Have you ever read a collection of short sci-fi stories? Something with the works by the masters, Sheckley, Simak, Zelazny, Longyear, a preface talking about the eternal dream about stars and illustrations by the early astronauts – stuff that makes you believe in the purpose of humanity and long for space travel. If you have, you know what Stardust Memories is like – this manga is 100% such a book, down to the letter, adapted into a bit retro but surprisingly fresh handsome art. If you haven’t… Well. *sigh* Ok. This brand of sci-fi is mostly philosophical, it treats space as a frontier the humans aredestined to brave, one that is vast, hides many secrets, challenges and tests humanity. Its moralistic side is especially prominent in short stories, where space travel serves as a sort of mirror that shows the best and the worst in humans as a species and as individuals and reflects it back, so the flawed get their due in the great scheme of things.

It’s not “hard” sci-fi of tech and numbers, as it’s often understood nowadays, nor social sci-fi or warrior space-opera. It’s a bunch of stories that muse over how humanity will face the greater Universe, its wonders and terrors, over the effects that space will have on humans, humans on space, space travel on lives on Earth. Not all stories here are similar in mood though. I’d say that along the course of this manga the stories evolved as the sci-fi in general. Stardust Memories starts with stating that facing space is inevitable for humans, follows with stories about exploration, devolves into a few Vonnegut-like subversions and vignettes, arriving to the state of worry over the unknown horrors of space – the point where science fiction sits now, with Watts in literature and Alien and Life in movies.

You shouldn’t go looking for characters into a collection of short stories about space, but there’re a few memorable characters, and, thankfully, each short story functions as a story with a proper main point and outcome.

The interesting part about Stardust Memories is that while its inspirations are fairly old literature by now, the manga ended in early 00-s, so it isn’t all that new itself, and some of the designs and concepts are retro, it doesn’t feel dated, because it’s so damn good and because our dream about space travel hasn’t really advanced in recent years. We may live big parts of our lives in the electronic web now, but the tech of space travel is still metal our governments haven’t been funding nearly enough for a while.

The casual wear you see on characters lies the farthest from modern design sensibilities: in this manga they tend to frolic on alien worlds in something from a 70-s fashion catalogue. Humans are drawn a bit unusually for manga – heavy influence of western comics is visible both in the composition and in the designs (expect a lot of chiseled jaw in men). Faces are formed with a few simple but expressive lines, but there’s a great range of types, and even old people are drawn realistically, which is truly a rarity. The aesthetic of the human characters is delightful: tall and lean worker/professional men with broad trapezoidal shoulders, older bearded scientists with eyes fixed on stars, statuesque badass space women. It's a type of beauty lost after 70-80-s, and it was very pleasant to see these marvelous architecturally perfect bodies paired with determined faces again.

Space suits are a mixed bag, though the real world designs have been too, but the spaceships don’t need any suspension of disbelief – they’re elaborate, graphic and majestic. Essentially, these are ships that are exactly like we envision ships, because they’re taken from works that made us envision ships in the first place. The environments – space itself, stars and planets, worlds – also feel just right, even though you won’t see much of alien life.

The most amazing thing about Stardust Memories is that it brings the feel and the logic of the golden age sci-fi stories into the form of comic so faithfully and that, to my great surprise, the result doesn’t ask for concessions. 80% of time you get seriously immersed, with additional 10% being appreciation of the retro visual style. Though, of course, this comes from someone who still loves the old "ethical" sci-fi books… I can’t unread them, so I can’t distinguish clearly whether my admiration for Stardust Memories is nostalgia speaking or mastery being mastery. I do believe though that these ideas are valuable and worth revisiting. In the times of petty strife causing so much suffering it is important to remember that there’s a higher purpose, a bigger universe, that we can still aim for the stars. It’s too bad, actually, that there hasn’t been a newer vision and the 70-s still reign supreme in space travel sci-fi. But this manga freshens and reintroduces old ideas to new readers, and it does so well. It's a no brainer you should read Stardust Memories if you like or at least are able to enjoy sci-fi, and it looks that the same mangaka has a few other collections with the same mood for later.