Seven Beyond by Stella Atrium

Wielding a wickedly original pen and a universe-shattering imagination, author Stella Atrium delivers a tour de force of sci-fi fantasy in her sprawling novel, Seven Beyond.

Presenting an unseen world of immortals and powerful beings, as well as alien races that have intermixed with humanity, this novel is a symbolic and allegorical tale of spiritual connection, and the dark edges of consciousness beyond our understanding. Dr. Meenins sits firmly at the center of this story, as he is taken on an internal journey to free his troubled mind, embarking on this metaphysical quest to perhaps find the answers to the greatest mysteries of existence. Reconceptualizing everything from mental illness and animal-keeping to hierarchical social structures and interstellar politics, there is no limit to the creative corners this book explores.

Some of the dialogue may initially come off as stilted or awkward, but there is a simplistic beauty in it, akin to the speech patterns in LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. The world-building is similarly on par with other great sci-fi minds, folding reality seamlessly into myth and dream and memory with overlapping narratives and leaps in time and space that demand attention. Keeping track of the characters can be difficult, and tracing the deep thematic threads requires a particularly limber mind; this is not a read to be undertaken lightly, as one must strip away their conceptions of the traditional novel and its structure, and allow for the aesthetic experience of becoming entirely lost in the story.

While this is not an endeavor for everyone, Seven Beyond is an impressive work of metaphysical fiction, and Atrium has confidently summoned an intricate realm for the reader’s imagination to run wild.