Why Reclaim the Stars Should be Your Next Read

By: Julissa Mendoza Robles

Everyone loves a good book, and there are several to choose from. What’s even better is when there’s a book with multiple stories within it where you can find a favorite to choose from. Here is a quick book review from one of my recent reads!

Reclaim the Stars is a science fiction and fantasy short story collection edited by Zoraida Córdova. The twist: all seventeen stories feature Latino characters, take place in Latin America, or are inspired by Latin American mythology. Of course, the stories are written by Latino authors such as Mark Oshiro and J.C. Cervantes.

This collection of short stories is perfect for sci-fi and fantasy lovers who want to diversify their reading or are looking for new authors to binge-read. Reclaim the Stars is also the perfect summer read for busy readers who don’t have time to sit down and read an entire book but would love to consume a gut-punching story with efficient world-building and a satisfying ending in one sitting.

Each short story is written with its own distinctive voice and style. Some stories used elements we don’t see often in novels, such as second-person point-of-view and Death as a character. Others explored worlds in which technology takes over. Since the stories are all unique, readers are guaranteed to resonate with some of them and don’t have to read the collection in order

However, the uniqueness was also a problem because some stories weren't to my taste at all. For example, I expect short stories to be fast or medium-paced, but some of the stories I read were slow-paced so I was trudging through them.

Despite that, the following stories from the collection became my favorites for their strong characters, fast-paced plots, romantic storylines, and/or plot twists: “Reign of Diamonds” by Anne-Marie McLemore, “This Is Our Manifesto” by Mark Oshiro, “Leyenda” by Romina Garber, and “Rogue Enchantments” by Isabel Ibañez. After reading those stories, I look forward to finding more novels to read by those authors.

Reclaim the Stars achieves its mission to provide a diverse set of well-written sci-fi and fantasy stories.