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Push of the Sky
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY *Starred Review*: "Alexa's impressive debut collection covers a wide variety of subgenres, among which she switches with ease. The highlight is the slightly absurdist "Shades of White and Road," which develops the whimsy of a magic kingdom and talking objects into something touching and beautiful. Other standouts include the melancholy, postapocalyptic "A Taste of Snow," the fun space frontier tale "The Clone Wrangler's Bride" and the clockwork-and-alchemy fantasy "The Butterfly Assassins," which deftly mixes a murder mystery, court intrigue and a stutterer's plight in a world where magic requires verbal incantations. "Paperheart," focusing on the last dragon, and "They Shall Be as They Know," an eschatological zombie story, nicely revisit familiar themes. The poems are not as strong as the fiction but they show decent range. Alexa's voice is a welcome new addition to genre fiction."
A girl and her mandroid wander the Twelve Domed Cities of Mars, looking for a place to call home... A young man in the age of practical alchemy eschews incantations he can't utter for fantastic creatures built of cogs and springs... A prehistoric inventor living at the cusp of change finds an ancient winged carcass at the edge of a melting glacier, and has the inspiration of a lifetime... Over two dozen short speculative works from the pages of Fantasy Magazine, ChiZine, Abyss & Apex, Space & Time Magazine and more, including SpaceWesterns.com's most-read story of all time, "The Clone Wrangler's Bride" and its sequel, "Droidtown Blues." PLUS new stories never before published, collected here for the first time.
Contents:
Shades of White and Road • (2009)
A Taste of Snow • (2009)
The Clone Wrangler's Bride • (2009)
The Butterfly Assassins • (2009)
Paperheart • (2009)
They Shall Be as They Know • (2009)
The Italian • (2009)
Plastic Personality Surgery • (2009)
Cliffs of Cal'allat • (2009)
Neither Wave Nor Wind • (2009)
Poor Little Things • (2009)
Kingdom at the Edge of Nowhere • (2009)
Inclusions • (2007)
The Beetle Eater's Dream • (2009)
Baseball Trophies, Baby Teeth • (2009)
I Consider My Cadaver • (2009)
Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths • (2008)
Weird Fruits • (2008)
To Heroboy, from Tiffani • (2009)
Droidtown Blues • (2009)
Of Spice and Lime and Tea • (2009)
Three Days Dead • (2009)
Veilsight • (2008)
Flying Solo • (2007)
The Green Infinity • (2008)
Virgin Soil • (2008)
Observations of a Dimestore Figurine • (2009)
The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky • (2009)
Milky Way Meat Market • (2009)
Foreword (Push of the Sky) • essay by Jay Lake
A girl and her mandroid wander the Twelve Domed Cities of Mars, looking for a place to call home... A young man in the age of practical alchemy eschews incantations he can't utter for fantastic creatures built of cogs and springs... A prehistoric inventor living at the cusp of change finds an ancient winged carcass at the edge of a melting glacier, and has the inspiration of a lifetime... Over two dozen short speculative works from the pages of Fantasy Magazine, ChiZine, Abyss & Apex, Space & Time Magazine and more, including SpaceWesterns.com's most-read story of all time, "The Clone Wrangler's Bride" and its sequel, "Droidtown Blues." PLUS new stories never before published, collected here for the first time.
Contents:
Shades of White and Road • (2009)
A Taste of Snow • (2009)
The Clone Wrangler's Bride • (2009)
The Butterfly Assassins • (2009)
Paperheart • (2009)
They Shall Be as They Know • (2009)
The Italian • (2009)
Plastic Personality Surgery • (2009)
Cliffs of Cal'allat • (2009)
Neither Wave Nor Wind • (2009)
Poor Little Things • (2009)
Kingdom at the Edge of Nowhere • (2009)
Inclusions • (2007)
The Beetle Eater's Dream • (2009)
Baseball Trophies, Baby Teeth • (2009)
I Consider My Cadaver • (2009)
Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths • (2008)
Weird Fruits • (2008)
To Heroboy, from Tiffani • (2009)
Droidtown Blues • (2009)
Of Spice and Lime and Tea • (2009)
Three Days Dead • (2009)
Veilsight • (2008)
Flying Solo • (2007)
The Green Infinity • (2008)
Virgin Soil • (2008)
Observations of a Dimestore Figurine • (2009)
The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky • (2009)
Milky Way Meat Market • (2009)
Foreword (Push of the Sky) • essay by Jay Lake
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
4 people are currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
Camille Alexa
56 books60 followersCamille Alexa, Alex C. Renwick, Alexandra Renwick, and Zandra Renwick are all name-mashup author aliases of Alexandra Camille Renwick. Her award-nominated stories have been podcast, appeared on stage, and translated around the world. A series based on her short fiction is currently in development for tv.
Lists of published writings at zandrarenwick.com.
❤ ❤ ❤
Represented by Jennifer Weltz of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency.
Lists of published writings at zandrarenwick.com.
❤ ❤ ❤
Represented by Jennifer Weltz of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency.
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 21, 2019
Wonderful. Beautiful. Fantastic.
April 15, 2018
I've had this signed copy buried in my to-read pile for an embarrassingly long time, for which I feel even more ashamed now because it's a really good collection of Alexa's work. They run a full speculative fiction gamut from science fiction to fantasy, with a smattering of poems mixed in with the stories as well. My favorite by far was "Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths," which utilizes a teenage girl's point of view in a stunning way.
July 1, 2012
Some terrific stories from one of the best currently writing.
January 3, 2013
Review of Push of the Sky: Short Works by Camilla Alexa
5 stars
Prose and poetry combine to explore the vivid and vast imagination of author-poet Camille Alexa. Defying specific genres, this collection contains “something for everyone,” in a literate and poetic approach to science fiction, fantasy, and more. Speculative fiction at its most expansive populates this set, and will inspire readers to anticipate Ms. Alexa’s next exploration of the imaginative Universe, in all its glory. Author Camilla Alexa has a wide following among readers of this genre, and this set will serve as introduction to many new fans.
I reviewed an e-book copy provided for my fair and impartial review.
5 stars
Prose and poetry combine to explore the vivid and vast imagination of author-poet Camille Alexa. Defying specific genres, this collection contains “something for everyone,” in a literate and poetic approach to science fiction, fantasy, and more. Speculative fiction at its most expansive populates this set, and will inspire readers to anticipate Ms. Alexa’s next exploration of the imaginative Universe, in all its glory. Author Camilla Alexa has a wide following among readers of this genre, and this set will serve as introduction to many new fans.
I reviewed an e-book copy provided for my fair and impartial review.
October 22, 2018
A fantastic collection of stories that will leave the reader spellbound. Although I had enjoyed them all, my personal favorite was "Paperheart". A wonderful offering by the author.
March 1, 2013
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Marie-Reine
*Beware of possible Spoilers*
Camille Alexa’s collection includes no fewer than 26 short works, ranging from whimsical poems on the unfortunate consequences of hoarding fluffy, voracious alien invaders in Poor Little Things to a poignant short story in the form of unanswered letters of a sister to her brother, after she has crash-landed on a seemingly uninhabited planetoid in Flying Solo. Each story is engrossing and bewitching in its own right, and through them, Alexa explores the different facets of speculative fiction. Two teens await the zombie apocalypse, the world’s last dragon wrestles with her hatred of humanity, and a mandroid and the human girl in his keep trudge across the deserts of Mars—these are only a sample of the fantastical tales Alexa offers readers in this collection.
Alexa has a gift for describing imaginary environments. In the previously mentioned Flying Solo, Katherine crash-lands on a small planetoid and at first, she feels frightened by the incredible expanse of empty space. With her, the reader feels anxious at the eerie stillness of solitude and the crushing vastness of the sky. When her attitude towards her surroundings changes, the reader marvels alongside her at the beauty of the tiny planet’s precious ecosystem. Alexa’s stories are tactile, sensory experiences. In Inclusions, the dampness of the planet and the sharpness of the silica plants are haunting, oppressive. When Marta and Danton cut their hands on the brittle plant-life, when the unending oily drizzle drips on their faces, we turn our hands to inspect for scratches and wipe our own brow. Alexa brings the scene of her stories to life vividly, to the point of eclipsing reality. The reader plunges in again and again, in turn tasting the dry dust of a water-less Earth, as in The Taste of Snow, or feeling the briny coolness and the power of the seas, in Neither Wave Nor Wind.
Despite the brief nature of these works, Alexa develops endearing and touching characters. These characters are not always human. In fact, the mechanical and inanimate ones are often the most soulful. In The Clone Wrangler’s Bride, she introduces Matty, a country girl from Earth traded for marriage by her father, and her guardian droid, Echo. Told from Matty’s perspective, Echo only seems to be an unfeeling device at first. But Echo’s quiet and imperceptibly caring actions betray a metaphorical heart where only well-tuned parts reside. This theme is only reinforced in the delightful sequel, Droidtown Blues and in another short story, Shades of White and Road. In a world where things are created and grown like fruit on trees, a girl leaves the city and on her way to the edge, she encounters and befriends objects. Though not anthropomorphized per se, each new acquaintance has a personality, a voice, a purpose. They are identified without an objectifying and humiliating article (such as “the”). Familiar companions, they are simply suitcase, lint, bucket, and stool.
That this review only limits itself to certain stories does not imply that these are the only ones worth reading or the only ones of note. Each piece in this collection is as sharp as a razor and beautifully composed. The author is able to create characters that are immediately beloved so that one story will not be enough to satisfy readers—each story invites imagination and when it is done, there is a teasing need to find that same feeling once more in the following story. This is an enchanting collection, dense with creative, inspiring tales.
http://openbooksociety.com/article/pu...
*Beware of possible Spoilers*
Camille Alexa’s collection includes no fewer than 26 short works, ranging from whimsical poems on the unfortunate consequences of hoarding fluffy, voracious alien invaders in Poor Little Things to a poignant short story in the form of unanswered letters of a sister to her brother, after she has crash-landed on a seemingly uninhabited planetoid in Flying Solo. Each story is engrossing and bewitching in its own right, and through them, Alexa explores the different facets of speculative fiction. Two teens await the zombie apocalypse, the world’s last dragon wrestles with her hatred of humanity, and a mandroid and the human girl in his keep trudge across the deserts of Mars—these are only a sample of the fantastical tales Alexa offers readers in this collection.
Alexa has a gift for describing imaginary environments. In the previously mentioned Flying Solo, Katherine crash-lands on a small planetoid and at first, she feels frightened by the incredible expanse of empty space. With her, the reader feels anxious at the eerie stillness of solitude and the crushing vastness of the sky. When her attitude towards her surroundings changes, the reader marvels alongside her at the beauty of the tiny planet’s precious ecosystem. Alexa’s stories are tactile, sensory experiences. In Inclusions, the dampness of the planet and the sharpness of the silica plants are haunting, oppressive. When Marta and Danton cut their hands on the brittle plant-life, when the unending oily drizzle drips on their faces, we turn our hands to inspect for scratches and wipe our own brow. Alexa brings the scene of her stories to life vividly, to the point of eclipsing reality. The reader plunges in again and again, in turn tasting the dry dust of a water-less Earth, as in The Taste of Snow, or feeling the briny coolness and the power of the seas, in Neither Wave Nor Wind.
Despite the brief nature of these works, Alexa develops endearing and touching characters. These characters are not always human. In fact, the mechanical and inanimate ones are often the most soulful. In The Clone Wrangler’s Bride, she introduces Matty, a country girl from Earth traded for marriage by her father, and her guardian droid, Echo. Told from Matty’s perspective, Echo only seems to be an unfeeling device at first. But Echo’s quiet and imperceptibly caring actions betray a metaphorical heart where only well-tuned parts reside. This theme is only reinforced in the delightful sequel, Droidtown Blues and in another short story, Shades of White and Road. In a world where things are created and grown like fruit on trees, a girl leaves the city and on her way to the edge, she encounters and befriends objects. Though not anthropomorphized per se, each new acquaintance has a personality, a voice, a purpose. They are identified without an objectifying and humiliating article (such as “the”). Familiar companions, they are simply suitcase, lint, bucket, and stool.
That this review only limits itself to certain stories does not imply that these are the only ones worth reading or the only ones of note. Each piece in this collection is as sharp as a razor and beautifully composed. The author is able to create characters that are immediately beloved so that one story will not be enough to satisfy readers—each story invites imagination and when it is done, there is a teasing need to find that same feeling once more in the following story. This is an enchanting collection, dense with creative, inspiring tales.
http://openbooksociety.com/article/pu...
July 1, 2011
I bought this title impulsively, simply because it caught my eye, and although that’s not the most advisable way to judge a book - as we all know - this time it paid off.
This collection is a real mixed bag. There’s SF and fantasy, gender politics and whimsy, romance and horrors. And while some of the stories are forgettable, plenty are exciting in an almost childlike way, even if the subject matter is adult. There are too many to review individually, so as usual, I’ll briefly discuss my favourites.
“The Butterfly Assassins” is a colourful tale about an assistant necro-alchemist’s attempts to create a flying human using butterfly ichor. He’s a nervous gentle soul, and his journey into the Dragonswood makes for a pleasant opener.
“The Taste of Snow” presents a future of catastrophic global-warming, and tells of a woman and her old, dependent aunt with whom she shares their desert home. It’s an evocative piece, and the taste of dust and grit powerfully contrasts with touches of nostalgia.
The book has a couple of enjoyable space westerns starting with “The Clone-Wrangler’s Bride”. The star is Matty Johnson, here found wandering the domed cities of Mars looking for her husband, accompanied by her fussy mandroid. The relentless heat of the red planet seems to radiate from the pages, and its follow-up “Droidtown Blues” allows the mandroid’s POV to bring mirth to a gritty scenario.
In “Kingdom at the Edge of Nowhere”, we meet Gil, a lonely space-worker who whiles away the slow-motion days playing holocards with his dead cryogenic family. But his loneliness is interrupted in a lunar city when he finds himself falling for a moth girl who plays the flute. Almost a fairytale romance, this story has real resonance and fragility.
The cleverly titled “Paperheart” concerns a dragon charged with protecting a rustic community, until one day the villagers decide she’s an unecessary relic and attack her. Terribly wounded, she meets an origami witch, who might be both her saviour and her destruction. Immediately fascinating, this story creates an actual spirituality out of fire, and ponders themes of survival and the essence of true existence. It also has a real upper-cut of a finale.
“Shades of White and Road” is told by somebody travelling a spiral road, who is beset and pestered by inanimate objects. It’s a nice whimsy with some deft linguistic wordplay.
“Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths” is a real stayer. We meet Carolyn, a teenaged girl who lives in a world similar to our own, except that they learn how they’ll die on their 16th birthday. Is she destined to die a boring death such as old age or suicide, or be able to join the ranks of the cool kids like a “crasher” or “burner”? A great concept that explores schoolyard politics, it’s ghoulishly intriguing from the off, darkly humorous, and ties up with a truly poignant scene.
Other honourable mentions include “They Shall Be As they Know” – a kind of zombie-twist meets Orwell’s 1984 – and “Observations of a Dimestore Figurine” which is exactly that. An intense version of Toy Story, it managed to be witty but ultimately horrific.
The final almost-title story in the collection is “The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky”, following a sensitive misfit of a caveman who has a cunning idea for the use of a pterodactyl’s corpse.
The above is only a fraction of what’s on offer: this book is a cauldron of characters, wild settings, and some interesting concepts of aliens. We meet a blackmailed siren, interplanetary archeologists, a lost astronaut, a woman who sees through an exatraordinary nanotech veil, and some human kudzu. The book is also sprinkled with poetry, my favourite being “Poor Little Things” in which cute cuddly creatures are taking over earth. Much of the prose has a poetic feel too, with deliberate rhythm and style.
This isn’t quite a perfect collection. A few of the stories I felt had more style than substance, and some of them felt inappropriately inconclusive.
But overall, this is a strong book: a tour through a very sharp but delightful imagination. There’s comic timing when required, and none of the infodumping often found in fantasy when the author has whole worlds to convey. Camille Alexa trickles in the important parts and lets your subconscious paint the bigger picture itself, switching between sub-genres with ease.
The foreword by Jay Lake concludes with “Spread the word.” It would’ve been impossibly rude not to.
This collection is a real mixed bag. There’s SF and fantasy, gender politics and whimsy, romance and horrors. And while some of the stories are forgettable, plenty are exciting in an almost childlike way, even if the subject matter is adult. There are too many to review individually, so as usual, I’ll briefly discuss my favourites.
“The Butterfly Assassins” is a colourful tale about an assistant necro-alchemist’s attempts to create a flying human using butterfly ichor. He’s a nervous gentle soul, and his journey into the Dragonswood makes for a pleasant opener.
“The Taste of Snow” presents a future of catastrophic global-warming, and tells of a woman and her old, dependent aunt with whom she shares their desert home. It’s an evocative piece, and the taste of dust and grit powerfully contrasts with touches of nostalgia.
The book has a couple of enjoyable space westerns starting with “The Clone-Wrangler’s Bride”. The star is Matty Johnson, here found wandering the domed cities of Mars looking for her husband, accompanied by her fussy mandroid. The relentless heat of the red planet seems to radiate from the pages, and its follow-up “Droidtown Blues” allows the mandroid’s POV to bring mirth to a gritty scenario.
In “Kingdom at the Edge of Nowhere”, we meet Gil, a lonely space-worker who whiles away the slow-motion days playing holocards with his dead cryogenic family. But his loneliness is interrupted in a lunar city when he finds himself falling for a moth girl who plays the flute. Almost a fairytale romance, this story has real resonance and fragility.
The cleverly titled “Paperheart” concerns a dragon charged with protecting a rustic community, until one day the villagers decide she’s an unecessary relic and attack her. Terribly wounded, she meets an origami witch, who might be both her saviour and her destruction. Immediately fascinating, this story creates an actual spirituality out of fire, and ponders themes of survival and the essence of true existence. It also has a real upper-cut of a finale.
“Shades of White and Road” is told by somebody travelling a spiral road, who is beset and pestered by inanimate objects. It’s a nice whimsy with some deft linguistic wordplay.
“Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths” is a real stayer. We meet Carolyn, a teenaged girl who lives in a world similar to our own, except that they learn how they’ll die on their 16th birthday. Is she destined to die a boring death such as old age or suicide, or be able to join the ranks of the cool kids like a “crasher” or “burner”? A great concept that explores schoolyard politics, it’s ghoulishly intriguing from the off, darkly humorous, and ties up with a truly poignant scene.
Other honourable mentions include “They Shall Be As they Know” – a kind of zombie-twist meets Orwell’s 1984 – and “Observations of a Dimestore Figurine” which is exactly that. An intense version of Toy Story, it managed to be witty but ultimately horrific.
The final almost-title story in the collection is “The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky”, following a sensitive misfit of a caveman who has a cunning idea for the use of a pterodactyl’s corpse.
The above is only a fraction of what’s on offer: this book is a cauldron of characters, wild settings, and some interesting concepts of aliens. We meet a blackmailed siren, interplanetary archeologists, a lost astronaut, a woman who sees through an exatraordinary nanotech veil, and some human kudzu. The book is also sprinkled with poetry, my favourite being “Poor Little Things” in which cute cuddly creatures are taking over earth. Much of the prose has a poetic feel too, with deliberate rhythm and style.
This isn’t quite a perfect collection. A few of the stories I felt had more style than substance, and some of them felt inappropriately inconclusive.
But overall, this is a strong book: a tour through a very sharp but delightful imagination. There’s comic timing when required, and none of the infodumping often found in fantasy when the author has whole worlds to convey. Camille Alexa trickles in the important parts and lets your subconscious paint the bigger picture itself, switching between sub-genres with ease.
The foreword by Jay Lake concludes with “Spread the word.” It would’ve been impossibly rude not to.
June 8, 2011
I lucked out recently when I won a copy of Camille Alexa's short story collection from Red Penny Papers. I had previously read a couple of Camille's short stories, as well as read the series, Particular Friends, which is available to be read for free via Red Penny Papers. Camille has a writing style that is at times lyrical, probably thanks to her affinity towards poetry, and at times resplendent in her descriptions of characters and setting. Push of the Sky exemplifies this.
I believe Peter Straub was the first author I heard use the term "fantasist" to describe himself as a storyteller. It's a good label and applies to Camille, in my opinion. Many of the stories told here are housed in fantastical settings, some more than others. "Shades of White and Road" has a fairy tale charm to it with anthropomorphic objects tailing after a gal on a winding road, while a story like "The Clone Wrangler's Bride" takes sci-fi elements offers a fun adventure with robots and spaceships--and a bit of western flavor added.
It's all there inside the book's pages, a kind of cornucopia for any fantasy and sci-fi fan. I genuinely liked the collection, but I can't say I walked away with a stand-out favorite. There's a lot to like, but no one story for me to clutch onto and say I love. It's Camille Alexa's first book, so she's just getting warmed up and I am really looking forward to what she has in store in the near future. This book was published in 2009 after all, and she's already some really good work out in the couple years since (see above where I mention Particular Friends).
With thirty stories and poems in this book, there is bound to be more than one story for readers to find and admire Camille's ability to paint a picture with words. Some stories flow like a lazy, winding river, while a few amp up the level of adrenaline and intrigue. "The Beetle Eater's Dream" has a quiet mystery to it and its fair share of heartbreak, while "The Butterfly Assassins" offers a great little steampunk tale, a sub-genre I'm still warming up to.
If you love that ethereal style of escapist fantasy and science-fiction, you should take a chance on this one. If you're a fan of poetry, which admittedly I am not, there are a couple of real gems in this pages. Again, I'm not a poetry fan, but "I Consider My Cadaver" to be great. Hey, maybe that's the piece I love. Yeah, let's go with that. Me ... poetry lover. Pack your mittens, boys and girls, we're going to Hell.
I believe Peter Straub was the first author I heard use the term "fantasist" to describe himself as a storyteller. It's a good label and applies to Camille, in my opinion. Many of the stories told here are housed in fantastical settings, some more than others. "Shades of White and Road" has a fairy tale charm to it with anthropomorphic objects tailing after a gal on a winding road, while a story like "The Clone Wrangler's Bride" takes sci-fi elements offers a fun adventure with robots and spaceships--and a bit of western flavor added.
It's all there inside the book's pages, a kind of cornucopia for any fantasy and sci-fi fan. I genuinely liked the collection, but I can't say I walked away with a stand-out favorite. There's a lot to like, but no one story for me to clutch onto and say I love. It's Camille Alexa's first book, so she's just getting warmed up and I am really looking forward to what she has in store in the near future. This book was published in 2009 after all, and she's already some really good work out in the couple years since (see above where I mention Particular Friends).
With thirty stories and poems in this book, there is bound to be more than one story for readers to find and admire Camille's ability to paint a picture with words. Some stories flow like a lazy, winding river, while a few amp up the level of adrenaline and intrigue. "The Beetle Eater's Dream" has a quiet mystery to it and its fair share of heartbreak, while "The Butterfly Assassins" offers a great little steampunk tale, a sub-genre I'm still warming up to.
If you love that ethereal style of escapist fantasy and science-fiction, you should take a chance on this one. If you're a fan of poetry, which admittedly I am not, there are a couple of real gems in this pages. Again, I'm not a poetry fan, but "I Consider My Cadaver" to be great. Hey, maybe that's the piece I love. Yeah, let's go with that. Me ... poetry lover. Pack your mittens, boys and girls, we're going to Hell.
March 11, 2013
Originally posted at: http://www.longandshortreviews.com/bo...
What do proto-humans living during an unforgiving ice age, peasants and dragons maintaining an uneasy peace and the dangers of crashing your spaceship onto another planet have in common?
The best entries in this collection are the ones that dabble in other genres. Matty in “The Clone Wrangler’s Bride” acts like a character from a romance novel at first. She’s headstrong, intelligent and fiercely determined to grit her way through an arranged marriage which only makes what happens to her next even more memorable. “Flying Solo” starts out with a dramatic crash on a barely inhabitable and uncharted planet far from the narrator’s true destination. Katherine chronicles her struggle to survive as she waits for assistance by writing a series of letters to her brother. Gradually the correspondence begins to include her interactions with the other living creatures she finds on the planet and that’s when her adventures truly begin.
The missteps in Push of the Sky happened when more attention was paid to flowery language and describing the scenery than character or plot development. “The Butterfly Assassin” in particular evoked vivid imagery in my mind as I read but never quite got around to sufficiently explaining how a medieval civilization could be technologically developed enough to keep someone with severe disabilities alive or build machines that require delicate parts or are easily damaged. “The Beetle Eater’s Dream” was another good example of an intriguing concept that spent more time describing how the main character adjusted to the mundane realities life on a spaceship after growing up on a nearly uninhabitable futuristic earth than it did explaining her motivation for deciding to travel in deep space on a whim.
Even though not all of the tales in this collection were appealing to me Ms. Alexa left this reader wanting to know more about almost all of them. She consistently packed a novel’s worth of intrigue into a few short pages and I would gladly pay to learn more about almost all of the men, women, robots and dragons I met in this book. Push of the Sky is a great choice for anyone interested in pushing the boundaries of modern science fiction and fantasy and I recommend it.
What do proto-humans living during an unforgiving ice age, peasants and dragons maintaining an uneasy peace and the dangers of crashing your spaceship onto another planet have in common?
The best entries in this collection are the ones that dabble in other genres. Matty in “The Clone Wrangler’s Bride” acts like a character from a romance novel at first. She’s headstrong, intelligent and fiercely determined to grit her way through an arranged marriage which only makes what happens to her next even more memorable. “Flying Solo” starts out with a dramatic crash on a barely inhabitable and uncharted planet far from the narrator’s true destination. Katherine chronicles her struggle to survive as she waits for assistance by writing a series of letters to her brother. Gradually the correspondence begins to include her interactions with the other living creatures she finds on the planet and that’s when her adventures truly begin.
The missteps in Push of the Sky happened when more attention was paid to flowery language and describing the scenery than character or plot development. “The Butterfly Assassin” in particular evoked vivid imagery in my mind as I read but never quite got around to sufficiently explaining how a medieval civilization could be technologically developed enough to keep someone with severe disabilities alive or build machines that require delicate parts or are easily damaged. “The Beetle Eater’s Dream” was another good example of an intriguing concept that spent more time describing how the main character adjusted to the mundane realities life on a spaceship after growing up on a nearly uninhabitable futuristic earth than it did explaining her motivation for deciding to travel in deep space on a whim.
Even though not all of the tales in this collection were appealing to me Ms. Alexa left this reader wanting to know more about almost all of them. She consistently packed a novel’s worth of intrigue into a few short pages and I would gladly pay to learn more about almost all of the men, women, robots and dragons I met in this book. Push of the Sky is a great choice for anyone interested in pushing the boundaries of modern science fiction and fantasy and I recommend it.
December 28, 2010
As a disclaimer, a little mag I run has a story in it by Camille Alexa, and so it might seem self serving for me to give this a positive review. But I've had this book since last Christmas, and finally read it over this one (my to-read pile is scary), and I hate to read a book--particularly an indie book--without putting up a review.
On with the show...
Collections are so often hit-or-miss--you might like one thing an author does because they do it so well, and be disappointed by the rest. I know I originally bought this collection because I read a lot of Alexa's historical and/or alternate history sci-fi stuff online, so I expected to like what there was in PUSH OF THE SKY in the same vein. However, I ended up really liking it all.
The most remarkable thing about this collection is how it showcased--in a way that was meant to delight the reader more than be an actual showcase--Alexa's ability to move between disparate points of view and make each one as believable, honest, sympathetic, and lovely as the next. From a mandroid to a little girl surrounded by zombies to an invalid to a hunter-gatherer inventor, and without batting an eyelash. They're all worth falling in love with.
Personal favorites were:
"The Butterfly Assassins"
"The Clone Wrangler's Bride"
"Shades of White and Road"
"They Shall Be As They Know"
And, not gonna lie, "The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky" made me cry. In the happy way.
The poetry is extremely fun, too.
On with the show...
Collections are so often hit-or-miss--you might like one thing an author does because they do it so well, and be disappointed by the rest. I know I originally bought this collection because I read a lot of Alexa's historical and/or alternate history sci-fi stuff online, so I expected to like what there was in PUSH OF THE SKY in the same vein. However, I ended up really liking it all.
The most remarkable thing about this collection is how it showcased--in a way that was meant to delight the reader more than be an actual showcase--Alexa's ability to move between disparate points of view and make each one as believable, honest, sympathetic, and lovely as the next. From a mandroid to a little girl surrounded by zombies to an invalid to a hunter-gatherer inventor, and without batting an eyelash. They're all worth falling in love with.
Personal favorites were:
"The Butterfly Assassins"
"The Clone Wrangler's Bride"
"Shades of White and Road"
"They Shall Be As They Know"
And, not gonna lie, "The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky" made me cry. In the happy way.
The poetry is extremely fun, too.
October 21, 2011
Camille Alex presents a wide range of imaginative and well-wrought tales in this collection. The few poems included in the collection are not nearly as strong as the stories. They don't quite have the same punch as the stories. But the awesome of the stories far outweighs the mediocrity of the poems.
I was especially fond of "The Clone Wrangler's Bride" and its sequel "Droidtown Blues," which are space western stories about a girl and her mandroid. The girl is spunky and awesome. I loved her quite a bit.
"The Butterfly Assassins" was a beautiful murder mystery. In it a young prince loves to create clockwork creatures, a talent that is looked down upon because the arts of alchemy are more highly prized within the kingdom.
"Shades of White and Road" was a lovely little tale about a girl who runs away from home and travels a spiraling road. Along the way she meets and assortment of stray furniture and objects, who pester her and wish to become her friends.
A story about the last surviving dragon in the world is contained in "Paperheart" and an plaster figurine shares his wit in “Observations of a Dimestore Figurine.”
There are many other stories in this collection that are also powerful and moving, sometimes funny and sometimes horrifying, but always beautifully told.
I was especially fond of "The Clone Wrangler's Bride" and its sequel "Droidtown Blues," which are space western stories about a girl and her mandroid. The girl is spunky and awesome. I loved her quite a bit.
"The Butterfly Assassins" was a beautiful murder mystery. In it a young prince loves to create clockwork creatures, a talent that is looked down upon because the arts of alchemy are more highly prized within the kingdom.
"Shades of White and Road" was a lovely little tale about a girl who runs away from home and travels a spiraling road. Along the way she meets and assortment of stray furniture and objects, who pester her and wish to become her friends.
A story about the last surviving dragon in the world is contained in "Paperheart" and an plaster figurine shares his wit in “Observations of a Dimestore Figurine.”
There are many other stories in this collection that are also powerful and moving, sometimes funny and sometimes horrifying, but always beautifully told.
July 24, 2010
The sheer breadth of imagination and creativity on display here is breathtaking. In addition to being a creator of very cool worlds, Camille Alexa is a story stylist: each word seems deliberately chosen for maximum effect, and nowhere is that better on display than "Shades of White and Road," which is probably my favorite story in the anthology. But she can tell more straightforward stories, too, and "The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky," the book closer, runs a very close second for favorite (and raises the bar for the rest of us that will appear in Origins with her). She has a wry sense of humor, check out "Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths," a delightful tale that made me giggle all the way through, but especially at the perfect last line (story ending is an art--don't let anyone tell you different). There's not a weak story in this collection and the poems are vivid and go nicely with the prose. Highly recommended.
Rated: A
Rated: A
November 22, 2013
*Book source ~ Many thanks to Untreed Reads for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.
In this combination Fantasy/Sci-Fi anthology there are 29 short stories that are creative and interesting. Some of the stories I completely enjoyed, some were ok and some I didn’t understand, but they were all well-written. If I had to pick a favorite out of them, it would be tough since there were many that I couldn’t stop reading, but I’d say I enjoyed Matty Johnson and Echo’s stories the best. Matty is a colorful Texan traveling to Mars and Echo is the android unit assigned by her father to protect her. But it goes so much farther than that. Wonderful and imaginative!
In this combination Fantasy/Sci-Fi anthology there are 29 short stories that are creative and interesting. Some of the stories I completely enjoyed, some were ok and some I didn’t understand, but they were all well-written. If I had to pick a favorite out of them, it would be tough since there were many that I couldn’t stop reading, but I’d say I enjoyed Matty Johnson and Echo’s stories the best. Matty is a colorful Texan traveling to Mars and Echo is the android unit assigned by her father to protect her. But it goes so much farther than that. Wonderful and imaginative!
October 1, 2010
This anthology rises above most single-author anthologies in that all of the stories are good and worth reading, including the ones never before published. Alexa is far from a one-note writer; her stories vary in style and tone and setting so that one never knows what to expect next. As a writer, I found it fascinating to see Alexa exploring the same concepts (such as a science fictional Cinderella) in different ways in different stories.
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