (robots). I was driven to read this one all the way through, and then to re-read it again, right away, more slowly. I think it’s an important commentary upon our need to be creative beings, as well as a fun robot story, and also serves as a great jumping off place from which to discuss the age old sci-fi question, “At what point does an artificial intelligence becomes sentient -- and human?”
Story Two: Nos Morituri Te Salutamus (the ancient Roman gladiators used to say this before each battle in the various coliseums: it means “We who are about to die salute you!”) by Annie Bellet. Fast paced action tale about a military extraction team facing a terrifying arachnid enemy, whose main weapon is flesh eating acid. Beautiful insight into military morale and teamwork, as well as some good old fashioned thriller moments.
Story three: Protocol A235: By Teresa Kay. A very short story about a colony ship, with a profoundly deep and mounting sense of dread that is crystallized in the last few lines. I lost sleep after this one.
Story four: Winner Takes All. By Elle Casey. A story about a high stakes card game in a space station between a handsome but jaded space ship’s captain and a cocky young lady. The captain has some – I’ll go with “uncomfortable”--- prejudices and thoughts, and I was left wanting to know more: more about him, and the world, but mostly more about the girl, Cass. (I was glad to learn in the author’s interview that there is more: a whole series in fact.)
Story Five: Carindhi, by Jennifer Foehner Wells. After a plague wipes out almost everyone aboard a ship in deep space, no one is left except an alien navigator encased (enslaved?) in a huge box of water, which she/he breathes, and a child, trapped and also protected in a bio armor suit. Though it is primarily a story about sacrificial love, I also noted with great interest its treatment of gender. I especially enjoyed this story as I am currently halfway through a wonderful novel by the same author, Fluency, and this story connects to the novel.
Story Six: Animal Planet, by Patrice Fitzgerald. To be honest, I saw the punchline for this story coming WAY too soon. Colonists on a planet discover an unusual animal with a recorder strapped to its head. A recorder THEY built…
Story 7: The Event, by Autumn Kalquist. If humanity is given a second chance on another planet…. Do we deserve that? And who gets to decide? A very short story about judgement, second chances, and free will.
Story 8: Dragonet, by Sara Reine. Is it morally acceptable to kill the unprotected offspring of your deadly alien enemy? And is it a betrayal to your own race to protect such offspring? An excellent ethical question, handled well. There’s a series of novels that she is in the process of writing, centered around the concepts and situations in this short story: I can’t wait. I love dragons. Who would have thought there would be dragons in a space opera tale? I love the juxtaposition!
Story 9: LuLu Ad Infinitum, by Ann Christy. If your personality, skills, learning, and memories could be saved, digitally, and downloaded into a new biological body whenever the old one died or wore out, would you be immortal? That way, if an accident wiped out everyone else on the ship, you could replicate your younger, digitally saved self a sufficient number of times to crew the ship and finish the mission. But if you do…. Which one of you is YOU? And how well will you get along with no one but a lot of yourselves walking around? I’m a huge fan of this author already. This story did not disappoint.
Story 10: To Catch an Actor: By Blair C. Babylon. The complications of police detective work when people can travel in space, where times passes more slowly, while those left behind on the planet live life at “normal time”…. A very interesting concept. Well written too. And a secondary idea is also explored, briefly: what if, instead of acting, we could implant people (by their choice) with emitters that hormonally and chemically “force” them to actually feel the emotions that actors once pretended to feel? What would that do to stage craft? To police interrogations?
Story 11: 2092, by Rysa Walker. What if aliens came to Earth not to conquer us, but because they needed a tool we had in order to win a war with another alien race? And what if that tool were a form of time travel? I am, as yet, unfamiliar with this author’s CHONOS world and the Kindle Chronos files that her fans have contributed to: but after reading this story, I intend to find it and read them all.
A rollicking good short story compilation, well worth the price. Get it and read it!
Story One: Containment. By Susan Kaye Quinn. A beautiful and thought provoking tale about the transformative power of art, even upon manufactured intelligence (robots). I was driven to read this one all the way through, and then to re-read it again, right away, more slowly. I think it’s an important commentary upon our need to be creative beings, as well as a fun robot story, and also serves as a great jumping off place from which to discuss the age old sci-fi question, “At what point does an artificial intelligence becomes sentient -- and human?”
Story Two: Nos Morituri Te Salutamus (the ancient Roman gladiators used to say this before each battle in the various coliseums: it means “We who are about to die salute you!”) by Annie Bellet. Fast paced action tale about a military extraction team facing a terrifying arachnid enemy, whose main weapon is flesh eating acid. Beautiful insight into military morale and teamwork, as well as some good old fashioned thriller moments.
Story three: Protocol A235: By Teresa Kay. A very short story about a colony ship, with a profoundly deep and mounting sense of dread that is crystallized in the last few lines. I lost sleep after this one.
Story four: Winner Takes All. By Elle Casey. A story about a high stakes card game in a space station between a handsome but jaded space ship’s captain and a cocky young lady. The captain has some – I’ll go with “uncomfortable”--- prejudices and thoughts, and I was left wanting to know more: more about him, and the world, but mostly more about the girl, Cass. (I was glad to learn in the author’s interview that there is more: a whole series in fact.)
Story Five: Carindhi, by Jennifer Foehner Wells. After a plague wipes out almost everyone aboard a ship in deep space, no one is left except an alien navigator encased (enslaved?) in a huge box of water, which she/he breathes, and a child, trapped and also protected in a bio armor suit. Though it is primarily a story about sacrificial love, I also noted with great interest its treatment of gender. I especially enjoyed this story as I am currently halfway through a wonderful novel by the same author, Fluency, and this story connects to the novel.
Story Six: Animal Planet, by Patrice Fitzgerald. To be honest, I saw the punchline for this story coming WAY too soon. Colonists on a planet discover an unusual animal with a recorder strapped to its head. A recorder THEY built…
Story 7: The Event, by Autumn Kalquist. If humanity is given a second chance on another planet…. Do we deserve that? And who gets to decide? A very short story about judgement, second chances, and free will.
Story 8: Dragonet, by Sara Reine. Is it morally acceptable to kill the unprotected offspring of your deadly alien enemy? And is it a betrayal to your own race to protect such offspring? An excellent ethical question, handled well. There’s a series of novels that she is in the process of writing, centered around the concepts and situations in this short story: I can’t wait. I love dragons. Who would have thought there would be dragons in a space opera tale? I love the juxtaposition!
Story 9: LuLu Ad Infinitum, by Ann Christy. If your personality, skills, learning, and memories could be saved, digitally, and downloaded into a new biological body whenever the old one died or wore out, would you be immortal? That way, if an accident wiped out everyone else on the ship, you could replicate your younger, digitally saved self a sufficient number of times to crew the ship and finish the mission. But if you do…. Which one of you is YOU? And how well will you get along with no one but a lot of yourselves walking around? I’m a huge fan of this author already. This story did not disappoint.
Story 10: To Catch an Actor: By Blair C. Babylon. The complications of police detective work when people can travel in space, where times passes more slowly, while those left behind on the planet live life at “normal time”…. A very interesting concept. Well written too. And a secondary idea is also explored, briefly: what if, instead of acting, we could implant people (by their choice) with emitters that hormonally and chemically “force” them to actually feel the emotions that actors once pretended to feel? What would that do to stage craft? To police interrogations?
Story 11: 2092, by Rysa Walker. What if aliens came to Earth not to conquer us, but because they needed a tool we had in order to win a war with another alien race? And what if that tool were a form of time travel? I am, as yet, unfamiliar with this author’s CHONOS world and the Kindle Chronos files that her fans have contributed to: but after reading this story, I intend to find it and read them all.
A rollicking good short story compilation, well worth the price. Get it and read it!
August 16, 2016
This was a fantastic selection of short stories -- a wide variety of topics addressed, and usually with very strong heroines. Some stories were geared more towards avid readers of sci-fi, but there were some that were accessible to even a light sci-fi reader such as myself.
Containment by Susan Kaye Quinn
4.5 stars -- It took me a bit to get into the world and get past the jargon (I'm not a typical sci-fi reader), but once I did I was totally sucked in. Smart and compelling, I really ended up feeling for the narrator -- going through all the emotions with him/her/it. Beautifully told.
Nos Morituri Te Salutamus by Annie Bellet
4 stars -- fast paced and action packed! I received just enough glimpses of each character (through the narrators eyes) to really feel for them as they attempted to complete their mission. Vivid descriptions of the aliens -- enough to creep me out.
Protocol A235 by Theresa Kay
4 stars -- epically intriguing, left me wanting more. My brain attempted to figure out some of the math, and that led me down a dangerous path (if blah, then blah doesn't make sense), but that might have just been me. Great atmosphere, LOVED the concept of the story, and thought it was executed brilliantly. For such a short story, I immediately fell in "like" with the spunky narrator, Beth.
Winner Takes All by Elle Casey
2.5 stars -- I prefer reading about characters that I personally like, and I just couldn't get behind Langlade in this book...there wasn't a lot about him that was all the redeemable. I mean, he wasn't a villain or anything, he just...I don't know. I doubt we were supposed to really feel for him, but I tend to like books more if I can empathize with the hero/heroine.
Carindi by Jennifer Foehner Wells
4 stars -- Got a little lost in the jargon here and there (and my kindle dictionary did not want to confirm what a mantle was for example). Setting that aside though, this was an emotional journey. I enjoyed the uniqueness of Pio's alien form, and the little bits I could glean about how her race fit in with the Sectilians. It was a refreshingly unique and heartfelt story.
Animal Planet by Patrice Fitzgerald
3.5 stars -- Intiguing and full of mystery! It was fun to make guesses and see if they came true (and I did guess right eventually -- though I was probably supposed to figure it out right about then). Really enjoyed both sets of characters (Jane & Bryce and Roark & Curtis).
The Event by Autumn Kalquist
3 stars -- Intriguing, but equally confusing for me. It took me quite a bit to get a handle on what was happening (and I'm still not entirely sure on the bits before Zenith woke up). Once I did get a better handle on what was going on (or what I think was going on), I enjoyed the questions the story posed.
Dragonet by Sara Reine
4 stars -- Oooo!!! OK, so the first part of this left me a little overwhelmed. I think I'm just not an ideal sci-fi reader. The jargon and technical details leave me floundering. But I'm all about the characters, and I LOVED Aja. She was my kind of girl. I'm not good with all the wars and the killing, so I loved that Aja questioned things and felt empathy for her enemy. Definitely has me intrigued about the series that will follow....
Lulu Ad Infinitum by Ann Christy
3.5 stars -- lots of vivid detail (especially in the beginning)! An intriguing and realistic (in its slowness) take on exploring and creating new worlds to live on.
To Catch an Actor by Blair C. Babylon
3 stars -- Shorter, so didn't really have time to get to know either character. Very descriptive, probably to set the atmosphere, but it didn't really suck me in.
2092 by Rysa Walker
4.5 stars -- Engaging!! Course now it makes me want to finally read my copy of the first book in the CHRONOS series. I was sucked in right from the start -- really enjoyed the heroine, Mila. For a short story, I really felt like I understood who she was as a character, and she was given enough depth to make her interesting (and to make my heart cry for her). Enjoyed the other 2 major characters in the story too, even if one was a simulation. The ending just about broke my heart, and yet was so appropriate and perfect. Definitely my favourite story in the anthology. (though for the life of me the dates confused the heck out of me...I feel like I need someone to explain them)
I received a copy of this anthology in advance for review purposes!! Thanks so much!
Containment by Susan Kaye Quinn
4.5 stars -- It took me a bit to get into the world and get past the jargon (I'm not a typical sci-fi reader), but once I did I was totally sucked in. Smart and compelling, I really ended up feeling for the narrator -- going through all the emotions with him/her/it. Beautifully told.
Nos Morituri Te Salutamus by Annie Bellet
4 stars -- fast paced and action packed! I received just enough glimpses of each character (through the narrators eyes) to really feel for them as they attempted to complete their mission. Vivid descriptions of the aliens -- enough to creep me out.
Protocol A235 by Theresa Kay
4 stars -- epically intriguing, left me wanting more. My brain attempted to figure out some of the math, and that led me down a dangerous path (if blah, then blah doesn't make sense), but that might have just been me. Great atmosphere, LOVED the concept of the story, and thought it was executed brilliantly. For such a short story, I immediately fell in "like" with the spunky narrator, Beth.
Winner Takes All by Elle Casey
2.5 stars -- I prefer reading about characters that I personally like, and I just couldn't get behind Langlade in this book...there wasn't a lot about him that was all the redeemable. I mean, he wasn't a villain or anything, he just...I don't know. I doubt we were supposed to really feel for him, but I tend to like books more if I can empathize with the hero/heroine.
Carindi by Jennifer Foehner Wells
4 stars -- Got a little lost in the jargon here and there (and my kindle dictionary did not want to confirm what a mantle was for example). Setting that aside though, this was an emotional journey. I enjoyed the uniqueness of Pio's alien form, and the little bits I could glean about how her race fit in with the Sectilians. It was a refreshingly unique and heartfelt story.
Animal Planet by Patrice Fitzgerald
3.5 stars -- Intiguing and full of mystery! It was fun to make guesses and see if they came true (and I did guess right eventually -- though I was probably supposed to figure it out right about then). Really enjoyed both sets of characters (Jane & Bryce and Roark & Curtis).
The Event by Autumn Kalquist
3 stars -- Intriguing, but equally confusing for me. It took me quite a bit to get a handle on what was happening (and I'm still not entirely sure on the bits before Zenith woke up). Once I did get a better handle on what was going on (or what I think was going on), I enjoyed the questions the story posed.
Dragonet by Sara Reine
4 stars -- Oooo!!! OK, so the first part of this left me a little overwhelmed. I think I'm just not an ideal sci-fi reader. The jargon and technical details leave me floundering. But I'm all about the characters, and I LOVED Aja. She was my kind of girl. I'm not good with all the wars and the killing, so I loved that Aja questioned things and felt empathy for her enemy. Definitely has me intrigued about the series that will follow....
Lulu Ad Infinitum by Ann Christy
3.5 stars -- lots of vivid detail (especially in the beginning)! An intriguing and realistic (in its slowness) take on exploring and creating new worlds to live on.
To Catch an Actor by Blair C. Babylon
3 stars -- Shorter, so didn't really have time to get to know either character. Very descriptive, probably to set the atmosphere, but it didn't really suck me in.
2092 by Rysa Walker
4.5 stars -- Engaging!! Course now it makes me want to finally read my copy of the first book in the CHRONOS series. I was sucked in right from the start -- really enjoyed the heroine, Mila. For a short story, I really felt like I understood who she was as a character, and she was given enough depth to make her interesting (and to make my heart cry for her). Enjoyed the other 2 major characters in the story too, even if one was a simulation. The ending just about broke my heart, and yet was so appropriate and perfect. Definitely my favourite story in the anthology. (though for the life of me the dates confused the heck out of me...I feel like I need someone to explain them)
I received a copy of this anthology in advance for review purposes!! Thanks so much!
August 24, 2015
Bright stars in the Dark
By Norma Miles
Format:Kindle Edition
Buying a themed anthology is usually well worth it as, amongst the several authors, there are often at least one or two whose stories lead the reader to new book delights which might otherwise have gone undiscovered. Dark Beyond the Stars is full of such delights. Every offering is well written, often intriguing and definitely worth the read. My only complaint is that, of necessity with submissions from twelve talented authors, the stories were heartbreakingly short. All the more reason to applaud their ability to draw in the reader so quickly. I will definitely be looking for other books by several of these authors and, in particular, anything by Ann Christy or Rysa Walker.
In addition to the stories themselves, each is followed by a short Q & A with the author and information on how to follow up on her (yes her - all the writers are female) other work plus a concise but interesting intro by Julie Czerneda.
I was fortunate to receive a copy of this book in return for an honest review and am delighted to, completely honestly, recommend this book wholeheartedly. It is easy to read and a joy to dip into but still raises interesting ideas to ponder
Comment |
By Norma Miles
Format:Kindle Edition
Buying a themed anthology is usually well worth it as, amongst the several authors, there are often at least one or two whose stories lead the reader to new book delights which might otherwise have gone undiscovered. Dark Beyond the Stars is full of such delights. Every offering is well written, often intriguing and definitely worth the read. My only complaint is that, of necessity with submissions from twelve talented authors, the stories were heartbreakingly short. All the more reason to applaud their ability to draw in the reader so quickly. I will definitely be looking for other books by several of these authors and, in particular, anything by Ann Christy or Rysa Walker.
In addition to the stories themselves, each is followed by a short Q & A with the author and information on how to follow up on her (yes her - all the writers are female) other work plus a concise but interesting intro by Julie Czerneda.
I was fortunate to receive a copy of this book in return for an honest review and am delighted to, completely honestly, recommend this book wholeheartedly. It is easy to read and a joy to dip into but still raises interesting ideas to ponder
Comment |
May 30, 2016
I really enjoyed reading this anthology.I loved being able to read stories by authors I already know and finding knew ones to add to my TBR list.
LuLu Ad Infinitum was amazingly well written and my favorite.It gave me another little taste of Ann Christy's PePer Inc series of short stories.With a tasty little Easter egg to savor. Carindi by Jennifer Foehner Wells was touching & heartbreaking.Her story was beautifully written.2092 by Ryssa Walker was creative and she left me wanting to read more of her work.Containment by Susan Kaye Quinn was unique and kept me engaged in her characters evolvement to the very last word.The anthology is a nice mix of sci-fi styles and every reader will find stories they love and characters they connect with.I highly recommend this collection to all fans of the Sci-Fi genre.I received a copy of this book from the authors in exchange for an honest review.
LuLu Ad Infinitum was amazingly well written and my favorite.It gave me another little taste of Ann Christy's PePer Inc series of short stories.With a tasty little Easter egg to savor. Carindi by Jennifer Foehner Wells was touching & heartbreaking.Her story was beautifully written.2092 by Ryssa Walker was creative and she left me wanting to read more of her work.Containment by Susan Kaye Quinn was unique and kept me engaged in her characters evolvement to the very last word.The anthology is a nice mix of sci-fi styles and every reader will find stories they love and characters they connect with.I highly recommend this collection to all fans of the Sci-Fi genre.I received a copy of this book from the authors in exchange for an honest review.
April 3, 2016
This is one of my favorite books so far this year!!! And just look at that cover. Wow! Beautiful! I knew when I started out that at least 4 out of the 11 stories would be fantastic, because I loved the work done by those 4 authors in the past. The other authors well they were unknown to me. But what I read (and I was a good girl, and read every single story in order) blew me away. This is Space Opera done right by some top notch indie authors. This book only makes me need to read more by these talented women. So go get the book and sit back for the ride through space.
October 22, 2015
This is a very good anthology. All the stories were good.
October 2, 2018
AVID READERS CAN LIVE A THOUSAND LIVES. Not just on Earth, but on strange new worlds with alien life forms, or on space ships sailing through the cosmos, or as brilliant AIs who think, “We are people, too.”
“Illuminating our humanity in the face of new extraordinary challenges is the space opera writer's job,” says Jennifer Foehner Wells in her Foreword to "At Galaxy's Edge.” This anthology, the third under the "Beyond the Stars" banner, delivers twelve original stories by bestselling authors who give us “a dozen more lives within tiny little universes that will exist only for you for a very short time.”
A short time is all I need, when chased by bounty hunters or scary, hungry aliens, or picking up the pieces after losing loved ones in a terrorist bombing light years away. Then again, I’m in no hurry to bid farewell to an injured dog saved from the rubble of a ruined planet, or the captain who fights city hall and wins. Some characters are so endearing, we hate to close the book. Some stories are so heartbreaking, we have to remind ourselves it was “only” a book.
With such diverse themes and skilled writers, any one story in “At Galaxy’s Edge” is worth the price of admission for the entire dozen.
Picking a favorite is tough, but a Star Trek vibe of fun and triumph has me wanting more of Adam Quinn. “Procurement” takes place in the same universe as his main series, the Drive Maker Trilogy, set in the aftermath of the cataclysmic Order War. Captain Jareyn Brook of the Interstellar Emergency Service is like a Nine-One-One responder in outer space. Imagine your ambulance (air ship, in this case) getting totaled through no fault of your own --and just try explaining that to the higher-ups. “As far as I can tell,” Brook laments, “bureaucracy is this planet’s official sport.”
I love her sematic trickery: “Should I say 'mistakes were made and therefore the ship is not recoverable,' or 'the ship is not recoverable because mistakes were made'?"
(The correct answer is neither, according to Brook’s blue-skinned political liaison officer.)
When the bureaucrats decide to pull the plug on Brook’s popular, philanthropic Emergency Service, she has to fight not just for her own livelihood but the whole I.E.S. Who’s sabotaging her, and why, and how will Brook prevail?
The dialogue is fun, and so is the heroine. She risks torture, death, or imprisonment in her sneaky quest to procure another air ship. Quinn’s author page assures us that Brook flies again in “Flashpoint,” Book one of the Drive Maker Trilogy. JP, Arriet, Charles Griffin, and Roth will be back. We’ll also meet Taylor Ghatzi, who decides to retire from galactic politics and dedicate her life to the Emergency Service--until a deadly terror attack strikes her home world.
While Quinn’s heroes are off fighting the Order Wars, an entire planet is laid waste in E.E. Giorgi’s “The Quarium Wars.” I about had a heart attack over the opening line:
YULIA WAS DEAD.
Oh no. Giorgi had better not mean Yulia, the brilliant hacker in her novel “Gene Cards.” I read on with great trepidation.
Captain Weber slogs through ashes, dead bodies and flies in search of survivors. “Yulia wasn’t his planet, the dead weren’t his people,” he thinks. “So why was he here?”
Ah. Yulia is a planet. Or was. With nineteen pulse propulsion bombs and a newly discovered element, Quarium, Yaxee invaders have annihilated a whole planet in less than 48 hours.
The young captain is one of the best in the Yaxee army, “bound to quickly climb to high military ranks, just like his father”--one of the Royal Council members who’d voted for Yulia’s destruction.
Yaxee fighters descend on the ruined surface of Yulia in search of more Quarium. How does one deserter, no longer”Captain” but still a Weber, escape a villain named Zika (love it!) and all his crew? The story unfolds with all the precision, poetic descriptions, and taut prose that are Giorgi’s trademark.
Happily, we have not seen the last of the resourceful ex-Captain and a dog named Argo. Giorgi plans to use them in a new space opera series, starting with Book One, “Anarchy.”
Dog lovers will also appreciate Michael Ezell's "The Good Food." Roy is a Belgian Malinois who can talk. Sort of. Roy has a more sophisticated vocabulary than “Scooby Doo” but can’t put sentences together. He’s surprisingly good at thinking and reasoning, even though he seems to think about food more than anything else. Roy and his human are dispatched to a planet being terraformed. No complex life forms exist here, but something has been poaching from the garden. Whatever killed off the plants hadn’t harmed any of the insects, but Jensen is a little nervous walking around this alien land with just Roy and a sassy AI named Moira calling him a pussy. He has one job to do. Land, observe, take notes, report to “the eggheads who sent him.” Simple right? Riiiggght.
The ending took me by surprise. It appears to be the worst possible fate for Jensen, for Roy, and for planet Earth--but this is fiction, and there might be sequels, and the next surprise could be a pleasant one. I hope. I hope.
Where Ezell’s story ends, “The Epsilon Directive” by David Bruns begins. Dark stuff, people. Tom grew up hearing about great fleet battles and how his siblings fought with honor. None of them came back, but “war was the family business, a proud tradition of military service that went back generations.” The admiral, Tom’s father, marches him to the armory to enlist on his eighteenth birthday. The last thing Tom wants to do is kill anyone, alien or human, but his dad gets him drafted into a death squad tasked with hunting down every last Scythian who may have survived the long, bloody war that killed so many of Tom’s people.
“That was my life,” Tom relates, “closet conscientious objector turned draftee with a front row seat to some the most brutal slaughter of aliens you could ever imagine.”
The Scythians look similar to humans, aside from their ability to grow awesome, scary-looking scales that keep bullets from penetrating. “After the fleet battles broke the back of the Scythian forces, the enemy scattered like rats all over the known galaxy,” Tom says. “We were there to find the survivors and kill them. Simple.”
Or not. Conscientious Objectors harbor the last Scythians in safe houses. Their former foes are friends, no longer violent or dangerous. When Tom comes face to face with an alien, he no longer sees an enemy. How can he spare the alien’s life when his superior, Gunnery Sergeant Madeline Jolly, will stop at nothing to complete their mission as directed?
Tension, conflict, and mortal peril take a different turn in Christopher J. Valin's "Just an Old-Fashioned Lust Story." A bounty hunter, the best in the business, is hired to track down a trophy wife who ran off with her rich husband's money. This is an action-packed adventure, with a scheming opportunistic hero, and plot twists that even the most seasoned hunter didn’t see coming.
The hero of G.S. Jennsen's "Re/Genesis," Eren asi-Idoni, is sent to destroy something so extraordinary, I couldn’t help but hope he would fail. The mammoth Phoenix Gateway was built to last, and no conventional weapon an anarchist might procure was capable of destroying it. One obstacle after another threatens to keep Eren from completing this suicide mission. Without giving away the ending, it’s safe to say that fans of this fantastical, far-future world will see more of it in “Aurora Resonant,” Book Three of the “Aurora Rhapsody” series.
If you need cheering up after some of the darker tales, the best antidote is Nick Webb's "Second Place." Frank Bickham is known as the second man to set foot on Mars: “THE SECOND.” The goddamned second. Now he’s “a nameless retiree in some nameless godforsaken suburb of Dallas.” When people start colonizing Mars, Frank sees a new chance to be the first at something. “First man to die on Mars” becomes his mission. In a sort of reversal of Murphy’s Law, however, everything that should go wrong goes right, making this a kinder and gentler version of the usual suicide mission.
If space travel sounds fun and easy, we get a more realistic view of it in Piers Platt's "Last Pursuit." Desh, a professional assassin, “loathed interstellar travel, from the queasy feeling of the faster-than-light accelerations, to the interminable waiting aboard the transports.” Spaceliners have exercise rooms and entertainment centers, “but a week or more of traveling through the vacuum of deep space drove most passengers slightly insane regardless of the activities available.”
Desh is on his final mission. “Forty-nine kills completed,” he thinks. “Just one more, and then you’re out.” Jinx! He forgot to knock on wood three times.
“This short story inspired a much longer story,” Platt writes in an author Q&A that accompanies all twelve tales, “so if you liked the concept of the Guild and their Fifty for Fifty assassins, you can jump back into this world in the Janus Group series.”
In Chris Fox's "Relic Hunter," a rookie archeologist goes to a bar in hopes of finding a spaceship crew to take him to the Elderi Spire, where a great treasure has been hidden by an unbreachable security barrier. The savvy bartender and the assorted aliens are dangerously weird, with a “Star Wars” cantina vibe. The stakes are high, the dangers many, as this rollicking adventure unfolds.
Anthea Sharp's "One More Star, Shining" shows another downside of space travel. Liza Roth, an asteroid miner, has the rare ability to play classic works of the ancient masters on an old-Earth piano, but a broken heart has silenced her. She’s just found love again with Selina, a fellow miner. When terrorists strike a popular vacation spot, everyone in the bar watches the news screen for a list of the casualties. It brings to mind real-life scenes like the death toll of the Titanic, with names being added to a list, one by one. This story is fraught with tension, horror, and a slim ray of hope.
Michael Anderle's "Tabitha's Vacation" brings paranormal creatures to the territory of science fiction. “I've really enjoyed the vampire/military sci-fi/space opera genres,” Anderle writes. “I figured if I was going to write something, I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too.”
The truth about vampires, according to Anderle, is that a man once came across a crashed alien ship and was enhanced to help the aliens fight a war, but he stumbled away, confused and in pain, and incompletely modified. The ship left without him, but he became the progenitor of twelve centuries of changed humans, aka, vampires. Finally, the last Matriarch, Bethany Ann, aka “The Queen Bitch,” trains a team of kick-ass rangers to clean up the vampire and werewolf mess. Tabitha is a ranger on a mission to take down a vampire, which involves fighting aliens in a bar, exploiting the Etheric connection to achieve “high Vampiric” in a ship called the Achoynix, and gravite rail gun technology in her pistols.
The story is laced with action, profanity, snark, and complications that only a ranger like Tabitha could handle.
I was expecting an Elvis sighting in Caroline A. Gill's "Elvis Has Left the Building," but something else, something sinister, transpires. An A.I. named Rora is the only navigator expected to stay awake for the eleven years it will take to guide a colony ship to a far-off planet. The human crew members sleep in shifts, but there may not be enough of them to keep the shifts short enough. What happens when a human has been awake too long in the dark silence of deep space? Is one A.I. equipped to control the insanity?
For all the haunting and horrifying scenes in this anthology, there’s humor, fortitude, and courage. One of my favorite lines: “The first old Italian chef who came up with pizza would have killed himself if he saw this in the future,” the so-called pizza served on space liners.
Beer and pizza, here on Earth, sounds pretty good right now. When I look up at the stars tonight, I will think of whoever may up there, and hoping they get something better than airplane food as they go speeding through the universe.
NOTE: This review first appeared in Perihelion Science Fiction ezine, 2016
“Illuminating our humanity in the face of new extraordinary challenges is the space opera writer's job,” says Jennifer Foehner Wells in her Foreword to "At Galaxy's Edge.” This anthology, the third under the "Beyond the Stars" banner, delivers twelve original stories by bestselling authors who give us “a dozen more lives within tiny little universes that will exist only for you for a very short time.”
A short time is all I need, when chased by bounty hunters or scary, hungry aliens, or picking up the pieces after losing loved ones in a terrorist bombing light years away. Then again, I’m in no hurry to bid farewell to an injured dog saved from the rubble of a ruined planet, or the captain who fights city hall and wins. Some characters are so endearing, we hate to close the book. Some stories are so heartbreaking, we have to remind ourselves it was “only” a book.
With such diverse themes and skilled writers, any one story in “At Galaxy’s Edge” is worth the price of admission for the entire dozen.
Picking a favorite is tough, but a Star Trek vibe of fun and triumph has me wanting more of Adam Quinn. “Procurement” takes place in the same universe as his main series, the Drive Maker Trilogy, set in the aftermath of the cataclysmic Order War. Captain Jareyn Brook of the Interstellar Emergency Service is like a Nine-One-One responder in outer space. Imagine your ambulance (air ship, in this case) getting totaled through no fault of your own --and just try explaining that to the higher-ups. “As far as I can tell,” Brook laments, “bureaucracy is this planet’s official sport.”
I love her sematic trickery: “Should I say 'mistakes were made and therefore the ship is not recoverable,' or 'the ship is not recoverable because mistakes were made'?"
(The correct answer is neither, according to Brook’s blue-skinned political liaison officer.)
When the bureaucrats decide to pull the plug on Brook’s popular, philanthropic Emergency Service, she has to fight not just for her own livelihood but the whole I.E.S. Who’s sabotaging her, and why, and how will Brook prevail?
The dialogue is fun, and so is the heroine. She risks torture, death, or imprisonment in her sneaky quest to procure another air ship. Quinn’s author page assures us that Brook flies again in “Flashpoint,” Book one of the Drive Maker Trilogy. JP, Arriet, Charles Griffin, and Roth will be back. We’ll also meet Taylor Ghatzi, who decides to retire from galactic politics and dedicate her life to the Emergency Service--until a deadly terror attack strikes her home world.
While Quinn’s heroes are off fighting the Order Wars, an entire planet is laid waste in E.E. Giorgi’s “The Quarium Wars.” I about had a heart attack over the opening line:
YULIA WAS DEAD.
Oh no. Giorgi had better not mean Yulia, the brilliant hacker in her novel “Gene Cards.” I read on with great trepidation.
Captain Weber slogs through ashes, dead bodies and flies in search of survivors. “Yulia wasn’t his planet, the dead weren’t his people,” he thinks. “So why was he here?”
Ah. Yulia is a planet. Or was. With nineteen pulse propulsion bombs and a newly discovered element, Quarium, Yaxee invaders have annihilated a whole planet in less than 48 hours.
The young captain is one of the best in the Yaxee army, “bound to quickly climb to high military ranks, just like his father”--one of the Royal Council members who’d voted for Yulia’s destruction.
Yaxee fighters descend on the ruined surface of Yulia in search of more Quarium. How does one deserter, no longer”Captain” but still a Weber, escape a villain named Zika (love it!) and all his crew? The story unfolds with all the precision, poetic descriptions, and taut prose that are Giorgi’s trademark.
Happily, we have not seen the last of the resourceful ex-Captain and a dog named Argo. Giorgi plans to use them in a new space opera series, starting with Book One, “Anarchy.”
Dog lovers will also appreciate Michael Ezell's "The Good Food." Roy is a Belgian Malinois who can talk. Sort of. Roy has a more sophisticated vocabulary than “Scooby Doo” but can’t put sentences together. He’s surprisingly good at thinking and reasoning, even though he seems to think about food more than anything else. Roy and his human are dispatched to a planet being terraformed. No complex life forms exist here, but something has been poaching from the garden. Whatever killed off the plants hadn’t harmed any of the insects, but Jensen is a little nervous walking around this alien land with just Roy and a sassy AI named Moira calling him a pussy. He has one job to do. Land, observe, take notes, report to “the eggheads who sent him.” Simple right? Riiiggght.
The ending took me by surprise. It appears to be the worst possible fate for Jensen, for Roy, and for planet Earth--but this is fiction, and there might be sequels, and the next surprise could be a pleasant one. I hope. I hope.
Where Ezell’s story ends, “The Epsilon Directive” by David Bruns begins. Dark stuff, people. Tom grew up hearing about great fleet battles and how his siblings fought with honor. None of them came back, but “war was the family business, a proud tradition of military service that went back generations.” The admiral, Tom’s father, marches him to the armory to enlist on his eighteenth birthday. The last thing Tom wants to do is kill anyone, alien or human, but his dad gets him drafted into a death squad tasked with hunting down every last Scythian who may have survived the long, bloody war that killed so many of Tom’s people.
“That was my life,” Tom relates, “closet conscientious objector turned draftee with a front row seat to some the most brutal slaughter of aliens you could ever imagine.”
The Scythians look similar to humans, aside from their ability to grow awesome, scary-looking scales that keep bullets from penetrating. “After the fleet battles broke the back of the Scythian forces, the enemy scattered like rats all over the known galaxy,” Tom says. “We were there to find the survivors and kill them. Simple.”
Or not. Conscientious Objectors harbor the last Scythians in safe houses. Their former foes are friends, no longer violent or dangerous. When Tom comes face to face with an alien, he no longer sees an enemy. How can he spare the alien’s life when his superior, Gunnery Sergeant Madeline Jolly, will stop at nothing to complete their mission as directed?
Tension, conflict, and mortal peril take a different turn in Christopher J. Valin's "Just an Old-Fashioned Lust Story." A bounty hunter, the best in the business, is hired to track down a trophy wife who ran off with her rich husband's money. This is an action-packed adventure, with a scheming opportunistic hero, and plot twists that even the most seasoned hunter didn’t see coming.
The hero of G.S. Jennsen's "Re/Genesis," Eren asi-Idoni, is sent to destroy something so extraordinary, I couldn’t help but hope he would fail. The mammoth Phoenix Gateway was built to last, and no conventional weapon an anarchist might procure was capable of destroying it. One obstacle after another threatens to keep Eren from completing this suicide mission. Without giving away the ending, it’s safe to say that fans of this fantastical, far-future world will see more of it in “Aurora Resonant,” Book Three of the “Aurora Rhapsody” series.
If you need cheering up after some of the darker tales, the best antidote is Nick Webb's "Second Place." Frank Bickham is known as the second man to set foot on Mars: “THE SECOND.” The goddamned second. Now he’s “a nameless retiree in some nameless godforsaken suburb of Dallas.” When people start colonizing Mars, Frank sees a new chance to be the first at something. “First man to die on Mars” becomes his mission. In a sort of reversal of Murphy’s Law, however, everything that should go wrong goes right, making this a kinder and gentler version of the usual suicide mission.
If space travel sounds fun and easy, we get a more realistic view of it in Piers Platt's "Last Pursuit." Desh, a professional assassin, “loathed interstellar travel, from the queasy feeling of the faster-than-light accelerations, to the interminable waiting aboard the transports.” Spaceliners have exercise rooms and entertainment centers, “but a week or more of traveling through the vacuum of deep space drove most passengers slightly insane regardless of the activities available.”
Desh is on his final mission. “Forty-nine kills completed,” he thinks. “Just one more, and then you’re out.” Jinx! He forgot to knock on wood three times.
“This short story inspired a much longer story,” Platt writes in an author Q&A that accompanies all twelve tales, “so if you liked the concept of the Guild and their Fifty for Fifty assassins, you can jump back into this world in the Janus Group series.”
In Chris Fox's "Relic Hunter," a rookie archeologist goes to a bar in hopes of finding a spaceship crew to take him to the Elderi Spire, where a great treasure has been hidden by an unbreachable security barrier. The savvy bartender and the assorted aliens are dangerously weird, with a “Star Wars” cantina vibe. The stakes are high, the dangers many, as this rollicking adventure unfolds.
Anthea Sharp's "One More Star, Shining" shows another downside of space travel. Liza Roth, an asteroid miner, has the rare ability to play classic works of the ancient masters on an old-Earth piano, but a broken heart has silenced her. She’s just found love again with Selina, a fellow miner. When terrorists strike a popular vacation spot, everyone in the bar watches the news screen for a list of the casualties. It brings to mind real-life scenes like the death toll of the Titanic, with names being added to a list, one by one. This story is fraught with tension, horror, and a slim ray of hope.
Michael Anderle's "Tabitha's Vacation" brings paranormal creatures to the territory of science fiction. “I've really enjoyed the vampire/military sci-fi/space opera genres,” Anderle writes. “I figured if I was going to write something, I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too.”
The truth about vampires, according to Anderle, is that a man once came across a crashed alien ship and was enhanced to help the aliens fight a war, but he stumbled away, confused and in pain, and incompletely modified. The ship left without him, but he became the progenitor of twelve centuries of changed humans, aka, vampires. Finally, the last Matriarch, Bethany Ann, aka “The Queen Bitch,” trains a team of kick-ass rangers to clean up the vampire and werewolf mess. Tabitha is a ranger on a mission to take down a vampire, which involves fighting aliens in a bar, exploiting the Etheric connection to achieve “high Vampiric” in a ship called the Achoynix, and gravite rail gun technology in her pistols.
The story is laced with action, profanity, snark, and complications that only a ranger like Tabitha could handle.
I was expecting an Elvis sighting in Caroline A. Gill's "Elvis Has Left the Building," but something else, something sinister, transpires. An A.I. named Rora is the only navigator expected to stay awake for the eleven years it will take to guide a colony ship to a far-off planet. The human crew members sleep in shifts, but there may not be enough of them to keep the shifts short enough. What happens when a human has been awake too long in the dark silence of deep space? Is one A.I. equipped to control the insanity?
For all the haunting and horrifying scenes in this anthology, there’s humor, fortitude, and courage. One of my favorite lines: “The first old Italian chef who came up with pizza would have killed himself if he saw this in the future,” the so-called pizza served on space liners.
Beer and pizza, here on Earth, sounds pretty good right now. When I look up at the stars tonight, I will think of whoever may up there, and hoping they get something better than airplane food as they go speeding through the universe.
NOTE: This review first appeared in Perihelion Science Fiction ezine, 2016
December 14, 2015
A LITTLE while after I bought Dark Beyond The Stars, a sci-fi anthology by women authors, it prompted a little kerfuffle in social media. A thunderously awful review dismissed the work of the writers, patronisingly applauding them for "giving it a go" but suggesting that they leave it to those who know best - men.
Does it really need to be mentioned how wrong-headed such a viewpoint is? Seemingly so, as people still perpetuate such things.
But if we brush the sexism aside contemptuously, though perhaps with a quick mutter about Frankenstein's place in the science fiction firmament, how does the anthology itself stand up as a piece of work? The answer to that is... rather splendidly.
A lot of these authors were new to me - but I'd heard of some, sampled others.
It's never straightforward reviewing an anthology by different authors - some writing you inevitably enjoy more than others, but there is a consistently good level of quality across this collection. More than that, there are pleasant surprises along the way as a number of the stories take unexpected turns. Perhaps the one I enjoyed most was Carindi, by Jennifer Foehner Wells, which surprised me most of all. At first, it was a little difficult to get into with purposely unfamiliar names and an alien race at the heart of the story with demonstrably alien perspectives. But then, as the story progressed, it proved to be the most ambitious of them all in terms of the subjects it engaged with, playing with gendered pronouns and the notions of family, and what one would do for family, becoming quite, quite wonderful by story's end.
Protocol A235 by Theresa Kay adds a chilling flavour to the collection, while Containment, by Susan Kaye Quinn, is perhaps the most inventive in the subjects it tackles, and the world it invents. That's the opener to the anthology, and you can see why it was chosen to slot in there, bringing with it an analytical approach to its subject of which a Clarke or Asimov would approve.
Animal Planet, by Patrice Fitzgerald, is also a rollickingly good flashback to the kind of stories that Ray Bradbury wrote in his Martian Chronicles, great stuff.
Dragonet, by Sara Reine, had me harking back to Anne McCaffrey, which is no bad thing, while Lulu Ad Infinitum, by Ann Christy, grew on me as the story progressed, telling its tale of endlessly long journeys in space and the sacrifices made by one woman, Lulu, to keep that journey going. It shares some connective tissue with Protocol A235 in that regard, but both then go about telling their tales in very different ways.
Blair C Babylon's To Catch An Actor plays with the premises of celebrity, stardom and murder - with a police detective trying to outwit the actors who prolong their stardom with century-long near-light journeys that serve to only burnish their entertainment legend. There's fun in the premise, and a nice denouement, though this didn't grab me as much as others.
Negatives? Well, I couldn't help but feel that Annie Bellet's story, while still really good, saw the author writing perhaps a little safely and well within her abilities rather than stretching things. It was Bellet's name on the cover that drew me in to the collection most - as I'd heard great things. The story tells a tale of military sci-fi, of war between species, and people willing to give their lives to retrieve an item that could make a difference in that war, and while it does its job perfectly well, it just feels a little formulaic. I'll come back for more by Bellet, though, as while this story never quite bubbles over, her writing is simmering with potential here.
Autumn Kalquist's The Event was too loosely stream of consciousness to really catch my attention, however, feeling experimental rather than substantial, and I really didn't get into Elle Casey's Winner Takes All, which felt like fanfic rather than a fully formed story of its own.
The story closing the book, 2092, by Rysa Walker, starts strongly but goes a little astray as it zigzags through the consequences of time travel, and feels like it drifts from the point it started out from rather than arrowing to a particular destination.
A couple of the stories felt like they were spin-offs from some of the authors' larger works too, rather than as a piece unto themselves - but as a collection on the whole, this one's a winner, and a fantastic introduction to a number of these writers' work. Me? I'm off to snag myself a copy of Jennifer Foehner Wells' Fluency.
Review also posted on my blog, www.alteredinstinct.com
Does it really need to be mentioned how wrong-headed such a viewpoint is? Seemingly so, as people still perpetuate such things.
But if we brush the sexism aside contemptuously, though perhaps with a quick mutter about Frankenstein's place in the science fiction firmament, how does the anthology itself stand up as a piece of work? The answer to that is... rather splendidly.
A lot of these authors were new to me - but I'd heard of some, sampled others.
It's never straightforward reviewing an anthology by different authors - some writing you inevitably enjoy more than others, but there is a consistently good level of quality across this collection. More than that, there are pleasant surprises along the way as a number of the stories take unexpected turns. Perhaps the one I enjoyed most was Carindi, by Jennifer Foehner Wells, which surprised me most of all. At first, it was a little difficult to get into with purposely unfamiliar names and an alien race at the heart of the story with demonstrably alien perspectives. But then, as the story progressed, it proved to be the most ambitious of them all in terms of the subjects it engaged with, playing with gendered pronouns and the notions of family, and what one would do for family, becoming quite, quite wonderful by story's end.
Protocol A235 by Theresa Kay adds a chilling flavour to the collection, while Containment, by Susan Kaye Quinn, is perhaps the most inventive in the subjects it tackles, and the world it invents. That's the opener to the anthology, and you can see why it was chosen to slot in there, bringing with it an analytical approach to its subject of which a Clarke or Asimov would approve.
Animal Planet, by Patrice Fitzgerald, is also a rollickingly good flashback to the kind of stories that Ray Bradbury wrote in his Martian Chronicles, great stuff.
Dragonet, by Sara Reine, had me harking back to Anne McCaffrey, which is no bad thing, while Lulu Ad Infinitum, by Ann Christy, grew on me as the story progressed, telling its tale of endlessly long journeys in space and the sacrifices made by one woman, Lulu, to keep that journey going. It shares some connective tissue with Protocol A235 in that regard, but both then go about telling their tales in very different ways.
Blair C Babylon's To Catch An Actor plays with the premises of celebrity, stardom and murder - with a police detective trying to outwit the actors who prolong their stardom with century-long near-light journeys that serve to only burnish their entertainment legend. There's fun in the premise, and a nice denouement, though this didn't grab me as much as others.
Negatives? Well, I couldn't help but feel that Annie Bellet's story, while still really good, saw the author writing perhaps a little safely and well within her abilities rather than stretching things. It was Bellet's name on the cover that drew me in to the collection most - as I'd heard great things. The story tells a tale of military sci-fi, of war between species, and people willing to give their lives to retrieve an item that could make a difference in that war, and while it does its job perfectly well, it just feels a little formulaic. I'll come back for more by Bellet, though, as while this story never quite bubbles over, her writing is simmering with potential here.
Autumn Kalquist's The Event was too loosely stream of consciousness to really catch my attention, however, feeling experimental rather than substantial, and I really didn't get into Elle Casey's Winner Takes All, which felt like fanfic rather than a fully formed story of its own.
The story closing the book, 2092, by Rysa Walker, starts strongly but goes a little astray as it zigzags through the consequences of time travel, and feels like it drifts from the point it started out from rather than arrowing to a particular destination.
A couple of the stories felt like they were spin-offs from some of the authors' larger works too, rather than as a piece unto themselves - but as a collection on the whole, this one's a winner, and a fantastic introduction to a number of these writers' work. Me? I'm off to snag myself a copy of Jennifer Foehner Wells' Fluency.
Review also posted on my blog, www.alteredinstinct.com
February 7, 2016
The upside the anthologies like this is they give me a chance to sample various authors' writing, and that sometimes leads to me discovering new favorite authors. The downside is when I check out those authors to find that their other books are nothing like what's in the anthology. It doesn't mean I wouldn't like their other books, but it is disappointing not to find more of what drew me to them in the first place. With both this anthology and with some of The Future Chronicles anthologies, I've passed over authors' other works because they didn't sound anything like what I'd enjoyed in the anthology.
That aside, I did enjoy this anthology. There's a little of everything in here, from stories that are kind of a mashup of fantasy and sci-fi to more traditional space operas to stories that combine sci-fi with elements of suspense novels. Because the range is wide, I imagine most readers would find something to enjoy.
In particular, these stories caught my eye:
Containment by Susan Kaye Quinn
I've read other works by Quinn before, and her sci-fi is very solid--which isn't too hard to believe, considering her background in science before she started writing. Yet her work also has a very human edge, and she often explores the question of what it means to be human and how humanity might change with the advent of new and better augmentation technologies. Even though this story centers around an AI, she's examining that question in reverse. As the AI slowly develops self-awareness, I could draw a lot of parallels between it and people grappling with what makes them people.
Protocol A235 by Theresa Kay
I loved the creepy atmosphere in this one. It kept me reading because I just didn't know what was going to happen next, and I enjoyed the psychological suspense of it. I hope Kay plans on writing more sci-fi in the future.
Carindi by Jennifer Foehner Wells
I thought this was a really touching story about the connection between the two main characters, and the lengths to which they were willing to go for one another.
Animal Planet by Patric Fitzgerald
This was another story with a creepy, suspenseful edge. I figured out the twist before it was revealed, but it didn't dampen my enjoyment of the story at all. I particularly loved that she chose to tell it by using an older character as a lens, and Jane was a just plain fun character. I'd love to read more about Jane!
The Event by Autumn Kalquist
This one had a sort of Minority Report vibe that I thought was really interesting.
To Catch an Actor by Blair C. Babylon
I thought this story was really clever, and the characters were so well-done. I would love to see more works set in this universe. I think it has a lot of potential.
2092 by Rysa Walker
I like Walker's The Chronos Files series, so it was interesting to see her develop her whole mythology from a different angle.
That aside, I did enjoy this anthology. There's a little of everything in here, from stories that are kind of a mashup of fantasy and sci-fi to more traditional space operas to stories that combine sci-fi with elements of suspense novels. Because the range is wide, I imagine most readers would find something to enjoy.
In particular, these stories caught my eye:
Containment by Susan Kaye Quinn
I've read other works by Quinn before, and her sci-fi is very solid--which isn't too hard to believe, considering her background in science before she started writing. Yet her work also has a very human edge, and she often explores the question of what it means to be human and how humanity might change with the advent of new and better augmentation technologies. Even though this story centers around an AI, she's examining that question in reverse. As the AI slowly develops self-awareness, I could draw a lot of parallels between it and people grappling with what makes them people.
Protocol A235 by Theresa Kay
I loved the creepy atmosphere in this one. It kept me reading because I just didn't know what was going to happen next, and I enjoyed the psychological suspense of it. I hope Kay plans on writing more sci-fi in the future.
Carindi by Jennifer Foehner Wells
I thought this was a really touching story about the connection between the two main characters, and the lengths to which they were willing to go for one another.
Animal Planet by Patric Fitzgerald
This was another story with a creepy, suspenseful edge. I figured out the twist before it was revealed, but it didn't dampen my enjoyment of the story at all. I particularly loved that she chose to tell it by using an older character as a lens, and Jane was a just plain fun character. I'd love to read more about Jane!
The Event by Autumn Kalquist
This one had a sort of Minority Report vibe that I thought was really interesting.
To Catch an Actor by Blair C. Babylon
I thought this story was really clever, and the characters were so well-done. I would love to see more works set in this universe. I think it has a lot of potential.
2092 by Rysa Walker
I like Walker's The Chronos Files series, so it was interesting to see her develop her whole mythology from a different angle.
March 17, 2017
This anthology is a very mixed bag. Most are mediocre or uninspired, some insipid, and four are good to excellent.
"Containment" concerns a mining-AI becoming self-aware. There's a Memento-quality to the story, and while I question whether a computer whose primary task is to dig rocks out of a bigger rock would have the sophistication for sentience (why would its builders bother?), following its progress and plotting kept my attention.
"Lulu Ad Infinitium" is a brilliant extrapolation of how duplicating tech might be used in interstellar travel--and the bizarre outcome if pressed to the extreme. The protagonist is likable too, and it's a joy to read. Ann Christy is consistently great.
"2092" is a clever time travel novella with a fun alien's eye view of Earth. The protagonist is surprisingly well developed, and I enjoyed the twist at the end. The author explains that this is a side story to her CHRONOS Files series, and I did get impression that some of the Earth characters are essentially 'guest-starring' (I may be wrong about this). But if anything this makes me interested in her other work.
"Carindi" is my favorite. The relationship between the slave-pilot Ei'Pio and the child Cardini is touching. I won't spoil anything, but it's one of those stories that sticks with you for days. Like "2092," it's set in the same universe as the author's other work, but it's perfectly standalone.
If nothing else, the anthology is worth reading for these four stories.
"Containment" concerns a mining-AI becoming self-aware. There's a Memento-quality to the story, and while I question whether a computer whose primary task is to dig rocks out of a bigger rock would have the sophistication for sentience (why would its builders bother?), following its progress and plotting kept my attention.
"Lulu Ad Infinitium" is a brilliant extrapolation of how duplicating tech might be used in interstellar travel--and the bizarre outcome if pressed to the extreme. The protagonist is likable too, and it's a joy to read. Ann Christy is consistently great.
"2092" is a clever time travel novella with a fun alien's eye view of Earth. The protagonist is surprisingly well developed, and I enjoyed the twist at the end. The author explains that this is a side story to her CHRONOS Files series, and I did get impression that some of the Earth characters are essentially 'guest-starring' (I may be wrong about this). But if anything this makes me interested in her other work.
"Carindi" is my favorite. The relationship between the slave-pilot Ei'Pio and the child Cardini is touching. I won't spoil anything, but it's one of those stories that sticks with you for days. Like "2092," it's set in the same universe as the author's other work, but it's perfectly standalone.
If nothing else, the anthology is worth reading for these four stories.
September 29, 2015
Anthologies are tricky and often uneven in quality, but this one was really excellent. While I didn't love every story, I definitely liked all of them and some of them really caught my imagination.
I particularly loved, Bellet's "Nos Morituri Te Salutamus" for the excellent action sequences, Wells' "Carindi" for the poignancy, Christy's "Lulu Ad Infinitum" for the nice twist on a well worn idea, and my favorite, Babylon's "To Catch an Actor" which gave me a delightful "Blade Runner" feel while being entirely its own story and world.
And a bonus that this collection exposes me to a large number of female scifi writers that I have not read before and now will seek out.
I particularly loved, Bellet's "Nos Morituri Te Salutamus" for the excellent action sequences, Wells' "Carindi" for the poignancy, Christy's "Lulu Ad Infinitum" for the nice twist on a well worn idea, and my favorite, Babylon's "To Catch an Actor" which gave me a delightful "Blade Runner" feel while being entirely its own story and world.
And a bonus that this collection exposes me to a large number of female scifi writers that I have not read before and now will seek out.
September 28, 2015
The first story, Containment, is a tale of discovery told through the eyes of an AI. The narrative opens somewhat stilted and metallic, and might be slightly jarring until the reader realizes it’s being told from the perspective of the AI, as if one of Asimov’s robots sat down and wrote it. As the AI grows, the narrative grows with it, giving the work a wonderful change in texture. Once the AI moves past setting and settles into introspection, as if it begins to notice more than the mechanics of its surroundings and begins to explore its own cognition, there’s a cool creepiness because the reader can’t begin to guess what it will do. Questions arise. Will it have different values than humans? Will it be violent? The point at which the story moves to conclusion is the point at which it loses a half star. (spoiler) Since art is the thing that effectively transformed it from a robot to a being, it’s disappointing that there isn’t more of a sense of wonder in her when she arrives someplace new. The artist, the true artist, sees wonder in all sorts of things, including mundane stations, and would certainly see the artistic value inherent in the body form of her friend, and would want to depict that in art. I would have liked it better had she replied when asked what it was she wanted, that she wanted to make a holo depiction of her, rather than simply that she wanted a friend.
The second story, Nos Morituri Te Salutamus, is a straight plot retrieval mission. It's a bit of a disappointment, as I purchased this anthology because of this author. Earthlings are battling a race called the Spidren which naturally look like spiders but are never described in any detail in the story, leaving the reader to fill in the visual. A small team is sent behind enemy lines to retrieve a black box device from a ship that crashlanded. The ship had critical information necessary to fighting the Spidren. It feels like a bit of a ripoff of several sci-fi classics, and thus comes off feeling like it's full of tropes. The action is well-written and there are some nice characterizations done quickly, but I never really felt anything for any of the characters.
The third story, Protocol A235 is delightful, yet short tale. A tight tale of a woman’s experience at awakening aboard a ship designed to populate distant planets with the seeds of mankind. The eerie tone of the story is reminiscent of some of Arthur C. Clarke’s work. It explores some of the fears space travelers would no doubt face, and uses the unknown in a deft manner to keep the reader guessing at all the possibilities that could be responsible for main character’s circumstances. Unfortunately, the predicament the main character finds herself in is nothing new. Also, a hint of what the main character would do next would’ve been appreciated.
The fourth story, Winner takes all, is a tale that takes place on a distant space station. Think Mos Eisley in space. A handsome captain of a tattered fleet looks to get in on a game of chance. While the characterization in this story is the best in the anthology, the main character comes across as somewhat unsympathetic and, in the end, doesn't feel like the main character at all. His opponent would seem to be the more interesting character, but is hardly developed. By the end of the story, the reader will feel that one character got was was coming, but is left with some unanswered questions that were raised at the beginning of the story. Since none of the characters is particularly symathetic, and there is nothing in the way of cool tech or moral in the story, two stars are deducted.
The fifth story, Carindi portrays the growing bond between a tentacle water-bound creature Ei’Pio and Carindi, someone who may or may not be a person. They are each the lone survivors of their kind aboard a ship that’s orbiting a sun due to go Super Nova. A disease has wiped out the crew. Ei’Pio can control the ship, but not until Carindi grows to maturity. It’s a sweet story of growing camaraderie and affection. Communication through telepathy and the fact they have to live apart, one in a water tank and the other on dry terrain give the story an odd feeling of longing for physical contact which plays a role later in the story. The story takes just enough time to develop the relationship in order to make the ending feel plausible. It provides some of the best visuals of the anthology, and is extremely well written. While the plot has been done to death, it’s done well.
The sixth story, Animal Planet is a quirky tale that tries to surprise the reader in the tradition of the old Twilight Zone episodes. A group of young settlers is sent to the planet Endrosa. They are the second wave. Earth has lost all contact with the first wave. This is where the story begins to have problems. It’s told in alternating points of view, one being the second mission, and the other the first mission, though that isn’t clear at the outset. The second mission sets up a second base camp, rather than reclaiming the first. No good reason is given for this other than that the first camp is a mess. Strange monkey-like creatures appear, and one wanders into the second camp with a recording device attached. Naturally, the tapes are watched in the hopes that they reveal the fate of the first expedition. While some of the characterization of the characters involved in the first expedition is solid and even entertaining, the end is given away much too soon, and it takes the steam out of the story. The explanation that’s hinted at for the phenomenon that drives the plot, is never explored, and gives the story more of a YA or fairy tale quality. The characterization saves it from being a total loss.
The seventh story, The Event is a journey of self-loathing at being part of a humanity that has ruined Earth. A woman walks down a corridor in her mind, witnessing all sorts of inhumanity. There’s a point to it all at the end of the story. But the thing comes across as being preachy. It gives the reader a few visuals, but the point made at the end has been done countless times. There’s just little in this story that entertains.
The eighth story, The Dragonet is reminiscent of Orson Scott Card’s work. A spaceship pilot is knocked out of a battle and crashes onto the home planet of humanity’s enemy, the Drka(?). The pilot is given an opportunity to come in contact with one of the enemy, and begins to understand who earthlings are fighting. The action sequences in the story are outstanding, and there’s some cool tech, not to mention a couple great visuals of the enemy and its home planet. This story touches on elements of fantasy without crossing the line, and pulls it off with a deft touch. Without question, this is my favorite of the stories. It is a complete story, not just a scene as some of the other stories seem to be, there’s a moral, there’s a point, and it is very well told. Bravo.
The ninth story, Lulu Ad Infinitum is an interesting premise. The essence of beings is basically downloaded and made into a clone of the original person. Lulu awakes after an accident has destroyed the mother ship which was the base for terraforming a planet. She’s the only survivor besides her dog. While it has a very promising beginning, the story fizzles into a ho hum ending. It’s too bad, because it could have gone in many directions that would have provided a more satisfactory ending for the reader.
The tenth story, To Catch an Actor includes the first piece of cool new tech in the anthology. An actor is accused of killing someone a long time ago. The world around him has aged far more than he has due to his travel through the universe at speeds close to the speed of light. He is a flawless natural actor, and his interrogator has to get a confession out of hum by some means. The story is a cool quick tale.
The final story, 2092 is a tale of an alien race that’s at war with another alien race, and they are desperate. They pick up signals from earth that Earth has developed a time travel device that theu want to use to go back and give themselves advice. They send a female of the species to carry out a plan that involves attacking Earth in order to get Earth’s leaders to put aside their differences at the thought of contacting the alien race. The female they send has lost her mate and she wants to use the time travel device to save him. It’s a clever time travel story with an unpredictable ending.
This is a good collection of stories. There’s some good action, and they are very well written and edited. Taken individually, there are some excellent stories here. But I’d recommend reading them a few at a time. The protagonists are tough, able, smart, caring, and competent, except for the lone male protagonist. The leading ladies simply have no character flaws. There really are no unintended consequences. It makes the collection feel more like a YA collection full of butt-kicking female protagonists, rather than what traditional sci-fi readers have come to expect, and makes them indistinguishable from each other. That’s not to say that the stories aren’t good. Just don’t expect an Asimov surprise at the end of any of them. Readers of the nuveau-stereotypical butt-kicking female protagonists will love this collection.
The second story, Nos Morituri Te Salutamus, is a straight plot retrieval mission. It's a bit of a disappointment, as I purchased this anthology because of this author. Earthlings are battling a race called the Spidren which naturally look like spiders but are never described in any detail in the story, leaving the reader to fill in the visual. A small team is sent behind enemy lines to retrieve a black box device from a ship that crashlanded. The ship had critical information necessary to fighting the Spidren. It feels like a bit of a ripoff of several sci-fi classics, and thus comes off feeling like it's full of tropes. The action is well-written and there are some nice characterizations done quickly, but I never really felt anything for any of the characters.
The third story, Protocol A235 is delightful, yet short tale. A tight tale of a woman’s experience at awakening aboard a ship designed to populate distant planets with the seeds of mankind. The eerie tone of the story is reminiscent of some of Arthur C. Clarke’s work. It explores some of the fears space travelers would no doubt face, and uses the unknown in a deft manner to keep the reader guessing at all the possibilities that could be responsible for main character’s circumstances. Unfortunately, the predicament the main character finds herself in is nothing new. Also, a hint of what the main character would do next would’ve been appreciated.
The fourth story, Winner takes all, is a tale that takes place on a distant space station. Think Mos Eisley in space. A handsome captain of a tattered fleet looks to get in on a game of chance. While the characterization in this story is the best in the anthology, the main character comes across as somewhat unsympathetic and, in the end, doesn't feel like the main character at all. His opponent would seem to be the more interesting character, but is hardly developed. By the end of the story, the reader will feel that one character got was was coming, but is left with some unanswered questions that were raised at the beginning of the story. Since none of the characters is particularly symathetic, and there is nothing in the way of cool tech or moral in the story, two stars are deducted.
The fifth story, Carindi portrays the growing bond between a tentacle water-bound creature Ei’Pio and Carindi, someone who may or may not be a person. They are each the lone survivors of their kind aboard a ship that’s orbiting a sun due to go Super Nova. A disease has wiped out the crew. Ei’Pio can control the ship, but not until Carindi grows to maturity. It’s a sweet story of growing camaraderie and affection. Communication through telepathy and the fact they have to live apart, one in a water tank and the other on dry terrain give the story an odd feeling of longing for physical contact which plays a role later in the story. The story takes just enough time to develop the relationship in order to make the ending feel plausible. It provides some of the best visuals of the anthology, and is extremely well written. While the plot has been done to death, it’s done well.
The sixth story, Animal Planet is a quirky tale that tries to surprise the reader in the tradition of the old Twilight Zone episodes. A group of young settlers is sent to the planet Endrosa. They are the second wave. Earth has lost all contact with the first wave. This is where the story begins to have problems. It’s told in alternating points of view, one being the second mission, and the other the first mission, though that isn’t clear at the outset. The second mission sets up a second base camp, rather than reclaiming the first. No good reason is given for this other than that the first camp is a mess. Strange monkey-like creatures appear, and one wanders into the second camp with a recording device attached. Naturally, the tapes are watched in the hopes that they reveal the fate of the first expedition. While some of the characterization of the characters involved in the first expedition is solid and even entertaining, the end is given away much too soon, and it takes the steam out of the story. The explanation that’s hinted at for the phenomenon that drives the plot, is never explored, and gives the story more of a YA or fairy tale quality. The characterization saves it from being a total loss.
The seventh story, The Event is a journey of self-loathing at being part of a humanity that has ruined Earth. A woman walks down a corridor in her mind, witnessing all sorts of inhumanity. There’s a point to it all at the end of the story. But the thing comes across as being preachy. It gives the reader a few visuals, but the point made at the end has been done countless times. There’s just little in this story that entertains.
The eighth story, The Dragonet is reminiscent of Orson Scott Card’s work. A spaceship pilot is knocked out of a battle and crashes onto the home planet of humanity’s enemy, the Drka(?). The pilot is given an opportunity to come in contact with one of the enemy, and begins to understand who earthlings are fighting. The action sequences in the story are outstanding, and there’s some cool tech, not to mention a couple great visuals of the enemy and its home planet. This story touches on elements of fantasy without crossing the line, and pulls it off with a deft touch. Without question, this is my favorite of the stories. It is a complete story, not just a scene as some of the other stories seem to be, there’s a moral, there’s a point, and it is very well told. Bravo.
The ninth story, Lulu Ad Infinitum is an interesting premise. The essence of beings is basically downloaded and made into a clone of the original person. Lulu awakes after an accident has destroyed the mother ship which was the base for terraforming a planet. She’s the only survivor besides her dog. While it has a very promising beginning, the story fizzles into a ho hum ending. It’s too bad, because it could have gone in many directions that would have provided a more satisfactory ending for the reader.
The tenth story, To Catch an Actor includes the first piece of cool new tech in the anthology. An actor is accused of killing someone a long time ago. The world around him has aged far more than he has due to his travel through the universe at speeds close to the speed of light. He is a flawless natural actor, and his interrogator has to get a confession out of hum by some means. The story is a cool quick tale.
The final story, 2092 is a tale of an alien race that’s at war with another alien race, and they are desperate. They pick up signals from earth that Earth has developed a time travel device that theu want to use to go back and give themselves advice. They send a female of the species to carry out a plan that involves attacking Earth in order to get Earth’s leaders to put aside their differences at the thought of contacting the alien race. The female they send has lost her mate and she wants to use the time travel device to save him. It’s a clever time travel story with an unpredictable ending.
This is a good collection of stories. There’s some good action, and they are very well written and edited. Taken individually, there are some excellent stories here. But I’d recommend reading them a few at a time. The protagonists are tough, able, smart, caring, and competent, except for the lone male protagonist. The leading ladies simply have no character flaws. There really are no unintended consequences. It makes the collection feel more like a YA collection full of butt-kicking female protagonists, rather than what traditional sci-fi readers have come to expect, and makes them indistinguishable from each other. That’s not to say that the stories aren’t good. Just don’t expect an Asimov surprise at the end of any of them. Readers of the nuveau-stereotypical butt-kicking female protagonists will love this collection.
February 19, 2018
This is a collection of 11 SciFi short stories by as many female indy writers and I think I can "feel" the female touch in most of the stories. All stories are supposed to be "space operas" - well, I don't know the definiton of a space opera and I don't really care: for me the SciFi label is good enough.
The overall book is recommendable - the idividual stories are very different, all have some dark or mean twist to them.
Note: Normally I do not like books with short stories - but this one actually was entertaining.
Individual rating:
Containment - (****) Really a good concept; written from the perspective of a robot/AI and well crafted. I only did not like the end.
Nos Morituri Te Salutamus - (***) Ok story. Military SciFi. A little more context would have helped.
Protocol A235 - (****) Mean. She really is not nice to her character (there is only one in the story)...
Winner Takes All - (*) Predictable, uncomfortable setting, arrogant or otherwise unlikable characters.
Carindi - (***) Interesting idea, emotional, reads well but did not catch me. Maybe it's because I don't know about the world/universe this story is placed it (I havent read her other books)
Animal Planet - (***) The first thing I thought war "Old mans war"; but it has nothing to do with that. A little odd at first; then I liked the skipping back and forth between the two threads of the story and their connection slowly getting clear.
The Event - (****) This one is intense (it feels like one HAS TO read it fast), somewhat weird and slightly teaching. I like her style; not so much the story itself.
Dragonet - (**) Good; but dragons in space? I found the vocabulary irritating initially ("carriage" for ship ...). The attempt to mix fantasy an SciFi does not fully work for me.
Lulu Ad Infinitum - (****) A really nice idea made into a good story. Probably the best story in this book for me.
To Catch an Actor - (**) Meh. Not my kind of story; some interesting thoughts in it, though.
2092 - (****) Well told time travel story in an intergalactic war.
The overall book is recommendable - the idividual stories are very different, all have some dark or mean twist to them.
Note: Normally I do not like books with short stories - but this one actually was entertaining.
Individual rating:
Containment - (****) Really a good concept; written from the perspective of a robot/AI and well crafted. I only did not like the end.
Nos Morituri Te Salutamus - (***) Ok story. Military SciFi. A little more context would have helped.
Protocol A235 - (****) Mean. She really is not nice to her character (there is only one in the story)...
Winner Takes All - (*) Predictable, uncomfortable setting, arrogant or otherwise unlikable characters.
Carindi - (***) Interesting idea, emotional, reads well but did not catch me. Maybe it's because I don't know about the world/universe this story is placed it (I havent read her other books)
Animal Planet - (***) The first thing I thought war "Old mans war"; but it has nothing to do with that. A little odd at first; then I liked the skipping back and forth between the two threads of the story and their connection slowly getting clear.
The Event - (****) This one is intense (it feels like one HAS TO read it fast), somewhat weird and slightly teaching. I like her style; not so much the story itself.
Dragonet - (**) Good; but dragons in space? I found the vocabulary irritating initially ("carriage" for ship ...). The attempt to mix fantasy an SciFi does not fully work for me.
Lulu Ad Infinitum - (****) A really nice idea made into a good story. Probably the best story in this book for me.
To Catch an Actor - (**) Meh. Not my kind of story; some interesting thoughts in it, though.
2092 - (****) Well told time travel story in an intergalactic war.
June 29, 2018
An over all very lovely and inspiring read! Two of the stories didn't click for me: Winner Takes All due to the main character being every toxic masculinity trope with rapist as the most prominent one and To Catch an Actor because of the story being mostly exposition - they weren't bad stories, mind you, just not my kind of stories. The rest I enjoyed and at times adored!
Containment dealt with machine sentience in a loving way that sent me on an emotional roller coaster. Nos Morituri Te Salutamus was action packed and sad. Protocol A235 was horrifying, which I'm sure it was meant to be. Carindi crushed me and made me want to read every story set in this universe (hoping for happiness for someone here!). Animal Planet felt like a good mixture of Star Trek and Black Mirror. The Event hit me right in the gut. Dragonet has dragons in space and inter-species communication and I want more! Lulu Ad Infinitum had me in deep though and curious about where that world might go. 2092 was also a quite emotional ride and made me want to learn more about The CHRONOS Files universe.
Oh, also the cover is gorgeous! Always love art by Julie Dillon <3
Containment dealt with machine sentience in a loving way that sent me on an emotional roller coaster. Nos Morituri Te Salutamus was action packed and sad. Protocol A235 was horrifying, which I'm sure it was meant to be. Carindi crushed me and made me want to read every story set in this universe (hoping for happiness for someone here!). Animal Planet felt like a good mixture of Star Trek and Black Mirror. The Event hit me right in the gut. Dragonet has dragons in space and inter-species communication and I want more! Lulu Ad Infinitum had me in deep though and curious about where that world might go. 2092 was also a quite emotional ride and made me want to learn more about The CHRONOS Files universe.
Oh, also the cover is gorgeous! Always love art by Julie Dillon <3
August 2, 2024
A science fiction anthology featuring all female authors, this collection doesn't really have a dud amongst them. Even the story with dragons turned out to be a winner in the end (I'm not usually all that wild about dragon stories). Standout stories include "Carindi" by Jennifer Foehner Wells (though I admit this story was the reason I bought the collection, as the short story takes place in this author's novel Fluency's universe) and "2092" by Rysa Walker.
March 19, 2017
An anthology of space-opera short stories. This is a strange concept--space-opera short stories, not an anthology. How is it possible? Well, it is! Somehow the authors in this collection manage to give their readers a sense of the big picture while telling a short story, a small slice of that picture. As is usual with any short-story collection, some appealed to me more than others. I really can't go into each one, all but impossible, since I have it on a Kindle. I will tell you that I usually have little patience with short stories. I prefer to sink into a novel. But I enjoyed this. One great thing about such collections is that you discover new, to you, authors in the genre. So I now have more to read!
December 15, 2020
Yuck-fooey
There was one pretty decent story, that I read all the way through. That was the first one, "Containment ". All ten of the rest I quit a couple pages into, for either unbelievable characters or situations, puerile thinking, plot holes you could drop a star through without toasting the edges...
There was one pretty decent story, that I read all the way through. That was the first one, "Containment ". All ten of the rest I quit a couple pages into, for either unbelievable characters or situations, puerile thinking, plot holes you could drop a star through without toasting the edges...
April 17, 2018
Um livro de altos e baixos de SciFi.
Há excelentes contos contrabalançados por outros que não consegui ler até o final ...
O último conto é interessante, posto que analisa contato extra-terrestre em que nós seríamos os alienígenas :-o
Bom para passar o tempo, mas só ...
Há excelentes contos contrabalançados por outros que não consegui ler até o final ...
O último conto é interessante, posto que analisa contato extra-terrestre em que nós seríamos os alienígenas :-o
Bom para passar o tempo, mas só ...
May 5, 2018
Pretty good
A mixed bag, like any anthology, but there are very good stories here. I bought it mainly to spite that troll, whose “review” violates Amazon’s TOS. My favorite story was “Carindi.”
A mixed bag, like any anthology, but there are very good stories here. I bought it mainly to spite that troll, whose “review” violates Amazon’s TOS. My favorite story was “Carindi.”
December 29, 2020
Some excellent, some good, and one not so good stories of the future by women authors. Nothing original.
January 15, 2023
A great collection of stories. Each includes an interview with the author, as well as links to their other works. Some of which I have followed up - exactly why I love these collections.
March 21, 2017
This is a really solid anthology, the best I've read in quite some time. The stories had great variety, were of a (mostly) high quality and were entertaining pieces of fiction within themselves despite the fact most were written in established canons.
February 23, 2023
VERDICT: 2.67 suns.
Mostly 2.0 to 3.0 star tales; maybe 3+ for a couple that were slightly less predictable. Nothing extra-compelling here, but the stories were varied (robots, aliens, clones, time travel, etc.). They passed the time, and all were quick reads.
Mostly 2.0 to 3.0 star tales; maybe 3+ for a couple that were slightly less predictable. Nothing extra-compelling here, but the stories were varied (robots, aliens, clones, time travel, etc.). They passed the time, and all were quick reads.
August 24, 2015
For the past year and a half, I’ve fallen back in love with short stories. It was seeing the anthology From The Indie Side, edited by David Gatewood, that brought it all back. It reminded me of the collections of science fiction short stories and novellas I devoured as a teenager. I didn’t always love all the stories, but each one resonated in some way the more I read them, and I slowly learned that huge ideas can be vacuum-packed into a smaller word count.
So I eagerly leapt at a chance to read the latest anthology edited by David Gatewood, Dark Beyond The Stars. Again, I can’t say I fell in love with every story, but the collection featured story after story that reached something deep inside and pulled me along until the page count finally ran out. Dark Beyond The Stars takes readers on an epic journey through space, rewarding them with tales guaranteed to entertain as well as elicit tears.
I also don’t think I can address the quality of the book without mentioning a unique fact about the anthology — each and every writer is a woman. I hope to someday live in a world where this note is unnecessary, but that day is not today. There are some out there who will refuse to read a collection that features only women writers. There are some who may cling to the out-dated belief that science fiction is a men’s game. There are those who wouldn’t even give a each of the writers a chance based on their misogynistic thinking.
Those people would be wrong. These women prove that science fiction is a poorer field without them in it. Dark Beyond The Stars is a rich and full universe of stories that, I believe, benefit from a woman’s perspective and voice.
Now, as I analyze the volume, I’m not going to go into detail on each and every story — other reviews have taken care of this and readers can find those details in those reviews — but I’ll highlight a few of the pinnacles of the book for me.
First off, the choice of Susan Kaye Quinn to start the anthology with her story “Containment” is a sure-fire winner. While Quinn sets the story firmly within the universe she’s established in her latest novel “The Legacy Human,” the story stands securely on its own. As with many of the stories in the collection, the point doesn’t become what happens, but really what does it all mean? In this case, we meet an artificial intelligence who works as the manager of mining on Thebe. As the story slowly develops, we peel back layers of the onion to discover our A.I. is more than what he is allowed to be. The themes of A.I., wealth inequality, and slavery are prevalent throughout the story and make it one to remember.
Another story I loved was Ann Christy’s “Lulu Ad Infinitum” and consequences of a horrific accident on a colony ship headed into space. One of the passengers, Lulu, is left alive, and is confronted with the fact that the only way to continue is with help, and the only way to get help is by cloning. As the mind wanders over decades and generations, what does the ship look like and who is Lulu after all this time?
In the same themes of a colony ship, Theresa Kay’s “Protocol A235,” takes the view of disaster happening in space to the extreme. In contrast to Christy’s Lulu, however, Theresa Kay pulls a slow burn as the first-person protagonist slowly finds out what’s happened, and the life that she has in front of her. The horror of the situation seems a little more apparent to the reader, but watching it play out makes her story one of the gems of this collection.
And the heartbreaker of the bunch had to be Jennifer Foehner Wells “Carindi.” Those familiar with Wells’ “Fluency” know the intricacies of the alien ships, operated by octopi-like beings, but commanded by a different species entirely. Ei’Pio is one of the former, resigned to a fate where she cannot move after a plague wiped out the population of her ship. She discovers a lifeform in the aftermath, one confined to a stasis suit who will be her companion for years. The story plays out until a decision must be made and they must leave their area of space or die. Just as I loved “Fluency,” “Carindi” adds a greater depth and history to Wells’ universe.
Ultimately, David Gatewood succeeds in editing another premier anthology, but he is merely the pilot ship for an armada of warships made up of supremely talented writers. I loved Dark Beyond the Stars and hope that there is more to come from this group.
So I eagerly leapt at a chance to read the latest anthology edited by David Gatewood, Dark Beyond The Stars. Again, I can’t say I fell in love with every story, but the collection featured story after story that reached something deep inside and pulled me along until the page count finally ran out. Dark Beyond The Stars takes readers on an epic journey through space, rewarding them with tales guaranteed to entertain as well as elicit tears.
I also don’t think I can address the quality of the book without mentioning a unique fact about the anthology — each and every writer is a woman. I hope to someday live in a world where this note is unnecessary, but that day is not today. There are some out there who will refuse to read a collection that features only women writers. There are some who may cling to the out-dated belief that science fiction is a men’s game. There are those who wouldn’t even give a each of the writers a chance based on their misogynistic thinking.
Those people would be wrong. These women prove that science fiction is a poorer field without them in it. Dark Beyond The Stars is a rich and full universe of stories that, I believe, benefit from a woman’s perspective and voice.
Now, as I analyze the volume, I’m not going to go into detail on each and every story — other reviews have taken care of this and readers can find those details in those reviews — but I’ll highlight a few of the pinnacles of the book for me.
First off, the choice of Susan Kaye Quinn to start the anthology with her story “Containment” is a sure-fire winner. While Quinn sets the story firmly within the universe she’s established in her latest novel “The Legacy Human,” the story stands securely on its own. As with many of the stories in the collection, the point doesn’t become what happens, but really what does it all mean? In this case, we meet an artificial intelligence who works as the manager of mining on Thebe. As the story slowly develops, we peel back layers of the onion to discover our A.I. is more than what he is allowed to be. The themes of A.I., wealth inequality, and slavery are prevalent throughout the story and make it one to remember.
Another story I loved was Ann Christy’s “Lulu Ad Infinitum” and consequences of a horrific accident on a colony ship headed into space. One of the passengers, Lulu, is left alive, and is confronted with the fact that the only way to continue is with help, and the only way to get help is by cloning. As the mind wanders over decades and generations, what does the ship look like and who is Lulu after all this time?
In the same themes of a colony ship, Theresa Kay’s “Protocol A235,” takes the view of disaster happening in space to the extreme. In contrast to Christy’s Lulu, however, Theresa Kay pulls a slow burn as the first-person protagonist slowly finds out what’s happened, and the life that she has in front of her. The horror of the situation seems a little more apparent to the reader, but watching it play out makes her story one of the gems of this collection.
And the heartbreaker of the bunch had to be Jennifer Foehner Wells “Carindi.” Those familiar with Wells’ “Fluency” know the intricacies of the alien ships, operated by octopi-like beings, but commanded by a different species entirely. Ei’Pio is one of the former, resigned to a fate where she cannot move after a plague wiped out the population of her ship. She discovers a lifeform in the aftermath, one confined to a stasis suit who will be her companion for years. The story plays out until a decision must be made and they must leave their area of space or die. Just as I loved “Fluency,” “Carindi” adds a greater depth and history to Wells’ universe.
Ultimately, David Gatewood succeeds in editing another premier anthology, but he is merely the pilot ship for an armada of warships made up of supremely talented writers. I loved Dark Beyond the Stars and hope that there is more to come from this group.
January 10, 2017
Dark Beyond the Stars is an anthology of space opera short stories written by authors who were all new to me. The only one I’d heard of was Annie Bellet, who I believe writes urban fantasy. The collection came to my attention when there was some kerfuffle over the collection’s line up of all female authors, which some people were apparently upset about. However, sexist reviews tend to encourage me to read something more than dissuade me. Plus, look at that cover art by Julie Dillon! Isn’t it gorgeous?
While Dark Beyond the Stars was the mixed bag typical of anthologies, there were a number of stories I quite enjoyed.
Probably my favorite of the collection was “Containment” by Susan Kaye Quinn. I have a soft spot for robots gaining personhood, and this story was even more aligned with my interests – the robot was discovering art! The Mining Master of Thebes is all alone on a moon orbiting Jupiter, administering mechanized mining functions and overseeing the rare cases of tourism. But then the AI discovers a strange tower of rocks and searching for the mystery behind the tower unlocks hidden depths.
“Containment” was actually one of the happier stories in the collection. Overall, most of the stories had a fairly dark tone, and more often or not the endings were ambiguous as to the fate of their characters. Some of the stories were downright depressing.
One of the most emotional stories of the collection was “Carindi” by Jennifer Foehner Wells. Ei’Pio was taken from the ocean planet where she was born and enslaved aboard the spaceship of another species, her telekinetic powers used for navigation. When a plague strikes the ship there are only two survivors – Ei’Pio and Carindi, an alien child who’s precipitous grasp on life is due to the constant help of a full body armored suit. The heart wrenching bond between Ei’Pio and Carindi made this one of the most powerful stories of the collection.
Other stories that warrant praise include “Lulu ad Infinitum,” which had some fascinating ideas and a premise that begs expansion; “2092,” an unusual first contact story involving time travel; and “Dragonet,” which fulfills my love for dragons and invites comparisons to Anne McCaffrey.
Other stories left me cold. For instance, the twist of “Animal Planet” was easy to predict and the story ended up feeling one note. However, the only story I had significant issues with was “Winner Takes All” by Elle Casey. What the hell even was this story? The protagonist is a sexist asshole who enters into a gambling competition with a young woman who’s contribution to the pot is her virginity. There’s just so many problems with this. I really hate fetishization of virginity in the modern day, but why would such an attitude even be present in a completely different part of the galaxy in the far future! Even if you lay aside the complete grossness of the entire thing, there’s some serious world building issues there. If you’re going to read this collection, you’d do yourself a favor by skipping “Winner Takes All.”
Although Dark Beyond the Stars had its low points, on the whole it was a collection I enjoyed. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to get more familiar with some science fiction indie authors.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
While Dark Beyond the Stars was the mixed bag typical of anthologies, there were a number of stories I quite enjoyed.
Probably my favorite of the collection was “Containment” by Susan Kaye Quinn. I have a soft spot for robots gaining personhood, and this story was even more aligned with my interests – the robot was discovering art! The Mining Master of Thebes is all alone on a moon orbiting Jupiter, administering mechanized mining functions and overseeing the rare cases of tourism. But then the AI discovers a strange tower of rocks and searching for the mystery behind the tower unlocks hidden depths.
“Containment” was actually one of the happier stories in the collection. Overall, most of the stories had a fairly dark tone, and more often or not the endings were ambiguous as to the fate of their characters. Some of the stories were downright depressing.
One of the most emotional stories of the collection was “Carindi” by Jennifer Foehner Wells. Ei’Pio was taken from the ocean planet where she was born and enslaved aboard the spaceship of another species, her telekinetic powers used for navigation. When a plague strikes the ship there are only two survivors – Ei’Pio and Carindi, an alien child who’s precipitous grasp on life is due to the constant help of a full body armored suit. The heart wrenching bond between Ei’Pio and Carindi made this one of the most powerful stories of the collection.
Other stories that warrant praise include “Lulu ad Infinitum,” which had some fascinating ideas and a premise that begs expansion; “2092,” an unusual first contact story involving time travel; and “Dragonet,” which fulfills my love for dragons and invites comparisons to Anne McCaffrey.
Other stories left me cold. For instance, the twist of “Animal Planet” was easy to predict and the story ended up feeling one note. However, the only story I had significant issues with was “Winner Takes All” by Elle Casey. What the hell even was this story? The protagonist is a sexist asshole who enters into a gambling competition with a young woman who’s contribution to the pot is her virginity. There’s just so many problems with this. I really hate fetishization of virginity in the modern day, but why would such an attitude even be present in a completely different part of the galaxy in the far future! Even if you lay aside the complete grossness of the entire thing, there’s some serious world building issues there. If you’re going to read this collection, you’d do yourself a favor by skipping “Winner Takes All.”
Although Dark Beyond the Stars had its low points, on the whole it was a collection I enjoyed. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to get more familiar with some science fiction indie authors.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
February 28, 2017
Great read, the worlds in these stories are varied and spectacular. Have to find these authors other works to read and enjoy.
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