Ether Ore - various authors

At the edge of the Butterfly Nebula, beyond the last portal, lies Periphery Station. Last haven, recovery
hospice, tourist mecca, and cathedral in space. All sorts of people come to Periphery Station: armalcolite prospectors, star rangers, survivors, and renegades. The portal brings word of other galaxies—and other realities. Time, distance, and motive have different meanings here.

Several points need to be brought to the attention of potential readers. Some are bad, and some are good. First, in one particular story, which deals with temptation, the plot becomes R-rated. Even though it doesn’t describe much, I wish to warn you about it. Over the whole book, there is one major plot (which is actually slightly boring) with stories in between. These stories become the life of the book, even if a few are also slightly boring. However, there are some jewels to be found in this collection.

“Close” by Marc Schooley is a unique outer space disaster story. “Tableau” by Adam Palmer shows a man’s last desire as he wishes to die. “The Drop” by Steve Rzasa gives another small glimpse into his excellent sci-fi story world, where battles are raging. “Nether Ore” by Kirk Outerbridge is an all-around pleasing story for sci-fi and dénouement fans. “Graxin” by Kerry Nietz tells an intriguing (and possibly disturbing) tale from an unlikely perspective, the robot’s.

This book, as a sci-fi collection, doesn’t have the background-flooded stories given in many other collections. Often keeping boring details to a minimum, the authors focused on keeping the reader engaged in the plot. For that, I am grateful. The stories aren’t as diverse as I’d hoped, but in the range of sci-fi their performance was not too bad.

This ebook was provided free by the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review, and the opinions expressed are my own.

Noah Arsenault

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