Faraway and Forever: More Stories

by Nancy Joie Wilkie

Overview

This collection of novelettes takes the reader from the not-to-distant future to a time when travel between worlds is a common occurrence. Each stop along mankind’s journey outward to the stars is accompanied by a deeper look inward—from examining how extraterrestrial beings might use our own biology against us, to whether a human consciousness can survive in a virtual environment, to how wishes are really granted. Original and thought provoking, these stories—which include an interstellar religious thriller involving a second coming of Christ—will stimulate the intellect and engage the imagination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647424541
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	07/18/2023
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Nancy Joie Wilkie worked for over thirty years in both the biotechnology industry and as part of the federal government’s biodefense effort. Now retired, she composes original music, plays a variety of instruments, and has recorded many of her original compositions. She also created a series of greeting cards that display her artwork and photographs. Faraway and Forever is her second collection of stories. Seven Sides of Self, her first, was published by She Writes Press in November 2019. She also will release a collection of fantasy short stories titled The River Keeper and Other Tales in February 2025, published by Subplot Books (an imprint of Mascot Books). She is currently working on a follow-up collection of science fiction novelettes titled By The Light Of The Sun and a children’s story. Nancy resides in Brookeville, Maryland.

Editorial Reviews

2024 Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards Winner in Science Fiction Novelettes

“Along the way, the five works here offer readers remarkable flights of imagination, occasional surprises, and an overarching sense of wonder. A high-quality anthology with a Christian outlook that embraces science.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“I was intrigued by all of the stories for their clarity and directness—no pompous prose, just clear voice and clear thinking. I especially admire that the use of science (and fictive science) is in service of, never overpowering, the human dynamic, the human question, the human center to each story . . . all of them are compelling.”
—Tom O. Phillips, MA, PhD, Associate Dean of Wake Forest University and founder of Words Awake!

“Wilkie has produced an amazingly imaginative and compelling set of stories that not only take the reader to new worlds, but convey fundamental life lessons we would all do well to ingest. For a non-science fiction reader, they were a revelation. I highly recommend them to anyone interested in an entertaining and enlightening read.”
—Mary Llewellyn McNeil, author of Century’s Witness

“When I finish a good story like this one, I continue to think about the characters, not wanting it to end. I'll have to let my imagination finish the love story of Jonathan and Desiree.”
—Nancy Cox, editor at the NIH Library of Medicine

From the Publisher

2022-12-01
Wilkie’s collection of five SF/fantasy stories run the gamut from alien first contact to the second coming.

In “Once Upon a Helix,” Gunther Trent is an astronomer maintaining the SETI vigil for signals from extraterrestrials. He finally logs recurring, rhythmic coded pulses from a distant star. He also encounters molecular biologist Catherine Arkette, who’s researching anomalous Region X DNA that only humans possess. It turns out they each have the key to the other’s riddle, but the answer is not what they’d like it to be. In “The Goldfire Project,” artist/composer/writer Edwards is offered a chance to cheat imminent death by being the first man to have his consciousness uploaded into a digital environment. But an artificial intelligence named Goldfire already inhabits the target cyberspace. In “Half the Sky,” human colonists have spent a millennium on a narrow, habitable strip of territory on a distant planet; on one side is harsh heat, and on the other, chilly darkness. Madison Mills, an 18-year-old orphan, leaves a convent-run orphanage and learns that she’s the product of a doomed marriage between a woman from the Shade side and a man of the Sun. In “The Wishbringer,” journalist Jonathan Argent teleports to different parts of the multiverse to deliver thrilling accounts to readers. His latest trip takes him to a farmer who looks after wishes and prayers brought from Earth by archangels. Some reach fruition; others wither. Argent asks for his own wish, but being part of the story has unintended effects. “The Last Sunday of Summer” takes place largely on the colony planet Solus II, where a future Catholic Church is losing influence to a revamped religion based on rumors that a new Christ returned to Old Earth with a different, suppressed Gospel. A young novice nun gets involved in deadly intrigue over a surviving religious relic. In an afterword, Wilkie reveals that some of this material is connected to fictional universes in her earlier collection, Seven Sides of Self: Stories(2019), with some tales serving as prequels of sequels. However, the set here may still be enjoyed as stand-alone works. All of the various tales end with a Bible verse, although the spiritual components of the stories are not always immediately obvious. Indeed, the final story, which directly addresses Christianity and puts it front and center, is probably the one that will most scandalize readers from a more traditionally minded faith-based demographic, with its suggestions that Jesus not only was scientifically minded—and inspired a faith that, as one character puts it, “places the laws of physics in greater reverence than the grace of God”—but also had to simplify his message all those centuries ago in Galilee. Other tales here offer deep dives into genetics, exotic planetary environments, and the logistics imposed by the vastness of space travel. Along the way, the five works here offer readers remarkable flights of imagination, occasional surprises, and an overarching sense of wonder.

A high-quality anthology with a Christian outlook that embraces science.

Kirkus Reviews