I was intrigued by The Space Between the Stars mostly because of the interesting concept/hook: virus threatens human existence so how do the few survivors react, order and civilization versus utopia and anarchy, etc. After reading it, I felt it had some promise but plenty of weaknesses. For example, I felt like the lead character was prickly and angst ridden to the point of annoyance. On the other hand, give Corlett credit for creating a character whose personality and backstory are consistent and likely realistic. I also felt like the faith/religious element was odd, nebulous and hard to follow.

It was interesting enough that I kept reading but just didn’t quite grab me. Perhaps it is not quite my genre; a little too much romance and family drama for my tastes. Plus. lots of interesting philosophical questions bouncing around but not a lot of answers and at the expense of the plot and character development.

A few critics had very different reactions as well.

Marilyn Dahl at Shelf Awareness was full of praise:

Anne Corlett has taken the themes of apocalypse, people attempting to create Utopia but unleashing Armageddon, population engineering and breeding programs, and put her particular stamp on the familiar. The Space Between the Stars is a sci-fi story laced with homey details like e-readers and jigsaw puzzles–there are no esoteric descriptions of warp drives or biodomes or aliens. But there is adventure, there is romance, there is self-discovery. Jamie looks at a blue sky, which “felt like a lie, after so much time spent up above it, in the black of space. It was just something to hide beneath, to avoid seeing how wrenched and scattered among the stars they all really were.” But she finds, in this intriguing and wise story, what can fill the space between the stars.
Kirkus? Uh, not so much:

In the hands of someone with more literary skill, this story could have been something akin to Station Eleven in space, but it isn’t even close. The prose is insipid, with some eye-rollingly trite sentences, such as, “Home’s what’s left over when you’ve figured out all the places you don’t want to be.” Protagonist Jamie is staggeringly unlikable. For instance, she bemoans a past miscarriage, then reveals she abhorred her unborn child. Further flashbacks reveal that she’d only gotten pregnant because Daniel—the same man she’s desperately seeking—wanted a child. Worse, there’s virtually no science in this science fiction. The aforementioned virus, which inexplicably turns human bodies into dust, laughably calls to mind Daffy Duck being disintegrated by Marvin the Martian—although the science fiction of Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century is arguably better than anything here. The worldbuilding is dropped into the story in steaming piles of infodump that raise more questions than they answer. And after Jamie uncovers the absurdly obvious origins of the deadly virus (which had been telegraphed from the very beginning), the entire story is tied up in a big, banal bow.

Terrible science and even worse fiction.

I didn’t love it like Shelf Awareness but I didn’t hate it quite like Kirkus. To me it didn’t live up to its promise but get some credit for the concept.

The Space Between the Stars, by Anne Corlett, started out promisingly enough. The story is set in a universe where humanity has colonized the stars, which sounds great, but unfortunately a devastating plague has rampaged through the planets, wiping out over 99% of our species. We learn this via our main character, Jamie, who is one of the very few to survive the virus, a literal handful on the planet Soltaire where she has been working on as a veterinarian. The novel follows her as she, joined by a few other survivors, attempts to get back to her childhood home on Earth.

Her reason for aiming for Earth is that her long-time lover Danielle and she used to always joke about meeting at Northumberland in case of a “zombie apocalypse” or other type of world-ending event, so she hopes beyond hope to find him there. The two of them split up after difficulties ensued following her miscarriage, and she ended up on her fringe planet as a means of getting herself some space to think things through. She luckily finds a ride off the planet via a trader ship whose captain (Callan) agrees to take her as far as he’s going. Soon afterward the ship has a patchwork group of survivors, including a strictly religious and often hostile woman who worked as a research scientist (Rena), the older and much more gentle former priest who has some sort of connection to her (Lowry), a young girl who worked as a prostitute (Mila) and the young boy she found who is on the autism spectrum (Finn). The novel has an episodic structure as they ship moves from place to place on its journey, having a few different types of adventures in each. Eventually it reaches a spot where the former government is trying to rebuild. From there it’s off to Earth and the episodic nature continues, just in a terrestrial vein.

As noted, The Space Between the Stars began well. Corlett does a nice job with those early scenes of panic and despair, both with Jamie and the others. The group does not mesh well, and there again the author does a good job in conveying the various personalities and alliances, as well as creating increasing tension. Callan especially is an engaging character, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of him. And the writing was often, though not always, quite good, economical when appropriate but turning nicely lyrical at times.

That isn’t to say there weren’t a few warning signs. I often liked the prose style, but every now and then it bordered on the edge (or tipped over the edge) of homily-like pronouncements. The several flashback scenes felt unnecessary and clumsy, though they were few in number and quite brief, so that wasn’t a major problem. Jamie isn’t a character that is easy to warm to (I never did) and while the tension amongst the group was well done, Rena felt a bit over the top in her religious mania and too on-the-nose in various other ways. The worldbuilding was thin, and a few actions felt highly implausible. But I was able to mostly set those aside for the first half of the book thanks to the narrative flow, the story itself, and my enjoyment of Callan’s character.

But things began to turn past the 50% point (almost exactly at that point) and went downhill from there. Rena became a chore as a character and one that just didn’t feel real, a major issue as she drives so much of the plot. Jamie wasn’t just often hard to warm up to but was simply often unpleasant as a person. Two big reveals felt both highly predictable/obvious way early and more than a little clichéd. The implausibility factor became worse and worse, some conversations between characters were just too hard to buy into, and the science fiction trappings felt like they were going off the rails as various backstory aspects didn’t seem to make much sense in a future where humans are traveling the stars, (for instance, it’s hard to imagine people referencing “Merchant-Ivory films” or still referring to “servers” and needing to monitor them in a world where we’ve colonized numerous planets). Melodrama seemed to pile up around the characters, as if the author couldn’t trust that we’d care about a group of people and their problems unless they were “big” emotional issues. And the homily-like nature of a few lines earlier became on onrush toward the end.

The description of the book says that the author has published short fiction but this is a debut novel, and it would appear to me that the length simply won out over the author’s craft here. Some of it is plotting (such as revelations that were obvious hundreds of pages earlier), some of it structural (the flashbacks), some of it characterization (one can live with character flaws in a short story; they become more noticeable and more grating in a novel). Corlett clearly has writing talent, and I’d probably pick up a second novel by her depending on its premise/content, but The Space Between the Stars, though it started off with such promise, ended in a place that makes it difficult to recommend.

I received an eARC of this book via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

Have you ever read a story that you fall into and forget isn’t real? The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett is like that. I fell into this story from the first words and found myself so engrossed with the characters, their plight, and their adventure that I forgot about the world around me.

Jamie Allenby is a woman not young, but also not old (honestly I’m not sure if her actual age is revealed and pictured her to be in her mid-thirties). She needs space, away from her loved ones to figure out her own life. BUT a nasty virus has turned the universe upside down, only 0.0001 survived. That’s the initial statistic that was heard before Jamie came down with the virus. The entire first chapter is her reliving the few days before the virus hit, her sickness, and ultimate survival.

"Ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine percent dead.
Ten billion people scattered across space.
Zero point zero zero zero one percent of ten billion.
Ten thousand people should have survived."

Ummm…..that quote is chilling when you think about it. A virus that could wipe out humanity to almost extinction in one go? Scary if you ask me! Add in the element that humanity has spread beyond Earth, colonizing many planets and you have yourself a sci-fi dystopia worthy of reading. I loved every element of this plot. A small band of survivors, making their way across the galaxy, finding other survivors and seeing if any government still exists. For some reason, this element reminded me of the show Firefly. I’m not really sure why either, but it did and I kept picturing Callan, the captain and semi-love interest, as Mal and his engineer Gracie as well Grace. Seriously though, the two plots couldn’t be more different. I think my association of the two comes from the beat up cargo ship they fly across space.

The real driving point of this story is Jamie. The author gives us flashbacks to moments that affected Jamie’s life. How did she, an Upper Echelon, wind up on a remote colony planet? What was she running from? Jamie’s character is very broken and the story focuses on her and her depression more than the world around them. I think this is why I fell into the story so well. The character driven plot with the world built so well around her that it was believable.

Overall I really enjoyed this story. I enjoyed following Jamie across space, her dealing with her issues, and I even enjoyed that this is a standalone. It ends with no loose threads and I liked that. I liked the sci-fi element of humans being spread across space and the mystery surrounding the virus that killed most of them. It was an interesting twist on your typical dystopia. Why 4 stars instead of 5? While I enjoyed the story, there where times when the pacing was slow and some parts seemed to drag on while others rushed by. There is one particular section towards the middle of the book that I wish had been elaborated on more instead of glossed over (can’t say much more than that without spoilers). Overall though I highly recommend this book if you enjoy character-driven dystopia with an element of sci-fi.

When I read the summary for this book it sounded like a cool dystopian, post apocalyptic, sci fi novel, but that is not what I got. I'll be honest and say that I did not finish this one. It was set in space but isn't really what I would consider sci fi, which is what I was looking for. The book moved slowly and I didn't particularly like the main character. I think this would work for people who aren't looking for a sci fi/fantasy sort of novel, so maybe the categorization is a bit off. Just because it's set in space doesn't automatically make it sci fi.

http://www.denofgeek.com/us/books-comics/book-reviews/265709/the-space-between-the-stars-review-trauma-at-the-end-of-the-world

You can find my full review on the link below, but here's the abbreviated version.

As I read this book, I found that the questions about the science fiction, political, and philosophical elements would have been better if they were explored to a deeper level.

They weren't expanded upon, making them more distracting than anything else. I do not make these criticisms lightly as I'm not a published author.

When a virus hits 99% of the population dies leaving the 1% spread out on many different planets all across the universe. Some alone and desprately searching for other survivors. This is a very character driven book with people trying to figure what to do now that they've survived the end of the world. Wanting to make it better than it was, except one character who was just plain crazy. The practical captain Callan decides to pick up a few survivors on the way to the capital planets, one of them being our main protagonist Jamie. I enjoyed reading about more mature characters for a change.

Jamie has a lot of complexe issues that she's trying to work through. Shes dealing with grief from a miscarriage and her aversion with being too close to anyone but also being afraid of ending up alone. The ragtag group of survivors couldnt be any more different from one another. We get two religious characters who are very different from one another. Rena being the zealous fanatic and Lowry being the calm and understanding character. We also get a wonderful character with autism named Finn, probably my favorite character. Mila and Gracie were also very different from each other but I liked that about them.

I didnt completely understand the virus. If you have the virus than you have it. Your system will fight it off or it wont. I dont understand why being around other people who have it would make it worse. Plus if the virus is mutating a lot then why didnt anyone get sick again. Sadly, I knew very early on where the virus came from. I also didnt understand why they never stopped at a pharmacy for Lowry or to get pain killers for another character. I find it hard to believe they havent encountered any aliens after exploring so much of the Universe or that people Jamie knew were still alive.

I almost quit reading this book multiple times. I rarely love character driven books and this one was no exception. I think this would have gotten a higher rating from reviewers if it had been catergorized as literary fiction on Netgalley instead of Fantasy/Scifi. I wasnt the intended reader for this but if you're looking for a literary fiction with a scifi twist than I think you might enjoy this more than I did. Once I knew what to expect I did enjoyed a bit more but honestly its just not my type of book. I found lots of parts to be really boring. I need more action in my books but I do see a lot of people loving it because of the philosophical questions.

There's a virus. It's spreading to every occupied world. There's a very minuscule chance of survival. She never expected to. When she has lived through it, she finds everyone else on the ranch has turned to dust. Is she the only left on this world?

Berkley sent me an ARC of this book to read for review (thank you). It will be published today.

When everything else is gone, what do you do? You gather food and then look for others. While you're doing that you have plenty of time to think about the past. How you were never good enough for your stepmother. How you stepped away from the man you lived with when you lost your baby. If it makes no difference now about where you go, where would you want to go? She decides she wants to go back to earth, back to her home town.

She meets an ex-priest and a scientist whose mind is a bit messed up. When they find a space ship, they beg passage. He will allow them to board but he's just going to the capital center, not all the way to earth. She decides that's closer than where she is now.

There are communities that are being run by dictatorship. A home where everyone is dressed in old fashion clothes and they're pretending to live in another era. A community that has no women and wants to acquire the ones on the spaceship. There's lots of room for thought in the situations the author creates for her characters.

I liked the ending. It was dramatic, people died, but the right ones lived and life will go on. Sometimes that's all you can do. This was a better than usual apocalyptic novel.

Jamie Allenby left Earth in protest of the forced emigration of so-called undesirables. She spent over thirteen years with her lover on one of the planetary outposts before leaving him and that planet for the relative solitude of the planet Soltaire. It is there that she survives a deadly viral outbreak and hopes to make it back to Earth to begin again in Anne Corlett's The Space Between the Stars.

When we first meet Jamie, she is waking up from a brutal and deadly viral outbreak. The only information everyone appears to have received is that this virus is lethal and that only 0.0001% will survive. Although Jamie craved solitude and wide open spaces, this was not exactly how she wanted to receive it. Longing for human companionship, she leaves the rural farm on Soltaire for the space dock. It is there that she eventually meets up with two additional survivors: a former priest and scientist on a spiritual retreat. These three are very fortunate in that they are picked up by a cargo ship heading back to the larger planetary outpost of Alegria. The ship makes several pit stops along the way for fuel and brings aboard several more survivors before arriving at Alegria. At first, everyone is overjoyed to see that so many have survived the brutal outbreak. This joy quickly turns to fear when they are told that the administration on Alegria is refusing to allow anyone to leave and that they will be enforcing a "breeding" program since so many children were killed in the outbreak. Jamie and a few of her shipmates make a break for it and successfully land on Earth, but have no idea what awaits them there. Will they find any survivors? Will they be faced with a new administration trying to enforce rules for humanity's survival?

When I first began to read The Space Between the Stars I feared this was just going to be another dystopian space opera with shades of The Handmaid's Tale meets Firefly/Serenity. I was pleasantly surprised (and no I won't tell you why I was surprised, read the book to find out for yourself!). Yes, there is a dystopian governmental presence but it isn't all-pervasive (nothing like the Alliance as seen in the television series Firefly or the movie Serenity). Yes, there is an occasional reference to religion and passing reference to a breeding program, but it is nothing like Gilead as seen in The Handmaid's Tale. At its core, The Space Between the Stars is about a handful of survivors struggling to make sense of things and carry on. There's the ship's captain, Callan; the possibly autistic young man, Finn; the loner veterinarian, Jamie; the ship's engineer, Grace; the former priest, Lowry; and the former research scientist, Rena. The bulk of the story centers on Jamie and her interaction with these five characters. I found The Space Between the Stars to be a relatively fast-paced, easy, and enjoyable read. I liked all of the characters (even the bad guys) and kept turning the pages because I had to know what would happen next. If you enjoying reading dystopian fiction, then I urge you to grab a copy of The Space Between the Stars to read. If you're not sure about dystopian fiction but you enjoyed watching Firefly or Serenity, then I urge you to grab a copy of The Space Between the Stars to read. For those of you simply looking for something a little bit different to read, look no further and get yourself a copy of The Space Between the Stars.

You know the kind of book that you cannot stop thinking about long after you've finished it? Well, that is this book for me. It's also among my favorite books so far this year, so there's that. Here's the thing: it isn't a fully action packed space adventure, so if you're looking for that, this may not be the book for you. But if you are looking for some amazing characters who have to make some really difficult choices after the whole universe nearly collapses, then this is definitely a book to check out.

So, here are the things I especially enjoyed about this one:

-The characters were so well done. Jamie, the main character, is kind of a mess. And this is before the apocalypse. So after, you can imagine the kind of shape she's in. She knows that the odds are not great in regards to how many fellow survivors may be out there, but she's determined to find out. That's the best part about her, even as she falls apart in so many ways, she's still trying to survive. The other characters are equally complex, and we get to find out so much about their stories as the book goes on. I grew to care about each of them.

-Everything about this book was incredibly thought provoking. Truly, it was terrifying to imagine being in the shoes of these characters- basically alone in the universe, having to rely on strangers, not knowing who can be trusted in a terrifyingly empty new society. It also felt eerily plausible- the way people reacted, how easily turmoil would have ensued.

-Even though it was quite character driven, the plot moved quickly too. I was never bored, and I was always excited for what would happen next.

-The characters have really great relationships with each other. Some of them became friends, while others flat out did not get along, and it felt so authentic. Just because there are not a ton of humans left, it makes sense that some people will flat out disagree, and I liked that the book wasn't afraid to go there. There was also a bit of romance, but it definitely wasn't the focus- as people are kind of busy worrying about the fate of humanity. Still, the bits of romance were a very nice respite from apocalyptic doom.

-Space! Even though the book wasn't incredibly heavy on the science part, it still featured a lot of great spaceship shenanigans and other technology. And really, who doesn't love space adventures?

What I didn't as much:

Really, my only minor complaint was that a few things seemed a bit unbelievable/coincidental. And while I wasn't totally able to suspend my disbelief, it also didn't really make me like the story any less. I was able to overlook it since the story and characters did a great job of pulling me in.

Bottom Line: I was so invested in the characters' stories and the stories of this world, and what led it to the state it was in. I felt quite satisfied with the story, and was contemplating it long after I was done reading.

I am a sucker for all things sci-fi, post-apocalyptic “after the end” type stories, so when I read the description of Anne Corlett’s book, I knew I was definitely going to read it.

But mainly I was going to read it because she stole my damned title.

Well, it’s not really stealing. Titles can’t be copyrighted. It’s perfectly OK for books, movies, TV shows, etc. to have the same title as other books, movies, TV shows, etc. But…still, it’s a cool title and I thought I was cool for thinking of it. Then this book happened and I had to figure out a different name for the unfinished piece of crap that is the thing I’ve been writing piecemeal for…oh God, it’s been ten years, I should probably just move on. Anyway, damn it, Anne Corlett. I concede, she got to that title first. Plus, for this novel it’s very fitting.

Eh, well. I don’t think I’ll ever be a professional writer. That requires discipline, focus and the ability to start writing something and actually finish it instead of just letting it sit there for ten years. I’d rather write about books that I read on the internet. Because it’s very easy to criticize. Fun, too.

Anyway! On to The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett.

So half-an-hour into the future, all of humanity has spread out on numerous colony planets. Then a virus with a 0.0001% chance of survival strikes. (Nearly) everybody dies. And all we’ve got left is a very whiny veterinarian who spends way too much time obsessing over her failed marriage and a a miscarriage.It doesn’t help that the omniscient narrator tends to describe everything as being “pregnant.” A pregnant pause. A pregnant stare. A pregnant sky. All existing to remind poor Jamie of the fact that she failed at reproduction that one time.

I got through this book by imagining it to be like the TV series Firefly (and sometimes it does feel a little like a less fun version of Firefly),

I’d love to get started on her deeply offensive portrayal of people with autism, but I’d probably go on forever. As a person on the Autism spectrum, I must make one thing clear: Autistic people are aware of their surroundings. They know who their parents and siblings are. Whether or not they can accurately translate their perceptions into terms that the Normals can understand is a whole other matter. Aargh.

Anyway.

This book was slow, spent too much time focusing on its whiny and self-centered main character, and didn’t spend nearly enough time exploring the newly decimated world. We spend more time listening to Jamie whine about her ex than we do on some of the much cooler-sounding aspects of the story.

Recommended for:

Someone who wants to read some Sci-Fi, but who doesn’t like Sci-Fi.

Not recommended for:

Anyone looking for actual Sci-Fi.

If you haven’t heard of The Space Between the Stars or you’re on the fence about whether or not to read it, allow me to give you my humble opinion. You should seriously check this one out- it’s got that “end is nigh” vibe, but without the typical imminent demise aspect and you get a brief tour of the inhabited worlds. There’s even a bit of internal strife, long distance love, and all the characters seem to struggle with their pasts to some degree or another, plus it lacks any sort of zombie which takes away the scary/creepy vibes!

This isn’t a story about the whole of humanity, but rather a story about a group of survivors and how they deal with the loss of most of their fellow humans. Every human inhabited planet was struck by a virus with a survival rate purported to be one in a million leaving human conversation to become something of a rarity. Jamie Allenby is on a remote planet working as a livestock veterinarian when the virus hits and doesn’t know if there’s another living person on the planet. Having livestock as your only company for the rest of your life isn’t very promising. Eventually, she gets off planet with the goal of going to Earth, her home planet and where her ex-significant other (unsure of actual relationship) Daniel had been traveling to when disaster struck.

What I’ve just written is the most basic summary of the plot and doesn’t even begin to cover the richness of the characters in The Space Between the Stars. Jamie in particular is quite interesting. She struggles with her past and her continuous effort to run from every problem and hardship has failed, because now she’s running back to the man she left. This story really brings her full circle and is almost a story of personal reconciliation with the viral apocalypse as a background theme rather than the reverse. The other characters were almost equally interesting, though obviously much less defined than Jamie. Rena and Lowry are members of a non-denominational religious order and have a long history with each other. Mila struggles to see a place for herself in a world were skills other than her limited set are required. Finn is probably incapable of surviving by himself and struggles with the ever-changing situations. The inter-group strife was quite believable given the circumstances and really helped keep the story moving, though some bits of the plot were wrapped up very conveniently.

The Space Between the Stars was just a really good book and so difficult to put down! Anne Corlett has successfully written a book about the destruction of society that wasn’t bleak and awful, but rather focused on personal reconciliation and new beginnings. This is a book that will definitely be placed on my shelf of keepers for more than just that lovely cover. I hope her future books will only continue to get better!

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way.

To start, I have mixed feelings about this book. I do. I'm not a huge science fiction fan, but when I read the blurb I liked the idea enough to want to try it out. I wanted to see how the other planets and interplanetary travel worked with the end of the world motif.

Unfortunately, I felt it didn't hit a good mark. There is no great description about the different planets and the conflicts involved were fairly easily taken care of. It might have been better if everything was set in Earth. It was that uninteresting.

On top of that, The illness that took over was a bit convenient. The explanation on how it came to be is an obvious sci-fi trope that I felt it would be better if it was related to the space travel itself.

It may seem that I have no real positive thoughts on this book, but that's not true. I did like the writing. The author is a good writer. I do like the concept of the book as well. I just wish it was put together a bit differently.

First and foremost, can we take a step back and appreciate this gorgeous looking cover? You cannot tell me that this beaut wouldn't snag your attention sitting on the new release shelf at your local bookstore. This cover would make me stop dead in my tracks, begging me to read the back cover.

Had I not been inundated with responsibilities, this would've been a day read- it's so simple, and just a "go with the flow" book. Regardless if it's a fast paced book, or a book you take your time with, is no reflection of the quality of work. "The Space Between the Stars" is absolutely engaging, the characters are well developed, and the reader is able to feel the emotion, anger, and feeling lost in the vastness of space.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS

How much space is too much space? When the virus intended to end the world decides to wipe the slate clean with humanity, it makes a survivor question her choices in life. Holding on to her last bit of hope, Jamie searches for life beyond her planet, and a way to get back to remnants of a normal life. But has the fever made humanity have a change of heart?







Let's talk character development- I will reiterate the sign up above. . . if you're worried about spoilers STOP READING THIS POST!!! I don't want to ruin anything!!!



Jamie- Our main character. Jamie wakes up on Soltaire- an off world. .  .world for lack of a better word. Jamie is a veterinary scientist who jumped at an off world opportunity to get some space between her and her boyfriend Daniel. Readers wake to a scene of Jamie waking up from a fever- a virus that is a "perfect killing machine", that is contagious, and that "mutates with each reinfection". The first thing our character does is go in search of anyone. Just someone to talk to, to know that she wasn't the only survivor. Unfortunately all Jamie finds are piles of dust where people should be- the fever returning humankind to their natural state "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." 

Lowrey and Rena- what are the odds of 3 people finding each other on a death stricken planet? Predictably, this awesome twosome stumbles upon Jamie in a bar. . .I know, shocker. The three quickly cling to each other, "but they seemed to be stuck in some social holding pattern; all polite introductions and mundane questions". Although it's the end of the world, it seems old habits are hard to break. Lowrey is a preacher, Rena is a research scientist. . . almost sounds like a set-up for a bad joke. Rena actually reminds me of a character from another book (turned movie) whose death received a standing ovation in the movie theater. . .I'll drop a pic, be sure to leave me a comment if you know who I'm talking about!



Callan and Gracie- the saviors to our tale. Callan and Gracie JUST so happen to come across a distress beacon, and guide their space craft down to rescue our survivors. Of course personalities clash- can't expect everyone to get along. Callan is on his way back to the capital Alegria, to find out how many survivors in total they are looking at. Gracie, the ship's engineer, is none too happy to be stopping at every distress beacon they come across. 

Mila and Finn- more survivors, adding a dynamic to the group. Mila, for lack of a better word, is a prostitute, obviously finds herself out of a job due to the world ending. And Finn- I'm going to DARINGLY go out onto a limb, and guess that he is autistic, or something of that nature- and I love his character. He brings the honesty, and child-like innocence that is desperately needed within the group.

Naturally, not everything will go according to plan. Naturally, not everyone remains honest in the end of the world. Can love survive "The Space Between the Stars"?

As far as Anne Corlett- her style of writing is so easy to fall in love with. It's easy going, not dry at all, and thoroughly enjoyable. I would gladly pick up any new book she writes.





I was chosen by Netgalley to receive an advanced reader copy of “The Space Between the Stars” by Anne Corlett. Given that fact, it has not altered my opinion on the book at all. “The Space Between the Stars” has a scheduled US release date of June 13th 2017.

An Excellent, Unexpected Read

If you go into this book expecting the usual dystopian fodder (one terrifying attempt after another just to stay alive… or to find other survivors… or to save what’s left of humanity), then you’re not going to like this book. And I’ll admit, that’s how I started out, based on the novel’s premise. But then something interesting happened…

I found myself on a parallel journey to the protagonist herself–letting go of the past; letting go of expectations; living from one breath (or one paragraph) to the next; letting the characters be who they were, instead of who I wanted them to be.

And then I became fascinated by the story in a whole new way.

It’s really a story about loss, and about living with that loss, on so many levels. It isn’t about stopping the plague. It’s about when the plague wins. And what comes after. It’s a human story about surviving the unthinkable, and then trying to re-imagine life as something different–not as a step backward, and maybe not as a step forward either…

In a way, it’s a book about learning how to step through life without making that kind of judgment in the first place. Without being tormented by what was, or by what might have been.

In fact, this book is so much about that, that it gets a bit heavy-handed in the moral-of-the-story department here and there, but I’m giving it five stars anyway because the theme is one that the protagonist is genuinely dealing with. Her thoughts are true to her character, so the real problem was not that I didn’t like the story, but that I didn’t like the character sometimes.

She’s broken inside, and not just by the plague. She struggles with her past. Like a real person. Sometimes she overcomes it, and sometimes she doesn’t. Like a real person. And sometimes she ends up in uncomfortable situations that she can’t quite figure her way out of. Like a real person.

In essence, Corlett has created a character so real that I actively disliked her from time to time–before remembering the things I did like about her, forgiving her for being human, and moving on. I related to the character as though she were a real person. Which is, in my opinion, the book’s greatest draw.

So don’t go into this story expecting dystopian fiction. It is a story about survival–but it’s more about emotional survival than physical survival. Read it for what it is–read it for that–and you will love this novel.

3.5 Stars

I finished The Space Between the Stars just over two months ago and I've had a hard time sitting down to write a review because I'm really not sure what I think. Overall, it's a solid book, but I had some rather large issues with it. The story starts with the main character, Jamie, waking up after a virus literally burned the majority of the people in the universe to cinders. The virus has a 99.9999% fatality rate and Jamie shouldn't have survived, but somehow she did. She quickly meets up with two other people on her rural planet and they are soon picked up by a spaceship, bringing their party to 5. They shortly pick up two more strays, and run into a few more people, which makes it abundantly clear that more than .0001% of the universe's population survived.

One major thing that I need to get out of the way is the similarity to Firefly. Covering with a spoiler tag to be safe! If you have watched Firefly, you will see the overlap immediately, and it's pretty much impossible to not see the similarities once they show up. The biggest similarity is in the cast of characters, though there are several very similar plot points as well. We have the gruff captain with a heart of gold, the army veteran/engineer (combined in this case), the doctor (veterinarian in this case), the preacher, the prostitute, and the genius (autistic in this case, instead of River). As you can see, this is an enormous amount of overlap. Even though their personalities are somewhat different than the characters in Firefly, it was really hard to overlook it and view the characters as new, unique people.

Jamie's sole goal throughout the first half of the story is to get back to Earth and her former lover, who she is convinced will be waiting for her. I struggled with Jamie's character quite a bit. She was incredibly selfish, whiny, and downright obnoxious most of the time. Even when she got what she thought she wanted, she wasn't happy and couldn't articulate what it was she did want. She came across as really indecisive and not knowing herself, which is fine, but it makes characters difficult to engage with and relate to.

The writing and the plot were both fairly good. Several major plot points/twists did end up being a bit predictable, but overall I did enjoy the story. I felt that the story really gained its footing in the second half of the novel and I did enjoy it a lot more once things really got moving. I would have liked a bit more of the sci-fi aspects to come through - the characters might as well have been travelling by train or boat instead of travelling through space - but it was still a solid story.

Overall this was a good debut novel for readers looking for a light sci-fi/post-apocolyptic novel. I would definitely read more books written by Anne Corlett in the future.

Well I was very fortunate to receive not only one but two copies of this novel for review. The first thanks to the amazing publishers over at Netgalley and then I won a hardcopy from Goodreads. The initial premise that drew me into this book besides the arc cover was the synopsis. I was drawn in from the first page, its a very interesting beginning to a novel which isn't simply a sci-fi novel but something much more. The longer I read the deeper my connection with all the diverse array of characters became. The themes the author added into the core plot of this book truly make one stop and think about situations in our own lives and our futures. It leaves you pondering your place in the universe and the vast array of choices one can make in life.  I will admit that even though the first few chapters captured my sci-fi lover imagination it took me about 50 pages to truly become engrossed and decide whether the character quirks were ones that would annoy me incessantly or would become something much more.
Anne truly shaped her apocalypse type world with all manner of people. Not just color or creed but personality types and quirks. There is one character in particular that is very introverted and I simply adore her because I can truly relate to her and her quirks. There is also a character on the autistic spectrum whom I love dearly in this book.  Religion but not a typical call on religion is very prevalent and a central part in  this novel which I can see could rub some the wrong way. Yet in my eyes it was done perfectly and there were some passages that felt as if the author pulled the thoughts right out of my mind.  There were in the end a couple things I would have liked to have changed in the book, one regarding the re homing of a horse but overall because I cannot spoil it for those who want to join me in enjoying this book. Sit down, take your time, and don't give up if it doesn't catch you right off the bat. The entire story is a puzzle that is slowly put together and in the end its as beautiful as the stars. 
I gave this 5 out of 5 Stars!

A thoughtful consideration of what survivors of a near total apocalypse of humanity might go through to get their heads and souls set right in order to move forward with living. The main character, Jamie, is a veterinarian whose personal disappointments and trauma in her life have led her to a remote colony world, Solitaire, populated by about 10 thousand people. She revives from illness to find herself a rare survivor of an epidemic that was projected to kill 99.9999% of humans. Which means a few dozen left alive on most of the 300 or so settled planets and a few thousand on Earth. As a woman of action and not one to wallow in grief, she sets out to find other survivors and build a sustainable community.

When she gets to the largest town, she is surprised to find two survivors, a male priest named Lowry and bioengineering scientist Rena, both middle-aged. While he is spiritual and dedicated to helping others, he doesn’t believe in a vengeful god or a divine purpose to life. However, Rena does live by those precepts, putting her on Jamie’s shitlist for the duration of this tale. Lowry’s dedication to helping her is based on their long history together and the kind of compassion owed to the insane.

Sending out a distress beacon gets them picked up by a military pilot of a small spaceship, Callan, a can-do, hunky guy. Jamie bonds with him, but resists the easy path to romance. His one crew member, an engineer named Gracie, is an antisocial misanthrope and an enigma, but her competence and courage will save the group’s bacon in hazardous times to come. They travel to other planets and space stations seeking fuel and looking to help other groups of survivors. Sadly, the living communities they find have quickly adopted the dog-eat-dog human response to adversity, with a few elite taking power and shaping others to their agenda by force. They pick up one more shipmate in a tense escape situation, an uneducated young woman named Mila, who had to resort to prostitution to survive tough times in one urban site of a colony world but doesn’t deserve to be part of one group’s forced breeding scenario.

Jamie persuades their group to head for Earth. Despite having split from her husband of 13 years, she feels compelled to seek him out where her last message from him led her to believe he was travelling, the Northumberland region of England where they once lived. The overpopulation and pollution of Earth which had led to a massive forced emigration of the disenfranchised to the colony worlds will be gone, and hopefully the few thousand people likely to be still alive will provide to best chance to build a future. For Jamie, survival is not enough. They have a chance to build a better society. Unfortunately, Rena thinks the same way, with the difference that only true believers should be in control.

I enjoyed this story in the same way as Mandel’s “Station Eleven” and Heller’s “The Dog Stars”, which are similar explorations of relatively ordinary people trying to find meaning in their survival after a near-total apocalypse. For me, it wasn’t quite as engaging or stimulating with respect to the depth of the key personalities and their philosophical delving. This story has an uphill struggle for success among the vast number of post-apocalyptic tales spawned by our pessimistic view of the future of humanity. The implausible spread of such a deadly virus among all human societies has to be taken as an arbitrary premise, not much different from many other novels. I was more disappointed in how the space travel was so painless that the sense of the vast magnitude of space implied by the book’s title didn’t really sink in for me. I didn’t mind the nonexistent attention to the technology of fast-than-light travel, but the refueling of the ship by pumping of ersatz gas at various landing sites went too far in disregard of tech trappings.

This book was provided for review by the publisher through the Netgalley program.

“Home’s what’s left over when you’ve figured out all the places you don’t want to be.”

If you head into this book expecting a rollicking space epic, you're going to be disappointed. This book does partially take place in space. Yes, there are space stations and space ships. There are other populated (maybe I should use past tense here) worlds besides Earth. But...this is more a book of the human condition after a pandemic wipes out 99.9999% of ALL humans.

The protagonist, Jamie Allenby, is a veterinarian who happens to be on a small farming/ranching colony helping with the cattle there. At first, waking alive on the third day of being sick and finding herself still alive, she thinks she's the only person left on the planet or maybe left in the universe. She dreams of getting back to the northern sea coast of England on Earth and doesn't really believe that could ever happen.

This is a slow paced story and definitely not a space opera. AND there were many times I felt like slapping Jamie silly. But I persevered and I'm glad I did because the last 2/3 of the book is much better than the first 1/3.

I liked many of the characters and they were well developed. There were a few characters I booed and hissed at. But, all in all, I'm glad that I read this surprising post-apocalyptic story. Oh, and it's a standalone novel. Kudos for that.

I received this book from Berkley Publishing through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review.

This was a quick ready with an interesting premise. I enjoyed the story and thought it was unique. The characters didn't have as much depth as I would have liked but I still liked seeing how their stories ended. This genre is one of my favorites and I was really happy to have had the chance to read this. Good luck!