These Burning Stars - BookWyrm Underscore

English language

Published 2023 by Orbit.

ISBN:: 978-0-316-46332-4

(1 review)

On a dusty backwater planet, occasional thief Jun Ironway has gotten her hands on the score of a lifetime: a secret that could raze the Kindom, the ruling power of the galaxy.

A star system away, preternaturally stoic Chono and brilliant hothead Esek— the two most brutal clerics of the Kindom—are tasked with hunting Jun down.

And tracking all three across the stars is a ghost from their shared past known only as Six. But what Six wants is anyone’s guess. It’s a game of manipulation and betrayal that could destroy them all. And they have no choice but to see it through.

5 editions

Dee 📖 (book aspect) reviewed These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs

Good space opera

4 stars

This has all the elements that make good space opera: extensively detailed world, with a variety of places and a variety of cultures; an overbearing, dystopian empire, with complex internal politics; characters who are unreasonably competent in their villainy; space pirates; space hackers; space sapphic romance.

Some of the plot twists feel a bit too twisty, but are more palpable given the context of the general vibe the setting has (which is established in a satisfactory manner). At times, the main characters feel a bit too constantly competent, often relegating other characters to the roles of bumbling fools, or passing redshirts. The book works as the kind where that happens, but given the quality of worldbuilding otherwise, it would have been nice to have more nuance in this area.