The novel “And All the Stars a Stage” by James Blish was published for the first time in 1960 serialized in the magazine “Amazing Science Fiction” and in 1971 as a book.

Jorn Birn does not have many prospects in a world where there’s a strong predominance of men and an equally strong competition for the favors of the small minority of women. One possibility comes from a space program that aims to test faster-than-light propulsion. Jorn is selected to be trained as a navigator and accepts knowing that the mission will be experimental and very risky.

Everything changes when the study of anomalies detected in solar activity leads to the conclusion that the Sun will explode within a few years. Even by concentrating all the efforts of the world, only a small percentage of human beings can survive and the selection of the crews of the available spaceships is very strict. Jorn Birn will fly one of them in search of a habitable planet.

The novel “Stargazer: The Ultimate Artefact” (“Stargazer: Das letzte Artefakt”) by Ivan Ertlov was published for the first time in 2021 and translated from German by Marly Gram. It’s the first book in the After Terra series.

Frank Gazer is a prospector who has worked hard to get command of a spaceship. For a human, it’s not easy to get high positions, even among prospectors, because his species’ reputation is still negative two thousand years after the war in which an interstellar alliance almost wiped out humanity. A mission that targets a comet takes Frank and his crew in an unexpected direction.

The relationship between the Plachtharr Alliance and the Protectorate are decidedly tense and the situation worsens due to the possibility of finding technologically advanced remains of an ancient civilization that could change the balance of power between the two coalitions. A war could be inevitable.