Fairy Tale Spotlight: Under the Umbran Sun [Short Story Review]

"Under the Umbran Sun" is a short story by Frances Pauli. It is the nineth story in a collection called "Tales of Hayven Celestia," which was published in 2020. As I have already stated, this is a universe created by author Rick Griffin, in which he allowed many other people to write stories in.

So many of these stories have to do with the kangaroo-like geroo race that I sometimes forget there is a plethora of other races that are interesting in their own right. The umbra is a race of bears that have their own story. Like most of the species in this universe, they are enslaved by the krakun.

What's cool about the umbrans is their ability to figure out the quality of precious stones and gems by use of their extremely good eyesight. The main character of this story is a female umbran named Mindelle who is forced to do this in the mines for very little appreciation and money. It is a thankless job that will ultimately lead to her death. What's interesting here is that she has never even seen the giant krakuns, but she still feels the weight of their control.

Without going into spoilers, this entire story is about hope in a near hopeless environment. The world Mindelle lives in is so bad that when something actually good happens, she can barely even acknowledge its existence... because it seems so unreal. This entire story was really good at portraying the very limited viewpoint of a mind in despair and how just a little bit of hope can be enough to climb up out of the mire.

This is one of the best stories in the Hayven Celestia collection. I totally recommend it, especially for those in bad situations. It was really a masterclass in writing.

This blog was written on November 22, 2025.

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