This is an anthology that will make you FEEL. This is a beautiful and tender anthology. I would definitely recommend this collection to anyone who loves sci-fi & f. I couldn't put it down, because literally every story had me at the second line in the latest and didn't let me go until the end. I think marginalised communities deserve to be able to read more genre fiction about themselves. A much-needed, varied anthology collection of indigenous LGBTQIA+ stories in the sci-fi genre.

This is an.anthology of.short stories by LGBTQ+ and two spirit native American people.
That is what made it interesting, discovering points of view we rarely see or read about. I wish there were more out there.

Anyway, as with any anthology, you enjoy some stories more than others.
In this case is say the two weakest ones were Aliens and Transformation. Too abstract or too matter of fact without much behind it.
But the others were easy to read and quite gripping.
Those stories felt good to me. I can't even imagine how good they must feel to the people who are represented in this.

I loved the diversity of stories in this collection. I think we need more queer indigenous stories! I've never read a story about two-spirit characters and loved that that was included

I was unable to read this novel before it was archived, therefore I will not be able to review it even though I was excited for it.

An anthology of LGBT science fiction short stories are written in this arc. The stories are a variety of finding love, magic and more. I’ve always enjoy reading anthologies. It’s a great way to be introduced to new authors to read. I also enjoyed the ideas behind the stories. The writing is excellent. There wasn’t a story that I didn’t enjoy reading.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.*

Love Beyond, Body Space and Time is a fabulous collection of queer sci-fi stories featuring Indigenous protagonists. This anthology focuses on many queer stories but the majority contain transgender and/or sapphic protagonists which was delightful.

1 Aliens by Richard van Camp.
3/5 // This was cute but I would have liked it to have been told from Jimmy’s POV considering he was the character being discussed.

2. Legends are made, not Born by Cherie Dimaline.
4/5 - Such a sweet story. I wanted more.

3. Perfectly You by David A. Robertson.
3/5- This had some heartbreakingly sweet moments but I was also a little confused in what actually happened.

4. The boys who became the hummingbirds by Daniel Heath Justice.
5/5- One of my favorites from the anthology; Two boys stand up and accept who they are which causes a cascade of others to do the same. It was written beautifully.

5. NÈ ŁE! By Darcie Little Badger

5/5- After her girlfriend breaks up with her, a vet decides to jump a ship to mars and finds a dog, and love along the way. This was really sweet!

6. Transitions by Gwen Benaway.
3/5

7. Imposter Syndrome
By Mari Kurisato 2/5. My least favorite, I felt like this story tried to portray a message that I just didn’t get.

8. Valediction at The Star View Motel by Nathan Alder.
5/5 - With found family and sapphic feels this was a beautiful story about a 16 year old girl, defending who she is while falling for her crush.


Parallax by Cleo Keahna

3/5

Overall: I highly recommend this anthology. Trying to say why, I feel like my words won’t do this justice so I’m going to let a quote from the acknowledgements persuade you.

-“ If There is one central theme in this collection( among many) it is the revolutionary power of love to form, recreate, and empower relationships. Some stores are about sex but much more are not, illustrating the gifts Indigenous LGBTQ and two-spirit peoples use to enact a spectrum of ties in the interests of Indigenous life-making across corporeal and incorporeal realities. These stories are about bodies, words, and actions to evoke growth, change and life.”- Miigwech.

This was a lovely anthology that provides a fresh take on speculative fiction from a group of voices we don't normally get to hear from. A lot of the stories in this collection lean more heavily on the side of magical realism rather than more straightforward fantasy or sci-fi, which to me was a huge plus and left a lot of room to explore issues of gender and sexuality alongside these speculative elements. Favorite stories were Aliens, Legends Are Made Not Born, and The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds.

I did not expect to like the introduction the most of all these stories.
To be entirely honest, many of them felt to disjointed and plotless to keep my attention. I did not understand the artistic choices some authors made.
Two stories really pulled on my emotions, Perfectly You and The Boys Who became the Hummingbirds. I also enjoyed Transition as a more modern exploration of both your gender identity and heritage.
But while I did not truly enjoy any of them, I cannot say I regret reading this and it opened my eyes to how different story telling can be.

Two spirits have been here since the creation of time. Male and female created he them. These stories gives us a peak into the lives, love and history of the two spirits with Native American culture. The stories take you on a journey of self awareness and acceptance. We must protect the Auntie Dave's and the hummingbirds among us. They should be allowed to share space and live as their true selves. I did not want the book to end but I hope more stories are shared with us all.

I got a copy of this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The SF elements were a bit more light than I was expecting, more often than not they are very light in description and only appear as like background filler. Some of the stories were just meh to me, but I am not Indigenous, so it is totally possible that I was not the target audience for those.

Some of my favorite stories from this collection:
- Valedictorian at the Star View Motel
- Né łe!
- Legends Are Made, Not Born
- Perfectly You

There was a poem included towards the end, but I'm not the best with poetry so I can't say whether or not it is any good. I would call it a more artistic kind of poetry which I'm really bad at, so I don't really have any opinions on it.

This was a very cute collection and I intend to buy a physical copy to add to my collection. The love in it is more of a "awwww so precious" kind, so it was full of nice happy feelings for me.

While I really appreciate this anthology and the stories and authors it is promoting, this, unfortunately, did not work for me. I hope people find and love this work, but the short stories in this just weren't the type that I enjoy.

Amazing book, with so much diversity and it's so important that the authors of this stories are indigenous as their characters.


Thank you NetGalley.

An interesting anthology of fantasy and sci-fi short stories about indigenous LGBTQ and two-spirit characters, though the stories varied quite widely in my enjoyment of them, and I thought that some stories felt a bit incomplete. I particularly liked the lesbian teen stargazers of Valediction at the Star View Motel, the queer folktale The Boys Who Became Hummingbirds, and the San Junipero feel of Perfectly You. Some of the other stories just didn't quite land for me, but I'm also conscious that as a white reader perhaps I couldn't appreciate some of the context or meaning that others might.

Oh, my god - the world is so freaking huge. I’ve read so much, but lately it seems like every other story I pick up is new and different.

As are these stories.

Fantasy and science fiction stories of LGBT and two-spirited indigenous people. So different and so beautiful. Definitely worth reading.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley, Diamond Book Distributors, and Bedside Press for a copy in return for an honest review.</i>

An amazing and thought-provoking collection of short stories, essays, and poems. I learned a lot from reading it. All of the stories feature LGBTQ2S+ characters who are indigenous. I can't speak to the accuracy cause I'm a white person but it was really interesting and all the authors put a lot of heart into their stories.

Here are brief thoughts on each of the contributions.

Beyond the Grim Dust of What Was: This was a dense but interesting essay that included a bunch of books to check out. And how cool is it that the person who wrote this teaches at my university? I may have fangirled for a bit.

Returning to Ourselves: Again, pretty academic. An essay, not a story. Neither of these were super interesting, but they have a lot of good information.

Aliens: Wow, what a start to the anthology. This writing style took some getting used to, and I'm not sure why it wasn't told from the main character's point of view, but this was great. 4/5 stars ★★★★☆

Legends are Made, Not Born: This was a sweet, quick little story. Auntie Dave is an intriguing character. I never felt fully involved with it, mostly due to the writing style, so 3/5 stars ★★★☆☆

Perfectly You: RIGHT IN THE FEELS. Reminded me of San Junipero from Black Mirror. This was absolutely amazing! Lesbian main character. 5/5 stars ★★★★★

The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds: This read more like a legend or a fairytale than a short story, which isn't a bad thing, it's just not my preferred style to read. 3/5 stars because the writing really is beautiful. ★★★☆☆

Né Łe: This story is so cute, this one was especially well done. It's about dogs and lesbians, and neither the dogs nor the lesbians die for a change, thank goodness. 5/5 stars ★★★★★

Transitions: I really liked this one. Interesting main character and I love plots involving medical trials. I wish this story had been longer because the end kind of leaves you hanging, but at the same time you have a pretty good idea of where it's going. Trans woman main character. 5/5 stars ★★★★★ [TW: transphobia]

Imposter Syndrome: I had a hard time following the plot of this. Lots of interesting ideas but too much happened in too short a page count for me to keep up. 2/5 stars. ★★☆☆☆ [TW: violence & sexual assault]

Valediction at the Star View Motel: More lesbians! I liked the characters quite a lot and it's a really sweet storyline. Would definitely read more about them. 4/5 stars ★★★★☆

Parallax: I was surprised to find a poem in here, but it was a good conclusion to the anthology I think. I'm not much of a poetry fan to be honest but this deserves 4/5 stars. ★★★★☆

In conclusion, this was a very well-assembled anthology that's strong on the #ownvoices category. I highly, highly recommend it.

*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.*

Luminous and frankly, a little bit ground-breaking. It makes you feel loved and seen and beautiful. I can only imagine how important this collection is for Native readers.

Every single story was well written, with amazing characters, but most importantly: every single one of them felt true & real, because they were all actually by Native authors.

The trouble with anthologies is that they're especially hard to rate due to the fact that, often, there is an inconsistency with the quality of the writing between stories. You regularly find yourself disappointed with some stories while you are amazed with others. <i>Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time</i> by various authors, including Richard Van Camp and David Robertson is no exception to this fact and I left reading it feeling as though some of the stories were pretty amazing while others just weren't as good. Unfortunately, I do not think the anthology sets off to a great start with the first story as it was incredibly difficult to get into and overall just wasn't all that well written. And when the first story in an anthology doesn't manage to capture your readers, it does tend to hurt the rest of the book.

For me, I enjoyed the fact that this was entirely own voices, but I have to admit that I didn't care for the format. There were some stories that just didn't interest me while others were amazing. Ultimately, I found myself wishing that these better stories were longer and that the others simply hadn't been included. I felt tempted to skip various ones that didn't really grab my attention initially. And while I would say that overall I did enjoy a number of the stories in this anthology, it by no means left any lasting effect on me whatsoever.

Of course, I deeply appreciate the fact that there are more indigenous and LGBTQ voices getting their work out in publishing, but I do feel I would have preferred certain stories as novels. I did find, surprisingly, that despite the fact that this is marketed as a science fiction book, certain stories really didn't have very many science fiction elements to it. Overall, I feel as though this book has some merits, but ultimately was difficult to get into and difficult to continue.

<i>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

There were a lot of lessons to be learned from these collections, and I was not disappointed. Each point of view was very strong and believable.

I should begin by saying I don't rate short story collections and anthologies based on the average strength of the individual stories inside, as that's not how I read them.

In 'Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time' I was excited to read a collection of own-voices stories about queer and two-spirit indigenous people, in sci-fi and fantastical settings. So often, at least in the most-talked about books that I see, these cultural contexts don't appear in these genres as there is a tendency to revert to white and western backgrounds as a default. I enjoyed reading from reference points different to my own, and loved how in some stories they were integral to the narrative and in some they were normalised as just another factor of the person. I think both of these approaches are important and necessary in publishing and I hope we see more as time goes on.

As for the stories themselves, there were naturally some I preferred to others but my favourite was Né łe, by Darcie Little Badger, a cute sapphic space romance with puppies. Imposter Syndrome, by Mari Kurisato, runs a close second with an incredible story.

Overall, I loved this anthology and really will be looking for more by several of the contributors.

While I did not enjoy all the different stories and poem in this book, I do believe it is an important volume. Valediction at the Star View Motel by Nathan Adler, in my opinion, is the best. It's about a girl adopted by an indigenous family who grew up with their culture and values. It's an f/f story, and I believe it proves that blood isn't everything. Family is not what lineage you're born into.
As I said, I didn't enjoy all of it, but it definitely had its redeeming qualities.