To conclude the trio of anthologies that started with critically acclaimed All Out and Out Now, Out There features seventeen original short stories set in the future from fantastic queer YA authors.
Explore new and familiar worlds where the human consciousness can be uploaded into a body on Mars…an alien helps a girl decide if she should tell her best friend how she feels…two teens get stuck in a time loop at a space station…people are forced to travel to the past or the future to escape the dying planet…only a nonbinary person can translate the binary code of a machine that predicts the future…everyone in the world vanishes except for two teen girls who are in love.
This essential and beautifully written collection immerses and surprises with each turn of the page.
Short stories collections are always hit and miss, I find. It's hard to find a collection where all the stories suit any particular reader. For me, this was more miss than hit, though the hits are amazing.
As with a lot of short stories, many of these stop just as they seem to be getting going. One or two are so cluttered that nothing has space to make sense; The Undeniable Price of Everything, in my opinion, was too busy. A couple didn't explain why things were happening the way they were, like H O M E or Nobody Cares Who We Kiss At The End Of The World - which felt like a lot of setup just for one character to title drop. However, I adored Present: Tense and would happily read a whole novel set in that world, and Concerto surprised me by not going for the twist I was expecting.
Overall, I enjoyed the collection and I thought it was a good read. I recommend it to other readers as a great way to try a lot of authors quickly and see what suits you.
Out There: Into the Queer New Yonder publishes on the 7th July, 2022. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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