Sara Barkat writes a science fiction novel about war, loss, and grief
Until the late 1970s, my reading of science fiction was limited to the stories and novels of Ray Bradbury, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, and The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. I didn’t have any inherent bias against science fiction; it was more that my reading interests were in other directions.
For some reason, I picked up a paperback edition of Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg. Then I went to the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov (published in the 1950s, it may explain American politics of the last decade). Then the novels of Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. And Arthur C. Clarke, whose Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood’s End remain among my favorite books. But as much as I loved the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, even then I knew how much it was changing science fiction. Fantasy was taking over.
Years passed. Reading interests changed. And then the old memories stirred when I read The Shivering Ground by Sara Barkat. The wonderful graphic version she did of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space was another reminder, even though it’s usually called a horror story. And now she has a new novel, Otherside, which is about as close as you can get to mainstream science fiction.
The story is straightforward. Jason is a young man kidnapped as a child from Earth and brought to an orphanage on something called “The Rime.” It’s under the control of a government called the Empire, and the kidnapping has a purpose: to raise him and others for “service.” Jason will find himself adopted by an aristocrat and involved in a war against the Others, who seem to be winning. But he’s still grieving the loss of the life and family on Earth he was stolen from.
The reader is dropped directly into the story. It’s nonlinear, mixing past and present. It has its own vocabulary, and you have to keep reading before names and terms become clear. And you will keep reading. There are battles, smugglers, impersonations, betrayals, and destructions. But there is also friendship, loyalty, sacrifice, and grief.
Sara Barkat
Sara Barkat is the author of the National Indie Excellence Awards finalist The Shivering Ground & Other Stories. She is also the illustrator of two graphic novels: The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft. Sara adores art, sailing, random coding projects, and quantum physics. You can find her at sarabarkat.com or drawing mostly daily at sadbook.substack.com.
Otherside is an inventive, creative, and imaginative story. It is both within the tradition of science fiction and outside it. Perhaps most of all, it is an expression of how we deal with grief, and how we look for affirmation and recognition within that grief.
Related:
The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft and Sara Barkat
The Shivering Ground & Other Stories by Sara Barkat
Photo by Mike Locke, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.
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