Anthologies need to strike a delicate balance. Each story needs to feel like a complete thought, while simultaneously serving a larger theme. When that anthology is a single book rather than a series of them, it gets even more difficult since each story needs to be bound by much tighter word counts. The theme for this particular collection is simple: Show what the setting is capable of in talented paws.
The editors for this collection did a superb job at choosing a variety of stories exploring various facets of their galaxy and the lives of the people in it. We’re given glimpses of press-ganged pirates to janitorial staff, baristas and naval officers, and from the smallest of sapient creatures to the mightiest. Somewhere in this collection, you can find a chord to resonate with you.
Make no mistake, it’s a bleak galaxy, and not every tale has a happy ending, but in the vast reaches of deep space there is always hope for those who can make their own luck. If you want a taste of what Hayven Celestia is before diving into the other published works, or if you’re already a fan of the setting and just want more, this is a good buy.
The voice acting is superb as well, with the narrator able to maintain consistent and generally distinct inflections, accents, and personalities for each of the characters and professional sound quality except for one brief segment that may have been intentionally jarring,