Review of David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This gorgeously thick volume of short stories and poems is a charity anthology supporting the Association for Science Education, the United Kingdom’s professional association for teachers of science and science technicians and “the largest subject association in the UK” (p. 11), with proceeds going to benefit the ASE’s wider educational mission. Hannah Russell, the ASE’s chief executive officer, provides a brief introduction to the volume that stresses the importance of novel ways to engage the wider community with science of all kinds — such ways including, naturally, science fiction and speculative fiction more generally.
I expected more science fiction and less fantasy, and the quality of the stories varied. But even so, as a whole, the stories and poems in this collection made good on what was promised: They both entertain and instruct. And across the board, the poems were the high points. I do not usually have a very high tolerance for poetry, but I really enjoyed so many of the poems in this anthology.
As usual, we’ll review each of the stories in turn, and link the reviews back here when they are published.
- “Petrichor” by Hannah Hulbert
- “Hell With Friends” by Emily Deibler
- “Carry On” by Shelby Van Pelt
- “Dark Constellations Beneath Electron Microscope” by Carla Durbach
- “Another Heart” by Bryan Arneson
- “We Feel Autumn In our Bones” by Joe Butler
- “Nothing Lasts” by David Estringel
- “As Long As You Remember” by Marla Cantrell
- “Do We Build a House to Stand Forever?” by Katie Conrad
- “Boxes” by Lauren Barker
- “Particular Poisons” by Fiona West
- “Sounding Light” by John C. Mannone
- “A Different Kind of Death” by A. K. Alliss
- “The Space Traveler’s Tense” by Benjamin S. Grossberg
- “The Space Traveler’s Husband” by Benjamin S. Grossberg
- “Kankydip & the Kcheevitz” by Taylor Cook
- “Star Tipping” by Jonathan Coolidge
- “Haven” by Victoria Kochan
- “Gliese 581g” by John C. Mannone
- “Summer’s End” by Alexis Ames
- “Kaitlin’s Unicorn” by L. L. Asher
- “Perennial” by Laura Duerr
- “Blind Charity” by Lyle Enright
- “The Einsteiners” by J. Askew
- “Callia” by Justin M. Siebert
- “A Unicorn in the Time of Dinosaurs” by L. C. Street
- “Freedom in Briers” by Rachel Hailey
- “Good Riddance” by Jennifer Worrell
- “Four Horsemen of London” by L. H. Westerlund
- “Meat Me in the Living Room” by Michelle Enelen
- “Uncompromised” by Ike Iblis
- “A Deal is a Deal is a Deal” by Beth Anderson
- “Legato” by Brian A. Salmons
- “Les Korrigan” by JBMulligan
- “Reincarnation” by Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert