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The Space Between the Stars: A Novel
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The Space Between the Stars: A Novel
Unavailable
The Space Between the Stars: A Novel
Audiobook12 hours

The Space Between the Stars: A Novel

Written by Anne Corlett

Narrated by Mary Woodvine

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

A Recommended Summer Read from The Verge and io9
A Recommended June Read from Hello Giggles and Tor.com

When the world ends, where will you go?


In a breathtakingly vivid and emotionally gripping debut novel, one woman must confront the emptiness in the universe—and in her own heart—when a devastating virus reduces most of humanity to dust and memories.

 
All Jamie Allenby ever wanted was space. Even though she wasn't forced to emigrate from Earth, she willingly left the overpopulated, claustrophobic planet. And when a long relationship devolved into silence and suffocating sadness, she found work on a frontier world on the edges of civilization. Then the virus hit...
 
Now Jamie finds herself dreadfully alone, with all that's left of the dead. Until a garbled message from Earth gives her hope that someone from her past might still be alive.
 
Soon Jamie finds other survivors, and their ragtag group will travel through the vast reaches of space, drawn to the promise of a new beginning on Earth. But their dream will pit them against those desperately clinging to the old ways. And Jamie's own journey home will help her close the distance between who she has become and who she is meant to be...
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 20, 2017
ISBN9781524779306
Unavailable
The Space Between the Stars: A Novel
Author

Anne Corlett

Anne Corlett has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and has won a number of awards for her short stories, including the H E Bates Award. She works as a criminal solicitor and freelance writer, and lives with her partner and three young boys in Somerset. The Space Between The Stars is her first novel.

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Reviews for The Space Between the Stars

Rating: 3.648936170212766 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

94 ratings17 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Space Between the Stars is Anne Corlett's debut novel, combining dystopian sci-fi with a picaresque storyline, with a dose of romance and a touch of mystery added. There is a lot of eschatological table talk and a twisted thriller ending.A virus has killed most of humanity across the known universe. Jamie wants to get back home to Earth. She meets up with various survivors: spaceship captain Callen and his sidekick Gracie, and ex-priest Lowry and burned-out scientist Rena, who both had been at a retreat center. Together they go on a journey across space, stopping at various posts to refuel, learning how survivors have organized after the apocalypse, and picking up Mila, born into the 'whore' class, and Finn, who is perhaps autistic.We learn that before the virus Earth had become overpopulated. A way of classifying people by status involved tattooing people. Some people were sent off-planet, with a resistance group opting to join them.Jamie, Callen, Lowry and Rena are all on the run from their pasts. Cramped together on the small space ship, there are a lot of conflicts and divisiveness. And some underlying sexual tension.Rena was a scientist with fixated on understanding the 'will of God' behind all that has happened. As she spirals into a madness of her own making, and each survivor struggles to make sense of their lives, horrible secrets are revealed. Should--will--these misfits survive?When everything is revealed at the end, I realized the novel was also a warning about genetic manipulation in an endeavor to 'improve' on Mother Nature out of a false fixation on perfection.Nature is messy. But it is always right.I received a free ebook from the publisher through First to Read.Publication Date: June 2017
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Space Between The Stars is – for me, at least – this year’s Station Eleven. It spoke straight to my heart and unstrung it. Even more so than Station Eleven, this is a post-apocalypse that acknowledges the tropes and then rejects them. It acknowledges and embraces that life is messy and people are complicated. It upholds what it claims to believe in, however awkward, rather than sacrificing its ideals on the altar of necessity. Consequently, I find The Space Between The Stars both hopeful and incredibly satisfying. And in spite of being a grumpy sentimentalist who claims to hate romance, I'm not ashamed to admit I was shipping madly from the start.Full review to follow.I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a saga of Jamie, the veterinarian, who wakes up on an earth satellite, ravaged by an illness to find herself alone (it seems). The rest of the population are supposedly dead. The trek begins as she finds other isolated survivors of the killer virus on her quest to return to earth. She and the others face demons from their pasts along the way. I would recommend this as a YA novel. My thanks to the author and the Penguin First to Read program for a complimentary copy.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Giving this a 2.5 but I feel it deserves to be rounded up to 3. I have to preface all of this by saying I'm not and never have been someone who enjoys science fiction. Dystopia. Utopia. None of it. My brain doesn't function well with concepts that are outside the realm of reality and I just get lost and confused and annoyed. This is by no means anyone's fault, it is just my preference and the way my brain works, I guess. I enjoyed this story to a point. What I liked was the philosophical statements that were made by the author, who is assuredly very clever and bright. Lots of life advice said by people in a way that was very profound (which speaks to the lack of a realistic nature to this story. Nobody in real life speaks with such profundity all the time, making sweeping statements about life whenever they open their mouths. Except maybe in this book.) I thought the author made some wonderful observations about life, stuff that genuinely spoke to me; I just didn't love the way they were executed in the story. However, in respect to the setting, i.e. 99% of the population dead due to a virus and only a handful of people left living in the entire universe, it is a little more justifiable that people are speaking in quotes that should be on mugs and posters rather than just chatting about the weather and if they saw that match on television last night. With that in mind, it was somehow all too cheesy for me. The love story didn't pull me in at all, having recognized it almost immediately. It was written almost as if ready for a producer to snap it up and make it into a blockbuster film. Slow buildup, big crashing end with a little bit of romance resolved. Meh.It was a lot of tell and a not a lot of show. It's funny, because I dislike poetry for that reason. Just tell me how you feel, don't make me try and figure out flowery language that doesn't make any real sense except to the poet him or herself. But for some reason, I didn't appreciate the story being told to me in very plain language. There was very little mystery. Everything is figured out in conversation, not in the actual story itself. I'm not sure if that makes sense what I've just written. I don't know, I just didn't like it. Anyway, I am grateful to the author and the publishers for sending me an advanced copy of this book. Thank you.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I am not sure how to review this book. It's well written and defined as sci-fi / end of world but it isn't really. TempleCat's review below probably sums up how I felt about it. It's not terrible but not a lot happens either.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    My disappointment in this book is probably my own fault. I didn't pay close enough attention to the blurb. This is not post apocalyptic science-fiction, although it is set in outer space. A virus has cut down the overpopulation by killing almost all humans on earth and the settlements in space. The people are reduced to piles of grey ash. Jamie is one of the few survivors but she very quickly meets up with a few other survivors. You'd think this situation would provide interesting challenges, but in this book all Jamie does is obsess over her miscarriage and her former lover. At least that is all she did as far as I got in this book. All of this could have happened on a farm in Kansas. Outer space is an afterthought in this book. The author is not interested in the details like what fuel runs the spacecraft in which the survivors are traveling. She is interested, however, in philosophical questions like who should be saved and how the world will be reshaped. The questions may eventually have amounted to something interesting but I just didn't have the patience to find out. This is not what I was expecting, and I was so very bored that I gave up after trying to read this book for several weeks. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I recently finished watching the movie, The Space Between Us. So, I was in the right mind set to read this book. Instantly, I got a good mental image of the world that Jamie was leaving to travel back to Earth. There was not a lot of information provided in the beginning regarding the deadly virus that killed most of the population. Yet, from what I did learn about the virus, it came fast and adapted to the human host. Jamie was very lucky (or unlucky) to have survived. Jamie finds herself aboard a ship traveling back to Earth along with a group of other survivors. For the most part I found the others interesting. To be honest, it was mainly due to the characters and the world that I stuck with this book. It was kind of lacking in the action building department. I wanted to turn up the dial a few more notches. The flashbacks to Jamie's prior life was nice. They helped give me a better sense of who Jamie was before and I saw the growth in her as the story progressed including the relationship between she and Callan. This was a nice debut. I am interested in seeing what the author comes out with next.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I won this ARC in a GOODREADS giveaway - OK, WOW. Stayed up all night to finish, couldn't put it down. A SciFi but not a SciFI; an ending that is a new beginning; a romance that isn't a romance. This story has pockets of complacent inertia littered with adventure - like the pieces of scattered beach glass the main character collects.... (NOT A SPOILER, it just doesn't fall into a simple genre.) *** If this actually is ANNE CORLETT's debut novel, then I am on the first moments of a wonderfully painful wait while she writes what will surely become her next great novel! What ever will THAT one be about?...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In this post-apocalyptic novel set in the distant future, the world ends due to a rampant virus which spreads throughout the galaxy and wipes out 99% of the population. Jamie survives the disease and slowly finds a handful of other survivors, and works to get back to England where she grew up. Very enjoyable and a satisfying read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    An unnecessarily sad book. Few plot twists and mediocre writing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A pretty good read but basically a love story
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked this book. I don't love it, but that's for the realness of the main character's trauma. I understand the main character's need for space, though I think her encounters that ram home how important it is for people to have choice and their own space are a bit ham-fisted. Jamie was too much like me when I was at my worst depression, floating through life, and only making decisions when sudden panic told her to. Basically this is the story of someone with depression and generalized anxiety getting over her issues in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting. Also, I don't agree with Jamie about forgiveness or whatever that was at the end. Screw the zealously religious lady, and I'd be a great deal more upset with people like the priest and Daniel too. I feel like psychiatric drugs must have become taboo to prescribe or something because multiple characters needed them and some good therapy. I don't dislike the book for all that, but I must admit to being frustrated with it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 stars. It took me a LONG time to read this book. I very much disliked most of the characters, and especially the amount they basically didn’t listen to each other. Maybe that’s realistic, but was definitely unpleasant.

    I did like the ending, and felt that was quite satisfying.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was really amazing in so many ways. I was drawn to the book immediately upon reading the synopsis on NetGalley. I am a huge fan of dystopian fiction and it seemed as if the main character Jamie was someone I could identify with. The story is set in the future though what year it is remains unclear. People have settled new worlds, some by choice and others not. Jamie is a veterinarian at a remote cattle ranch on the planet Soltaire. The story begins when she wakes up after three days of an illness that has decimated the population across most of the known planets. She knows that survival rate is near .0001% and her fear of being completely alone overwhelms her. After taking what few belongings she owns she heads by horseback to the nearest spaceport to see if there is anyone there. She surprisingly runs into two more survivors Lowry and Rena. Members of a distant church who set up a distress beacon in hopes of flagging someone with a ship. Soon they are contacted by Callen, a lone pilot who agrees to take them to Alegria, the capital planet. Jamie wants to eventually head to earth where she thinks her former love, Daniel may be waiting due to a long standing joke that if the world ends they would meet up there. Their group slowly forms with other lost souls with no other place to go. They eventually all decide to head to earth but there are others who have more sinister plans to rebuild the capital the way they see fit and Jamie and her crew may have more trouble headed their way. Overall I loved the story, I kept picturing a Firefly cast of characters looking for a place to call home. I am hoping that there could be other books but as a stand alone book it works fine.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If you are looking for a sci-fi heavy novel, then this one is not for you. This novel turned out to be a lot more philosophical as the physical journey the survivors take gives way to their inner journey. It was a novel that had enough suspense to keep you going, and didn't drag you down with too many words. It never tried to impose any ideas on you, and allowed the reader to come to their own conclusions about each of the characters. I quite enjoyed the writing style and the revelations of the different characters. However, the main character was hard for me to empathize with. She was constantly whining, and rarely helpful. She became an irritating character who didn't really do much to redeem herself. Overall, this novel is a very nicely written philosophical novel that takes place in a dystopian universe. However, the main character is hard to connect with at times, and the novel doesn't have a heavy sci-fi connection (even though that is what it was portrayed to be). For all these reasons, I would give this novel a 3/5 stars.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Pros: conflicted characters, good world-buildingCons: not hard SFEarth spent years forcing thousands of people to emigrate to other inhabitable worlds as the population grew out of control. Jamie Allenby was living on Soltaire, at the edge of inhabited space, when the plague came through. The survival rate of zero point zero zero zero one percent haunts her as she makes her way to the space port in hopes of finding other survivors. As others emerge, they head towards Earth, unsure of what they’re looking for or how life will carry on. I found Jamie an interesting character. In many ways she reminded me of Millicent, the protagonist in Mishell Baker’s Borderline. She’s not particularly likeable, but because you’re seeing her thoughts and feelings (and occasional flashbacks), you understand why she’s making the decisions she is, and why she has trouble letting people get close. Jamie slowly comes to understand what she’s looking for, but I suspect some readers will find her constant questioning herself and where she’s going with her life frustrating. I felt this frustration myself a time or two towards the end of the book, especially when she’s trying to get others to join their group despite making it clear that she thinks people should do what they want and joining the group isn’t what those people want to do. Most of the supporting characters are conflicted too, not sure what this new world holds, whether it’s better to return to the old way of doing things or hope for something new. Rena annoyed me, but I think she was supposed to. I appreciated the author including an autistic young man in with the main group of survivors. I liked that different views of how the world should continue were offered by different groups. It didn’t surprise me that societal classes would survive the apocalypse. One of the groups they encountered did surprise me though, with their adherence to an even older age. Some sections of the book are designed to get you to think deeply about life: what it means, where humanity is headed, etc. This was undercut by Jamie’s constant waffling though, never sure of what she wanted and feeling at one with the universe for a moment and then doubting the emotion the next.The world-building was pretty good. Callan’s history especially grounded the world for me, in all its cruelty. This isn’t hard SF. While there are lags for communication transmissions, there’s no time dilation affecting space travel and it only takes a day or two to get between worlds, with no explanation of how the ship is navigating the distances so quickly. Because Jamie was constantly questioning her decisions, it made me wonder how things would have changed for her if moving from one planet to the next meant years or decades would have passed for those she left behind, so that there was no going back, no reconciliation. How would things have changed for her if these decisions were permanent once she left? Would she have been happier? Would she have stayed on Earth? On Alegria? Would she have found the personal space she needed some other way? Or would she still have ended up on Soltaire, conflicted about the decisions she’d made with her life? It was an interesting debut. It posed some good questions and while it wasn’t perfect, it kept me turning pages.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS by Anne CorlettSpace has been conquered and Humans populate many planets. But a devastating virus has depopulated the worlds. Few humans are left. One human is Jamie, the lonely survivor on her planet. Her problem is to return to Earth to begin to repopulate the universe. The few survivors gather and then….Humans are human – mean, selfish, cruel, selfless, kind, arrogant…. What kind of a world do they want? What will they get? Who will win and who will lose?The main characters are clearly drawn. The plot is full of twists and turns. The worlds are varied and interesting. Humans are in charge as they always have been, aren’t they?4 of 5 stars