In storm-lashed Pelion on the ocean world of Tethys, navigator Ilya Renn signs on to the long-range survey ship Halcyon under Captain Noor Valdez. Alongside astrophysicist Dr. Mara Kade, Ilya is tasked with charting a passage past the Thalassa Rift, an expanse where maps fail and ships vanish. Their only guide is a relic “horizon compass” salvaged from a dead gate-station.
What begins as routine exploration turns into a journey through impossible space and the remnants of civilizations that tried to cross it. Cut off from known routes, the crew faces shifting coordinates, eroding trust, and an enigmatic presence that trades in memory. As the Halcyon pushes deeper, Ilya and Mara must decide how much of themselves and their home they are willing to risk for a way through.
A character-driven space novel about maps, memory, and the cost of discovery, Beyond Horizon’s Edge peers past the known and asks what we’re willing to leave behind to go farther.
Samantha Taylor (b. 1985) is a New Zealand–based science fiction writer and former oceanographic data analyst. Raised in Halifax and trained in computational geophysics, she moved to Wellington in her mid-twenties and built a career turning satellite readings into visual models of currents and storms. Her short fiction has appeared in small independent magazines and anthologies, often blending hard science with lyrical, character-driven storytelling. She teaches part-time workshops on narrative design and lives near the south coast, where she hikes, repairs old compasses, and collects 20th-century star charts.
Gorgeous ideas, murky delivery. Too many capitalized concepts and not enough payoff for me. Archivist Nyx talking in riddles got old fast, and the crew drama felt undercooked. I wanted a map; got a maze.
Elegant, melancholy, and surprisingly suspenseful. The science feels grounded without turning into a lecture, and the moral stakes around mapping versus erasing are thought-provoking. A few emotional beats repeat, but the closing chapters land beautifully.
La premisa es fascinante: una nave (la Halcyon) cruzando la Falla de Thalassa con una brújula imposible y un archivo que compra recuerdos. Hay imágenes potentes y un sentido de asombro bien logrado.
Pero el ritmo cae a mitad, especialmente cuando aparecen los «ecos de tiempo». Aun así, el clímax en Psalter-3 compensa y deja ideas dando vueltas.
CPT NOOR VALDEZ STANS RISE. I inhaled this in a weekend and then immediately reread the scenes with the false star because CHILLS. The vibes are cosmic, the tech is crunchy, and Oriole owns my heart. Send me a horizon compass, I swear I'll use it responsibly (I won't).
Taylor takes the Halcyon right up to the Thalassa Rift and makes you feel the pressure change in your bones. The "horizon compass" is such a brilliant object—solid, tactile, and then suddenly metaphysical—and the way Captain Noor Valdez keeps everyone moving while Mara decodes its seed-patterns felt both plausible and mythic.
I loved how Archivist Nyx negotiates in memories instead of time, and how Oriole's clipped, almost kind voice becomes the book's conscience. The final sequence at Psalter-3, with Ilya's impossible decision about Pelion, has the ache of a good ending: not neat, not cruel, but earned.
If you like space that behaves like an ocean and maps that change the mapped, this is your ship.
