Deep Space

By: Milo James Fowler

Narrated by: Don Wang

Deep Space collects seven short stories from the outer rim: "Live by the Ten, Die by the Gun"; "From Gaia to Proxima Centauri"; "Resurrection of the Hornet"; "Autonomic Zen and the Art of Destruction"; "From Scheol My Soulfire Burns"; "Dance by the Light of the Moon"; "Tomorrow's Dawn".

©2017 to present Milo James Fowler (P)2026 Milo James Fowler

Holes and Deus-ex Machina

The first story "Live by the Ten, Die by the Gun" is full of plot holes that bring down the structure, add that to the fact that Judge Lucy acts in a few scenes (beginning by undermining her security chief... who NEED to be aware of all dangers and weapons on board), added to that a "magic" weapon who can do about everything but the Sheriff knows nothing about it... and some villains that doesn't seem to be ready to go the whole length to reach what looks like a cham of a mission.
"From Gaia to Proxima Centauri" is more solid but it still presents "holes", since Gaia search for time gaps and finds none, but she is told there should be...
"Resurrection of the hornet" is a flash fiction but one depending on a Deus-ex Maquina super item.

and so and so... all in good ideas, but lacking in the execution.

Space Theme not the authors best, but still ok

Comparisons are inevitable and again is hard to review a bunch of small stories at once.
I have read/listen to other short stories by Milo James Fowler with more dystopian themes that I liked a lot, so I was a bit let down when this group of stories (some way bigger, some way smaller) fail to get to some kind of point - that is always important to me even in short stories. Still, the universes created are interesting and one can get inspirations from them, for example.
I would urge anybody that starts with this book to try other stories from this author - this is the reason why I usually say I like stories and not authors.

A strange collection of futuristic short stories

Deep Space is a strange collection of futuristic stories. These are tales that leave the listener wondering what happened and wishing for that there was more. They are well written and intriguing, but feel incomplete.

The narrator does a good job telling the stories.

Book has great potential, sadly not the best narration

I like the concept of the stories - especially the last one was kind of fun, what with string theory thrown in and all - and I really like Fowler’s writing in general, but in this case the narrator sadly did the book a bit of a disservice.

There’s the technical side and performance side.
A lot of the P’s, F’s and T’s are pretty forceful sounding and come with a lot of air, which was just really distracting.
Also, the narrator essentially keeps up the same rhythm, melody, tone, pacing and voice throughout the entire book. There is a bit of urgency in it, so for a few minutes it’s fine, but after a short while you lose track of who’s talking, what’s happening, time changes, emotions or intensity of the moments etc, as it all sounds samey.
And that for me contributed a lot to making it difficult to keep track of the story altogether.

What If?

Channeling his Twilight Zone-esque superpowers, author Milo James Fowler again produces a series of short stories guaranteed to make you wonder and probably leave the lights on tonight. I see the relationship among the stories as variations on the theme of "What If?" All are set in a spacefaring future, generally acknowledging Terran ancestry, but with different threads informing the creation of that universe. Thoughts to ponder! Oh, I enjoyed listening to Don Wang's reading, too!