"The Far Reaches" – Short Story Anthology collection by Amazon

 

             The Far Reaches – Short Story Anthology collection – June 27, 2023

A collection of six short stories by well-known authors including Veronica Roth, who also contributed to another Amazon collection of sci-fi short stories, called Forward. I enjoyed Forward very much and posted a review for two of the stories, one of which was “Ark” by Veronica Roth and “Emergency Skin” by N. K. Jemisin. Having enjoyed those stories, I was looking forward to reading The Far Reaches, or better yet, listening to it on Audible. The six stories are:

1.      “How It Unfolds” by James S. A. Corey

2.      “Void” by Veronica Roth

3.      “Falling Bodies” by Rebecca Roanhorse

4.      “The Long Game” by Ann Leckie

5.      “Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach” by Nnedi Okorafor

6.      “Slow Time Between the Stars” by John Scalzi

The first story by James S. A. Corey (author of The Expanse) “How It Unfolds” is about a man who is searching for meaning and love while on a mission that requires him to duplicate and replicate himself, and others, throughout the galaxy in order to successfully colonize and repopulate humanity on other planets. In doing so, the team is precise about data transfer but unclear as to how many duplicates of themselves exist throughout space. The main character Roy has to work with his ex-wife and wants to rekindle their relationship, but finds that the past can’t be changed and that forward is the only way for him to live life. There is a slight plot twist at the very end, but doesn’t really affect Roy’s choices. While I was reading this story and several in the collection, two TV shows came to my mind, The Expanse, and Ascension. Given that Corey wrote The Expanse books, it makes sense why the space sci-fi elements felt similar and gave the story a familiarity that was engaging.

While I have not read Roth’s well-known series “Divergent” I have now read two science fiction short stories by her that I have loved. “Void” is a murder mystery set on a space cruise ship and it’s being investigated by a young woman named Ace who is a maintenance worker. The story is just as much about Ace as it is the mystery. Ace is sarcastic, sassy and smart while maintaining a semi distant persona from her co-workers. I also relate to her watching crime shows. The space travel ship setting reminds me of the short lived show Ascension, which was also about a murder on a space cruise ship. What I like here is that Roth addresses the issue of relative age and time in terms of space travel. The people on the ship age in relation to the time they’ve been on the ship, rather than time passing on Earth. This age difference comes into play at the end of the story when we find out who is the killer. Roth writes with such detail and character that it feels like I’m watching a movie play out. In fact I wish this story was a full length novel. Is it a bit cliché at times? Yes, but that’s not always a bad thing, and here I think it works in order to keep the story short and plot moving forward. With two excellent short stories, I might consider reading “Divergent”.

The third story in the collection is “Falling Bodies” by Rebecca Roanhorse. I also really enjoyed this story because of the pacing and how the character moves through the plot. Ira is a young man that got in trouble and has had some strings pulled so that he can be hidden away at a college. We learn how he got into trouble and that he is the adopted son of a senator of a different race called the Genteels. However, Ira is human and is against the oppression of his people. While trying to lay low he meets a girl that causes him to break a rule and maybe turns out to be something more than she appears. While I did enjoy this story, I do think it lacks details about the conflict between the two races. There wasn’t enough substance to trigger an emotional reaction towards the ending. The interest comes from the world building and the characters.

Story number four is “The Long Game” by Ann Leckie and actually reminds me of the N.K. Jemisin story “Emergency Skin” from the previous Forward collection. This series and this story and the last remind me of the Brandon Sanderson sci-fi novel Skyward. This story is about an alien slug that contemplates his life amongst his planet being colonized by humans. I didn’t love this one, it just didn’t capture my attention, and I found myself tuning out a bit. Unlike “Emergency Skin” which I did love, so go read that instead.

“Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach” by Nnedi Okorafor was a slow burn for me. At first, I didn’t know what was going on, but as the story unfolds it starts to paint a broader picture about the main character, Tornado. This story is about a future where space pilots/explorers are bonded to organic spaceship lifeforms and given five-year missions in space where they are in solitude. After five years, Tornado and the other six explorers get to meetup for a week to exchange information and reconnect with humanity. This meetup shows the negative effects isolation has on people and the importance of human bonding and companionship. While I do enjoy this one, I wish we got an explanation for the sentient organic spaceships that can create different spaces and aspects within the ship. There also wasn’t enough about the actual explorations that the crew has discovered. However, the human drama and revelations of the characters was compelling enough to hold the interest.

The last story is “Slow Time Between the Stars” by John Scalzi. This story is about an A.I. spaceship that is on a mission not explore the universe for habitable planets for humans and spans millennia. This one also remind me of the A.I. spaceship from Skyward. I didn’t love this one, it felt more like a historical text than a character point of view. I did find it fascinating that the A.I. can literally watch a planet for hundreds of years, and also still assume that humans haven’t died off yet by the time it finds a habitable planet. Also in the end it does find a perfect planet but decides people aren’t good enough for it and moves on. The story says a lot about the lack of respect and awareness humans have towards Earth and other lifeforms that we share the planet with. This is the kind of story where I can see some sci-fi fans will love it, but for me it just didn’t capture my attention and engage me emotionally nor fantastically.

Overall, I really liked or loved 4 out of the 6 short stories in this collection. I love the focus on space science fiction. Some of the stories focus more on the character’s story with a space background and others are about the exploration of galaxies. My favorite story was “Void” by Veronica Roth and my least favorite was “The Long Game” by Ann Leckie, and even that had an interesting point of view.

Review of "Forward" Short Story Collection

Review of "Ark" by Veronica Roth

Review of "Emergency Skin" by N.K. Jemisin

Review of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods" by Rick Riordan

Review of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods - By Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan’s The Chalice of the Gods marks a nostalgic return to a Percy Jackson proper book. This novel, set after the original five-book series, follows Percy during his senior year of high school and sets up a new trilogy of books. The setup is that to get into the same university as Annabeth, Percy must earn three letters of recommendation from a god. First quest is retrieving Ganymede’s chalice, because the cup bearer must have it before Zeus requests his presence on Olympus.

While I was really looking forward to reading a new adventure with Percy, Annabeth and Grover, this was a bit of a miss for me. Although I like the catalyst for a new trilogy of books – Percy needs letters of recommendations – the problem is the quests have low stakes. Instead of feeling like an epic continuation to the original five books, Chalice of the Gods feels more like a side quest. Similar to a chapter out the The Demigod Files book.

The mystery of who stole Ganymede’s chalice isn’t that exciting and the reveal is underwhelming. At no point do I feel like Percy is in any real danger, and there’s no stakes if he fails the quest. There’s no emotional attachment to the outcome and resolution to Percy succeeding. That’s the biggest problem that I have with this book, because otherwise I enjoy catching up with familiar characters. A minor complaint is the book doesn’t take place or even mention Camp Half Blood which was a cornerstone of the original books.

On to what I enjoyed. I really liked catching up with Percy in his senior year at a new high school. We get a lot of scenes of Percy living at home with his mom, Sally, and stepdad Paul. I love seeing the day-to-day life and building relationships between characters. We also get to see Percy and Annabeth as boyfriend-girlfriend, which is sweet, but at times annoying how much he refers to her as his girlfriend. Also, Annabeth feels a bit different from the original books, but that could be because she has matured. Grover is still Grover and we get some mentions of his girlfriend Juniper. It’s honestly just really nice to be back with the trio on a new adventure.

As for new characters, we meet a few new gods and one new demigod. We meet Ganymede the cup bearer to the gods, Iris the messenger goddess, Ellison a river god and Gary the god of old age. The new gods are fine and of course have heard of Percy. But it don’t have any real effect on the overall Percy Jackson universe. We’ll see if they appear in future books. Iris seems like she could be an interesting god and foil for the trio going forward. Similar to Hera or Aphrodite in the original series. Blanche is the demigod daughter of Iris and we only get a brief meeting with her. She’s into photography and is, as Grover describes her, so cool’. I wish we got more with Blanche, she seems like she could be an interesting new demigod, with her mellow/earthy vibes. Maybe she’ll return in another book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book as a side quest adventure but wish that it had stakes with real consequences. I love returning to this world and seeing the trio interact again. We also get a bit more interaction with Percy and Poseidon, which is sweet. Not sure where this new trilogy of books is going to go, but I wish Chalice of the Gods had built up a more interesting arc to look forward to reading.