Jennifer Wells - Beyond the Stars - At Galaxy's Edge

Great stories, great writers and a blisteringly good collection.

I really don’t know why I’m surprised anymore to find that the quality of every story is so good!

Every one of these stories is excellent. All of them stretch your mind into thinking new thoughts and seeing old thoughts in new ways.

I enjoyed every story in this collection... in fact, I loved most of them... and I’m excited to see more by these authors.

Great book that entertained and left me thinking. Thanks for the chance to discover these new worlds!

In a far corner of the galaxy, uninhabited Seed World Four-Seven-Alpha experiences a loss of plant life that can’t be explained by satellite imagery.

When a deep space Marine Scout and his modified K9 are ordered to investigate, they discover something that makes them redefine the term “uninhabited.”

In the aftermath of the war, Eraser Squads were formed for one reason: to rid the universe of every last Scythian. When Tom, a reluctant Marine, tracks down a lone Scythian being harbored by a group of human conscientious objectors, his own conscience gets the better of him.

When the galaxy’s greatest bounty hunter decides to help his target spend her husband’s money instead of doing his job, his employer sends the next five best scumbags after them both. As one would imagine, bloodshed ensues.

Can even the best of the best survive against such odds and still protect the woman he lo—uh, lusts after?

A deadly attack by the hands of General Zika leaves an entire planet dead and an open quest for Quarium—the most sought-after molecule in the Old System. As Hyleesh walks the shores of the destroyed planet searching for answers, he finds the most unlikely of survivors.

In a future too distant to measure, a hyper-evolved breed of humans calling themselves Anadens rule multiple galaxies and alien species with an iron fist. But a small group of dissidents are willing to pursue any and all measures, no matter how extreme, to return freedom to the universe. Now one rebel Anaden will make the ultimate sacrifice in order to break the reigning Directorate’s stranglehold on civilization—however many times it takes.

The second man to step foot on Mars now wants to go back. And be the first man to die on Mars.

But dying isn’t always easy.

Just one final target stands between a weary assassin and a life of freedom and wealth. But time is running short: the mark knows that he’s coming, and he’s not the only contractor on the job...

Wesley Voncamp the 16th is the best relic hunter in the galaxy. Well maybe not the best. Or the 100th best. But he’s a relic hunter, after a legendary prize. All he needs is a crew, a ship, and his allergy medicine.

Captain Jareyn Brook’s Interstellar Emergency Service operates far from the red tape of the capital world of Meltia—and that’s exactly how she likes it. But when her ship is destroyed and a government subcommittee threatens to shut the IES down entirely, Brook will have to brave the depths of the Meltian bureaucracy to save her command from legal destruction.

After escaping Earth, and the rigid expectations of Society, Liza Roth makes a new life for herself as an asteroid miner on the outer edges of the galaxy. It’s a grim and dusty living, and she never expects to fall in love, let alone dream of a better life ahead. But when tragedy strikes, Liza must decide whether to bury herself in the ashes of the past, or find the strength to move forward and light her own way into the future.

Tabitha, a Queen’s Ranger and follower from before the Queen left Earth to take the fight to the Kurtherians, is sick.

She’s sick of being bored.

It has taken Tabitha and her team thirty years to get her assigned system to be good—mostly—with the idea of law and order. Her boss understands that she needs a vacation. One that doesn’t involve just lying around on the beach and sipping fruity drinks. And he knows the right place to send her...

Bectal’s World, your typical planet of scum and villainy.

Humans need machines to fly beyond the limits of our galaxy, to explore the stars.

That’s the Rora’s assignment: colonize the next Entertainment planet. One old AI and a crew of five humans serving five-year terms as captain aboard a cargo spaceship that’s more junker than transport. Together, human and machine fly straight and true for their distant goal.

Until space sickness changes their schedule.

Until madness consumes the ship.

I SPEND A lot of time contemplating what kind of future I want to portray in my stories. Will it be the nearly utopian kind of future depicted in the Star Trek franchise where the antagonists are primarily non-human? Or will it be dark and gritty like Battlestar Galactica where every character is their own worst enemy? The Star Trek approach gives us hope for a better future for all, but is it realistic? Galactica, on the other hand, paints humanity with the darkest brush, rarely giving us even a glimpse of joy.

Humans will always have their foibles. They will be misled, misinformed, act rashly, especially when afraid. The human gestalt will always be complex and fallible, no matter how good and true our intentions may be. Bringing these failings to life through story in a way that may help us learn to do better is the author’s job.

Of course I want to imagine a future with total social equity, where we have relieved all of society’s ills, but I’ve often wondered if that is plausible. Like the brave little Dutch boy, we plug the hole in the infernal dike with our fingers, but just as we congratulate ourselves for a job well done, another tiny rivulet of water springs to life just out of reach. Or we run out of fingers. Or help takes too long to come. Or the leak isn’t noticed until it’s too late and has already become a flood. But perhaps it isn’t a dike at all. Perhaps it is the hull of a ship, leaking precious air.

Taking what we know about the human condition and transporting that to Mars, or even as far as the stars, doesn’t change that. Humanity is still tribal, no matter how fast our jets, ships, and internet connections can take us around this blue globe. And aliens, should we ever have the pleasure to encounter them, will have their own set of problems, which may be unfathomable to us. The clash of these paradigms will raise the stakes, the drama, and the impact of the inevitable disasters. Xenophobia, eternally a significant problem worldwide, may be the only thing that can unite us as a species against an external intelligence, even if that intelligence turns out to be friendly.