He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study rocks and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the settlement of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy the settlement ship before they make land. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.
Megan E. O’Keefe made a big fan out of me with VELOCITY WEAPON back in 2019…the whole PROTECTORATE trilogy was fucking outstanding & I was so excited to hear that she had a new sci-fi trilogy in the works!
THE BLIGHTED STARS is the first book in THE DEVOURED WORLDS, and if this first book is any indication, we are in for a wild ride.
THE BLIGHTED STARS kicks off amidst the absolutely frenetic chaos of a crashing spaceship. It took me a little while to get my bearings in this world…things feel so harrowing & dangerous right off the bat, and there’s a lot of new ideas to get the hang of in this book.
First and foremost is this idea that like…anyone could be anyone?
Kind of.
Humanity has developed a way to map a person’s consciousness and “reprint” that person into a fresh body. This can only be done a finite number of times, and sometimes the results are…not what was intended. Monstrous. Zombie-like, really.
There’s some gross shit happening in this book, is what I’m trying to say.
This body printing technology is reliant upon a mineral called relkatite. One of the wealthiest families in the galaxy, the Mercator family, are primarily responsible for the mining of relkatite. And in the eyes of some, this mining is responsible for the destruction of many, many worlds.
Our two main characters are Naira Sharp & Tarquin Mercator. Naira was the exemplar (kind of like a bodyguard) for Acaelus Mercator, the head of the family. But she became disillusioned with things, became part of a rebel group, and testified against the Mercator family in an attempt to stop the mining. Her testimony was refuted by Tarquin, who is a geologist. Naira was supposedly put “on ice,” never to be reprinted.
But now she’s back, in a new body. Tarquin doesn’t recognize her. And they’ve just crash landed on a strange, seemingly-deserted planet, and all the survivors are looking to them to lead them to safety.
Fucking yikes.
This is a complex book & I’ve done a fairly terrible job laying out the plot here. But it’ll have to suffice. This one moves at a really brisk pace, which is a feat given its nearly-550 page CHONKY status!
This was a total blast & I think the cast of characters in this book is incredible. The vibes between Naira & Tarquin certainly fall under the “enemies to lovers” umbrella, but the romance aspect of the story is a really subtle slow burn.
I really loved how O’Keefe wove together so many different sci-fi elements, all with a really delicate balance. Certainly there’s a fair amount of action/military sci-fi, but then the bits of horror & romance make this something really fun & unpredictable. THE BLIGHTED STARS is also unapologetically political, and in parts it feels like looking into a mirror and seeing a stranger version of political & environmental concerns that we face every day.
This is an incredibly smart, engaging space opera, and I’m really looking forward to the second book, THE FRACTURED DARK!
Massive thanks to Orbit for sending a copy my way!
Grimdark Dad 