speculative verse composition. Kopaska-Merkel and Evans number among the most accomplished of that unique breed of modern bard. Both have had a plethora of poems published in various science fiction, fantasy, and horror venues. Both are award-winning poets; one of their previous collaborative efforts, "The Tin Men", received the Science Fiction Poetry Association's 2006 Rhysling Award for Best Long Poem. Both use verse to ask the eternal speculative question: what if?
-Richard H. Fay
On impulse it shoplifts...
Two robots embark on a journey to self-awareness beside the frozen seas of Saturn's moon Enceladus. A man battles his own psyche's malevolence. Alien maps lead the wanderer to places that seem to create, and chart, themselves.
The pieces in this chapbook are science fictional, or so as not to conflate mediums, science speculation. They are undeniably poetry.
Evans's and Kopaska-Merkel's stories are not simple, and bear re-reading, and require leaps of faith. But unbundle the worlds within the words here, and it's easy to jump.
Send that to the stars.
- Samantha Henderson
