I recently got a copy of Barren Worlds, published by Hadley Rille Books, which features a short story, "Elessa the Restless," by Shauna Roberts. It is a great sci-fi piece in a collection that centers on exactly what the title says: barren worlds. As the editors note, however, "barren" can mean many things. In this intriguing collection, the introduction explains that the "stories span a range of styles from dark to quirky to those of survival and escape." The common thread is that "the storytellers . . . take you into a universe devoid of something and in some cases, to places you'd best avoid." That's enough to pull me in right there.
Every story in the collection is great, and I am very impressed with Shauna's work! She's a real prose stylist. I strongly encourage those of you who like good writing and sci-fi in particular to hop over to Shauna Roberts' For Love of Words to check out her blog and a link to Barren Worlds or go straight to Amazon or Hadley Rille Books. The publisher also has many other great anthologies for sale.