Experiments in the Fading Light is a poetic exploration that combines science, faith, and the aesthetic dimensions of art and nature. The poems range from a mischievous reimagining of the twelfth-century nun Hildegard von Bingen’s work on animals to looking at the deep suffering brought on by illness and other sorrows. The work also explores the concept of faith and meaning in light of how complicated life has become in our contemporary world.

The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi describes the journey to eternal life as going through a gate of ordinances and traveling a “straight and narrow path.” Twenty-three authors took that gospel roadmap passage as a prompt to write “a Mormon story.” They responded with a surprisingly wide range of realistic and fantastic tales. Many are human reactions to unexpected steps on the path: a lifetime of faith in a patriarchal blessing’s unfulfilled promise, a survivor of violence calling a divided community to repentance, a baptism gone very wrong, and spiritual gifts that extend far beyond the apostle Paul’s list. The characters stretch from wayward bishops and helpful home teachers to cyber-­Seventies searching for lost sheep in the metaverse, with settings from the slums of Mumbai to a heaven that turns out to be more difficult than expected. Some characters reject the path’s restrictions and expectations, while others can second the reported words of J. Golden Kimball, “I may not always walk the straight and narrow, but I sure in hell try to cross it as often as I can.”