Best of Year One: Interstellar Flight Magazine by Holly Walrath

Interstellar Flight Press is an indie speculative publishing house and Best of Year One: Interstellar Flight Magazine is their first collection of essays, interviews, and excerpts. This anthology features innovative works from the best new writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF). It is clear from the first essay that Ursula K. Le Guin is a well-respected voice within the SFF community and is at the heart of the core mission of Interstellar Flight Press. This mission is best summed up with a quote by Le Guin, in which she says:

"Writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real ground for hope."

SFF provides a safe place for minorities and other marginalized groups to find a voice. The first entry in Interstellar Flight Magazine parallels an analysis of Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and the current sufferings of children at the Mexican border. An interview with Hungarian agender-trans writer Bogi Takacs discusses their poetry that crosses boundaries on the topics of the body, disability, and politics. Other voices included the struggles of growing up as a girl who loves video games, as well as the personal struggle of coming out to your family. What is so special about SFF that Interstellar Flight Magazine highlights for readers are that it "causes us to question why things are the way they are and how things could be." This kind of impact encourages social-political discussions and shows that literature has always been a powerful tool for change.

Interstellar Flight Magazine does have a lighter side full of fun discussions about the writing process, as well as dozens of recommendations for readers from space operas to horror novels that readers will not want to miss. Picking up this one-of-a-kind collection will be sure to lead you to your next favorite indie Science Fiction and Fantasy book.

Review by Sarah Hinrichs

Originally published on Reedsy