Member Reviews
This is an excellent overview of the wonderful content that can be found on the Press’ website magazine. Interviews, essays, and reviews (of books, poetry, TV and film). Multiple contributors also means varying levels of voice and skill, but it was always interesting.
I thought the compilation of multiple snippets of the manga was interesting but it didn't allow me to get used to the characters or feel immersed in the book so I would rate this a 3 out of 5 as I liked the art and story but it didn't expand on anything that wasn't base level.
Thank you for that wonderful trip down memory lane. I enjoyed reading reviews and interviews and felt they added to the content .
Interstellar Flight Press is a small press specialising in SFF. Interstellar Flight Magazine is their compilation highlighting authors and creators, and this is their third issue. In this anthology are original articles, reviews, and interviews with various writers and poets on process and inspiration.
In the first section, there are two essays I particularly enjoyed:
Futurism in the Land of the Future: Finding Solace in Chinese Science Fiction by Elyse Ribbons. I love to read about non-Western approaches to science and technology, because they are our future.
True Crime is a Feminist Hobby: Studying the History of Crime Helps Us Understand Violence Against Women by Holly Lyn Walrath, which helped me understand something I’ve always been puzzled by—why so many enjoy consuming content (books, podcasts, films, etc) about crimes against women.
In reviews:
Manjula Padmanabhan’s Feminist Dystopian Science Fiction: How Contemporary Indian SFF tackles Complex Issues by Anushmita Mohanty was a great read on Indian SFF, something I’m lacking exposure to, and am adding to my reading list;
Rhapsody in Blue Bodies: “Primitive” Desire in Runy Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians, by Laura Diaz De Arce—my favourite read in the entire anthology—blew me away, and gave me much to add to my thoughts about the Other in SFF as a reflection of real-world White-as-default.
In all, this is a great read around SFF craft and vision, and well worth your time, whether you’re a fan or a creator.
Thank you to Interstellar Flight Press and to NetGalley for this ARC.
Interstellar Flight Magazine Best of Year three had many problems. The good things in it were a few good writers and a few people who knew how to do good interviews and reviews. The rest felt like rants against the world instead of sci fi or definitely full spoilers of things I haven't even seen yet or read. Some of the writing, reviews and interviews were amazing with great voice and style. Others I wasn't sure what was going on or who was talking at the moment.
This Arc was given to me by netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was drawn to reading this after thoroughly enjoying last year's volume 2. The layout was very similar and offered a wide range of perspectives, commentary and interviews. However I was disappointed that this volume did not feature any short stories as that was my favourite section from its predecessor. Overall, an interesting read for SFF fans.
A delightful blend of interviews, non-fiction science-based articles, and reviews that encapsulate some of the best items featured on Interstellar Flight Magazine. While the mileage may vary for each reader, there's some really fascinating ideas to kick things off with the non-fiction, and the reviews spanned a good range of different products.
This collection of Interstellar Flight Magazine's past year of interviews, reviews, and opinion pieces capture the immediate experience of seeing films, reading books, and playing games in 2021. For readers who don't read things on Interstellar's web site on a regular basis, though, the contents here will lack quite a bit of context, so readers should be prepared to look stuff up to make sense of the pieces here as they read. There's a lot of good material, but there's also a lot of very personal and very intimate writing that sometimes comes across as enthusiastic and loudly happy, and at other times much more self-indulgent and, in a way, exclusive. I'm generally a fan of this press and its authors, but I didn't feel like I was part of the in-crowd enough to read some of this round-up. I know that for lots of small presses, volumes like these are marketing tools, and I'd love to see the next volume be more inclusive and better contextualized.