Nov 14, 2023

Dipping into the world of Space Operas: Once We Flew by Nikky Lee

Book cover featuring purple glowing crystals behind title

Dipping into the world of Space Operas: Once We Flew by Nikky Lee

Official blurb

Four generations ago a generation ship crashed into the sands of Savene. Since then, its survivors have eked out an existence in the planet’s hostile desert. Yet, the tech is failing, the sands are encroaching, and people are dying. Rescue is still generations away—if it comes at all.

But Marsa is a survivor.

And an outcast.

Infected with the Chrysalis—a disease that grants its carriers uncanny abilities—she keeps her distance from her dwindling community.

Until an old friend’s dying wish sends her and a young boy across Savene’s inhospitable sands in search of something Marsa had thought she’d long forgotten.

Hope.

My thoughts

The brand new release, Once We Flew by Nikky Lee, is a well-written space novella with the potential for something much bigger. Will that potential be realized? Well, believe it or not, it doesn’t need to be. Novella length works perfectly well for this story. The storytelling arc is fully covered with enough backstory inserted to place the reader in this world, enough action to involve us fully and carry us forward, and enough resolution to satisfy us.

The lead character in this mini space opera, Marsa, carries her demons and hopes tightly to herself, bound within to avoid hurting herself and others. But it cannot last. Her destiny is realized by her dying friend who sends her on a mission with an end goal of nothing short of saving the community she’d long shunned. Marsa is joined on this mission by her friend’s beloved son.

They must learn to trust each other and the dead woman’s vision if they are to succeed.

All of this in a novella! Well-timed pacing and rhythm allows the reader to feel happy with the outcome and the feeling of having read an epic rather than a few thousand words.

If you’re exploring new genres, Once We Flew is a wonderful dip in the ocean that is fantasy/science fiction. In fact, after reading this one, you could add dystopian and possibly even climate fiction to your genre check list.

A must by Christmas gift for the scifi fan in your life!

About the author

Nikky Lee is an award-winning author who grew up as a barefoot 90s kid in Perth, Western Australia on Whadjuk Noongar Country. She now lives in Aotearoa New Zealand with a husband, a dog and a couch potato cat. In her free time, she writes speculative fiction, often burning the candle at both ends to explore fantastic worlds, mine asteroids and meet wizards. She's had over two dozen stories published in magazines, anthologies and on the radio.

Her short fiction has been shortlisted six times in the Aurealis Awards with her novelette Dingo & Sister winning the Best Young Adult Short Story and the Best Fantasy Novella categories in 2020. In 2021, she received a Ditmar Award for Best New Talent. Her debut novel, The Rarkyn's Familiar, won a Sir Julius Vogel Award, three Indie Ink Awards, Bronze in the 2022 Foreward INDIES Book of the Year Awards, and was a finalist in the 2022 Aurealis Awards.

You can find her online at W: nikkythewriter.com | F: @nikkythewriter | IG: @NikkyMLee