Name: Latitude Tamarind's review of Out There by Saundra Mitchell
Item: Out There
Rating: 4
Author: Latitude Tamarind

Saundra Mitchell

Into the queer new yonder! To conclude the trio of anthologies that started with critically acclaimed All Out and Out Now, Out There features seventeen original short stories set in the future from fantastic queer YA authors. Explore new and familiar worlds where the human consciousness can be uploaded into a body on Mars...an alien helps a girl decide if she should tell her best friend how she feels...two teens get stuck in a time loop at a space station...people are forced to travel to the past or the future to escape the dying planet...only a nonbinary person can translate the binary code of a machine that predicts the future...everyone in the world vanishes except for two teen girls who are in love. This essential and beautifully written collection immerses and surprises with each turn of the page. With original stories from: U. Agoawike K. Ancrum Kalynn Bayron Z Brewer Mason Deaver Alechia Dow Z.R. Ellor Leah Johnson Naomi Kanakia Claire Kann Alex London Jim McCarthy Abdi Nazemian Emma K. Ohland Adam Sass Mato J. Steger Nita Tyndall

Into the Queer New Yonder

Out There

Lindsay

“Nobody cares who we kiss at the end of the world.”

“Art is meant to overwhelm the soul. If it doesn’t, then it’s not art.”

Don’t you see why I would always choose the past over the future? Every time I believed the future would be better, it let me down.”

“Is this some joke about your wood?” I ask, my leg touching his hardness.

“No.” He laughs. “It’s about how trees— well, they’re connected underground. We don’t think about that because we’re more interested in how they soar to the sky. Human beings have always been more interested in what’s above them than what’s below. We don’t pay attention to what grounds us. Maybe that’s been our worst mistake.”

“We’ve made so many mistakes,” I say.

“But trees,” he continues, his voice full of wonder. “They care for each other through an interconnected underground system of roots. I imagine this is what they look like underneath the ground. Like us. Wrapped around each other. Safe.”

I’m irritated because yes, I have panic attacks, but I’m not fragile. I am not a piece of glass.

Gianna wears her hurt like a punch in the chest. She cradles it there, protects it with hunched shoulders and a shuddering rib cage like she’s afraid it will leak out and inconvenience someone else.

Her dark braids cover her face from the side, but her warped reflection shows her rich brown skin and watery dark brown eyes that haven’t lost the will to smile just yet. 

You can’t buy that kind of inherent hope, but you sure can break it.

I guess our consciousness can transform our bodies the way a house is transformed by the ghosts that haunt it.

You always did that, dropped in quotes and sayings, and sometimes they weren’t even in English. People thought it made you deep and intellectual. I used to. I was so impressed by how impressed everyone else was. Dating you made me feel smarter, so being dumped by you felt like failing an exam.

Latitude Tamarind

This is a cool little collection of queer sci-fi stories — something that I would definitely recommend. Claire Kann’s was obviously my favorite, but K. Ancrum’s “Home” definitely also places. It’s no Dahlia Adler anthology, but it is very good — I think it’s really important to read stories of queer people having a future. Four stars.

Leah Johnson - "Nobody Cares Who We Kiss at the End of the World"

Favorites:
Alex London - "Doublers"
Mato J. Steger - "Aesthetically Hungry"
Adam Sass - "Reshadow"
Jim McCarthy - "Present: Tense"
Abdi Nazemian - "Concerto"
K. Ancrum - "H O M E"
Leah Johnson - "Nobody Cares Who We Kiss at the End of the World"

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Out There by Saundra Mitchell

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Out There by Saundra Mitchell