The Stars Our Destination (Collected Short Stories)

Ten optimistic and forward-looking space stories that show how we journey to the stars!

This is the third volume of the collected short stories of Joe Vasicek. It includes:

The Scales of the Space Whale
The most dangerous creatures in the universe will kill you before they know you exist!

In the Beginning
Paradise is not what-or where-it seems.
(After Dinner Conversation, August 2020)

From the Ice Incarnate
They say that going into cryo is the closest thing to death short of actually dying. I believe it.
(1st place, 2009 Vera Hinckley Mayhew Contest BYU)

When She Awakes
To pay her father's debt, she must offer herself as coin.

The Infiltrator
The aliens are already among us, in a form we refuse to see.
(Not Far From Roswell, December 2019)

Abductors
Always check your backblast before launching your UFO.
(Never before published!)

Starchild
The revolutions passed, and the stars spun silently underfoot.
(Bards and Sages Quarterly, October 2019)

L'enfer, c'est la Solitude
War is not the only hell in the cold, empty void of space.
(Perihelion, March 2016; The New Accelerator, August 2018)

The Janus Anomaly
What do you do when you're the only sane one and everyone else is crazy?
(Kasma Magazine, May 2019; Twilight Tales, February 2021)

Lizzie-99XT
To save humanity, she must become the machine.
(Serial Magazine, August 2019)

Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife, daughter, and two apple trees.