The Truth Beyond The Sky, by Andrew M. Crusoe

This is by far the best-written of the stories in this collection so far, especially if you like epic space-opera science fiction with no character background and little development, and none of that tedious pseudo-scientific terminology attempting to explain how anything might actually work, such as you find in the works of authors like Aldiss, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Niven, Pohl, Silverberg or Zelazny, amongst others.

In summary: well-written, plenty of action, but nothing in the way of what you might call a plot. Just a series of very brief visits to multiple extra-terrestrial locations, mediated by undescribed transport mechanisms, and featuring creatures with cute descriptions but only a few pages' inclusion each in the story.

Two references to external sci-fi stories stand out:

1. The whole story feels somewhat like Blake's Seven, where one person starts out with a spaceship and picks up random individuals from various points along the way on a journey without any particular purpose.
2. In chapter 18, we find out that "whenever he travelled, he made sure to bring his towel".
   • If you don't get that reference without further clues, you probably don't want to be reading this sort of book.

The Truth Beyond the Sky turns out to be the first part of a trilogy. The other parts are:

• The Island on the Edge of Forever
• The Mirage on the Brink of Oblivion

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