A disorganised dystopia, rather than one of those strictly enforced crowded dystopias, can be found in THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS. Humanity, in a common science fiction prediction, has become too populous and has been spread, in some cases forcibly, onto new planets far from Earth. Jamie Allenby is one of these people, emigrating with her veterinary certificate in hand, hoping to aid new settlements. But disaster strikes and as we meet Jamie we learn that a deadly plague has spread invisibly, wiping out all but a minute proportion of humanity.

Jamie, understandably, takes some time to believe she has survived the illness, then heads to the space dock. The well-described tale takes a turn to women's fiction, with our protagonist obsessed with where she wants to go and with whom she wants or doesn't want to make a new life, rather than helping humanity to recover.

I think a few points which Jamie learns the hard way were so obvious that only someone this self-obsessed wouldn't have been consciously aware of them. Young women would be needed to repopulate planets; qualified scientists, engineers, and doctors would be in demand for teaching skills. Survivors would need to be brought together by some organisers for a chance to find new partners and share skills. Jamie thinks if she wants to get on a spaceship and go back to Earth, just to check if her family made it, well a ship must be available with fuel, pilots, and supplies. Not that she's important or anything, but since she's got one of those upper echelon marks on her finger, well perhaps that's just how she grew up.

One very good comment made by a space pilot on Jamie's attitudes is that there is a fine line between having space and having nothing. The tale takes us to a few different planets and, finally, to an almost empty Earth. Though for some it's not empty enough. We feel the underlying suspense thread, tugged by some of Jamie's misfit fellow travellers whose reasons to go to Earth seem no more understandable.

I must mention that unlike other plagues, victims become piles of dust. So we are spared any description of bodies or zombies. This device relieves the characters of a lot of work and further disease, and makes the plot move faster. To compensate, we get moody reflections and backstory in italics, which are hard on my eyes. Anne Corlett is from the United Kingdom and THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS is her debut novel.

Book Summary

In a breathtakingly vivid and emotionally gripping debut novel, one woman must confront the emptiness in the universe—and in her own heart—when a devastating virus reduces most of humanity to dust and memories.

All Jamie Allenby ever wanted was space. Even though she wasn’t forced to emigrate from Earth, she willingly left the overpopulated, claustrophobic planet. And when a long relationship devolved into silence and suffocating sadness, she found work on a frontier world on the edges of civilization. Then the virus hit...

Now Jamie finds herself dreadfully alone, with all that’s left of the dead. Until a garbled message from Earth gives her hope that someone from her past might still be alive.

Soon Jamie finds other survivors, and their ragtag group will travel through the vast reaches of space, drawn to the promise of a new beginning on Earth. But their dream will pit them against those desperately clinging to the old ways. And Jamie’s own journey home will help her close the distance between who she has become and who she is meant to be...