Strange Flight

This well-intentioned but wildly uneven anthology features six stories of characters with disabilities navigating science fiction worlds, from both #OwnVoices authors and allies. Yvette Franklin’s “The Darkness of Goo” is the strongest offering, about a crew finding alternative means of communication while navigating through a strange, viscous substance that prevents them from using American Sign Language. Unfortunately, the authenticity and empathy of Franklin’s tale does not pervade the other pieces in the anthology. Though “Music of the Spheres” by Victoria Feistner, about a space-faring woman discovering a pulsar with musical emissions, gets off to a promising, even poetic start, the tale disappoints by ending in a melodramatic suicide. David Preyde’s “Twentieth Century, Go to Sleep” is the most confusing of the bunch, with several historic assassins making appearances in the modern world. Preyde offers moments of loveliness and insight (“That’s the special gift of trauma, it turns you into a time traveler”), but on the whole readers will be lost. The often muddled narratives and inconsistent quality rob the anthology of its potential. Readers will be disappointed. (July)