An e-copy received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Love Beyond Body, Space and Time is a sci-fi anthology of stories about indigenous LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirited people, written by own voices authors.
I've picked up this book for a few different reasons:
- I enjoy short stories and anthologies are a great way for me to split up my reading, especially after reading long books;
- Sci-fi is one of my favourite genres to read;
- I am not very knowledgeable on the topic of indigenous people and I wanted to read own voices stories to learn from reliable sources.

After an informative foreword, the first story that followed was Aliens by Richard van Camp, which I believe was the weakest one in the whole bunch. I didn't enjoy the style, it was too colloquial for my liking, repetitive and distracting, as the author ended nearly every single sentence with a question. The characters seemed bland and without any kind of personality. I understand that developing characters is tricky in short stories, but the plot itself was also non existent, which made the story dull and uninteresting. I didn't let it discourage me from reading the rest of the anthology, and thankfully so, as the stories which followed were much better.
Legends are Made, not Born by Cherie Dimaline had a much better storyline. It deals with Two-Spirited people and it's told by a child, who became an orphan at an early age and was raised by their Auntie Dave. The story explores the culture of indigenous people and how Two-Spirited people fit into it. While it was very interesting overall, I found the ending abrupt and it has definitely hindered my understanding of it.
Perfectly You by David A. Robertson was the first story in the anthology that had obvious sci-fi elements. The story revolves around two girls who met in a coffee shop, and their relationship. It explores “what could've been", through the use of virtual reality and it's a cute f/f story. I enjoyed it.
What follows is a beautifully written The Boys Who Became Hummingbirds by Daniel Heath Justice. I would describe it more as magical realism, than sci-fi. It's a story about being who you really are regardless of other people's judgement. It was one of the best written story in the whole anthology.
Né-Łe! by Darcie Little Badger is set on a space ship travelling to Mars. It has puppies and a cute, but quite insta-lovey f/f romance. It was a quick read and puppies made it quite enjoyable.
Transitions by Gwen Benaway was definitely one of my favourite stories. It deals with a trans main character, who is in the process of transitioning into a woman. It talks a lot about how difficult it is for some people to accept it and what transitioning actually means. It touches a lot on how different physical transition is to a mental one, and how in the main character's culture the spiritual transition is much more important.
Imposter Syndrome by Marie Kurisato was what I was expecting from this anthology. It was a gritty sci-fi story about a non-human taking the memories and conscience of an indigenous woman, who passed, so they both can live on. I would definitely read more of this concept than just this short story, as I enjoyed everything about it and was left wanting more.
Valediction at the Star View Motel by Nathan Adler, the second last story, is about a girl who was adopted by an indigenous family and grew up amongst them, with their culture and values. It's a f/f story, and in my understanding, it shows that blood isn't everything. Family is not what you're born into. I think this one carried an important message. I enjoyed that the romance wasn't the main focus of this one, although it was important.
Last is a poem Parallax by Cleo Keahna. Poetry is not my forte and although I know that poetry is subjective and very much to each own’s interpretation but I am not sure how much of it I understood, so I will hold my judgement for that one.

Overall, I enjoyed this anthology. It was, for most of it, well written and quite informative. I wish it was a bit more sci-fi, as it is marketed as such and people therefore some people might be disappointed. I think I would enjoy and appreciate the anthology more if I knew more about Two-Spirited and indigenous people, or if I could relate to it more, as I feel those stories are going to be received better by people represented in them, but I still very much enjoyed my experience reading it.
3.5/5 stars

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*

This excellent collection of Indigenous short stories focuses on queer and two-spirited characters in urban fantasy or science-fiction settings. All stories were well crafted and written, I immensely enjoyed reading them. Like promised in the introduction (an excellent introduction into two-spiritedness and its reception and misrepresentation throughout the centuries) you will fall in love with the characters in the story. Because love can be more than just a body, space or time. Beautiful!

I will not spoiler away anything here, but if you like SFF and are interested in Indigenous Literature, please just buy this collection of short stories. Stories by Cherie Dimaline, Gwen Benaway, David Robertson, Richard Van Camp, Mari Kurisato, Nathan Adler, Daniel Heath Justice, Darcie Little Badger, Cleo Keahna can be found.

Five Stars.

I'm going to begin this review with a disclaimer: This book is pitched and advertised as a SCI-FI and fantasy anthology, but the majority of the stories have little to none of these elements throughout. Reading the letter from the editor at the beginning of this book, it was clear that these stories hold great meaning. Unfortunately, while I appreciate and celebrate that this is indigenous and LGBT+, a large portion of this book read as though the subjects were added as an afterthought. It is, of course, only one person's opinion, and I can't deny or argue that this book won't mean the world to others! This book simply wasn't what I had expected, but I have a lot of positive praise for it, too.

This is written by ten different authors, so I'll review each short story individually, below. Some, including the editor's letter, are background information or essays of the stories featured within, and so I can't comment beyond commending the effort, research, and heart that went into this project. As this is a collection of short stories, I can't go into much detail about the plot because no one likes to be spoiled, but I'll do my best to share my thoughts!

Aliens
by Richard Van Camp
The writing style of this particular story threw me off. This was written in first-person, and the main character would finish almost every sentence as a question, regardless if it was part of a dialogue or not. There were quite a few typos throughout this book, which I assume was fixed before the book was printed, and therefore didn't affect my rating of any stories. Aside from a piece of background information, this story certainly didn't live up to it's title. Much of the details of this story were irrelevant in terms of getting to know characters, or the world etc. I didn't personally understand what this story was trying to achieve, but that's just me. It could be the best thing in the world to someone else!

Rating: ​★☆☆☆☆

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Legends Are Made, Not Born
by Cherie Dimaline
This was a truly indigenous LGBT+ story, but sadly the writing style and storytelling led to the point going right over my head. I found this very difficult to picture, and to get a grasp on who the characters were and what their goals were. Again, this isn't a story that was meant for me, so my opinion doesn't hold much toward this book's value.

Rating: ​★☆☆☆☆

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Perfectly You
by David A. Robertson
Out of all the stories in this book, this is the most likely to stay with me. I don't want to spoil the plot, but this story was similar to Black Mirror in it's SCI-FI aspects. We had a lead indigenous main character, who had fallen for another woman. In just a few pages, this story really manages to pull at every heart string. This was cute and sad, and just the right amount of SCI-FI I was hoping for!

​Rating: ​★★★★​☆

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The Boys Who Became The Hummingbirds
​by Daniel Heath Justice
The writing in this short story was simply beautiful - this was a passionate and metaphorical story about LGBT+ pride shining through years of fear and hatred. I wish I could say more, but this writer has brilliant talent, and I really recommend you seek out this story at the very least!

​Rating: ​★★★★​★

Né Le!
by Darcie Little Badger

This was another of my favourites. Dogs, space, and lesbians - three of my favourite things! This story definitely had one of the heavier SCI-FI themes, and I absolutely adored the main character and her backstory, and how she thought. The only reason to ever wake a person up during a long-haul space flight is to take care of a bunch of puppies. Sign me up!

​Rating: ​★★★★​☆

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Transitions
by Gwen Benaway
I'll admit I don't know much in-depth detail on the physical transition from male-female sex or vice versa, but from what I can tell, I believe this story could have been set in current times. While there wasn't any fantastical or SCI-FI elements in this story, it was great insight into the life of a transitioning transwoman, while peering into her native heritage and roots.

​Rating: ​★★★☆​☆​

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Imposter Syndrome
by Mari Kurisato
For all my disappointment in the lack of SCI-FI in the rest of this book, this story alone seemed to take on such a heavy SCI-FI aspect that I found it difficult to truly understand. The underlying messages of gender and sexuality were clear, but the story itself wasn't easy to decipher.

​Rating: ​★☆☆☆☆

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Valediction At The Star View Motel
by Nathan Adler
It seemed as though this story was trying to sprinkle SCI-FI into a contemporary, but with such a light dosage that it would have been unrecognisable if this story weren't part of a SF/F anthology. While I loved the setting, the characters seemed a little manic-pixie dream gay, that probably would have worked a lot better if there weren't constant references to said character's style. On it's own, this would be a cute little story with excellent indigenous rep and teachings throughout.

​Rating: ​★★☆☆☆

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Parallax
by Cleo Keahna
Just when I thought I was getting back into poetry. The message of this work sadly was lost on me. By the end, I knew that I wasn't the target audience for this book, and while I'd love to learn more about indigenous heritage, two-spirit, and LGBT+ from that perspective, I'm sad that this wasn't the book that brought me closer to understanding and appreciating this as much as I'd love to.

​​Rating: ​★☆☆☆☆

Overall, I was quite disappointed. There were pieces of this book that I loved, but as a whole it simply didn't speak to me, personally. I do believe this shouldn't have been so heavily advertised as SF/F, as I think the lack thereof came as a surprise, and therefore hindered my own enjoyment. Once again, I must stress that this could be one of the best books in the world to someone else, and with all the effort and love that was put into this book, it truly deserves to find that.

Goodreads Rating: ★★.5

This is a fantastic collection of sci-fi/speculative fiction short stories. All of the writers are indigenous, and there were some perspectives, ways of looking at the world, that were new to me. My favorite stories were "Perfectly You" by David Robinson and "The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds" by Daniel Heath Justice, but I enjoyed them all.

Aliens by Niigaan Sinclair 2.5/5 Stars - This story just didn't keep my interest like some of the other ones in the anthology did.

Legends Are Made, Not Born by Cherie Dimaline 5/5 Stars - This story had so much heart and filled with with joy. I loved reading from the young boys perspective.

Perfectly You by David A Robertson 5/5 Stars - I think this might have been my favourite story of all a great science fiction story with an even better message.

The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds by Daniel Heath Justice 2.5/5 - Again another one that didn't quite hold my attention as well as the other ones in the book.

Né Le! by Darcie Little Badger 4/5 Stars - Loved the spaceship setting, and the story.

Transitions by Gwen Benaway 3/5 Stars - Good story, and enjoyed reading a Toronto setting that was super familiar to me. Story held my interest better than some stories but not as well as others.

Valediction at the Starview Motel by Nathan Adler 2.5/5 Stars - Middle of the road for me, neither good or bad.

Parallax by Cleo Keahna 2/5 Stars - I think this ranking says more about not really being a reading of poetry reader than the poem itself.

Overall I found Love Boyond Body, Space and Time to be an enjoyable read that was both fun to read and educational.

Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time is an excellent anthology that gives voices to Indigenous writers and queer writers. All of the stories come from Indigenous tradition, and many challenge the very notion of "science fiction" itself, asking the question of what exactly science is considered to be in different cultures. The anthology draws from a variety of Indigenous cultures and shows each as different and unique and not the monolith that us non-Indigenous people might see Indigenous culture as. I think this is a very important and largely well-written anthology.

I got an ARC of this book.

Like any anthology there are stories that are amazing and some that just don't do it for me. There were stories that were so fantastic I would have read full length novels of them without blinking like they were than engrossing. 

One of my favorite stories has a bunch of dogs, which if you know me is the exact way to get to my heart. The dogs were a great way to get the love story going. It allowed an older woman and a younger woman come together in a way that I wasn't expecting. I love seeing older women getting love stories and getting the spotlight. It is so rare that the media wants to show that, that when I find a story or a show about that I am beyond excited. That story was my favorite in the anthology by far. The cute interactions with the dogs didn't hurt either. 

There were so many stories that featured queer love and even more that featured gender as a focus. So many trans women and two spirit people. My heart was going to explode from all of the representation love I was experiencing. There was one story that didn't quite sit well with me, but I think it comes more from my own issues of being told that I shouldn't medically transition. The story seemed to be more about the different paths to being a woman and coming home to being yourself, but my mind latched on to the idea that a medical transition was wrong as one of the themes. It was very clearly not the theme by far, but it was a knee jerk reaction from my own transition. So please keep an open mind when you read these stories, they don't play out the way you would expect and they are so much more complex than I hoped for. 

I am not a big sci-fi fan, but this anthology made me want to read more. It isn't so sci-fi it loses me. Instead it solidified this idea of speculative fiction for me. It was a mixture of everything and finally made that genre have flesh for me instead of just being thrown around by smart people around me talking about it. I am definitely a fan of speculative fiction. I heard a rumor that this editor was putting out a new book and that there would be one of my favorite author's stories in it. I can't say if this is true or not, but the chance that it is true makes me really excited. So I highly suggest keeping an eye out for more collections edited by Nicholson and suggest you grab a copy of this book.

Love beyond body, space, and time is a collection of indigenous science fiction and urban fantasy focusing on LGBT and two-spirit characters. It is very well done and it was so nice to read about all these characters. I must admit that I liked some stories more than others. My favourite was definitely Aliens by Richard Van Camp, I really liked it.
If you're into sci-fi, indigenous history and LGBTQ+ characters I really recommend this collection!

A one-of-a-kind anthology, though hopefully not for long.

** Trigger warning for violence against LGBTQ and Indigenous peoples. **

I knew the apocalypse had started before he said her name.
“Legends Are Made, Not Born” by Cherie Dimaline

Strange Boy and Shadow Boy realized at last that they had never been alone. They were just the first to free their hearts and fly in their own beauty.
“The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds” by Daniel Heath Justice

These are not my stories but they touch me, and they make me see the world outside as even more bright and beautiful than I did before I read them, and I know they will for you too.
“Letter From the editor” by Hope Nicholson

I don’t know that it’s truly one of a kind, but LOVE BEYOND BODY, SPACE, AND TIME is the first anthology of Indigenous #OwnVoices LGBTQ SF/F I’ve ever come across – and hopefully not the last. The eight stories (and two essays/intros, and one poem) contained within these pages are pure magic, brimming with light and love and starstuff. And don’t forget the space puppies!

My favorite was easily né łe! by Darcie Little Badger, in which recently-dumped Dottie King, dvm, impulsively signs up as a veterinarian for a nascent Mars colony. Five months into the nine-month journey, she’s pulled out of stasis when the dogs’ pods malfunction. She falls in love with the Starship Soto’s pilot, Cora, over the care and feeding of forty rambunctious Chihuahuas – and one “defective” Husky. It’s sweet and fun and I’ve got to agree with Cora that rolling around in a dog pile (with dogs who might never die! MAGS I MISS YOU SO MUCH.) sounds like the very best way to pass a day.

Cherie Dimaline’s “Legends are made, not born” is impossibly beautiful, in so many ways. Set in a future and on a world that doesn’t look too terribly different from our own, the story’s protagonist is sent to live with a family friend when his mother dies in a snowmobile accident. Auntie Dave is “a six-foot Cree” who’s a little big magic.

Daniel Heath Justice’s “The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds” is strange and lovely, with imagery that will take your breath away. In a dystopia of no obvious time or place, Strange Boy (and, eventually, Shadow Boy) fight against hatred and bigotry to bring color and kindness back to their people, against seemingly insurmountable odds.

With shades of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, Karen Thompson Walker’s THE DREAMERS, and Adam Silvera’s MORE HAPPY THAN NOT, “Perfectly You” by David A. Robertson a perfect scifi tale about fear and longing and regret. And taking chances and letting go. Some of the post-coma scenes just about tore my heart in two.

I also really loved “Valediction at the Star View Motel” by Nathan Adler, and not just because of the CHARLOTTE’S WEB references (though that ending did really bring me back: lazy summer afternoons, dog-eared, water-stained paperback clutched tight to my chest while dozing in the hammock out back).

It’s hard to say too much about any one story, for fear of spoiling the choicest bits, so best stop while I’m ahead. Suffice it to say that LOVE BEYOND BODY, SPACE, AND TIME has a little bit of everything: humor, beauty, compassion, butt-kicking. Not to mention androids who long to be human and pretty queer girls who can talk to nonhuman animals.

CONTENTS
Letter From the editor | Hope Nicholson 7
beyond the grim dust oF What Was Grace | L. Dillon 9
returning to ourseLves: tWo sPirit Futures and the noW | Niigaan Sinclair 12
aLiens | Richard Van Camp 20
Legends are made, not born | Cherie Dimaline 31
PerFectLy you | David A. Robertson 38
the boys Who became the hummingbirds | Daniel Heath Justice 54
né łe! | Darcie Little Badger
60 transitions | Gwen Benaway 77
imPoster syndrome | Mari Kurisato 87
vaLediction at the star vieW moteL | Nathan Adler 103
ParaLLax | Cleo Keahna 116
bios 118

A very interesting story that was not able to sustain my attention for the totality of the narrative. An admirable attempt.

This was a great collection of short stories in a very diverse and sci-fi theme that I wanted to read for a long time. Sadly only a few of these stories stayed longer in my mind, while most didn't left a strong impression.

I enjoyed this, some stories more than others - my absolute fave was “Né Łe!”. It’s been a goal to read more eclectically and to read more own voices, and this collection was already on my radar, so when I saw it offered on Netgalley I jumped on it.