Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Page 55

In the near future commercial interests design a space
mission to reinvigorate interest in space exploration.
A crew is chosen, to include Cormac, a reporter who
will blog the mission, pilots and crew and a scientist.
The mission is to travel to the furthest point in space
ever travelled to by a human manned craft and come
back heroes. We join the mission when Cormac is the
only crew member left, the mission gone awry, with
him wallowing in his despair at his own ignorance of
how to turn things round (literally). As the plot progresses we get to find out a lot more about Cormac
and how the crew was picked, Cormac’s relationships
to them and his wife and more on why, and how, the
mission goes so spectacularly wrong. The book is
slightly flawed in that it requires you to just accept
what’s happening in the middle parts, which don’t
actually make sense till the later parts so requires a bit
of trust from the reader. I think this flaw could account
for some of the poor reviews, as if it hadn’t been for a
recommendation I may have questioned it much more,
which would have made the trip a lot more wobbly
than it was.
Overall – Interesting premise, well executed to make a
very entertaining read.

Sleeps with Angels
by Dave Hutchison

Having read and enjoyed Europe in Autumn I jumped
at the chance to review this collection of shorts which
was sent to me as an ARC. Hutchison’s prose is
absorbing and in each short he demonstrates an intelligent take on alternate worlds. They mostly sit in SF
but quite unobtrusive, even where they rely on hard
science. The story, and the characters are the thing
here. There are six fairly long short stories in here
that deal with themes that will be familiar if, like m R