Stevie‘s review of Frontier by Grace Curtis
LGBT+ Science Fiction published by Rebellion Publishing Ltd 14 Feb 23
I’m still a great fan of Firefly and would love for there to have been more of it, current issues around its creator notwithstanding. Alternatively, I’ll accept stories that follow a similar premise in any media, particularly if the queer subplot is more main-plotlike. This story is definitely a Space Western, for all it mostly takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and the main plot is very much driven by a queer love story, so very much my kind of thing. Hundreds of years in our future, a lifepod from a spacefaring vessel falls, lands in a desert wasteland, and is tracked down by a pair of scavengers and their hastily co-opted driver. The pod’s sole occupant has a search mission of her own, however, and no time to interact with those who have no intention of helping her.
For much of this book, we don’t learn our protagonist’s name. She is merely described according to her actions or how others see her: the Stranger, the Courier, the Tramp, and so on. Since she has little knowledge of Earth as it is in her time, we learn about how things work alongside her from the thoughts, words, and deeds of those she meets on her journey and also from snippets of writings by those from our protagonist’s contemporaries. Our protagonist’s lost love was on a mission to rediscover Earth and to see whether those left behind, when the planet was abandoned due to climate change, left descendants who would now benefit from her civilisation’s advanced weather technologies.
The people our protagonist encounters are mostly followers of a religion that sprang up in the times leading up to the evacuation of Earth, who worship Gaia and believe that those who left are sinners doomed to suffer in the hell beyond the sky. I like this reversal of Heaven Above and Hell Below, and how it altered the everyday language of ordinary people. On the other hand, I was less taken by the idea of a single planetary religion that had hardly fragmented in the many years that had passed since its founding, and by the apparent lack of any belief systems among those who had left (I remember Babylon 5 handling this trope well, and even Firefly was pretty good on it).
On the other hand, I like how the seemingly unrelated excerpts from various works related to our protagonist eventually all made sense in the context of what had happened prior to the start of the story. This is a debut novel, of course, and I’d like to see how the author’s writing develops.
Grade: C
Summary:
In the distant future most of the human race has fled a ravaged Earth to find new life on other planets. For those who stayed a lawless society remains. Technology has been renounced, and saints and sinners, lawmakers and sheriffs, travelers and gunslingers, abound.
What passes for justice is presided over by the High Sheriff, and carried out by his cruel and ruthless Deputy.
Then a ship falls from the sky, bringing the planet’s first visitor in three hundred years. This Stranger is a crewmember on the first ship in centuries to attempt a return to Earth and save what’s left. But her escape pod crashes hundreds of miles away from the rest of the wreckage.
The Stranger finds herself adrift in a ravaged, unwelcoming landscape, full of people who hate and fear her space-born existence. Scared, alone, and armed, she embarks on a journey across the wasteland to return to her ship, her mission, and the woman she loves.
Fusing the fire and brimstone of the American Old West with sprawling post-apocalyptic science fiction, FRONTIER is a heartfelt queer romance in a high noon standoff set against the backdrop of our planet’s uncertain future.
Read an excerpt.
