LOVE AND ROCKETS, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie
Hughes, is an anthology that combines the popular genres of
science fiction and romance. It contains thirteen short
stories that all take place deep in outer space, whether it
be on a spaceship, space station, or a far off planet.
This clever anthology includes something for everyone. In
Second Shift, a woman falls in love with a space explorer
she has never met. She spends every evening keeping him
company through the computer, but can that be enough for
them both?
Gateway Night tells of a space station that
houses four different races. The descriptive narration
offers a fantastic telling of the various alien gathering
areas, as well as the races that live there.
Wanted is a great love story about a woman that is stuck in
a broken-down space shuttle and the miner who saves her.
This is one of the more typical romances in the collection.
My favorite story in the anthology was The Business of Love.
It is the story of a young man whose girlfriend is
considering what college to attend. His mother has big
plans for him, ones that don't involve the young woman, and
he must decide what to do with his future.
All the stories in the anthology vary in the amount of
romance in the plot. Some of them revolve around main
characters that are attracted to each other and heading
towards a relationship, while others deal more with the
hardships and novelties of living in space and have only a
brief mention of or a loose tie to the theme of love and
romance. Since most of the authors are science fiction
writers, that is the genre that seems to drive the majority
of stories. If you are a die-hard romance fan, LOVE AND
ROCKETS may not offer enough of the traditional
boy-meets-girl and they fall in love storyline that you are
accustomed to. However, fans of science fiction that are
looking for a little bit of intergalactic love will not be
disappointed by this unique collection of stories.
Space...the final frontier. Or is it? Many say there's no
frontier more forbidding than a romantic relationship
between a man and a woman. But what if one's a human, and
the other's an alien?
Here is an original collection of space opera stories
where authors take love (unrequited or not), on a
spaceship, space station, or planetary colony, and add
enough drama, confusion and mayhem to ensure that the path
to true love-or short-term infatuation-is seldom free of
obstacles.