"The Space Between the Stars" is the story of Jamie, a woman who survives an illness that kills 99.9% of humans. Her almost solitary quiet existence on a distant planetary outpost is suddenly too solitary and she finds herself alone and trying to find other survivors. She teams up with a band of survivors who first travel to a planet where they may not be welcome as survivors of the outbreak and there is a plan to repopulate using forced breeding. They eventually travel back to Earth where she will have to make a choice between a new future and a grasp back to some thread of the past. This is a thought-provoking sci fi/ dystopian story that I enjoyed!

Although this story has sci-fi and dystopian elements, it is still very much a character driven story. Most of the focus is on our main character, Jamie. We find out that she is still haunted by her ex-lover and by a miscarriage. She wonders if she will ever get another chance to make amends and if she does get to make amends is it to try to go back to the way they once were or is it to make amends to find peace. Jamie will have to decide this for herself. We the readers get a good look at her thought process and how she goes about trying to figure out what she wants. To some degree, this book almost feels like a spiritual journey for Jamie.

We learn a lot about Jamie and the other survivors that include a priest and a scientist. The differences between all of the survivors were really interesting to me. We see how each of them views the new world and their place in the new world differently and the perspectives are definitely interesting.

I liked some of the concepts in the book. Yeah, the epidemic has been done before a lot but what makes this one different is the idea of interplanetary epidemics added to the very different worlds that people can choose from. For instance, Jamie comes from a place called Solitaire that doesn't really have many people before the epidemic in contrast to how Earth is at the time. I did wish for more detail on things like how the different places came to be and why they are the way that they are. More back story would have been nice but overall, this was still a satisfying character driven story.

Take a story about space travel and colonization of other planets, combine that with a horrific virus that wipes out 99.9999 percent of the universe's population, and mix it up with a rag-tag bunch of survivors forced to make decisions about what to do with the rest of their lives. What you should have is a very interesting story that would have me nonstop reading. Instead, there is The Space Between the Stars.

To be fair, The Space Between the Stars has its moments. Yet, I think I missed something about the novel which would have put everything that happens into better context. This is a novel that is heavy on philosophy, and I tend to space out in philosophic discussions in books. I do this not because I find them tedious, even though they can be, but because I do not want to spend my time reading about fictional characters discussing the meaning of life. There is more than enough time in real life to have such weighty discussions.

Jamie makes for an interesting protagonist even if I don't quite understand her reasoning. More than once during the novel, I found myself wondering if she was not somewhere on the autism spectrum given her need to avoid people. There was later reference to her parents' passing when she was young and unresolved grief issues, yet something about that as an explanation does not quite make sense. Perhaps this is due to the fact that more than half the novel had passed before this was first mentioned, or perhaps it is due to something I missed altogether. I just know that I never understood her, even though a creditable size of the novel is spent in her mind while she works through these issues.

I wanted The Space Between the Stars to be more action and adventure than it actually is. There are some scenes that are exciting, interspersed between the serious stuff. There were just enough that it would keep me reading and hoping for the next exciting scene. Instead, what it ends up being is a fairly serious novel about survival and, well, the meaning of life. I don't know whether my disappointment is a result of my inability to carefully read the synopsis or if the synopsis promises more than it delivers. Either way, this is a novel better suited to someone who enjoys philosophy and discussing such ideas as humanity's responsibility upon the apocalypse.

I am a sucker for space exploration books, especially post-apocalyptic ones. Even moreso "Something is wrong with the earth and we have to go elsewhere" narratives. This book was, at its core, about a woman and her relationships to other people, particularly her family and herself. The space stuff is a bit of background scene setting but I think this worked out fairly well. Would have liked to have read more about the weird caste system and some of the pre-history to this novel, but I enjoyed this for what it is as well.

A story about the survival of human race after a fatal flu epidemic, set among the human sprawl among the stars. A band of survivors make the trek back to earth to see what is left, and examine the meaning of being human, finding family, and forming connections. An entertaining read about survival of the human race and the importance of being connected to other humans. A good read to take on summer vacation.

Not at all what I expected. I thought it was going to be super futuristic, all in space, with your typical trapped in space story. I was surprised by how realistic and relatable the relationships and problems were. Although the fact that everyone that was infected and died just turned to dust, may have been just a little too clean for me. Otherwise a great story.

Unfortunately, I was unable to download the book prior to its expiration.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the rocky north shores of Lake Superior searching for agates, seaglass, tumbled aluminum, and the like. There are guide books that will tell you the best places to find one lake-tumbled thing or another, but really, the best resource is that strange game of telephone you can hook into if you ask your waitress, or that couple over there with the dog, or this guy you work with who has a cousin. You can pick up the pieces of something that was once whole, and is now ground down into soft-edged obscurity, through the strange dilating connections of the social network—and I don’t mean the one online.


The Space Between the Stars
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In The Space Between the Stars, Jamie Allenby wakes up alone, after three days of shivering and fever, on a sparsely-populated planet on the outskirts of the earthly range. The disease that sickened her has killed 99.9 percent (and then some) of the population of all the colonized worlds. As she examines her homestead farm, filled with the dead dust of all the inhabitants she once knew, she tries to do the math: carry the one, subtract a three, and there shouldn’t be even a single person alive on her world. She’s a fraction of a possibility, and one that wasn’t that big to begin with.

The disease that has ravaged all the known worlds is a nasty piece of work. Not only does it kill most people just because it can, but if people try to stick together—parents and children, friends and lovers, or doctors and patients—the disease jumps from host to host and amplifies. The only tiny possibility of surviving—a possibility that is slim indeed—lies in quarantining yourself from everyone: children, parents, lovers, friends; everyone. Most choose instead to die with their loved ones, giving up the infinitesimal chance of survival for that last moment of succor.

The people left—those able both to lock themselves alone, and beat the ugly odds of this disease—are damaged folk indeed. Our viewpoint character, Jamie, fled to the outer reaches of colonized space after an ugly miscarriage with her long-term boyfriend. The end of everyone–everything–tips her into nostalgic reverie for her distant lover, who she is sure tries to contact her in the final, sputtering moments of inter-planet communication. Jamie rides to the nearest city with a space port on a sighing nag, because all the cars are thumb-locked. There, she finds two strange companions: an ex-priest and a harshly religious biologist. Together, they are taken up onto an inter-planetary ship by misanthropic weirdos.

Everyone—everyone—in The Space Between the Stars is a misanthropic weirdo in one way or another. Once on the ship, Jamie and her motley crew run a picaresque through the known planets, picking up cast-offs and misfits, the kind of people who can survive a plague that demands you live out your illness (and your life) alone. After some maneuvering, they land on the Northumberland coast of Jamie’s childhood. Here is where she rock-picked for the tumbled seaglass of her youth; here is where she tried (and tries) to put all the pieces together.

The metaphor of seaglass—broken pieces tumbled to a scratched-surface smoothness—runs through the entirety of this aching, lonely novel. This is messy, personal stuff, flashing just there on the rocky beach, visible when the light catches it just right. If your predilections run to the more science fictional—if you prefer the scientifically plausible over the emotionally relevant—this isn’t the book for you. Anne Corlett isn’t detailing a biological plague, but a personal one, tumbled on the rocks of personal history. It was lovely to walk this last beach, at the end.

The Space Between the Stars is available now.

This one started out well but shortly into it, it just fell apart for me. The MC was pretty whiny and only certain aspects of their world were from the future. I thought I was going to be reading a post-apocalyptic book and that is so not what I got. I ended up DNFing this one about half way through. It just totally fell apart and just became a boring read. The only real sci-fi aspect of this book is the star travel.

This novel tells of a future of space travel and social/class expectations. The main character, Jamie, is trying to escape relationships and social entanglements. This science fiction tale is socially based, with little emphasis on technical and scientific principles. An unhappy beginning turns into a story filled with surprises, and positive endings.

A virus spreads across the known universe and wipes out most of humanity. Jamie awakes from her deathbed, to find she is the only survivor for miles around on the planet, a colony of earth's. castaways. The virus has a 99.99% death toll. Against all odds she discovers two other survivors on the planet, by signaling an off-world ship, the survivors set-off for earth with Captain Callan and his only crew-member to survive, Gracie. After rescuing other survivors, fighting-off angry miners, escaping well-intentioned bureaucrats, and crash-landing on earth, many threads of the story come together and Jamie overcomes her distrust of other humans.

The fullness of the novel predicts humanity to continue as it has for millennia, using better technical tools to traverse the universe and discover practical solutions to problems real and imagined. The story encourages the best of humanity and discourages well-intended social efforts to organize and alter humans. The writing is clear and consistent.

True Peace Exists in the Space Between the Stars…
In the future, man has out grown Earth, leading to forced immigration programs to colonize other worlds, all throughout the universe. Society has been classified into echelons, which determine desirability and status, both on Earth and on the new worlds. People live on top of each other, clinging together in communities, as we always have, setting the stage for a plague ofImage result for space travel gif epic proportions. A fever virus sweeps the universe, turning whole cities of people to dust…the survival rate is staggeringly low, less than 1%. The only people who survive are those who are able to quarantine themselves…so it is that desire for human companionship that brings about the downfall of whole communities and worlds.

Against this bleak backdrop, The Space Between the Stars, explores how humanity might seek to reestablish itself, and what choices survivors might be faced with. Should society force people into breeding programs, and to accept jobs that they do not want, for the good of whole? Or should people set up small communes of like minded people, in which everyone has the ability to contribute what they wish? Does money and property retain value? Who should be in charge…should the formerly wealthy and Image result for romantic couple standing at edge of sea gifbetter educated automatically receive advantages? And through all of these quandaries runs the question of religion, and what role God played in the calamity of the plague, and how his will should (or should not) shape the future.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! In addition to its probing of the deep questions listed above, it also features a slow building love story, moments of cliff hanger worthy action, and a somewhat violent (but satisfying) conclusion. The Space Between the Stars is thought provoking, in ways that will have you thinking about what it means to be a member of the human race long after you have read the last page…definitely a worthy addition to your summer must-read list!

Jaime Allenby is living on a distant Earth Colony when a deadly virus almost destroys humanity. She fears that she is the only person left until two more people arrive and a passing space ship picks them up. She hopes to return to Earth to make a new start, but what kind of world will it be?

This book read more like Literary Fiction, so if you are looking for droids, intergalactic battles, and aliens keep looking because you aren't going to find them here. The story is character driven and the MC is introspective. The storyline has many sociopolitical and human nature elements. As cliche as it sounds, thought provoking is the first thing that comes to mind when reflecting on this book. The writing is solid and smooth, and the author's setting descriptions are wonderful

I am an emotional reader, which means if a book is well-written, I become deeply invested in the story. When a character is raging, I am raging. When a character is confused, so am I. Haunting and contemplative, The Space Between The Stars, by Anne Corlett, tugged at my soul. This book explores what it would mean for humanity if all but a handful of people survived a catastrophic epidemic. Would society reorganize in the same way? Or would it mean a clean slate, a chance to live exactly as one liked? The suspense and action of the survivor's journey is peppered with quieter moments of reflection that I found lovely and moving. This is a book that will make anyone a fan of speculative fiction.

What I Liked:
Characters:

Jamie is an expert at running away from her problems. After a long-term relationship crumbles, Jamie takes a job on a far-flung planet. She doesn't want to deal with people, just focus on her work as a veterinarian. When she finds herself alone after a devastating virus hits the universe, she is surprised to realize that she does crave human contact. I loved following her evolution from avoiding any strong emotional attachment, to finding what it means to live without baggage.

Eventually, Jamie finds other survivors. Callan, the captain of the spaceship that picks her up, is another strong character with a past he is trying to avoid. I pictured him as a young Harrison Ford type guy.

The other members of the rag tag group of survivors all have compelling backstories, particularly Rena. Rena is a scientist who is also a religious zealot. She is convinced that the virus is part of God's plan and sees a new world order emerging from the disaster. But others feel this is just Rena's way of coping with the devastation.

Story:

I thought the story was very compelling. There was a good mix of showing small details (would people even use money anymore?), and larger issues (would women be compelled to have babies to repopulate humanity?) that would confront the survivors. I was floored by the class system that was re-emerging almost immediately. The author is British and I can't help but wonder if this was a statement on the British class system, which is still significant in England today.

Beyond that, the story was full of moments where Jamie questions what it means to be a part of society. Who gets to make the rules? Do people have a choice to be part of the survivor group or can they set out on their own. With few people left, some argue that the survivors have an obligation to stick together. Others see this as an opportunity to steer their own ship and forge their destiny for themselves.

What I Was Mixed About:
Astronomical coincidences:

The author makes a point to mention that the death rate for this virus is 99.9999%, which means that the survival rate is 0.0001%. Yet Jamie manages to find several people among the survivors that she knows. And many of them also are British, and want to go back to Earth to a small village that is conveniently right near Jamie's hometown. I know that this is essential to the plot, but having all those stars align stretches the story's credibility.

Overall, this is a book that made me think about society and the choices we make to either participate in it, or pull away from others. I think great science fiction (or speculative fiction?) uses over the top situations as a means to explore deeper questions of humanity, and this book did just that.

I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I think I've let this book ferment for long enough. My thoughts have been stirring over the past week about it, and I think it's finally time to sit down and write a review.

I will warn you: this review is going to be longer (maybe less organized) and more honest than most. Some of my personal beliefs and views will be included, so if you are one to easily disagree with others who may not hold your own beliefs, please refrain from commenting before contemplating. I mean that with the utmost respect.

(I feel ridiculous needing to state that disclaimer. We can all be adults here, right?)

Here we go. But let's start out with a summary, shall we?

---------------------------------

"Survival was a one-in-a-million chance. The virus was a near-perfect killing machine. Contagious as hell, it had a vicious little sting in its tail. It mutated with every reinfection. A single exposure was survivable---with luck---but it was as though it knew humans."

Jamie has survived the worst virus to plague the human race yet. She's lucky. In fact, she's very lucky; only one-in-a-million people were estimated to survive the sickness at ravaged the population and planets.

Living on a small settlement planet, Jamie had liked the life of semi-seclusion. Willingly emigrating from overpopulated Earth, she found herself working as a vet working in animal reproduction. Although there weren't many to begin with, all of the ranch hands that had been working with her before were now merely dust on the wind.

When Jamie came through the worst of the illness, one thought, and one person crossed her mind: her estranged husband, Daniel. After most of the population had been wiped out, had he survived? The chances weren't likely. They told each other that if anything were to happen, they would meet again on Earth.

That is where she is heading; to see if not only Daniel, but if anyone else had survived.

---------------------------------

This was probably one of the best-written (in terms of depth) books I've read in 2017 so far, but also the hardest to rate. I felt like pulling my hair out trying to figure out how many stars this gets.

The world, or world(s)-building is moderately done, but could have used more explanation and detail. The characters are very complex, and the plot line is well planned out.

Take note that this is definitely an adult novel, because its underlying themes, messages, and innuendos are not for the faint, or young, of heart.

Character Breakdown:

I have very mixed feelings about the main character, Jaime. I don't know if we are meant to feel bad for her, but I don't. Unfortunately, I kept thinking to myself, I really don't like this character. If I were to meet her in real life, we'd be having a hearty sit-down-and-face-reality chat. Many of the issues that she had were completely self-inflicted.

I'm a realist, so when someone tries to pass the blame onto another, it just doesn't sit well with me. (This doesn't go to say that I never do this. Because we all fail in all areas of life at some point.) So just own up to your involvement, good or bad!

Don't get me wrong here, being a realist doesn't mean I'm not empathetic. But empathy and sympathy are not the same thing. The way in which this book is written puts the reader in a position where you almost have to feel bad for Jaime, or else you are criminalized for it. I don't believe this is a good tactic of writing, especially when the MC is in the wrong.

Feeling bad for someone, involves sympathy. Understanding a person's situation, requires empathy. Empathy and sympathy are two very different views, and sympathy has no place here if the reader wants to view Jaime from a constructive lens.

Considering her past and situation, things happened that were challenging, and undoubtedly tragic. Each person internalizes tragedy in different ways, and Jaime's was to internalize everything and close herself off from others who were close to her. Tragedy can be a beautiful thing; it can open the door for other opportunities--if one only looks for them, and allows them to take root.

Something I just couldn't wrap my head around was how and why did Jaime consent to marrying Daniel if she didn't love him in the first place? Can someone truly fall out of love with another person simply based on the aspect of love itself? I don't think so. Here's why: love in a relationship is not a standalone. Love must be accompanied by: sacrifice, commitment, empathy, selflessness, honesty, trust...the list goes on.

Is this book allowing the MC to "cop-out" from commitment that she agreed to and had the freedom to decline? Definitely.

Jaime closed herself off to her husband after they had a miscarriage. The irony of this situation is that she didn't even want a child in the first place, and allowed herself to just be talked into things that she did and didn't want, rather than have a healthy discussion about it with her husband.

Her overall disinterest in the matter, and the fact that she referred to the baby as a "near human," immediately reveal her viewpoint on the matter. I know this is a hotly-debated topic in our society today that I won't get into here for the sake of having a ridiculously-long review, but I think it was necessary to point out because she also had inconsistencies here. If the baby wasn't human (yet,) why did she care so much when she lost it?

I was glad that she did finally realize that she was as much of the issue in her situation as everyone else that she passed the blame to.

"It was something you could control," Lowry finished. Jamie didn't answer for a long moment. All those times she'd battened down the hatches against her mother, her stepmother, Daniel, she'd always felt under siege. Like her silence was something that had been forced upon her, not something she'd chosen. Had there really been a stubborn little nub of satisfaction, right down at the bottom of it all? She turned over a couple of memories, examining them. Daniel, after the baby, begging her to talk to him. Her stepmother, coming up with the idea for things they could do together. "Yes," she said. "I think that was it."

Because of everything stated above, I think that Daniel was over-criminalized throughout and in the end, and became the self-fulfilling prophesy Jaime wanted him to be. Because she was looking for an excuse to separate herself from him, it worked out all-too-perfectly that Daniel turned out to be the shady creepazoid that he was. Up until that point, he wasn't. If the book was true to his character, I really don't think Daniel would have ended up being portrayed the way that he was. I actually felt worse for him than I did Jaime, because she did him wrong. Being completely dishonest, Daniel was constantly on the receiving end of her passiveness towards him and everything about their relationship.

"It was never quite the same. When heaven came within reach, faith found that it wasn't welcome after all. Very few people took their religion with them to other worlds."

Lowry had been a Catholic priest at one point back on Earth, and also on one of the planet settlements. Somewhere along the lines, he moved away from his responsibilities as a priest and Rena became a love interest. Even though he states that he's "moved away" from religion and has "his own type of religion now," he seemed very conflicted and discontent with that. I don't know what exactly to say about him, personally. He was great for helping other characters out with sorting out their own issues, but there wasn't anyone in the story to help him with his own. I know there is a lot more to be said about him, but I just am not sure which stance to take on him.

Rena Rena Rena. Rena was a brilliant bioenginner scientist who had a very damaged past. There is so much irony surrounding her character that it almost negates everything else that this book is trying to accomplish. Rena clearly has developed some sort of manic/depressive disorder. Where majority of the characters are empathetic towards other characters who have "setbacks" she is also overly-criminalized for hers.

I very much dislike how Rena was portrayed in this story. Another character done wrong, she became one of the "religious stereotypes"---prejudice, critical, two-faced---times 1000, and then some. Everything she said and did, she did so hiding behind the name of "god." I'd like to point out here that the "god" that she was referring to is not the God Christianity follows. Never ever would he exclude any of his people in the way that Rena did with Finn and Mila. Nor do any of his teachings say to do so...EVER! So, this stereotype, doesn't represent a Christian---it represents a person who says they believe in something, but doesn't follow those beliefs, and replaces them with their own and all sorts of hogwash.

One good thing that came from Rena's character was that she made one reflect on the fact that we all have pockets of prejudice in our character. By no means am I saying this is right or good, I am simply pointing it out as a fact that addressing those prejudices always needs to stay at the forefront of our minds.

Callan was unfortunately a "filler" character more than anything. He had a few good lines here and there, but didn't have much of a purpose other than getting Jaime off the planet and to become a emotionless love-interest.

Finn, an autistic teen didn't necessarily have much "page-time," but his role was huge. He constantly challenged the reader to address their prejudices towards disabilities and how they aren't what they seem to be.

Mila, born in a brothel and of lowly status, had become a prostitute herself to survive. Despite her tough life, she has remained tender-hearted. I loved how her character, although experiencing many injustices, was able to be kind and empathetic towards others even if they were cruel towards her.

Jamie's Step-mother (I cannot recall her name!) was a character that I wish we could have seen more of. What we did see showed us the extent of Jaime's isolation from others, and how even with people trying to reach out to her, wasn't enough.

Gracie, Callan's engineer, also didn't play much of a role, or have much impact on me personally.

The point is that all of these characters have some sort of baggage. It depends on how they deal with that stuff that indicates where they will wind up in the end.

Back to the book, itself.

There is so much happening mentally that the pacing of this book didn't even phase me. At times, it slowed down. But it never was fast either. It wasn't like most other sci-fi stories, with loads of action, oddities, and the like. This was more of a contemplative fiction with some sci-fi twists.

With everything said above, I couldn't help but feel that this book was attacking religions, especially Christianity, in very stereotypical ways. For a society who speaks against believing stereotypes, I'm surprised at the way this story turned out to be exactly that. (When I mean stereotypical, I mean ways that have been attached to the designation of "Christian" that are portrayed by people not following what their beliefs teach them to do.)

Points that the book is trying to push here are:

1. There is no God, (or gods, depending on the religion.) Hence, where the title "The Space Between the Stars" originates from.

2. People who are religious, especially "devout" are prejudice maniacs. This was exemplified in Rena's character.

3. The significance of life is up to you, and within you.

And so on and so forth.

With all of that being said, I'd like to point out that I appreciated how much this book made me think. I could have easily pulled out the "offended" card and DNF'ed, but I like things that challenge my beliefs, and make me think about them in depth. This book made me do that. A lot. (If you couldn't tell.) I think as people in general, we need offense in our lives, or else we never have the opportunity to cement our beliefs and views, nor have much of an ability to grow. As humans, we are made to thrive in a challenge. We grow when opposition is placed right before us, and this book succeeded at that---speaking only for myself. I think that if you are a contemplative reader, who doesn't mind being challenged, offended, and slightly put-off, this might be a read for you.

Vulgarity: Quite a bit.
Sexual Content: Yup.
Violence: Some.

3 stars.

A big thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book!

In this book Earth became overpopulated so the government sanctioned enforced relocation to other worlds that were habitable (these apparently are spread all over the galaxy with varying degrees of successful settlement). Once established a devastating virus pops. It has a long incubation period so by the time we know it exists it is too late. This virus has a 99.99999 fatality rate and the final results is a pile of dust that the body turns into. I have to give mad props for the easy death clean-up I have to admit. The main character wakes up as one of the few survivors and spends the rest of the book trying to get back to Earth. She is rescued by a ship that happens to be in the area along with the other two survivors on her planet. The trip from there showcases the wide range of human reactions to events this catastrophic including both the good and evil people. The writing is excellent and the development is smooth. The details kept me hooked until the very last page wondering what was going to happen next and where would they end up. A must read for fans of fantasy utopian books. I give it 4/5 stars.

Atmospheric and beautifully written, this book shifts subtly over the course of its pages from one kind of book to another. It starts with post-apocalyptic tones, the seeking of survivors, the banding together of those who have not died. We start to realize alongside our protagonist that things are not as they seem, not as out of control as they've been presented, and the story glides into a different sort of post-apocalyptic tale. The relationships between characters, the building and breaking of trust, are so well done. I loved this story, ached with the characters, will read this one again.

The virus, the end of the world as we know it.
The hooker, boss, preacher, believer and the whiny survivor! The whole breeding program was not my cup of tea. I just couldn't get past the douche bags running the program
The first half of the book was great until they landed.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sadly no review will be posted this was a did not finish.

I was intrigued by The Space Between the Stars mostly because of the interesting concept/hook: virus threatens human existence so how do the few survivors react, order and civilization versus utopia and anarchy, etc. After reading it, I felt it had some promise but plenty of weaknesses. For example, I felt like the lead character was prickly and angst ridden to the point of annoyance. On the other hand, give Corlett credit for creating a character whose personality and backstory are consistent and likely realistic. I also felt like the faith/religious element was odd, nebulous and hard to follow.

It was interesting enough that I kept reading but just didn’t quite grab me. Perhaps it is not quite my genre; a little too much romance and family drama for my tastes. Plus. lots of interesting philosophical questions bouncing around but not a lot of answers and at the expense of the plot and character development.

A few critics had very different reactions as well.

Marilyn Dahl at Shelf Awareness was full of praise:

Anne Corlett has taken the themes of apocalypse, people attempting to create Utopia but unleashing Armageddon, population engineering and breeding programs, and put her particular stamp on the familiar. The Space Between the Stars is a sci-fi story laced with homey details like e-readers and jigsaw puzzles–there are no esoteric descriptions of warp drives or biodomes or aliens. But there is adventure, there is romance, there is self-discovery. Jamie looks at a blue sky, which “felt like a lie, after so much time spent up above it, in the black of space. It was just something to hide beneath, to avoid seeing how wrenched and scattered among the stars they all really were.” But she finds, in this intriguing and wise story, what can fill the space between the stars.
Kirkus? Uh, not so much:

In the hands of someone with more literary skill, this story could have been something akin to Station Eleven in space, but it isn’t even close. The prose is insipid, with some eye-rollingly trite sentences, such as, “Home’s what’s left over when you’ve figured out all the places you don’t want to be.” Protagonist Jamie is staggeringly unlikable. For instance, she bemoans a past miscarriage, then reveals she abhorred her unborn child. Further flashbacks reveal that she’d only gotten pregnant because Daniel—the same man she’s desperately seeking—wanted a child. Worse, there’s virtually no science in this science fiction. The aforementioned virus, which inexplicably turns human bodies into dust, laughably calls to mind Daffy Duck being disintegrated by Marvin the Martian—although the science fiction of Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century is arguably better than anything here. The worldbuilding is dropped into the story in steaming piles of infodump that raise more questions than they answer. And after Jamie uncovers the absurdly obvious origins of the deadly virus (which had been telegraphed from the very beginning), the entire story is tied up in a big, banal bow.

Terrible science and even worse fiction.

I didn’t love it like Shelf Awareness but I didn’t hate it quite like Kirkus. To me it didn’t live up to its promise but get some credit for the concept.

The Space Between the Stars, by Anne Corlett, started out promisingly enough. The story is set in a universe where humanity has colonized the stars, which sounds great, but unfortunately a devastating plague has rampaged through the planets, wiping out over 99% of our species. We learn this via our main character, Jamie, who is one of the very few to survive the virus, a literal handful on the planet Soltaire where she has been working on as a veterinarian. The novel follows her as she, joined by a few other survivors, attempts to get back to her childhood home on Earth.

Her reason for aiming for Earth is that her long-time lover Danielle and she used to always joke about meeting at Northumberland in case of a “zombie apocalypse” or other type of world-ending event, so she hopes beyond hope to find him there. The two of them split up after difficulties ensued following her miscarriage, and she ended up on her fringe planet as a means of getting herself some space to think things through. She luckily finds a ride off the planet via a trader ship whose captain (Callan) agrees to take her as far as he’s going. Soon afterward the ship has a patchwork group of survivors, including a strictly religious and often hostile woman who worked as a research scientist (Rena), the older and much more gentle former priest who has some sort of connection to her (Lowry), a young girl who worked as a prostitute (Mila) and the young boy she found who is on the autism spectrum (Finn). The novel has an episodic structure as they ship moves from place to place on its journey, having a few different types of adventures in each. Eventually it reaches a spot where the former government is trying to rebuild. From there it’s off to Earth and the episodic nature continues, just in a terrestrial vein.

As noted, The Space Between the Stars began well. Corlett does a nice job with those early scenes of panic and despair, both with Jamie and the others. The group does not mesh well, and there again the author does a good job in conveying the various personalities and alliances, as well as creating increasing tension. Callan especially is an engaging character, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of him. And the writing was often, though not always, quite good, economical when appropriate but turning nicely lyrical at times.

That isn’t to say there weren’t a few warning signs. I often liked the prose style, but every now and then it bordered on the edge (or tipped over the edge) of homily-like pronouncements. The several flashback scenes felt unnecessary and clumsy, though they were few in number and quite brief, so that wasn’t a major problem. Jamie isn’t a character that is easy to warm to (I never did) and while the tension amongst the group was well done, Rena felt a bit over the top in her religious mania and too on-the-nose in various other ways. The worldbuilding was thin, and a few actions felt highly implausible. But I was able to mostly set those aside for the first half of the book thanks to the narrative flow, the story itself, and my enjoyment of Callan’s character.

But things began to turn past the 50% point (almost exactly at that point) and went downhill from there. Rena became a chore as a character and one that just didn’t feel real, a major issue as she drives so much of the plot. Jamie wasn’t just often hard to warm up to but was simply often unpleasant as a person. Two big reveals felt both highly predictable/obvious way early and more than a little clichéd. The implausibility factor became worse and worse, some conversations between characters were just too hard to buy into, and the science fiction trappings felt like they were going off the rails as various backstory aspects didn’t seem to make much sense in a future where humans are traveling the stars, (for instance, it’s hard to imagine people referencing “Merchant-Ivory films” or still referring to “servers” and needing to monitor them in a world where we’ve colonized numerous planets). Melodrama seemed to pile up around the characters, as if the author couldn’t trust that we’d care about a group of people and their problems unless they were “big” emotional issues. And the homily-like nature of a few lines earlier became on onrush toward the end.

The description of the book says that the author has published short fiction but this is a debut novel, and it would appear to me that the length simply won out over the author’s craft here. Some of it is plotting (such as revelations that were obvious hundreds of pages earlier), some of it structural (the flashbacks), some of it characterization (one can live with character flaws in a short story; they become more noticeable and more grating in a novel). Corlett clearly has writing talent, and I’d probably pick up a second novel by her depending on its premise/content, but The Space Between the Stars, though it started off with such promise, ended in a place that makes it difficult to recommend.