Life on the Fringe follows crew of the Jacob’s Pride as they navigate humanities future. It explores the question, how does humanity choose what makes us most human? Total control for safety or absolute freedom with no promise of tomorrow.
This collection of stories range from the fringes of uncharted space to civilized worlds where mankind has established new societies.
Fringe stories include planets with parasitic grains, mountains of sentient crystals, flowers with euphoric spores, microbes that petrify flesh, humans who’ve learned to survive within alien flora. Stories from civilized space include the Empire of Man, where regicide is a tool for controlling emperors; the Corporate worlds, where citizenship equates to employment; Hive worlds where people exist solely in virtual reality while their bodies are controlled by AIs for hardware maintenance; and Old Earth, a dying planet where billions are trapped and desperate to escape.
Life on the Fringe follows crew of the Jacob’s Pride as they navigate humanities future. It explores the question, how does humanity choose what makes us most human? Total control for safety or absolute freedom with no promise of tomorrow.
This collection of stories range from the fringes of uncharted space to civilized worlds where mankind has established new societies.
Fringe stories include planets with parasitic grains, mountains of sentient crystals, flowers with euphoric spores, microbes that petrify flesh, humans who’ve learned to survive within alien flora. Stories from civilized space include the Empire of Man, where regicide is a tool for controlling emperors; the Corporate worlds, where citizenship equates to employment; Hive worlds where people exist solely in virtual reality while their bodies are controlled by AIs for hardware maintenance; and Old Earth, a dying planet where billions are trapped and desperate to escape.
“Drink?” The bartender, a woman with blonde hair and a genuine smile, nodded to Doug. She wore a white tank-top shirt, jeans and a red bandanna tied around her hair and stood behind a long bar that wrapped around half of the room. Rows of bottles filled with various colored liquid stood on shelves carved out of the wall behind her. The dirt coated tavern had once been a storage room inside the asteroid-station. Doug had found it while exploring the space port that orbited the planet Homer’s World. A planet on the edge of civilized space.
Above the bar, several screens displayed news feeds from the solar system. They all covered the same event. An asteroid had struck an Imperial starship, snapping it in half. Over five thousand crew were lost. Authorities hadn’t confirmed but the asteroid trajectory suggested it was altered with deliberate intent. Which meant this was an act of war.
Doug turned his attention away from the news and back to the bar. Behind him, two dozen tables carved from the rock filled the chamber. Half that many patrons sat, drank and talked in low whispers throughout the room. Dust covered their clothes and most surfaces. Several patrons looked up and gave Doug a quick stare, most searching his body for weapons or something of value.
Doug ignored the stares in the room and looked at the bartender who had offered him a drink and nodded once. He sat on one of the oddly shaped metal chairs in front of the bar. The bartender reached for a bottle below the bar and filled a metal cup, smiled at him and placed the mug within finger reach, shook her head and walked to another customer. Doug lifted his drink and tasted the brown liquid. It was revolting. Perhaps the worst thing he’d ever drunk in his very short life. He didn’t want to seem weak, after all, he was looking for a ship to join as crew, so he downed the harsh abrasive spirit and suppressed a sudden need to throw up.
“Nasty, isn’t it?” said a gray-haired man to Doug’s left. The old man wore a leather bomber jacket, dirty jeans, and an equally filthy button-down shirt. His gray hair was halfway down his back and tied in a ponytail; around his waist sat a brown leather belt with two holsters set on the sides. Rusted guns sat in the holsters. They didn’t look like they worked.
Not able to speak yet, Doug nodded.
“It’s piss water, all you can get out here.” The gray-haired man smiled, took a drink from his glass and grimaced.
“Sod off, you old coot. Best we got, don’t drink it if you don’t like it,” the bartender said.
“Man’s gotta get drunk somehow.” The old man finished his glass and set it back down on the bar. He nodded to the bartender for another.
“So boyo, what are you doing out here then? I know just about everyone that comes through this hole in the wall of a bar. We only get miners or ship’s crew swapping out after a refuel,” the old man said. “You don’t look like a miner so you must have been dropped off.”
“Yes, sir, the Sweet Louise dropped me off,” Doug said. He steadied his voice and tried to sound like the alcohol didn’t burn his chest out from the inside.
“Waiting on your next ship then?”
“No sir, I don’t have anything lined up yet. Do you have a ship?”
The old man frowned. Then smiled. “No. I don’t have a ship. I’m waiting for a friend to pick me up and head out of the system. And no, we don’t have any room.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded, “Did the Louise crew fire you or try to sell you?”
Doug only shook his head, confused.
“People don’t get dropped off here without something else lined up. Nothing on this rock but more rock, and no place to sleep. If you don’t have a ship, you won’t last a day.”
“I came looking to get on a ship. I want to see fringe space.” Doug’s words blurted out of him like a school kid on a trip to the zoo. And he knew it. His shoulders slumped. He looked down to the dusty rock that made up the bar and rolled the thin tin cup in his hands.
“Do you now? Well, if you go down to the docks, or hang around here long enough, maybe someone will pick you up. If not, you’ll starve to death.” The old man smiled and took another swig from his drink. “What’s your name, boyo?”
“Doug. Douglas Parker.” Doug held out his hand and smiled.
“I never shake a man’s hand without drinking with him first.” The old man emptied his drink down his throat and signaled for the bartender. “Hanna, two please.”
Hanna brought a bottle filled with more of the brownish liquid. She poured two full shots and left the bottle on the bar. Both Doug and the gray-haired man picked up their tin cups and lifted them to their mouths. Their eyes never left each other as they drank. Doug strained to hold his gaze as the liquid burned down his esophagus.
“Name’s Hill. Captain Hill,” the man said with a nod.
“Douglas Parker,” Doug repeated.
“Caught that,” Hill said. He reached for the bottle and poured both himself and Doug another drink. “Why do you want to go to fringe space? It’s nasty out there, boy.”
“I’m not a boy,” Doug said with a cough. “I want to see what’s out there. I’ve heard all the rumors and wanted to see for myself.”
“Where you from, boyo?” Hill said, putting an emphasis on boyo.
“Tel’amuth. Seventy-five light years Earthward,” Doug said.
“Never heard of it. Seventy-five light years Earthward? Quite the hike out here to Homer’s World.”
Doug nodded.
“Why Homers?”
“The captain of the ship that brought me here said this was a jumping off point to the unknown. Civilized enough to get fuel and supplies but they don’t ask so many questions. He took me on as crew,” Doug said.
“Why didn’t you just stay with him?” Hill said.
“He wasn’t going out past Homers, just here. Said lots of ships were coming here,”
“Yeah, Homers just joined the Empire. Everyone wants to see the natives before they doll us up and make us nice and pretty. What was the name of the ship again?” Hill said.
“Sir?”
“The ship that brought you here, boyo.”
“Oh, the Sweet Louise.”
Doug watched as Hill typed onto a pad that was sitting in front of him on the bar. Another moment passed and Hill nodded to himself. He lifted the bottle and poured more of the alcohol into both of their cups.
“Why do you want to see the fringe?” Hill asked.
Doug shrugged. “The unknown? Adventure? I’ve heard stories of amazing things.”
“Yeah, what have you heard?”
“Just things. Wanted to see for myself. Besides, I don’t have anything back home.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t really belong there,” Doug said. He lowered his gaze back down to the stone bar.
“That right. Well, let me tell you, boyo. Fringe is nothing like what you’ve heard. You know what’s out there? Waiting for you on the fringes of human civilization?”
“My name is Doug, and yes, I know what’s out there.”
Hill snorted a laugh. “You have no idea what’s out on the fringe. Do you even know what fringe space is?”
“It’s where governments don’t exist.”
“Yes, but why don’t they exist there?”
“I don’t know, why?”
Hill shifted in his bar stool and poured himself another drink. He sipped it and shook his head with a sideways grin. In a fluid motion, he stood, moved his bar stool over a few inches closer to Doug and sat back down. Dust from the old man’s jacket stirred in the sudden move and a tiny cloud of dirt briefly surrounded them.
“Fringe space is just a frontier. An endless frontier. The more humans flee Earth, the farther out we go. The frontier never ends. It’s wild, free, and lawless. But also filled with the unknown. You’ll find horrors out there that will shake you to your foundation, boyo. Are you ready for that?”
“What kind of horrors?” Doug said. Saliva built in his mouth and he took a quick gulp.
“Boy, like nothing you would ever expect.” Hill smiled, took a drink and poured himself another.
George Allen Miller's Life on the Fringe: Tales from the Frontier expertly explores a post-apocalyptic, intergalactic future in which humanity is scattered across the universe, trying—possibly in vain—to forge a new beginning.
This brilliant collection of stories begins in a bar. In wanders Doug, a lost kid from Civilized Space looking for a ride into the Fringe, a lawless frontier on the fringes (get it?) of the known universe. Instead he finds an old man at the bar with whom he begins to exchange anecdotes. As the evening wears on, the seemingly unrelated stories start to sound oddly intertwined, and Doug and the old man both get the sense that the other might not be who they seem.
The writing in this book is characterized by beautifully vivid descriptions that bring the book's wildly imaginative worlds to life, down to the most minute biological, technological, and—though creepy—parasitic details. Both natural environments and political infrastructures are fleshed out in equal measure, and the representations of each lend engaging tension to the collection's speculative nature.
The characters go beyond their apparent archetypes—the pragmatic introvert, the zealous youth, the punchy hero—into deeper, more real, and more relatable dimensions, all with unique voices that bring their thrilling adventures to life. Their differences also highlight their one commonality: they are all decidedly human no matter their context, which is what this book is all about. This balance is both well-executed and impressive.
Miller writes on topical subjects such as the rise of AI, the climate crisis, and various forms of government in the face of global change from an objective perspective that raises philosophical questions about humanity. The ending has an ambiguous quality—as if the ending is just the beginning—leaving those philosophical questions unanswered, but instead up for the readers' consideration.
Perfect for Sci-Fi's most thoughtful and inquisitive fans, this book is an open-ended conversation about hope, history, exploration, ethics, politics, adventure, curiosity, and thus, humanity that is—in my opinion—universally relevant.
Sincerely,
Hannah
Badly Annotated Readers Society