I’ve liked everything I’ve seen out of Stelliform Press; they focus on fiction that centres climate change and how it affects the planet and people. Often hopeful, like solarpunk, but not in a blinkered, rosy-glasses way.

The overarching story here is that a spaceship is soon to take off, and some tickets have come available for folks who didn’t expect it. The question of whether to take one or not is driving wedges between people. In particular, between Seb and Jay. So the story is sort of about that. But it’s about more than that: it’s about community, and how a changed world can be understood, and how and why we tell stories – to understand what’s going on and to shape what’s going on.

Rather than being a straightforward narrative, Beker presents a montage of myths and fairy stories, along with ephemera like party invitations and graffiti. The stories are found in a book Seb has left for Jay. They remake old stories to be more appropriate for the changed world: Beauty and the Beast becomes What a Fish Looks Like; The Little Mermaid becomes Playlist 4Merx in Times of Sea Levels Rising.

Characters come in and out – mentioned in ephemera and then in a story, times looping in and out, so it’s sometimes a tease trying to figure out who is known to be where. It’s incredibly clever and I can only assume Beker must have created one of those enormous pin boards with string to keep it all together (literally or metaphorically).

I’m late to this party but I can see why folks were talking about it last year. The structure works really well – done with thoughtfulness, the inclusion of ephemera adds enormous depth to a world, and the design works beautifully here. I like Beker’s ambivalence about the state of the world: maybe leaving will be the right decision! Maybe staying and trying to make things better on this planet is the right decision! … maybe both are right, for different people. And I liked, too, the hints at community building and support. I’m increasingly being drawn to that sort of fiction.