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.
I wish I had some nickname or shorthand way of describing books like this. Books that I’ve been for sure meaning to read & then all of a sudden the second book in the series is released and I PANIC for some reason & try to “catch up” as if I ever could.
It happens more than I’d care to admit.
At any rate, Bethany Jacobs’s THESE BURNING STARS is one that just kind of passed me by when it was released, but holy fuck…I’m so glad to have read this finally. I think this is a big case of the exact right book at the exact right time, because this blew me away. Admittedly, there were times I felt completely outsmarted by this book, but goddamn, this is some truly amazing space opera!
A revenge story at its heart, THESE BURNING STARS is also centered around a topic that’s all too timely & upsetting: genocide. I just wanted to mention that up front as a general content warning for something that permeates all aspects of the story.
This book is very intricate & complex, and it skips around lot in time. These time jumps go a long way toward explaining the motivations of the characters, but they can be somewhat confusing.
I’m not sure that I’d consider her the main character, but all things in this story revolve around a cleric named Esek Nightfoot. She’s a powerful woman from a powerful family, and she has an extremely homicidal cruel streak. Esek is for sure a scene-stealer, someone with an extremely dominant personality. She’s terrifying, in other words.
Early in the book, Esek observes a gifted young child named Six training to be a novitiate/assassin. Esek takes a special/toxic interest in Six, and challenges them to do something “shocking” and “brutal,” and then Esek will take Six on as a novitiate.
This is important, as Six will kind of lurk at the edges of this story over the years, driving the entire story forward. Because they have information that ties Esek’s family to the genocide of the Jeveni people.
Rounding out the cast of characters is Chono (another cleric who was trained by Esek), and Jun (a caster…basically a hacker with a keen interest in all of Esek Nightfoot’s dealings).
All of these characters are involved in this wild cat & mouse game/political thriller, but with deeply personal stakes for everyone involved.
This is definitely a book that keeps you guessing. And you are guessing right along with the characters. There are huge elements to this story I could never write in this review because they’d spoil everything, but I’m kind of an “along for the ride” reader, so some of the surprises/twists/reveals were absolutely mind-bending to me.
And while the book isn’t super heavy with action sequences, Jacobs writes some seriously badass/cinematic moments. This is some thrilling space opera for sure.
I’ve been struggling to get this review finished, and have Gone Through Some Shit since I started writing it, so I’m gonna have to leave it here.
Like I said earlier, there are definitely moments in this book that went a little over my head, but when all was said & done, I think this is one of my favorite reads of the year. THESE BURNING STARS is truly epic in scope, while also maintaining a tight focus on its core group of characters. This is also a queernorm world with a really interesting approach to gender. The themes are heavy here for sure…colonialism, genocide, religious fanaticism…but the book is also just wildly entertaining. There’s a kind of relentlessness to the story, an inevitability to the shocking twists and turns. Yeah, this is a fucking radical book.
Huge thanks to Orbit for sending this one my way, I adored it!
Grimdark Dad 