No Way Home
NO WAY HOME (Stories From Which There Is No Escape)
A Speculative Fiction Anthology
By Lucas Bale, S. Elliot Brandis, J. S. Collyer, S. W. Fairbrother, Michael Patrick Hicks, Harry Manners, Nadine Matheson, and Alex Roddie writing as A. S. Sinclair
Edited by Pinnacle Editorial
Nothing terrifies us more than being stranded. Helpless, forsaken, cut-off. Locked in a place from which there is no escape, no way to get home.
A soldier trapped in an endless war dies over and over, only to be awakened each time to fight again – one of the last remaining few seeking to save mankind from extinction.
In rural 70s England, an RAF radio engineer returns to an abandoned military installation, but begins to suffer hallucinations, shifts in time and memories that are not his own.
A widower, one of ten thousand civilian space explorers, is sent alone to determine his assigned planet’s suitability for human colonisation, but stumbles across a woman who is part of the same programme and shouldn’t be there at all.
A suicidal woman in a poverty-stricken near-future America, where political apathy has allowed special interests to gain control of the country, takes part in a particularly unpleasant crowd-funding platform, established by the nation’s moneyed elite to engage the masses.
An assassin from the future, sent back in time to murder an insurgent, is left stranded when he fails in his mission and knows he will soon cease to exist.
These sometimes dark, sometimes heart-warming, but always insightful stories and more are to be found in No Way Home, where eight of the most exciting new voices in speculative fiction explore the mental, physical and even meta-physical boundaries that imprison us when we are lost.
“Strong, dramatic and thought-provoking stories, all with a powerful take-home message.”
— E.E. Giorgi, author of the award-winning bestseller Chimeras
“Cold Witness, A. S. Sinclair: This one threw me for a complete loop. I was really impressed with the techno-Lovecraft vibe Sinclair has going on. This is definitely more of a mental thriller, but the stakes are no less exciting than any of the others. As the story at the very end, Sinclair perhaps has just as much of a burden as Bale, opening it, and he handles it perfectly. It leaves you turning the last page with the realization that what you read was way more than just a sci-fi anthology.”
— Review by Stephanie Lehenbauer
“The entire anthology, No Way Home, when taken as a collective whole, is great. The range of stories runs the gamut between psychological horror to science fiction action adventure. Each author took the theme of ‘no way home’ and did something unique and enjoyable. I was impressed by the authorial chops that came together for this compilation along with the sheer volume of ideas expounded upon.”— Review by Anthony Vicino
“Each of the authors featured here are clearly at the height of their powers. These are professional, polished works that each paint an effective picture, ranging from alien worlds to distant futures to historical environments.”
— Review by David Wailing
“Although any reader is bound to have favourites there wasn’t a duff story in this collection and I found the length of the stories particularly successful. It allowed the reader to engage with the plot and characters in greater depth than is usual in short stories. I hope there will be more of these collections of themed speculative fiction.”
— Review by Ignite Books