Review
Title: Trace the Stars
Editors: Joe Monson and Jaleta Clegg
Publisher: Hemelein Publications and LTUE Press
Genre: Science fiction, short story
Year Published: 2019
Number of Pages: 306
Binding: Paper
ISBN: 978-1642780000
Price: 17.99
Reviewed by Adam McLain for the Association of Mormon Letters
Trace the Stars is a galaxy-crossing selection of space opera and hard science fiction chosen from writers related to, invested in, and trained by Life, the Universe, and Everything, a yearly symposium in Provo, Utah, that brings together the best of the Rocky Mountain West and the world beyond. From coalescing, emotional stories to grand, star-spanning epics, these stories will fulfill readers who want a varied, exciting, and engrossing collection from authors established and new.
Science fiction takes readers to the stars in epic proportion. Although difficult to perceive on the scale of the short story, Trace the Stars delivers epics in miniature. For example, in “Sweetly the Dragon Dreams,” David Farland takes readers on a science fantasy journey, in which nymphs, dragons and humans must contend with a nefarious, star-eating, robot-like nemesis coming after the refugees to end their existence once and for all. Paul Genesse’s “Neo Nihon” deals with the largescale ramifications of biological warfare, space colonization, and human determination as the feud between China and Japan plays out on an interstellar level. Confining their epic worldbuilding into the length and format of the short story, Farland and Genesse hone in on a few people’s responses to the apocalypse and the survival and revenge responses to it, crafting stories that have epic consequences from individual actions.
The “epicness” of a story isn’t just about apocalypse and worlds ending, though; it can also be about the ramifications of what characters do within a story. “Making Legends” by Jaleta Clegg does this beautifully as it weaves the story of three crewmates stranded in space, slowly descending into the gravitational pull of Jupiter; how the characters each react to their doom is what makes the legend of both the characters and the author.
Indeed, the epic doesn’t just need to be within giant spaceships or world-shattering mega weapons for a piece to leave a reader astounded or awed. It can also be in the quiet becoming that occurs when characters dedicate themselves to a task. In Julia H. West’s “Sea of Chaos,” for example, sets a course into the Maelstrom, a roiling part of space in which ships do not return; the story uses VR as a tool to cross space and time as spacefaring and wayfaring merge into a roiling adventure. “Fido” by James Wymore looks similar and different as it portrays the alien abduction of an astronomer and what it happens when someone knows your thoughts, desires, and drives.
One of the artful styles of the short story is covering the epic in the shadow and mirrors that hint at the larger world while concisely holding to a self-cohesive story. “Angles of Incidence” by Nancy Fulda uses linguistics, archaeology, and galactic meetings to embrace a story of stepping out of comfort zones and developing new skills that hint at the larger machinations of galaxy-sized governments in the background. The reader is left wanting to know more about this universe but also satisfied with the growth of the character. In a similar fashion, “A Veil of Leaves” by M. K. Hutchins, a story about interactions between civilizations and the effects they have on people’s lives, thrums with the vibrancy of a crafted universe but situates that within the will to live of her main character.
Alien contact—a moment that anyone could deem as epic—can also be seen in miniature through the short stories “Log Entry” by Kevin J. Anderson, “The Ghost Conductor of the Interstellar Express” by Brad R. Torgersen, and “Glass Beads” by Emily Martha Sorensen. Anderson’s alien contact is subtle and mysterious; the story follows the log entries of a scout ship that discovers something unusual and how it reports it back to base. Torgersen’s story hints at the miraculous universe beyond as it deals with the mysterious disappearance of a mining worker and his sister who wants to find him. Sorensen grasps miscommunication and dangerous deals as people aboard a spaceship haggle with aliens wanting to occupy Jupiter.
Yet it is within the quiet, less “epic” stories within Trace the Stars that numerous authors really begin to shine. Sandra Tayler’s “The Road Not Taken” takes place within a single café, as two people who are each other meet and discuss the life that could’ve, should’ve, would’ve been for the other; the staccato prose and the different characterizations of Caraline and Cara grant the reader to consider “what if” as the characters reveal themselves to each other.
Indeed, sometimes science fiction is found in the mundane rather than the grandiose. John M. Olsen’s “Working on Cloud Nine” focalizes on a crew aboard an orbital station as they deal with the radicalization of one of their fellow technicians and the heroism it takes to stop another determined human being. Other times the mundane becomes the reason for the grandiose, as in Eric G. Swedin’s “Knowing Me,” which considers a man’s loss of his wife in light of a cataclysmic event on Earth and the decisions a broken heart makes.
In this sense, then, science fiction is also about what makes or breaks humans in severe situations. Whether in space or aliens or virtual reality or time travel or a different estranged setting, science fiction stories contend with the choices that connect people. Eric James Stone’s “Freefall” and Wulf Moon’s “The Last Ray of Light” beautifully illustrate the lengths by which humans sacrifice for each other. Stone’s story occurs in the hemisphere between space and Earth, near an orbital elevator that has malfunctioned, while Moon’s delves into the farthest reaches of the Earth, as a technician breaks the rules to save an elevator in a world with a dwindling supply of materials.
Science fiction characters are not just matched with heroic choices, though; they also help us think about the consequences of lone actions. “Cycle 335” by Beth Buck works through the consequences of first contact as Julie responds to meeting the other for what seems like the first time. Far away from first contact, Daniel Friend’s “Launch” enters the courtroom, as the world grapples with a titanic disaster of interstellar travel gone wrong and who should take the blame for what happened.
In outlining the seventeen stories contained in Trace the Stars and discussing science fiction broadly, I hope to show that the vibrant collection accomplishes what great science fiction is meant to accomplish: cognitive estrangement that is delightful and insightful. Indeed, Trace the Stars is an excellent read not only because it accomplishes that but also because it supports LTUE, which is where many writers discover their own starlight and shoot through the night sky into the vast unknown.