Those Alien Skies by Clayton Graham presents three science fiction stories set across multiple planets. In The Hunt for Elias Weber, former Martian deputy Elias Weber kills a traveler to assume his identity and secretly travels to Earth to meet Damien Dayananda while evading Martian and Earth authorities. Few and Far Between follows Laura Sinclair and her family as they search for her missing twin sons on the planet Venture through dangerous landscapes, from an artificial ocean tower to disorienting portals, alien civilizations, and robotic entities. In Battle Lines, Groozancar awakens on a damaged spacecraft and learns RNasia Gerb may threaten Earth. Recruited by Officer Rjebni, she joins Jason Sinclair’s team to find hidden Gerb bases, monitor RNasia movements, and protect Shrydd populations through reconnaissance, skirmishes, and operations across forests, rivers, and underwater regions.

Clayton Graham’s Those Alien Skies is a fabulous collection of short stories that spark the imagination and transport readers to extraordinary worlds. Each story is unique and reads as a standalone. While it is difficult to pick a favorite as they are all inventive and intelligently written, it is the story Battle Lines that I most enjoyed. Groozancar’s mission had the highest octane, with really strategic action and plenty of clever, interspecies problem-solving. Graham does a great job of building worlds that teem with richly imagined civilizations, inventive technology, and interstellar adventures, packing a huge punch in moderately bite-sized arcs. Those Alien Skies is a spectacular voyage across the cosmos, rewarding readers with stories that excite, surprise, and leave them waiting to see what the author puts out next. Very highly recommended.

Clayton Graham’s science fiction and fantasy anthology, Those Alien Skies, consists of three intriguing and well-crafted space opera novellas. The principal characters are drawn from the author’s First Contact novels, the Milijun series. Earth was once governed by the all-powerful Tellurians, who were banished from Earth by the Alien Collaboration Enterprise, or ACE, after First Contact with aliens. The Tellurians are adamantly opposed to human-alien joint space exploration. The novella, The Hunt for Elias Weber, is a gripping story about an ex-Tellurian commander, Elias Weber, who makes his way back to Earth when he learns that Damien Dayananda, the ex-Tellurian CEO, is back on Earth. The novella, Few and Far Between, is set on the planet Venture. Laura Sinclair is an ACE pioneer. Laura and her son, Jason, were the first people on Earth to encounter aliens, the Rbuzen. When her teenage grandsons disappear on Venture, Laura sets out on a desperate search to find them. The novella, Battle Lines, is set on the alien planet Glieze, which is home to three alien civilizations, including the Rbuzen, the First Contact aliens. The Rbuzen ask Jason Sinclair, ACE commander, for his help when they suspect an inter-alien power struggle on their home planet. 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Clayton Graham’s Those Alien Skies for its complex characters, human, alien, and alien-human hybrids. I loved the challenges and personal dramas, the richly imagined settings, and the world-building of alien civilizations. The novellas each have a distinctly different storyline, but are connected through the characters. In The Hunt for Elias Weber, I liked how Elias, the ex-Tellurian commander, remains at the heart of the story. His thoughts, emotions, and reactions are interwoven into the story as he eludes the ACE team’s efforts to capture him. I enjoyed Few and Far Between for its central character, Laura. Her story adds great depth to the anthology. I became immersed in Battle Lines for its compelling characters. It’s an epic story of alien civilizations dealing with political intrigue and war. Two particular ACE team members stood out to me: Ex-Tellurian Stella Browning and the female Gerb-human hybrid Groozancar. I found Stella’s transformative journey particularly striking and poignant, from her harrowing experience as an ex-Tellurian and now part of the ACE team working with aliens. I was intrigued by Groozencar, who is part Gerb, an alien race that is related, and an enemy of the Rbuzen, the First Contact Aliens. The story is action-packed and has intense and incredible personal drama. I highly recommend Those Alien Skies to fans of epic space opera, complex alien civilizations, and hard science fiction technology.