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A review by e_read_books
The Butterfly Disjunct by Stewart C. Baker
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This is a debut collection of the author’s previously published short stories and a few stories new to this collection.
They can all be described as speculative fiction on the sci-fi end of the spectrum, some very lightly e.g. a vaguely described non-existent medical procedure, mentions of robots, etc., and others with more defined staples of the genre; space travel, time travel, multiple dimensions, etc.
Really, you could call the sci-fi elements the background staging or secondary genre for this collection. The real fun in this collection for me was the wide range of primary genre that each story presented. I never knew from one story to the next what I would get and that kept me engaged throughout.
There is horror, spy thriller, action-adventure, absurdist, family drama, romance, space opera, mystery, comedy, dystopian or post-apocalyptic, and more. These genres will sometimes be mixed and matched as well, with different tones and styles so obviously Baker is extremely talented and creative.
Most of my individual ratings for these stories were between 3 and 4 stars. There are about 30 stories here, and there were only a couple that I didn’t at least like.
There were two stories I gave 5 stars:
Elements of a successful exit broadcast - The prologue to the collection, it is a list of instructions with allusions to something terrible happening on the space ship/station that is the setting. It presented a really unsettling and isolating tone. I’d put this pretty firmly on the horror end of the genre map.
Favourite quote: By the time your message reaches home, everyone you knew will long be dead and buried. You are speaking for the future, from the past.
How to configure your quantum disambiguator - This opens section ???. [Error: Out of timeline, unable to process] and is a humorous but also slightly horrifying set of absurd instructions that might or might not help you not end the space-time continuum.
Favourite quote: Push the red button. Please do not push the red button. Push the red button.
Ultimately, this collection seeks to highlight the love and connection between people. Friends, family, lovers, people in general (human or otherwise), people lost to us, those that stick with us in hard times, and new connections filled with possibility. Other strong themes include bodily autonomy, hope for humanity in the face of a changing climate, and personal growth when you make bad decisions.
Extra points for top notch titles. Some favourites were Words I’ve redefined since your dinosaurs invaded my Lunar Lair; How to break causality and write the perfect time travel story; Proceedings from the First and Only Sixteenth Annual One-Woman Symposium on Time Manipulation.
I also appreciated the comprehensive content warning list included for individual stories.
I would definitely read from this author again. Thank you to Netgalley and Interstellar Flight Press for providing me the eARC.
They can all be described as speculative fiction on the sci-fi end of the spectrum, some very lightly e.g. a vaguely described non-existent medical procedure, mentions of robots, etc., and others with more defined staples of the genre; space travel, time travel, multiple dimensions, etc.
Really, you could call the sci-fi elements the background staging or secondary genre for this collection. The real fun in this collection for me was the wide range of primary genre that each story presented. I never knew from one story to the next what I would get and that kept me engaged throughout.
There is horror, spy thriller, action-adventure, absurdist, family drama, romance, space opera, mystery, comedy, dystopian or post-apocalyptic, and more. These genres will sometimes be mixed and matched as well, with different tones and styles so obviously Baker is extremely talented and creative.
Most of my individual ratings for these stories were between 3 and 4 stars. There are about 30 stories here, and there were only a couple that I didn’t at least like.
There were two stories I gave 5 stars:
Elements of a successful exit broadcast - The prologue to the collection, it is a list of instructions with allusions to something terrible happening on the space ship/station that is the setting. It presented a really unsettling and isolating tone. I’d put this pretty firmly on the horror end of the genre map.
Favourite quote: By the time your message reaches home, everyone you knew will long be dead and buried. You are speaking for the future, from the past.
How to configure your quantum disambiguator - This opens section ???. [Error: Out of timeline, unable to process] and is a humorous but also slightly horrifying set of absurd instructions that might or might not help you not end the space-time continuum.
Favourite quote: Push the red button. Please do not push the red button. Push the red button.
Ultimately, this collection seeks to highlight the love and connection between people. Friends, family, lovers, people in general (human or otherwise), people lost to us, those that stick with us in hard times, and new connections filled with possibility. Other strong themes include bodily autonomy, hope for humanity in the face of a changing climate, and personal growth when you make bad decisions.
Extra points for top notch titles. Some favourites were Words I’ve redefined since your dinosaurs invaded my Lunar Lair; How to break causality and write the perfect time travel story; Proceedings from the First and Only Sixteenth Annual One-Woman Symposium on Time Manipulation.
I also appreciated the comprehensive content warning list included for individual stories.
I would definitely read from this author again. Thank you to Netgalley and Interstellar Flight Press for providing me the eARC.