Planet 42 Alpha

February 16, 2024

About “Crush”

My new short story “Crush” is out in Tree and Stone’s “Queer as F” themed issue #3 (December 2023). Download the .PDF by clicking on the cover of Issue 3 here: https://www.tree-and-stone.com/queer-as-f

This story is part of a larger network of stories that has been leading up to this: Ke and Resada’s ultimate futures as a colonial governors, parents, and spouses. Things that were unlikely, only undercurrents, in previous stories between them and those around them have become a future where their worst problem is straw in the wool (a minor nuisance). This is a story about contentment and unlikely love.

Yet all of the stories I write have something larger going on, some thing larger that the characters in the story may not see or notice. All of the characters are on a journey that may not have been part of their initial mission briefing but they are participating in something much larger than themselves: history. Their own personal successes or failures affect their teammates, for certain, and the next generation – but also their ship or base or colony world, and their sector of space, and the whole success of humanity in unforgiving environments. Each of the stories in the 74 stories network is not just “Did I inspect the stored space suits, again, today, for the nth time” but “Can I stay on this ship, with this team, or this career track?” ‘All of humanity’s future’ is a distant abstraction: less-than-ideal circumstances, tedious meals, and ‘no where else to go’ are ever-present realities – how does that shape the larger story: history?

All of these stories are part of a set of works covering the thousand year history of the colonization of the Milky Way galaxy. They are stories about how mundane choices and daily chores become a future for all of humanity: less grand diplomatic missions and decisions from orbit; more remembering to put the tarp over the firewood and raking out the livestock paddock. Some of this is Ursula Le Guin‘s influence in her attention to the practical and everyday even among the fantastic (i.e. The Tombs of Atuan is set in a desert but it’s quite clear how they get food and clothes).

Yet in that grand sweep of my 1,000 year galactic history are smaller, more individual stories, of how people cope with the distances, mission plans that cover more time than most people can keep in mind, the delayed communications, and the limited company. As Resada’s first husband notes, people respond in the way they often have in difficult, isolating circumstances: by creating found family. (How much of this is planned ahead of time by base staff and whether it quite works as intended is another matter.) These are stories about people looking for peace, for hope, for happiness, for community: in “Crush” someone has found it.

To understand where the characters in “Crush” start from, read “Searching” in Black Denim Lit #8 (December 2014). To travel with Ke through prior stories read “Inducement” in Black Denim Lit (September 2016), “Planet 50” in Black Denim Lit (July 2015), and This is Not a Love Story in Black Denim Lit (October 2015).

(To travel with Resada through prior stories (most of them appearing in 4 Star Stories) read “No Woman, No Plaything” in Kaleidotrope (October 2012), “Planet 38” in Four Star Stories (Summer 2013), “Planet 42 Alpha” in Four Star Stories (out now!), and “Planet 42 Beta” in Four Star Stories (forthcoming). To see Resada’s first husband beginning a family before they ever marry, read “Grave’s First Day” in A Coup of Owls (August 2021)).

To just read the entire network of stories in internal chronological order, see “Read My Short Stories in Order.”

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February 15, 2024

About “Planet 42 Alpha”

I set out to write how a character changes over 74 sequential stories. The main character, Resada Gestae, is not always the narrator, but the entire arc of 74 stories is Resada Gestae’s story over a number of years. I thought there would be exactly 74 stories, one for each planet my narrator visits, but in writing the stories there were some surprises: the 42nd stop included two worlds, an asteroid belt, and a break in the journey – two stories set in the same solar system.

These two stories will appear in 4 Star Stories: “Planet 42 Alpha” and “Planet 42 Beta”. The first story, “Planet 42 Alpha” is out now. It starts as a typical stop on Lt Gestae’s mission of reconstructive justice. (None of these visits turn out as base staff may have envisioned them.) If this sounds familiar, the 38th stop also appeared in 4 Star Stories: “Planet 38” in 4 Star Stories (Summer 2013).

Five stories in this arc of 74 are now out and I am tremendously pleased to have two appearing in 4 Star Stories. To follow Lt Gestae across this larger story, read: 1) “No Woman, No Plaything” in Kaleidotrope (October 2012), 2) “Planet 38” in 4 Star Stories (Summer 2013), 3) “Planet 42 Alpha” in 4 Star Stories, 4) “Planet 42 Beta” in 4 Star Stories (forthcoming), and 5) “Crush” in Tree and Stone’s “Queer as F” themed issue (December 2023). This last story may be a bit disorienting: we see Lt Gestae from the outside and not as a narrator.

This is a trait of my work: the minor characters in one work may be the narrators in another. To follow the broader story of Ke, Resada’s spouse who narrates “Crush”, read: 1) This is Not a Love Story in Black Denim Lit (October 2015) (two partners meet), 2) “Inducement” in Black Denim Lit (September 2016) (two partners solve a case), 3) “Searching” in Black Denim Lit #8 (December 2014) (two partners get a new case, that of one Resada Gestae), 4) “Planet 42 Beta” in 4 Star Stories (forthcoming) (trying to keep tabs on Lt Gestae), 5) “Planet 50” in Black Denim Lit (July 2015) (stuck on one ship with Lt Gestae), and finally 6) “Crush” in Tree and Stone’s “Queer as F” themed issue (December 2023) (married – to of all people, Resada Gestae), (and in 7) my play “The Other Two Men”) (cloned in the far future – to solve a problem in “Crush”).

To follow the wider story of Resada’s first husband Rain (who, despite his importance, never narrates any of these stories), read: 1) “Grave’s First Day” in A Coup of Owls (August 2021) (becomes an unmarried father), 2) “Searching” in Black Denim Lit #8 (December 2014) (brings future spouses in on an ongoing case that will change all their futures), 3) “Planet 42 Beta” in 4 Star Stories (forthcoming) (a brief chance to be married), then 4) “Crush” in Tree and Stone’s “Queer as F” themed issue (December 2023) (married for good).

Since all of these works are part of a network of related stories, to understand why Resada Gestae is making these visits start with: “Searching” in Black Denim Lit #8 (December 2014). To read about previous stops read “No Woman, No Plaything” in Kaleidotrope (October 2012) or “Planet 38” in Four Star Stories (Summer 2013). The people Resada speak to in the opening paragraphs of “Planet 42 Alpha” are introduced in “Life on Earth” in Expanded Horizons (January 2015) and appear in other works that are not yet out. To take a jump into the future read “Crush” now out in Tree and Stone‘s “Queer as F” themed issue (December 2023).

To see the entire arc of stories laid out in chronological order (and, in fact, all the stories happening during a thousand-year effort to colonize the galaxy) see “Read my Short Stories in Order”.

  • Lisa Shapter