Olga Gromyko “As*troheads: Before, Between, After”

“As*troheads” (earlier versions known as “As*trobiologists”) is the second long-running series by Belarusian writer Olga Gromyko. Her first series, about a witch, brought Olga recognition and a dedicated fanbase. Since then, she has written standalone books and smaller series, but “As*troheads” has been around for over six years, and the adventures of the characters are far from over (in fact, a new two-volume edition was just released).

The book “As*troheads: Before, Between, After” is the fifth in the series, but chronologically, it spans across various points in time, as the title suggests. It’s not a single narrative but rather a collection of novellas and short stories that cover events from before the first book to after the fourth.

In general, based on my observations, many short story collections suffer from being just that—collections, rather than standalone works. There are several reasons for this:

• With a short story, the reader doesn’t have enough time to fully immerse themselves in the narrative before it ends.
• The story in each short story or novella is, by nature, shorter than in a full-length novel. You don’t always get to experience all the nuances and twists. Although, this can sometimes be a plus (some authors tend to inflate short stories to novel length, filling them with unnecessary details).
• Sometimes, these aren’t even stories, but sketches or outlines that didn’t make it into previous novels, or ideas that never grew into something bigger.

This book has similar issues. A couple of the mini-stories are sketches that could’ve been interesting episodes in a larger book but don’t stand well on their own, not even as short stories. That was a bit disappointing for me.

However, the novellas in this book are much better. If you’ve been following the adventures of this daring crew of space transporters (and if not, you’re unlikely to pick up this book anyway), you’ll definitely find additional layers to the characters you’ve come to love. Personally, I really enjoyed the look into the cyborgs’ past, but the other parts were solid as well.

Initially, I was going to give the book an average rating, but after the midpoint, my opinion changed. It’s a good book, although not the best in Olga’s body of work.

My rating: 4/5