This week I returned to stories from Cosmic Corsairs, edited by Hank Davis and Christopher Ruocchio. I have previous covered other stories in this anthology HERE and HERE. The stories in the book focus on space pirates, and were written between 1941 and 2020.
"They Never Come Back" by Fritz Lieber
I think that this is the first thing I have read by Fritz Lieber. I enjoyed the story very much. A bit old-fashioned I guess, but that is as it should be. Bart Harlan has recently heard that his former girlfriend was killed in the loss of a ship that was traveling the warp from Mars to Earth. Space warps are the method of travel in space in this story, and it sounded a perfectly good explanation to me. Regardless, a ship and its crew has never been recovered after losing contact with the warp, so there is no hope he will see her again. Except that he believes that there is a way to rescue the ship and he does his best to pursue that goal. The problem is that he is not an official navigator and no one will listen to him. So he gets a job on a beat up old spaceship that is going in the right direction, and later finds out he has gotten mixed up with ruthless pirates. The story was exciting and held my attention.
"Breaking News Regarding Space Pirates" by Brian Trent
Jolene Fort is a former space pirate, now retired. She was renowned for stealing valuable art objects. So when Bradley Winterfig's collection is vandalized and some very valuable pieces stolen, he has the Police Department of the space colony bring Jolene to his private vault for questioning. This is a clever locked room mystery, and Jolene Fort is a great character.
First published in 2016 in Galaxy's Edge, no. 23. It is ten pages long in the Cosmic Corsairs anthology.
"Teen Angel" by Robert Garcia y Robertson
Under normal circumstances, I would not seek out a story about a young girl turned into a sex slave, but this one turned to be well worth reading. The story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2006, and is identified as a novelette by the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. In this anthology the story is about 34 pages long.
A young girl is taken by a slaver, who turns her into a remote controlled sex toy for his master. However, she retains her compassion and good nature through the years, and is intelligent enough to take advantage of the situation when she has the opportunity to escape. I did get immersed in the story of how she finds her way back home, and how life has changed when she returned.
Rick Robinson at Tip the Wink introduced me to this book, and sent me his copy to read. Also see George Kelley's review of Cosmic Corsairs for comments on more of the stories and a list of the stories.
I have five stories and about 80 pages left to read in Cosmic Corsairs.
