Spaced Out: Interplanetary Voyages of the Linda Rae Paperback – June 24, 2013

Let's get this straight up front. I am a card-carrying member of the Graybeards Society, born before the middle of the last century of the last millennium. So you youngsters out there can take my opinions with the usual pinch of finely ground sodium chloride. That same card proves that I've had a lot of time to consume SF literature, and a bunch of other genres as well. And I admit of heavy consumption of same--both SF and "a bunch." The world has waited too long for Kate Thornton's collected tales of "SPACED OUT: the Interplanetary Voyages of the Linda Rae." Her stories of freighter pilot Cookie Sullivan and friends read like a mix of Dashiell Hammett and Henry Kuttner as told by Robert Benchley and George Burns. Protagonist Sullivan is a witty female Han Solo as played by Sam Spade, getting into and out of practically every kind of scrape you can imagine for an edgy spacebound cargo ship operator. Many of the tales are in fact mystery stories, leaning heavily on Kate's over-arching skill as a mystery author. Pilot Cookie cracks wise, speaks in catchy bon mots, and although clearly leading a life that should leave her a bit jaded, somehow manages to come off puckishly innocent yet possessed of a delightfully sagacious foxiness. No kidding! This book is a compendium of inventive short space opera tales, many previously published in webzines like Dan Hollifield's enduring Aphelion and Andrew G. McCann's Planet Magazine, but also including new misadventures. (Dan's brainchild, the mythical spacers' bar, Mare Inebrium, is the inspirational setting that crystallized Thornton's offplanet commercial universe.) Altogether, they give an entertaining cross-section of Kate's SF writing career, spanning practically the entire Webzine Age to date. In fact, the only shortcoming I find with the book is an absence of the dates of publication and venues of the various tales, because those of us in academia are always on the alert to analyze the motivations and social milieu behind an author's imaginings. That minor quibble aside, this book gives the reader the chance to sit back and relax, and thoroughly enjoy immersing oneself in the rascally world of Cookie Sullivan, sometime partner in quasi-crime N'Doro, and a host of zany humans et alius, all in one go. Me, I prefer the paperback incarnation (see card-carrying remark above), but then there are times when, late at night, the lights are out due to the needs of others, and a somewhat more futuristic medium is useful. Considering the cost of spacehauling, I suspect Cookie's copies are all in electronic form. In her case, though, it's because she can more quickly erase any incriminating evidence! Write on, Kate Thornton! Where will the Linda Rae head next?

Short story maven, Kate Thornton, has done it again with her collection of inner galactic adventures of throttle jockey Cookie Sullivan who takes us aboard the Linda Rae, her bucket-of-bolts transport, that shuttles the reader between the pleasure palaces on Mare Tranq to the drug pits on Toshiba Station. As Thornton says in the opening of Spaced Out, there was a time way back in the Sixties when people thought space travel was a given. We were landing on the moon, so why not the stars? The future didn't materialize like the television shows and movies had portended, but a brilliant imagination can make up for what we missed.After reading the first few stories I'm sure you could navigate your own space transport from the lunar surface to the station on Mars with no sweat. You'll know the nightspots, the restaurants, and the assorted people who inhabit these colonies like your own backyard, especially if your backyard is filled with space pirates, Martian dragons, and talking turnips.The opening story, "The Captain's Log," introduces the space pirate and a gal who will knock your socks off, but Cookie Sullivan can handle them all with or without help from her first mate, the gorgeous, if not dim, N'Doro.The two old geezers in "Language Barrier" will have you looking at your favorite pet in a new light; so does the last story, "One of the Family." Gad, what an imagination.Thornton has several stories that start at the Mare Inebrium Bar where a Zombie cocktail just might get a girl into trouble... or save the universe.One of the more intriguing tales is called "Roots." This story has Cookie transporting a living creature of the vegetable persuasion to another sector, but this isn't your ordinary root vegetable.I guess it's the smuggling gigs that lead to the highest adventure for Cookie, but how else can a girl make a few extra bucks in a job like this? The cargo can be unusual or deadly, illegal or... really illegal. That's the fun."The Spiral Sea" story was most interesting. The Corporation, the group that seems to run the universe in this century, is doing experiments that cross the line between business and domination.Pour yourself another Zombie cocktail and enjoy the trip. Kate Thornton doesn't disappoint. It's a fast and furious romp in the stars.