I was a huge fan of Tim Pratt’s Axiom Trilogy, so I was thrilled when I heard that he was Kickstarting a collection of three novellas set in the same universe. The Alien Stars and Other Novellas focuses on characters that Pratt feels didn’t get enough time in the spotlight in the main trilogy.
The first novella, “The Augmented Stars,” ostensibly focuses on Ashok, a human with multiple cybernetic enhancements and a snarky sense of humor. He was far and away my favorite character from the trilogy, so I was excited to read a story with him at the center. While it was great to see him captaining his own ship, I felt like the real main character of the story was a newly introduced one, Delilah Mears. I liked her, but I would have liked to see more of Ashok.
Next is “The Artificial Stars,” and the spotlight character for this one is the AI Shall. The AIs in Pratt’s setting are based on human minds, which allows for great exploration of transhumanist themes. In this story, we actually get to see two versions of Shall, since he can duplicate his consciousness (and reabsorb the duplicated consciousness later if he chooses). This is a wonderful story because, in addition to the tension and well-written action scenes, it encourages the reader to think. If each AI is essentially a clone of a human mind, at what point does the AI become a separate person? If an AI duplicates itself, is the duplicate a separate person?
The third novella, “The Alien Stars”, follows the alien Lantern. It’s hard to say much about this one without spoiling major plot points of the trilogy, but the story has a very strong emotional core. There were some heartwarming moments as well as a few genuinely heartstring-tugging ones. This was my favorite of the three stories.
All in all, it was a lot of fun to return to this world and these characters. I hope we see another full-length novel featuring them someday.
Outside of a Dog 