Review: Spaceships & Other Trips – Raven Oak

Genre: Sci-Fi

Reviewer: Linda, Paranormal Romance Guild

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About The Book

Part II of this debut collection by multi-award-winning author and artist Raven Oak brings together speculative fiction stories from the past ten years of her career, ranging from space adventures with a dash of mystery and other near-future tales to post-apocalyptic stories and deep dives into the mind.

You’ll find closed-ship mysteries, foul-acting apps, talking cats, retail hell, and hacked programs in these ELEVEN speculative fiction pieces. Space Ships & Other Trips contains FIVEnever-before seen stories for your enjoyment, including a tie-in story from Jeff Sturgeon’s The Last Cities of Earth universe.

STORIES INCLUDED: The Loss of Luna, Hungry, Mouth, Only a Bird, Q-Be, Hands, Ol’ St. Nick, Drip, Level Up, Scout’s Honor, and D.E.A.T.H.

The Review

Eleven short stories covering various topics, space, future, mystery, with a little something for everyone. This is the second collection and every bit as wonderful as the first.

The Loss of Luna

What happens when the moon feels alone and unloved? Would it need Earth to express its love and need? A unique story about a planet with feelings.

Hungry

Melana works from home and is convinced she needs a cat. Cats don’t need a lot of attention, right? Then she discovers that a cat, like any other living thing, requires attention, food, medical care and love. Her new feline Pantone wears a collar that translates his purrs, and while Melana is working on a deadline and is in desperate need of money for rent, Pantone doesn’t care and keeps saying HUNGRY. Melana ignores the request and continues to work, which will have some series repercussions that will send her monetary problems off the charts.

Mouth

A Christmas story, not about miracles, but yuletide horror. Megan works at Grab-a-Tabletop Games, and her day is filled with screaming children and yelling parents. She just wants to get through the day. When a bad migraine strikes, she begins to lose time. One minute, she’s at the store cleaning a filthy bathroom, closing up, and heading for home, only to find herself at the store again, not remembering going home or leaving. The trauma ends on Christmas Eve… a scary holiday tale.

Only a Bird

It’s Friday, when factories test the newest animal automata, and the first day of school. This day will offer a lesson in humanity and caring. When students bring a small bird who can’t fly to their teacher, she immediately tries to help. A lover of animals real or automata – it makes no difference to her – she will do what she can to save it.

Q-BE   

Mikala must write a paper on economics during the Civil War – not easy, since she even finds economics in the present confusing. If she fails the course, she’ll lose her financial aid and be a major disappointment to her grandmother. When a box is given to her by one of the other students, she opens it to find a very expense phone which seems to have a mind of its own. She is introduced to Q-BE, an app on her new phone who offers help. What begins as a free, helpful device turns out to be anything but.

Hands

Depression leaves a person without hope, with a feeling that they are choking. This story is about being a survivor with injuries that are a constant reminder of what happened to them.

Ol’ St. Nick

Mark Bane is the captain of the Perffaith, a salvage ship. A battered spaceship promises the chance of a big haul that will bring much-needed money for ship repairs. There is no crew on the abandoned vessel, and where everyone went is a mystery, but that also means no interference – Bane’s crew can take what they need. Then the crew finds a dead man… This one goes from salvaging to murder mystery, and keeps you guessing. 

Drip

Wildfires are burning, people are running, but what happens when you are far removed from the fires, yet your mind keeps going a hundred miles an hour worrying about what to do if the fire reaches you?

Level Up

A scary look at what the future might hold. Sara is a trans woman whose husband divorced her, leaving her without money, a home and in hiding from the sweeps. The sweeps mean death for someone like her… 

Scouts Honor

When Pia’s father was killed by the ghost fleet, his airship La Hermana del Bendito Sol became Pia’s, but he owes the cartel for the repairs the ship requires. Pia needs a job, and so he goes to Jefe in the cartel. He is assigned to complete the job his father undertook before he and his crew were murdered. This time Pia hopes to succeed – if not, he will die by Jefe’s hands, if the ghost fleet doesn’t get him first.

D.E.A.T.H.

What would happen if all diseases were eradicated, and no one aged any more? They build a machine called D.E.A.T.H., which chooses who dies and when.

The stories in this collection were often frightening, and some of them had my mind going in circles wondering about the possibility of them happening in the future. Some of them also made me see the world differently, like “it’s just a bird.”

Five stars.

The Reviewer

I am an avid reader the mother of 3 sons and grandmother to seven grandchildren. Since retiring I have been doing more reading while volunteering as a CASA worker. CASA is an organization that works with the family court system to ensure that children are in the best living situation. There are way too many children that get overlooked in the foster care system and I visit homes and make visits to the parents. I was born and raised in New York and my husband of 50 years and I live in Upstate New York. 

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