Space Ships & Other Trips by Raven Oak
Publisher: Grey Sun Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, LGBTQ, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbePart II of this debut collection by multi-award-winning author and artist Raven Oak brings together speculative fiction stories from the past ten years of her career, ranging from space adventures with a dash of mystery and other near-future tales to post-apocalyptic stories and deep dives into the mind.
You’ll find closed-ship mysteries, foul-acting apps, talking cats, retail hell, and hacked programs in these ELEVEN speculative fiction pieces. Space Ships & Other Trips contains FIVE never-before seen stories for your enjoyment, including a tie-in story from Jeff Sturgeon’s The Last Cities of Earth universe.
STORIES INCLUDED: The Loss of Luna, Hungry, Mouth, Only a Bird, Q-Be, Hands, Ol’ St. Nick, Drip, Level Up, Scout’s Honor, and D.E.A.T.H.
How much hope do you have for the future?
“Only a Bird” explored what happened after some students found an injured bird outside of their classroom. The empathy they had for that creature was beautiful. I especially enjoyed their conversations that compared it to the robotic birds that had just begun to be released into the wild. This was a sweet and gentle story that could fit into so many different genres.
There were several stories in this collection that I thought would have been better with more development. “Drip” was one of them. As intrigued as I was by the protagonist’s struggle with insomnia, I had a lot of unanswered questions about the world they lived in. For example, I would have liked to know what was going on with all of the out-of-control fires they were worrying about as they tried to go to sleep. Was this an unusual portion of daily life in their world or was it something frightening that ordinary people had no choice but to deal with regularly? These sorts of questions about the world building kept popping up for me and influenced the rating I ended up choosing.
To be perfectly honest with all of you, eating out of a dumpster isn’t something I ever expect to read about in the science fiction genre. The fact that “Level Up” began with a scene about the main character doing this intrigued me, especially once she was interrupted a moment later just as she was about to enjoy an English muffin. There are so many plot twists I wish I could dive into, but this is one of those tales that works best for readers who know as little as possible about what is to come. What I can say is that it was creative and made me want more.
This is the second anthology in a series that does not need to be read in order. Just like with Dragon Springs & Other Things, be sure to read the author’s notes to learn about where her ideas came from!
Space Ships & Other Trips was full of surprises.
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