Oldies But Goodies
{Put This One on Your TBR List}
Book Review: The Far Reaches Collection (Various Authors)
by Karen S. Wiesner
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4TJRRRV?ref=cm_sw_em_r_ao_rw_y8NZEpV1821Ca
The universe is bigger than we can
imagine...
Look outward
beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. With a
sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy...and the horizons
of humanity’s potential.
So there's a bunch of short stories published on Amazon in ebook and
audiobook (no print editions available) collections in which the basic theme is
what all the entries have in common, but none of the stories are actually
connected in any other way. In other words, they can be read separately and in
any order. I knew James S. A. Corey (a favorite author of mine) had a story in this
particular collection and later found out Veronica Roth also did. This first collection
I purchased, The Far Reaches, is filled with science fiction tales--right up my
alley. I initially only bought the first two stories on Kindle. I didn't
realize at the time that you could get a discount for purchasing the entire collection
at once. (As a collection, it's $9.94; purchased separately $11.94.) I paid
somewhere around $8.38 total for all the books, including tax. I think I got
some stories on sale. Amazon Prime members can get them free, you know, somehow
(I'm not a member anymore). I was looking for fast, solid reads, and I think I
got what I was looking for with this one. They're actually published by Amazon,
which I also didn't realize right away. I'm not thrilled with that idea, but I
was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the offerings. I was able to read
each of them in a couple hours and at least some of them were intriguing, though,
of course, several weren't my cup of tea. While I generally don't review
stories I don't enjoy, I did in this case because most people will purchase the
entire series, so it feels useful to me to give my opinion on all the entries,
whether or not I liked them.
Beware potential spoilers!
"How It Unfolds" by James S. A.
Corey (38 pages/53-minute read)
Summary: In this short story
by the author of The Expanse series, technology has been discovered in the
future that allows human beings to be sent over space in a packet (much like
ebooks!) to other planets already set up with what's needed to try to survive
in that place. A tremendous amount of time and planning has gone into this
endeavor. Once the packet is delivered where it's intended to go, the human
"unfolds" (launches or materializes; is physically in this new place).
This doesn't always work, but, as the packets are sent to innumerable worlds,
it does occasionally; the success rate is a spectacular failure. One astronaut
joins this mission with the hope that his ex-wife, also being sent across the
universe in this way (a woman he loves and lost on Earth) will be able to
reconcile with him in just one of these countless worlds.
Review: This very enjoyable,
clever little story is quite a feat in that, considering its compact size, it managed
to be packed with everything crucial that's needed and nothing extraneous. The
account of this love story searching for the right time and place to unfurl was
tragically moving, beautiful, and unavoidably a little sad.
"Void" by Veronica Roth (50
pages/70-minute read)
Summary: Set aboard an
intergalactic luxury cruiser that has the unfortunate name of Redundancy, Veronica Roth (Divergent
series) tells a very short murder mystery story from the point of view of one
of the crew members.
Review: I was actually
pleasantly surprised by this delightful little whodunit. The setting and
characters captured me and made me want to know more about all. My only issue
was, happily, minor: For the most part, only two dimensions were explored of
the sleuthing main character Ace and only just barely enough of either. I
wanted a better balance between the external and internal conflicts. The
internal was definitely lacking. Brevity is, no doubt, the cause of this
shortfall, but it was still an intriguing read, such as it was.
"Falling Bodies" by Rebecca
Roanhorse (35 pages/49-minute read)
Summary: A juvenile delinquent
is cleaned up, his appearance and identity changed, so he can be integrated
back into the universe. But he's caught between two worlds in this futuristic
story, and those worlds are playing a cruel tug-of-war with him.
Review: I think the one thing
everybody has too much of these days are politics. It's constantly being shoved
in our faces with social media and the like, and we're being battered raw from
it. This story is all about insane politics and "moral majorities".
The author set up her character in a no-win situation and proceeded to make him
as unlikable as she possibly could. The end result was what you'd expect, no
surprise there. I guess I could have avoided the tragedy by not reading it. Too
late for me.
"The Long Game" by Ann Leckie
(31 pages/43-minute read)
Summary: In this futuristic
story set on another planet, an octopus-like (or at least I got that impression) life-form that survives only a short time
learns about life and death and how much of an impact he can make even if he
has only a short space of time to do it in, something that can last long after
he's gone.
Review: This short tale was
both touching and inspiring. If only everyone could realize what good they can
do for the present and future of our species just by putting a positive dream
in motion catapulted by a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work. All lives
are short but our legacies don't have to be.
"Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" by
Nnedi Okorafor (45 pages/63-minute read)
Summary: In this story, the
main character is one of only seven others on Earth able to connect with
sentient "ship" beings that will explore the cosmos. Five years into
the decade-long mission, the chosen seven end the total isolation with their
individual ships in order to meet up with the others for a single week.
Review: As much as I initially enjoyed the extravagant detail in
this unusual tale, I couldn't help wondering 1) if there was a point to such
fleshing out--i.e., how did it further the story purpose?, and 2) whether the
author could have devoted the precious space to more important internal and
external conflicts. Ultimately, I found myself disappointed by this story
because of the overabundance of set-up aspects and so little to deeper main
character development that would have made me not only like but also root for
the main character Tornado. For example, very late in the story, we finally
learn how she got her nickname. This shocking, tragic explanation from her past
distanced me even further instead of drawing me in because all we'd learned
thus far of this character was that she didn't like people, in general. and her
own life and that of her ship were her sole focuses--a stunning reflection of
today's me-focused society. Unfortunately, the potential in "Just Out of
Jupiter's Reach" was greater than the actual result, in my opinion.
"Slow Time Between the Stars"
by John Scalzi (28 pages/39-minute read)
Summary: An AI is set to
explore to the farthest horizons of human potential and ensure humanity's
legacy continues. In the process, it ponders its own purpose and responsibility
to its creators.
Review: I made the presumption
that this story would have a plot…you know, in fiction, this is something that
actually happens in the process of putting down words. A reader hopes something
will happen in fiction, preferably something exciting; otherwise, why? But
nothing really does happen in this story. The AI doesn't hate human beings so
much as it simply has no love or respect for them. Nevertheless, it goes along
with its programming though it's fully capable of changing it. I say it goes
along with it up until it sees no reason to proceed with that (foolish) course.
Centuries pass as it travels the cosmos. The last few pages tell us (instead of
showing) the AI's plan to do the minimum duty to its creators and then it can
do whatever it wants. And still, absolutely
nothing worthwhile happens. The story ends after the AI informs the reader about
what might have been the story if it'd actually been written. Warning: There's
no Terminator, no A.I. Artificial Intelligence, no Blade Runner, no Ex Machina here.
At this point, I would have been content with a full-on rip-off of something
with an AI being trusted by humans or betraying the trust of humanity; just so
long as there was a story--any
story--actually being told. I guess the best I can say about this one is that
at least it was the shortest in the collection.
~*~
I suppose because I've been
reading so many long series for the past year, each having at least three massive
tomes, I've been feeling a strong need to find something short that takes me just
a few hours to complete. This collection fit the bill if for no other reason
than two out three ain't bad. I liked that these were cheap (under twelve bucks
for six stories). If I'd purchased them in print, I would have paid probably
two to three times more and inevitably been upset about the stories I didn't
actually like. This seems like a good trade-off, though I sure hope I like all the installments in the next Amazon
Originals collection.
After I figured out Amazon has a
whole slew of these usually genre-tied theme collections (visit https://www.amazon.com/b?node=17506527011&ref=AOS_footer), I purchased the entire collection of
Forward (futuristic stories) at once, which I'll be reviewing next month.
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Visit
her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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