Patterns of Orbit: Stories

by Chloe N. Clark

Chloe N Clark’s Patterns of Orbit spans genres, perspectives, and styles to articulate contemporary uncertainties in a rapidly changing world. Steadily gazing into and across the uncanny valley, Clark examines those jarring or subtle shifts in familiar stories, writing light into dark, and offering slivers of hope despite the longest of odds. Successfully navigating a potent concoction of science fiction, folktale, and horror this collection of literary, character-driven stories combines the accumulated forces and darker natures of those genre elements, unleashing the terrors of alien fungi, forest demons, and interplanetary specters upon her characters.

However, while these characters, capable and intelligent, face off against their prescribed monsters, it is their existential misgivings on the state of their worlds or conditions that will leave an indelible mark on the reader. An impressive entry in the literary/genre hybrid canon, this collection offers a satisfying read to the connoisseurs of both genre and literary fiction. So, be bold. Take a swim through the anti-gravity. You are sure to be captured by Patterns of Orbit.

“Long in the Tooth”, an excerpt from Patterns of Orbit: Stories

The lesson is obvious.

There will always be wolves in the woods. The woods will always be deep and dark. Anyone who strays from the path will always be punished. No matter that the forest floor was flooded with moss, so deep and green, so soft beneath the feet. No matter that there were flowers that only grew in the shade, such delicate buds. No matter how easy it was to follow the song of a bird without realizing. No matter that paths are not always easy to keep oneself upon.

The lesson is as old as time.

If you meet a wolf, he will always try to trick you. His teeth can only be sharp. His growl is one that is meant to get caught in the throat. It sounds like thunder if you listen closely. And you count, and you count before you remember that thunder follows lightning and not the other way around. You are waiting for disaster and its already come. What are you counting until?

The lesson is simple.

You taught the ones you love to keep themselves safe without telling them that’s what you were doing. You’d glance from side to side when crossing a street, hurry your feet when going past shadows, tell no one your whole name at first. Such simple things to learn: our calculations of what we must do to survive. No one told you how all those additions, things to remember, could also feel like subtractions. How the wolf might still be waiting—a multiplication of time and distance and fear. How the division at the center of the lesson was always going to equal yourself.

The lesson is universal.

The wolf is always a wolf. The wolf sharpens his claws every day with every step. Sometimes the wolf is a tiger. Sometimes the tiger is a hyena. Sometimes the hyena is a monster, creeping out of a cave. A castle. The lake behind the house. The wolf is everything and nothing. The claws are so sharp. The teeth are so quick. Sometimes even you are the wolf. You don’t realize it until you are old. You see it in the mirror, the way you shift and pace, like an animal caged. How much the running you have wanted is screaming under your skin, in your bones. Your claws are no longer sharp. You’ve spent so much time in the shadows cast by staying in the light.

The lesson is empty.

You walk in the woods, slip free from the path. The smell of the earth greets you after the rain. It is so deep and so dark and so easy to fall inside of. Was there ever a path to begin with? You can’t find it now. It’s all just moss beds and twisting roots and the flitter of bird wings and the rush of feet scurry scurrying. You could stop for a rest. You could wait for a traveler. You can taste it almost. All that you leave behind. There will always be wolves in the woods. You know this. You’ve found them after all.

About the Author

Chloe N. Clark is the author of the short story collection Collective Gravities, an NPR pick for Best Books of 2020, as well as the poetry collections Escaping the Body, Your Strange Fortune, and more. She is a founding co-editor-in-chief of the literary journal Cotton Xenomorph.

Praise for Patterns of Orbit: Stories

“Chloe Clark’s stories are compact marvels of miniaturized mystery, something like what I imagine you might get if you stranded Steven Millhauser in interstellar space. Patterns of Orbit is a smart, moving collection, one that might permanently expand what you imagine possible, leaving you searching out fresh wonder everywhere you go.”

“From interstellar travel to cities of the dead, Clark masterfully constructs constellations of memory, hope, and wonder. These genre-defying stories will make you look up at the sky and deep into your soul.”

“Chloe Clark is one of my favorite writers. Somehow she manages, in story after story, to capture—with perfect clarity and precision—the mystery and wonder and heartbreak of existence. And really, that’s all I ever want.”

“This is a landmark collection. I would recommend it to anyone who likes short fiction, regardless of genre.”

In Patterns of Orbit: Stories Chloe N Clark “accomplishes in a few pages what others can’t pull off in a hundred.”

“Patterns of Orbit gathers well-crafted stories that move through the darkness of space, delivering interstellar insights about searching for lost loved ones. They are about what’s uncanny in the universe and about humanity’s unknowability, isolation, and existence.”

“Simply transcendent across all galaxies, Patterns of Orbit is a must-read for fans of Ted Chiang.”

“There is hope here. There are secrets held close and chances taken. There is comfort and loss and people doing what they can in the face of challenges both routine and existential. Patterns of Orbit creates a constellation all its own. It is an image, a myth, a means of navigation. It is ‘…a small human kindness, lighting [our] way in the dark.’”

“But even if people go to Mars, it’s still people out there. Watching these characters tangle with banal problems like coffee, life-altering problems like being separated from a loved one, or fight-or-flight problems like ‘is this alien going to kill me’—it all adds up to a world that feels like our own, even if the setting is frequently out of it.”

“I’m not usually a science fiction reader. I find the story can get bogged down by world-building heavy with descriptions of technology and definitions. Clark places readers in unusual and dramatic places with brevity and precision. She allows the negative spaces around the characters to help define what’s happening, so it’s easy to get lost in her uncanny worlds.”

“In these stories, characters face a near future that might very well crush them under its atmospheric pressure. Other fates in Patterns of Orbit include drowning, or floating away. Best case scenario, a body is released from gravity and relieved of its darkness through friendship, or love, or art.  Round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows. And in the unknowing there is depth, and flavor.”

Chloe in the news:

Book Details

Title: Patterns of Orbit: Stories

Author: Chloe N. Clark

Publication Date: April 4, 2023

Trade Paperback

5 x 8

169 pages

ISBN: 978-1-936097-47-0

$16.95

Dist. by Publishers Group West
www.pgw.com, 800-788-2123

Available at your favorite local bookstore, on indiebound.org, bookshop.org, or from Baobab Press affiliate Sundance Books and Music .