Stellar Parallax: Human Hope in Grimdark Worlds by Various Authors

A mother introduces her child to an orchard aboard a space station. On a floating city, a boy risks everything to save his baby sister. When the police escort an aging Puerto Rican man off his front porch, he expects to be shot. Instead, he finds himself on the way to a floating island where he may find peace after all. These and 17 other stories explore the role of hope at the extremes of human experience. The writers have imagined a variety of dangerous futures, and they’ve also imagined connection and compassion guiding the people of the future. In twisted underground passageways, in the desolation of space, and on barren landscapes where the fate of a few seeds could make or break the future, the protagonists of Stellar Parallax: Human Hope in Grimdark Worlds find glimmers of light in darkness. Together, these stories ask: when we can’t count on our world to be rational or safe, where does that leave us? And what can we build when everything we once trusted falls apart? Featuring stories by Aaron Timothy, K.M. Veohongs, Em Harriett, Roberto Cofresí Hopgood, Susan L. Lin, Heather Zoppetti, Austen Lee, Lucy Zhang, Fendy S. Tulodo, Jason P. Burnham, Marie-Hélène Lebeault, Monique Cuillerier, Lancer Kind, Jon Negroni, Stuart Conover, H.V. Patterson, R F Daniels, Naomi Klouda, Joyce Frohn, Frank Baird Hughes.

Adult • Anthologies • Science Fiction/Agripunk, Hopepunk, and Solarpunk

Content Warning: sound-induced violence, neural breakdowns, corpses found in disturbing conditions, suicide implication (not by main character), disability discrimination (from the perspective of a deaf author), claustrophobic environments, language (frequent swearing), mentions of apocalyptic scenes on Earth (including lack of food, collapse of social structures), childbirth, including death of mother or child (birth itself not described on page), mentions of loss and grief, environmental collapse and survival trauma, implied corpse scavenging, threat of violence and stalking, medical distress, mild body modification (tech implants), family trauma, dead animals, deceased parents, graphic injury and amputation, depictions of starvation and dehydration, child endangerment, military trauma, death, references to systemic oppression and exploitation, displacement, colonialism, imperialism, authoritarianism, police, war, poverty, airplane danger, baby shaking, natural disaster (aftermath), death of a robotic animal (mostly offscreen), fatphobia, scorpions, pandemic, psychological trauma (effects of war, betrayal, and survival in dystopian environments), child endangerment, government oppression, implied adult consensual intimacy, moral ambiguity (betrayal), memory manipulation, gun violence, experimentation, gaslighting, physical abuse (brief) of a teenager, alcoholism, misogynistic society, references to infanticide, some ableist language, ageism, ableism, systemic genocide, corpses, SA