The Art of Space Travel by Nina Allan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For a story set in the future with elements that make it sound like it's going to have some decent reveal with the second great Mars expedition, this story remains firmly in the realm of a character study, only.

There are parts of this that I do like, such as the writing and the character development, the stream of consciousness bits, the ruminations about her family and where she might come from, it is only this, however.

After so much build up, I kinda wanted something a little more juicy to sink my teeth into. Maybe I'm a spoiled reader and I don't have so much patience for super quiet stories that ramble on without giving me anything more than distant but very real-feeling hard realities contrasted against a hopeless-feeling optimism.

Did I like this so much? No. Not really. It was good for what it was, but I suppose I don't really like being shown normalcy so starkly against distant dreams. I like my dreams a little closer to the page, dragging me out of the regular and into the truly beautiful.

That being said, this story was nom'd for the '17 Hugos and it does have beauty to it.

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