Beyond the Last Star: Stories from the Next Beginning [Paperback]

Sherwood Smith (Editor), Jeffry Dwight (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2002

Volume V of the Darkfire Anthology Series.

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: SFF Net (August 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966969855
• ISBN-13: 978-0966969856
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,582,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read, December 23, 2002

By 

J. Feuer (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond the Last Star: Stories from the Next Beginning (Paperback)

Got this one as a Christmas gift...

The Premise of Beyond the Last Star is just that--our universe is gone, something else has replaced it. The "what" is left to the imagination of the editor and the twenty-five authors. Most of the stories involve non-human protagonists in some finely crafted stories, and some of them even contain fairly outstanding writing, to boot.

Worth mentioning are Beth Bernobich's short work about non-human interspecies love, Paul Bates' well-told-tale of how wolves got their religion, Brian Springer's wonderful yarn of robots seeking their roots at their own peril, Lawrence Connolly's adventure of an undersea people preparing their escape from a dying world while being stalked by an ancient evil, and Susan Kroupa's moving account of how music from this universe touches the lives of beings from the next.

A few are a bit long and drawn out for my taste, but most are crisp and to the point in a wealth of styles and possibilities. I highly recommend this collection, as well as the previous books in this series.

J. Feuer, Boston

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Stories from the Next Beginning, August 5, 2003

By 

hrladyship (Las Cruces, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond the Last Star: Stories from the Next Beginning (Paperback)

Beyond the Last Star is an anthology of short stories edited by Sherwood Smith and published by SFF Net. Markets for short science fiction stories have been dwindling in the past several years, especially among the magazines. When an anthology does come out those who love short stories always hope for the best.

The subtitle for this anthology is Stories from the Next Beginning. Unfortunately most of the authors looked at this from the same perspective: humans have evolved far beyond what they are now, sometimes so far beyond that they are difficult to sympathize with. However, there are some interesting stories here. The standout story is "Flow" by Lawrence C. Connolly. In 16 pages, he has created a whole world, one the reader can understand, yet so unlike our own. The inhabitants communicate in colors in a world threatened by an ancient evil who is faced by a reluctant hero.

This is Volume V in the Darkfire series. Lovers of short fiction would certainly want to try the first four volumes if they haven't already. There is always something to be gleaned from an anthology.