Customer Reviews

Push of the Sky

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I'll be honest. I did not approach this book with high hopes. In fact I dreaded reading it. I have read more sci-fi and speculative fiction collections than I can shake a stick at, and frankly, I am sort of over the genre.

This book took me completely by surprise. I was completely drawn in by many of these stories, frequently left at the end wanting to know more about the characters so vividly brought to life within them. I do not have the book in front of me, but the story about "Aunt Candi" and the story about the alchemist and the butterflies especially stood out as remarkable. That being said, I liked everything in this collection, all of the stories were strong and unique. Truly this is a remarkable and recommended collection.

The sheer breadth of imagination and creativity on display here is breathtaking. In addition to being a creator of very cool worlds, Camille Alexa is a story stylist: each word seems deliberately chosen for maximum effect, and nowhere is that better on display than "Shades of White and Road," which is probably my favorite story in the anthology. But she can tell more straightforward stories, too, and "The Pull of the World and the Push of the Sky," the book closer, runs a very close second for favorite. She has a wry sense of humor, check out "Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths," a delightful tale that made me giggle all the way through, but especially at the perfect last line (story ending is an art--don't let anyone tell you different). There's not a weak story in this collection and the poems are vivid and go nicely with the prose. Highly recommended.

There are so many standout stories in this collection!

My favorite might be "Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths", which is the first story I ever read from Camille Alexa. It's funny and fanastic! But then it's hard not to love "Shades of White and Road". Or the poem about the hot (but sadly girl-eating) aliens. And the more I think about it, the more stories from the collection pop back into my head to say "HEY! Mention me, too, because I'm awesome!" "A Taste of Snow", which I love for the same reason I loved reading "Alas, Babylon" in high school -- it sucked my brain right into that post-disaster world, the struggle to survive, scraping for every last bit of usefulness. The letters from an agoraphobic on Mars, which I reread over and over, looking for clues.

I love this collection and keep it in my locker at work so I can reread the stories over lunch!