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Dec. 12th, 2023 12:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThe other recent sci-fi novel that I've been meaning to write up -- which I also read in draft and which I also am completely unbiased about -- is the first book in Bethany Jacobs' Kindom trilogy, These Burning Stars.
This is another book that completely blew me away structurally on a first read for reasons that are SUCH a big spoiler to delineate that I am not even going to put them under a cut (though I will put them in ROT13 in a comment if anyone wants) but did immediately make me want to turn back to the beginning and start the book over again to fully appreciate everything that was happening now that I knew what was, in fact, actually happening.
These Burning Stars is one of those books that's constantly circling itself around an absence at the center: Six, an exceptionally brilliant novice of mysterious origins who's being positioned for a promising internship with a chaotic evil space priestess Esek (first major POV). Unfortunately, Esek's in a Mood when they meet and casually ruins Six's life and career options instead. Years later, Esek, in a different and more generous Mood, comes across Six's much less dazzling classmate Chono (second major POV) grimly surviving a different abusive internship situation, and decides to rescue Chono and make her a protégé.
Chono, unlike Esek, is genuinely religious and genuinely wants to be and do good, but is nonetheless bound to Esek by obligation and loyalty and, of course, the shared secret of Six. Six and Esek, over the course of decades, have ended up locked in some kind of complex and increasingly bloody cat-and-mouse game where the cat and the mouse keep switching, and nobody is sure exactly where Chono stands in all that -- gamepiece? winner's prize? referee? judge? -- but she certainly can't be extricated from it.
But nobody knows about all that except Esek and Chono and Six, so, for much of the book, Esek and Chono are, officially, on the hunt for Jin Ironsides (third major POV), a hacker who has semi-accidentally heisted some extremely dangerous historical data that could destabilize the evil religious space government. Jin also does not know that this hunt is secretly really about Six, but she does know Six, and she does know Esek, because her family has been collateral damage in their long war, and when all the plotlines collide everyone's about to know a lot more about the crimes of their grandparents and maybe even also some true facts about Six!
If you like nemeses, revenge plots, complicated emotional triangles, women whom god forbid they do anything, etc., this may well be one for you. Esek is not my little meow meow but I feel absolutely confident that she's somebody's; as for me, I love a book that's built up around an ominous mysterious brilliant force of nature whose POV you never get and then finally you DO get to look behind the curtain at their POV and it's just another highly fallible person frantically juggling twenty knives, frequently accidentally stabbing their own appendages. This charms me beyond all measure. Extremely excited for the next one!
This is another book that completely blew me away structurally on a first read for reasons that are SUCH a big spoiler to delineate that I am not even going to put them under a cut (though I will put them in ROT13 in a comment if anyone wants) but did immediately make me want to turn back to the beginning and start the book over again to fully appreciate everything that was happening now that I knew what was, in fact, actually happening.
These Burning Stars is one of those books that's constantly circling itself around an absence at the center: Six, an exceptionally brilliant novice of mysterious origins who's being positioned for a promising internship with a chaotic evil space priestess Esek (first major POV). Unfortunately, Esek's in a Mood when they meet and casually ruins Six's life and career options instead. Years later, Esek, in a different and more generous Mood, comes across Six's much less dazzling classmate Chono (second major POV) grimly surviving a different abusive internship situation, and decides to rescue Chono and make her a protégé.
Chono, unlike Esek, is genuinely religious and genuinely wants to be and do good, but is nonetheless bound to Esek by obligation and loyalty and, of course, the shared secret of Six. Six and Esek, over the course of decades, have ended up locked in some kind of complex and increasingly bloody cat-and-mouse game where the cat and the mouse keep switching, and nobody is sure exactly where Chono stands in all that -- gamepiece? winner's prize? referee? judge? -- but she certainly can't be extricated from it.
But nobody knows about all that except Esek and Chono and Six, so, for much of the book, Esek and Chono are, officially, on the hunt for Jin Ironsides (third major POV), a hacker who has semi-accidentally heisted some extremely dangerous historical data that could destabilize the evil religious space government. Jin also does not know that this hunt is secretly really about Six, but she does know Six, and she does know Esek, because her family has been collateral damage in their long war, and when all the plotlines collide everyone's about to know a lot more about the crimes of their grandparents and maybe even also some true facts about Six!
If you like nemeses, revenge plots, complicated emotional triangles, women whom god forbid they do anything, etc., this may well be one for you. Esek is not my little meow meow but I feel absolutely confident that she's somebody's; as for me, I love a book that's built up around an ominous mysterious brilliant force of nature whose POV you never get and then finally you DO get to look behind the curtain at their POV and it's just another highly fallible person frantically juggling twenty knives, frequently accidentally stabbing their own appendages. This charms me beyond all measure. Extremely excited for the next one!
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Date: 2023-12-12 06:02 am (UTC)okay totally trying to read as little of your post as possible until I pick this up because this sounds very relevant to my interests!
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Date: 2023-12-26 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 06:02 am (UTC)I would so like; I have been known to read books just because I have read or heard or been told something interesting about their structure.
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Date: 2023-12-26 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-26 06:03 am (UTC)That is pretty great!
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Date: 2023-12-12 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-26 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 07:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-26 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-26 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-26 04:17 am (UTC)Structure Spoilers?
Date: 2023-12-12 04:23 pm (UTC)Re: Structure Spoilers?
Date: 2023-12-26 04:21 am (UTC)Re: Structure Spoilers?
Date: 2023-12-27 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-24 11:49 am (UTC)I am three chapters in and have come to tell you that Esek is so awful and I love her already. I am very excited for her to ruin many lives for terrible reasons.
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Date: 2023-12-26 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-29 03:11 pm (UTC)I loved the structural thing, and just like you, I really wanted to go back to the beginning and reread so I could understand all the characters and their choices so much better in light of it.
The ending was SO satisfying! What a beautiful resolution to everyone's emotional arcs and also that perfect zooming out of decisions and perspectives.
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Date: 2023-12-29 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-29 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-05 11:25 pm (UTC)I've really been enjoying SF lately that allow us to look deep into the complex realities of colonial endeavors, political autocracies, ideological indoctrination without feeling the need to provide authorial commentary on what is good and bad/right and wrong.
I was a little worried that the ending might be too pat, but it wasn't. I feel like whatever success the characters gained was hard-won and well-deserved!
Anyway, just commenting as someone who discovered this book a couple of days ago and now feels the need to make everyone read it to talk about it!!!!