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WORK TITLE: The Space between the Stars
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://annecorlett.co.uk/
CITY: Bath, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2144194/anne-corlett * https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/anne-corlett
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Has a partner; children: three sons.
EDUCATION:Bath Spa University, M.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and attorney. Has worked as a criminal solicitor in London, England.
AWARDS:H.E. Bates Award.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals and anthologies.
SIDELIGHTS
Anne Corlett is a British writer and attorney based in Bath, England. She holds a master’s degree from Bath Spa University. Corlett has worked as a criminal solicitor in London. She has also contributed written works to publications and anthologies. Among the prizes Corlett has received for her writing is the H.E. Bates Award.
In 2017, Corlett released her first novel, a work of science fiction called The Space Between the Stars. The protagonist in the volume is Jamie Allenby, a veterinarian and one of the few survivors of a deadly virus that decimated the planet’s population. Jamie bands together with a handful of other survivors. They attempt to make their way in this post-apocalyptic world. Other members of Jamie’s group are an aging pastor and a scientist with mental health issues. Jamie also wonders about Daniel, an ex-boyfriend she believes may still be alive. Meanwhile, she develops feelings for another survivor in her group.
In an interview with a contributor to the Qwillery website, Corlett commented on the inspiration for The Space Between the Stars. She remarked: “The idea for the book came to me on a trip to Northumberland, during an evening walk on the spectacular beach at Beadnell. I didn’t set out to write a science fiction book—the setting was a direct response to the need for the main character to face up to the possibility that she might never make it home. … Post-apocalyptic stories allow writers to explore human relationships in a very specific way. There are fewer people in post-apocalyptic worlds, so the difficulties and joys of relationships are thrown into sharp relief.” Discussing her protagonist in an interview with Matt Staggs, writer on the Unbound Worlds website, Corlett stated: “The story is definitely about Jamie’s emotional journey towards acceptance of her personal history and the way her life has turned out. I didn’t want her to reach a trite resolution, or have the book conclude with a happy-ever-after scenario, but I did want there to be a sense that she was continuing on a journey towards a more hopeful future.”
Critics were sharply divided in their assessments of The Space Between the Stars. “The prose is insipid,” remarked a Kirkus Reviews writer. The same writer criticized the ending of the story, stating: “After Jamie uncovers the absurdly obvious origins of the deadly virus … the entire story is tied up in a big, banal bow. Terrible science and even worse fiction.” A contributor to the Bibliosanctum website opined: “For all the characters’ planet-hopping and space-faring, the novel’s universe felt small and uninspired, and while there were several interesting developments in terms of world-building, there just wasn’t enough follow through to satisfy.” In a more favorable assessment of the novel in Booklist, Anna Mickelsen asserted: “Corlett offers a thoughtful examination of how individuals find meaning and fulfillment.” Liz Bourke, critic on the Tor.com website, suggested: “The Space Between the Stars intersperses the present-day narrative with small snippets from Jamie’s past, giving us a larger picture of the kind of woman she is and the relationships that formed her. This fills out the world, and makes Jamie’s isolation more poignant.” Bourke concluded: “The Space Between the Stars is, ultimately, a kind novel. Strikingly written, with very human characters and a deep concern with human frailty, it is an excellent debut.” A contributor to the Speculative Herald website remarked: “It acknowledges and embraces that life is messy and people are complicated. It upholds what it claims to believe in, however awkward, rather than sacrificing its ideals on the altar of necessity. Consequently, I find The Space Between The Stars both hopeful and incredibly satisfying.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2017, Anna Mickelsen, review of The Space Between the Stars, p. 28.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2017, review of The Space Between the Stars.
ONLINE
Anne Corlett Website, http://annecorlett.co.uk (April 9, 2018).
Bare Fiction, http://www.barefictionmagazine.co.uk/ (April 9, 2018), author profile.
Bibliosanctum, https://bibliosanctum.com/ (August 17, 2017), review of The Space Between the Stars.
Qwillery, http://qwillery.blogspot.com/ (June 13, 2017), author interview.
Speculative Herald, http://www.speculativeherald.com/ (June 4, 2017 ), review of The Space Between the Stars.
Tor.com, https://www.tor.com/ (June 8, 2017 ), Liz Bourke, review of The Space Between the Stars.
Unbound Worlds, http://www.unboundworlds.com/ (June 26, 2017), Matt Staggs, author interview.
Anne Corlett is a criminal lawyer by profession and has recently completed an M.A. in creative writing at Bath Spa University. Her work has been published in magazines and anthologies, and her short fiction has won, placed, or been short-listed in national and international awards. The Space Between the Stars is her first novel.
Anne Corlett has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and has won a number of awards for her short stories, including the H E Bates Award. She works as a criminal solicitor and freelance writer, and lives with her partner and three young boys in Somerset. The Space Between The Stars is her first novel.
Anne Corlett spent thirteen years as a criminal lawyer. She is still unsure how this happened, given a firm intention to work in publishing, two linguistic degrees and a stint as an etymologist. She has now returned to writing, and has completed two novels, for which she is represented by the Richford Becklow agency. She also writes non-fiction for magazines. She has been placed, longlisted and shortlisted for various prizes, including Bristol, Bath, Mslexia, HE Bates, Fish, Writers’ Forum, Words with Jam and New Writer. In 2014 she won third prize in the Bare Fiction Prize for Short Story.
QUOTED: "The story is definitely about Jamie’s emotional journey towards acceptance of her personal history and the way her life has turned out. I didn’t want her to reach a trite resolution, or have the book conclude with a happy-ever-after scenario, but I did want there to be a sense that she was continuing on a journey towards a more hopeful future."
Interview with Anne Corlett, Author, The Space Between the Stars
By MATT STAGGS
June 26, 2017
BARNES & NOBLE
INDIEBOUND
AMAZON
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PTP_8751_pt_new-copyAnne Corlett is the author of the new science-fiction novel The Space Between the Stars:
All Jamie Allenby ever wanted was space. Even though she wasn’t forced to emigrate from Earth, she willingly left the overpopulated, claustrophobic planet. And when a long relationship devolved into silence and suffocating sadness, she found work on a frontier world on the edges of civilization. Then the virus hit…
Now Jamie finds herself dreadfully alone, with all that’s left of the dead. Until a garbled message from Earth gives her hope that someone from her past might still be alive.
Soon Jamie finds other survivors, and their ragtag group will travel through the vast reaches of space, drawn to the promise of a new beginning on Earth. But their dream will pit them against those desperately clinging to the old ways. And Jamie’s own journey home will help her close the distance between who she has become and who she is meant to be…
In the following interview, we discuss Jamie’s journey across the void of outer — and inner — space.
Unbound Worlds: It occurred to me that your novel might be about “space” in two senses of the word: both the universe around us, and the distance we put between ourselves and others. Writing is a solitary profession. Do you ever have trouble managing space?
Anne Corlett: With three young children, it’s often difficult to find space to write. I’m finding my current project quite hard going at the moment, and somehow they always seem to sense when I’ve just got into my stride, and that’s when they all suddenly decide that they are going to do everything in their power to make sure I don’t have a minute’s peace!
UW: Likewise, stories about journeys often seem to be about inward journeys taken by the protagonists. Is this the case here?
AC: The story is definitely about Jamie’s emotional journey towards acceptance of her personal history and the way her life has turned out. I didn’t want her to reach a trite resolution, or have the book conclude with a happy-ever-after scenario, but I did want there to be a sense that she was continuing on a journey towards a more hopeful future.
UW: There are many ways you could have told this story. Why did you choose a science-fiction narrative?
AC: I wanted the book to be about a journey home across an impossible distance. The only way for the main character to really have to face up to the possibility of never making it home was to set it in space.
UW: The majority of humanity is killed by a pandemic disease, but it’s quite unique. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
AC: The disease is incredibly contagious, and mutates as it is passed from person to person. A single infection might be survivable, but most people are infected over and over as they have contact with other people. I wanted the survivors to be people who are isolated in some way, so that I could explore the different ways in which people put space between themselves and others.
UW: The journey to reconnect these isolated communities of survivors reminded me of similar situations here on Earth, particularly in the aftermath of Europe’s bubonic plague when entire villages disappeared. Were any of these historical incidences influential in your writing?
AC: I looked more at the future of disease than at the history. A deadly virus is probably our world’s most likely doomsday scenario. There’s some frightening information out there.
UW: Religion still has a place in the futuristic setting of The Space Between the Stars. How it is practiced and the conclusions people draw from its teachings become an issue between some of the characters. First, do you think that spirituality will continue to be an important factor in our own future, and secondly, did you base any of this on similar discussions we’re having in society today?
AC: In some ways I was less concerned with religion as such, and more interested in belief and the different way it manifests. Religion is the framework for belief, and I wanted the backstories of some of the characters to include shifting religious affiliations. Lowry is someone who has reached an accommodation with his own beliefs, while Rena is desperately searching for the ‘right’ religious framework which will let her make sense of the world. Even Jamie, who isn’t religious, is looking for meaning and patterns in the events of her life.
I don’t really know how things will pan out in terms of religion. It does seem to be one of the most divisive aspects of society- more so than gender or ethnicity or perceived social class. Perhaps it is something we will outgrow in time, as we come to understand more about our world and ourselves.
QUOTED: "The idea for the book came to me on a trip to Northumberland, during an evening walk on the spectacular beach at Beadnell. I didn’t set out to write a science fiction book—the setting was a direct response to the need for the main character to face up to the possibility that she might never make it home. ... Post-apocalyptic stories allow writers to explore human relationships in a very specific way. There are fewer people in post-apocalyptic worlds, so the difficulties and joys of relationships are thrown into sharp relief."
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Interview with Anne Corlett, author of The Space Between the Stars
Please welcome Anne Corlett to The Qwillery as part of the 2017 Debut Author Challenge Interviews. The Space Between the Stars is published on June 13th by Berkley.
Please join The Qwillery in wishing Anne a Happy Publication Day!
TQ: Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?
Anne: I wrote from a very young age, and then stopped for a few years when I was first working as a lawyer in London. I came back to it I very suddenly, right n the middle of a house move back in 2011.
TQ: Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?
Anne: I used to be a pantser until I read an article about detailed summaries. I now start with an initial short synopsis, and then expand it into a long, detailed summary of anything from 10,000 to 30,000 words.
TQ: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?
Anne: Trying to get past the urge to edit as I go. I know I work best by just ploughing on through the first draft, but since going through the intense editing experience with my first novel, I’m having to fight the compulsion to make everything perfect from the start.
TQ: What has influenced / influences your writing?
Anne: Other writers, unusual things I see, snatches of conversation, song lyrics.
TQ: Describe The Space Between the Stars in 140 characters or less.
Anne: Over the course of a long journey home, a survivor of a deadly virus faces up to the troubles of her past and finds hope for the future.
TQ: Tell us something about The Space Between the Stars that is not found in the book description.
Anne: It explores the ways in which we tend to look for patterns and meaning in our lives.
TQ: What inspired you to write The Space Between the Stars? What appeals to you about writing Science Fiction and in particular post-apocalyptic SF?
Anne: The idea for the book came to me on a trip to Northumberland, during an evening walk on the spectacular beach at Beadnell. I didn’t set out to write a science fiction book – the setting was a direct response to the need for the main character to face up to the possibility that she might never make it home. I think that post-apocalyptic stories allow writers to explore human relationships in a very specific way. There are fewer people in post-apocalyptic worlds, so the difficulties and joys of relationships are thrown into sharp relief.
TQ: What sort of research did you do for The Space Between the Stars?
Anne: Very little. I realised very early on that I didn’t want it to be science-heavy. I’ve read and enjoyed books where many things are very much left to the reader’s imagination.
TQ: Please tell us about the cover for The Space Between the Stars.
Anne: Both the US and UK covers show a lone female figure – presumably Jamie, the main character. To me, the US cover feels as though it comes from early on in the story, before Jamie’s journey begins, while the UK cover seems more inspired by the later stages of the book, when the journey has reached its end.
TQ: In The Space Between the Stars who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?
Anne: Gracie was probably the easiest character to write, as her interactions with the other characters are relatively limited. It only needed a few little details to hint at there being more to her than meets the eye. Finn was quite tricky as I wanted to avoid using cliché or patronizing portrayals of a non-neurotypical character. Rena was also difficult, as there’s a risk of overdoing it when trying to write a character whose mental state is declining.
TQ: Why have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in The Space Between the Stars?
Anne: I wanted to touch on issues of social class, and the way in which we, as a society, treat people we see as being different or lesser in some way. I didn’t want it to be too heavy-handed, so I dealt with most of those issues as back-story.
TQ: Which question about The Space Between the Stars do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!
Anne: Are any of the characters, places or incidents taken from real life?
When I read a book, I’m always looking for those descriptions that make me think ‘YES! That’s just how it is.’ While none of the actual incidents in the book are taken directly from real life, I did use a few fragments of real life experience in an attempt to make some things more universally recognisable. For example, there is a description of a funeral which draws on things I observed at a couple of funerals I’ve attended, and things I’ve heard other people describe.
Some of the places in the book are very much real, albeit with their names changed or their locations tweaked.
TQ: Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from The Space Between the Stars.
Anne:
If you rubbed a northern summer between your fingers the warmth would crumble away like flaky pastry, revealing the chill underneath.
It’s summer and the world is ending in a long, drawn-out fade-to-gray.
TQ: What's next?
Anne: I’m working on a novel centred around the strange world of immersive theatre.
TQ: Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.
Anne is originally from the north-east, but somehow slid down the map and finished up in the south-west. She now lives near Bath with her partner and three young sons.
Anne returned to writing in 2011 after many years working as a criminal lawyer in London. This was slightly unfortunate timing, given that she was right in the middle of relocating to Somerset with her family who seemed to feel that a little less novel-writing and a little more packing might be warranted. They probably had a point.
Over the next couple of years Anne began to build a career as a freelance writer, fitting this work in around her day job as a solicitor. In 2012 she met her agent, Lisa Eveleigh, at the York Festival of Writing. Since then her work has been published in various magazines and anthologies and her short fiction has won, placed or been shortlisted in various national and international awards.
In 2014 Anne began an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her initial MA novel was put on hold after a trip back up to the Northumberland coast triggered the idea for The Space Between the Stars which was acquired by Pan Macmillan in January 2016. It is currently available as an e-book on all platforms, and will be released in hardback on 1 June in the UK and 13 June in the US.
QUOTED: "Corlett offers a thoughtful examination of how individuals find meaning and fulfillment."
The Space between the Stars
Anna Mickelsen
Booklist. 113.18 (May 15, 2017): p28.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Space between the Stars. By Anne Corlett. June 2017.368p. Berkley, $26 (9780399585111).
After a deadly virus turns virtually all of humanity to dust, veterinarian Jamie Allenby and a small band of survivors make their way from the frontier planets toward her hometown on Earth with the help of a conflicted starship captain. Jamie struggles with feelings of isolation and hopelessness as they begin to learn the true scope of the devastation, which has serious repercussions for the future of mankind. She must also choose between an old love who might have miraculously survived and the uncertainty of a potential new relationship. The other members of the motley group, which includes an elderly pastor and an unstable scientist, among others, are given opportunities for introspection as well. In her debut, Corlett offers a thoughtful examination of how individuals find meaning and fulfillment in the face of an apocalyptic event then wraps up with a thrilleresque ending. The Space between the Stars will appeal to fans of Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven (2014) and Peter Heller's The Dog Stars (2012) as well as to readers of women's fiction looking to branch out into new genres. -Anna Mickelsen
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Mickelsen, Anna. "The Space between the Stars." Booklist, 15 May 2017, p. 28. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A496084785/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3fee5da1. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A496084785
QUOTED: "The prose is insipid."
"After Jamie uncovers the absurdly obvious origins of the deadly virus ... the entire story is tied up in a big, banal bow. Terrible science and even worse fiction."
Corlett, Anne: THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Corlett, Anne THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS Berkley (Adult Fiction) $26.00 6, 13 ISBN: 978-0-399-58511-1
An off-world colonist struggles to return to Earth in the wake of an interplanetary plague in this debut novel.On a distant planet called Soltaire, Jamie Allenby awakens from an illness to find herself utterly alone. She's just survived a virus that's nearly wiped out humanity throughout the galaxy; only 0.001 percent of those infected survived, while the dead were reduced to piles of dust. On her phone, Jamie finds a garbled voice mail, which she believes is from Daniel, her estranged boyfriend. She recalls how they'd once said they'd reunite on a beach in Northumberland, England, if the world ever ended, and she now feels compelled to go to Earth to find him. She soon discovers two other survivors on Soltaire, and, after sending out a distress signal, they're rescued by a passing ship. As they travel, they pick up more survivors, who all hope to somehow return to Earth. 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 241/2th 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.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Corlett, Anne: THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487668731/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=da474d6b. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487668731
QUOTED: "The Space Between the Stars intersperses the present-day narrative with small snippets from Jamie’s past, giving us a larger picture of the kind of woman she is and the relationships that formed her. This fills out the world, and makes Jamie’s isolation more poignant."
"The Space Between the Stars is, ultimately, a kind novel. Strikingly written, with very human characters and a deep concern with human frailty, it is an excellent debut."
Collapse and Survival: The Space Between The Stars by Anne Corlett
Liz Bourke
Thu Jun 8, 2017 4:00pm Post a comment 1 Favorite [+]
The Space Between the Stars is Anne Corlett’s first novel. It is a striking effort that explores life, death, love, isolation, and the search for meaning in an uncaring universe, and one that treats these topics with a surprisingly accomplished touch. I read it back to back with another debut novel, Katie Khan’s Hold Back the Stars, with which it shares several apparent similarities (notably, a miscarriage provides part of the emotional background of the main female character in both novels). The contrast shows to some effect: Corlett is far more successful at giving her themes weight and resonance.
Reading The Space Between the Stars, I was struck by how much it was in dialogue with the same themes as Joanna Russ’s We Who Are About To… The two books are very different in their structures, in their characters, and in their emotional arcs—We Who Are About To… tends towards bleak defiance, while The Space Between the Stars moves from despair to a place of hope—but they are both concerned with death and civilisation.
For those who are not familiar with Russ’s work, We Who Are About To… is the story of a small number of people—less than a dozen—who crash-land on a planet that is at least temporarily survivable. They have no hope of rescue and no way to get back to the rest of human civilisation. The narrator is a woman who understands that they are doomed, and is determined to live what remains of her life with autonomy and self-respect. Most of the rest of the party, however, especially the men, are determined to found a new civilisation, a project which will include rape and forced pregnancy for the women. (A probably futile endeavour, given the numbers, leaving aside the utter immorality of such a case.) We Who Are About To… is a furious, polemical novel about autonomy, personhood, and the choices we make as humans when facing death and the prospect of being forgotten to memory.
The Space Between the Stars is neither furious nor polemical. But it explores human connection and human ways of dealing with isolation and the prospect of extinction, after a virus has swept through human space, leaving only thousands (or perhaps tens of thousands) alive where once there were billions.
Jamie Allenby, the viewpoint character, was a vet on the frontier planet of Soltaire before the virus. She wakes, having survived, to an empty world. An undecipherable communication leads her to the conclusion that her estranged partner Daniel has also survived, and that he intends for them to meet on Earth. Here, at the end of everything, she decides that she loves him still. As she strives to reach Earth and her childhood home on the Northumberland coast, she encounters other survivors, some of whom form a small community for traveling to Earth: a former priest, an extremely religious scientist who is disturbed in her mind and believes that God has chosen them all to make a new world, a taciturn spaceship captain and his unsociable engineer, a young woman who was a professional prostitute, and a young autistic man.
As they travel, they encounter other small communities of survivors, and must face the different ways in which people are reacting to the new status quo. Some of them are responding violently, and trying to replicate the social divisions of the old world—trying to enforce their hold on power and reproduce the world they knew. And when Jamie finds her former partner, she must face the knowledge that her view of him does not coincide with the person he is now.
On Earth, they find other people who have survived the end of the world: a young woman in a bookshop in Alnwick, trying to keep the remains of the internet alive with the aid of people of the far side of the world; a community of aged Regency re-enactors, determinedly ignoring the near-extinction of the species. At last, at Jamie’s childhood home, she encounters someone whom she never expected to see again—her stepmother, with whom she had a strained relationship in her teens.
The Space Between the Stars intersperses the present-day narrative with small snippets from Jamie’s past, giving us a larger picture of the kind of woman she is and the relationships that formed her. This fills out the world, and makes Jamie’s isolation more poignant. We come to understand that she was always, perhaps, isolated, and that now, in the isolation of post-plague humanity, she might finally reach beyond her own personal isolation. And here, near the island of Lindisfarne with its two surviving monks, she must come to terms with learning that the plague was not, after all, a natural disaster.
In its emotional arc, in its concern with connections and its respect for individual choices and autonomy, The Space Between the Stars recalls Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (though it is not nearly as concerned with queer themes as Chambers’ work). It has something of the same sense of a small, enclosed, misfit community.
The Space Between the Stars is, ultimately, a kind novel. Strikingly written, with very human characters and a deep concern with human frailty, it is an excellent debut. I recommend it, and I look forward to seeing what Corlett does next.
The Space Between the Stars is available now in the UK and publishes June 13th in the US from Berkley Books.
Liz Bourke is a cranky queer person who reads books. She holds a Ph.D in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin. Find her at her blog, where she’s been known to talk about even more books thanks to her Patreon supporters. Or find her at her Twitter. She supports the work of the Irish Refugee Council and the Abortion Rights Campaign.
QUOTED: "It acknowledges and embraces that life is messy and people are complicated. It upholds what it claims to believe in, however awkward, rather than sacrificing its ideals on the altar of necessity. Consequently, I find The Space Between The Stars both hopeful and incredibly satisfying."
Review: The Space Between The Stars by Anne Corlett
JUNE 14, 2017
Review: The Space Between The Stars by Anne CorlettThe Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett
Published by Berkley on June 13th 2017
Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 368
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Thanks to Berkley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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four-half-stars
The virus had a long incubation period. By the time it started killing, it had already spread across the stars. Those who survived the second day lived. The rest burnt up, 99.9999% of the human race reduced to piles of dust. Now the few survivors – scattered across planets – must try to reconnect, regroup and choose their future. Should Jamie try to rebuild what she’s lost or choose a fresh start?
The Space Between The Stars is – for me, at least – this year’s Station Eleven. I have seen more critical reviews, but it spoke straight to my heart and unstrung it, leaving me crying quietly on an aeroplane (whether that’s one better than crying on public transport I leave to you). Like Station Eleven, this is a story that uses a SF conceit to explore human nature rather than a story that is interested in its SF trappings. As such, some SF readers may feel sold short. But not this SF reader. This reader is in resonant bits.
We meet Jamie on Soltaire, a remote farming planet where she has fled from her long-term partner Daniel to seek the space to heal after a devastating loss. Her flight may be his saviour: those who reached out to comfort loved ones simply passed on the virus. Parents, children, lovers were vectors for the disease. Jamie contracted it too, but she has survived – and now she is left with the difficult mathematics of the mortality rate. Given Soltaire’s small population, she could be the last person alive on the planet. Corlett captures her anguish and terror; you can taste Jamie’s spiralling panic.
When she finds a garbled message on her communicator, she remembers that she may be alone on Soltaire, but she’s not alone in the universe. She and Daniel once joked that in the event of being separated in a zombie apocalypse they would meet in Northumberland – and he was on his way to Earth when the virus hit. Now convinced he has survived, she has a mission: if she can contact a passing spaceship of survivors, she may yet find him.
Luckily for Jamie, statistics can be misleading (her maths is also terrible, which Corlett – delightfully – never bothers to correct). In an epidemic, survival rates drop in densely populated areas. On a sparsely populated planet like Soltaire, chances improve. Camping in town near the spaceport, she finds two more survivors: Lowry, founder of a local religious retreat, and Rena, a former research scientist with an unhealthy religious mania. Within days, they have been rescued by the Phaeacian*, which captain Callan and engineer Gracie escaped infection thanks to quarantine.
From here, The Space Between The Stars is a road trip as the Phaeacian seeks other survivors on its route back to the central planets and as Jamie and the rest seek meaning in their survival. For all I said this wasn’t a story overly interested in its scifi trappings, Corlett clearly knows her tropes. The scenes on Pangaea, Gelta and Alegria are all straight out of the post-apocalypse playbook, but Corlett skilfully evokes the terror of empty warehouses, the inevitable threat of desperate men and the bureaucratic ruthlessness of those too used to holding power. There’s nothing new here per se, but I really don’t care when it’s handled well.
And no, The Space Between The Stars isn’t really interested in the genetics of its killer virus, or how the Phaeacian‘s engines work. Ignoring the spaceship (at best the space equivalent of a tramp steamer), everything is absurdly low-tech, more 1998 than interstellar. While this initially bothered me, I soon gave it a pass. I was too entranced by the development and destruction of the relationships on board the ship.
They’re an unlikely group who gel poorly: Rena, determined to believe in God’s plan, can’t reconcile it with the survival of sex worker Mila, autistic Finn or even Jamie herself, once Rena discovers she was born with a conjoined twin. Jamie – still smarting with guilt over the forced emigrations of the ‘less desirable’ from Earth – has no patience for those who insist one life has more value than another when most lives have been snuffed out. Captain Callan (once a deportee himself) clearly can’t wait to get the whole squabbling mess off his ship. The sheer quantity of baggage on board should be enough to drop the Phaeacian out of the sky like a stone.
Along the way, the narrative takes a lingering look at coping mechanisms and specious arguments (such as Callan’s pointed question of how many survivors it takes for Jamie to decide they can cope, rather than insisting on rescuing them) as it circles repeatedly, insistently around our right to make our own choices. I love that in spite of defending this principle, both Jamie and Callan are human enough to struggle with it when others make what appear to be poor choices – and are chastised. I love more that this is a post-apocalypse whose empty planets are peopled not by the fittest, but by the isolated – the old, the sick, the dysfunctional, the neuroatypical.
Even more so than Station Eleven, this is a post-apocalypse that acknowledges the tropes and then rejects them. It acknowledges and embraces that life is messy and people are complicated. It upholds what it claims to believe in, however awkward, rather than sacrificing its ideals on the altar of necessity. Consequently, I find The Space Between The Stars both hopeful and incredibly satisfying. And in spite of being a grumpy sentimentalist who claims to hate romance, I’m not ashamed to admit I was shipping madly from the start.
* For those wondering, it’s a reference to – inevitably – The Odyssey. It is at the least highly suggestive and at the worst a spoiler in its own right, if you believe in nominative determinism.
four-half-stars
QUOTED: "For all the characters’ planet-hopping and space-faring, the novel’s universe felt small and uninspired, and while there were several interesting developments in terms of world-building, there just wasn’t enough follow through to satisfy."
Book Review: The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett
I received a promotional copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett
Mogsy’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Berkley (June 13, 2017)
Length: 368 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
The Space Between the Stars is a contemplative novel about one woman’s journey through a desolate, broken down galaxy after much of humanity has been wiped out by a deadly plague. Jamie Allenby was able to escape much of the chaos due to the fact she was working on a remote planet at the time, but while her choice to be alone may have saved her from the worst effects of the virus, it also left her cut off from the rest of civilization. Now she is desperate to reconnect with her long-term partner Daniel, whom she had sought some time away from after the loss of their unborn child. Jamie has no idea if Daniel is even still alive, but an unknown transmission received on her communicator gives her hope. Recalling a conversation they once had about meeting up in Northumberland if an apocalypse scenario ever happened, Jamie begins working on a plan to return to Earth.
Before long, Jamie meets up with another group of survivors and she is able to leave her lonely planet on a spaceship captained by a man named Callan. A ragtag crew made up of characters with diverse origins, her new traveling companions are all nonetheless struggling with similar fears of the future and trying to come to terms with the loss of so many people. Differences in opinion and beliefs are a cause of much friction among the group especially in the early weeks, as everyone must accept that the old ways are gone and that the way ahead is more uncertain than ever.
To begin, I didn’t think The Space Between the Stars was a bad book, but my overall enjoyment was admittedly dragged down by some pretty deep flaws. You may have heard already that the novel is inherently light on the science fiction, despite its post-apocalyptic premise and space traveling narrative. While this is true, I was surprised to find that I actually didn’t mind the lack of sci-fi elements. No, what I did mind was the novel’s thin plot and absence of any clear direction.
I believe part of the problem stems from the protagonist. Unfortunately, I found Jamie’s character extremely annoying and unlikeable, to the point where everything she did, said, or thought made me want to grind my teeth. I get that she’s a broken and complicated survivor, who has had to deal with some pretty rough stuff. Still, let’s be real—in a scenario where almost the entire human population has been wiped out, who hasn’t been touched by pain and loss? For Jamie though, self-reflection is almost non-existent. She’s also judgmental and hypocritical, too wrapped up with her own problems to open her heart and sympathize with others. This is a character who, by her own admission, dropped out of medical school and switched to veterinary medicine because pesky human patients had that pesky way of telling her about their pesky feelings. Heaven forfend! On top of that, she also can’t stop obsessing about her past. In a devastated world best served by positive attitudes and long-term thinking, she’s bogged down instead with lame excuses for her wishy-washiness and negativity. That’s because bitterness is a constant for Jamie. To see what I mean, just count how many times the words “resent”, “resentment”, and “resentful” come up in the book when they’re being used to describe her moods. The answer is: Way too much.
It’s rare for me to feel such dislike for a main character, but as hard as I tried to compartmentalize those feelings, they nonetheless played a huge role in influencing my overall experience. Often, I found myself wishing we could follow the tale through the eyes of the other characters, like kind and grandfatherly Lowry, pragmatic Gracie, or even the shy and awkward Mila. The story itself was decent, but I also didn’t come away feeling like I got much from it. For all the characters’ planet-hopping and space-faring, the novel’s universe felt small and uninspired, and while there were several interesting developments in terms of world-building, there just wasn’t enough follow through to satisfy me.
Still, I have no doubt most of my disappointment is rooted in my inability to connect with the protagonist. It’s always an uphill battle in these cases, so it’s really tough for me to look objectively at this book and separate its other aspects from my critical feelings towards Jamie. That said, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to check out other reviews if you’re curious about trying a quieter and more low-key sci-fi read. The Space Between the Stars was simply not a good fit for me, but as always your own mileage may vary.