Thursday, February 8, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Black Star Renegades by Michael Moreci





  Black Star Renegades wears its Star Wars inspiration on its sleeve.  This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading it - the fact that the book was inspired by Star Wars is on its Amazon page and mentioned in the Acknowledgements as well as by the author himself on a few advertising pages (such as the post he made about the book on John Scalzi's blog).  And that's okay!  I like Star Wars and a few old EU works are some of my favorite books - so a story done in a way inspired by Star Wars but not actually in the SW universe should really be my jam.

  And to some extent, Black Star Renegades succeeds at this.  The book subverts the Star Wars theme fairly early by killing off its Chosen One character and the resultant action and characters are fairly solid.  That said, the book never really takes the leap from "solid" to "great."  It's fun for sure, and I never really felt like I wanted to put the book down, but neither did the book ever make me feel like I was desperate to find out what happens next either. 

  Note: This also clearly the first in a series, but as far as I can tell there's no date for the next book, so if you're a person who won't start a book in an incomplete series, you might skip this one.  Still, the book works as a stand alone so it could go either way.

More after the Jump:

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
Brothers Cade and Tristan Sura were rescued from death at the hands of a few gangsters from their lawless home planet when they were children.  The reason for their rescue?  Well, the wise monk with the magical/SF staff weapon suspected that one of the two would be the "Paragon," the Chosen One who would be able to wield a legendary weapon - the Rokura - and save the Galaxy.

Years later, it's pretty clear that Tristan is that savior.  Cade is the troublemaker rarely sent on missions against the Galaxy's evil empire, the Praxis, while Tristan is the star of the resistance, a great warrior and respected leader, who often seems to see a little bit into the future when making big plans.  And so when the two of them journey to the world where the Rokura lies, it's no surprise that Cade is unable to remove it from its pedestal, or that Tristan can.

Except that the moment Tristan removes the legendary weapon that can allegedly bring peace to the Galaxy, he's killed by an unknown Praxis assassin.  And while Cade is able to use the Rokura to annihilate the assassin, he can feel that the Rokura is more than it's said to be - it seems to have a mind of its own....and it craves power.  At that moment, Cade wants only one thing - to run away, mourn his brother, and to find a way to destroy the Rokura.

But the Galaxy has other plans for Cade - as the one who returns from his mission with the Rokura, others believe that Cade is the Paragon.  And the Evil Empire, the Praxis, wants the Rokura for its own as well and will accelerate its plans to conquer the Galaxy in order to get it. Cade will be forced to join forces with a few other stragglers just to survive.....and maybe to form a plan that could possibly save the Galaxy from the conquering darkness.....
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The main protagonists of Black Star Renegades are a bunch of fun characters.  Cade Sura is a fun change of pace for a protagonist - unlike your standard chosen one in a Star Wars-esque book, he's more uncertain and not even that cocky (sometimes he is), so he's not really even a Han Solo pastiche as he appears to be at first.  Kira, the second main character (and thankfully not a love interest so far) is also a solid character - she basically IS the cocky pilot with a death wish character and it works.  And some of the side characters are excellent as well.

The pacing is also in general pretty good.  Most chapters follow Cade from his point of view, though a few interludes follow the antagonists, giving the reader a decent idea of what they are thinking.  Still the story never slows once it gets started, with the characters bouncing from action scene to action scene.  It's also not that predictable - the final confrontation is predictable, but other than that, I was surprised on a few occasions.  And while the book is clearly the first in a series (it ends literally on a "To Be Continued") it can work satisfyingly as a stand-alone.

That said, the book also fails to really be a stand out - there's very few moments of great humor, or really fun action, or anything of the sort - it's all "good" but never "great."  The book raises a potential issue with the legendary weapon that sort of goes to nowhere at the end (I assume the sequel will follow up on this but it's notable here) which is annoying and the main antagonist is kind of meh.   To put it another way for those who have read the old Star Wars EU, it's basically like Star Wars Wedge's Gamble - a solid all around story that isn't really one I'd like to reread any time soon.

I'll be looking forward to the sequel if it happens, because well, now that this universe has been established, it's very possible the next book will take the leap this one didn't.  But it won't be on my urgent "to-read" list.
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