Saturday, April 28, 2018

Ten stories that end their apocalypses on a beach

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Ceridwen Christensen tagged "nine (and possibly 10) novels that find themselves on the beach at the finale." One title on the list:
The Space Between the Stars, by Anne Corlett

At the opening of The Space Between the Stars, we find Jamie Allenby shivering out the last fevers of a lethal plague that has annihilated 99.9 percent and then some of a human race far flung over dozens of inhabited planets. Jamie sets out on a journey through empty worlds, attempting to get home to the Northumbrian coast of England, where she hopes her estranged lover still lives. The image of seaglass, tumbled smooth through the action of water and tides, wends its way through the novel, a metaphor for the grinding action of trauma and recovery on our protagonists, and everyone else left. The novel ends quite literally on a beach, alongside people quietly rock-picking their way through the end—and then on to a tentative beginning, putting together the broken pieces of the world.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue