Monday, July 30, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review; Starless by Jacqueline Carey




My thoughts on Starless are kind of hard to explain.  This is an Epic Fantasy novel that very much feels like it should be 2 or 3 novels, but is instead a single self-contained volume.  It's a character story that made me wish it would spend more time on those characters; it's a story filled with plot-intrigue that I wished spent more time on that intrigue; you get the point.  And yet, having read it over two days and then reread it again, I kind of loved all of these parts and found Starless to be a complete package...despite still wishing each individual part of the book could be longer.

Starless is not just an epic fantasy story of a group of individuals chosen by gods to save the world, it's not just a story where a trained warrior joins a court of immortal royals and has to protect his charge from dangerous court intrigue, not just a journey of self-discovery of its hero's sexuality and gender, it is all of these things.  And Carey somehow manages to juggle all of that to come out with a story that not only works, but feels a bit special, and one I would definitely recommend.  It also features an extremely well written genderqueer character among its main characters, which is another reason people should want to read it.

More after the Jump:


--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
In the distant past, the sky was filled with the gods - Zar the Sun and the three Moon goddesses, and the gods that made up the Stars.  But Zar the Sun cast down the Stars, who became the living Gods of various parts of the Earth below the now starless sky.  But one God was cast out undeservedly, and a scattered prophecy now foretells that one day he will cover the world in darkness.

Nine Years Ago in the Desert realm of Zarkhoum, a member of the House of the Ageless, the immortal Royals ruling the realm, was born during the exact moment of an eclipse of Nim the Bright Moon and Shahal the Dark Moon, signifying that this Sun-Blessed Princess's fate was intertwined with a Shadow - a child born at the exact same moment, who would be trained to be her protector.  That child, Khai, would spend his childhood learning the martial ways of a brotherhood of Monks in the Deep Desert

But when Khai reaches adulthood and travels to the capital of Merabaht to meet his fated twin, Zariya, he discovers a Royal Court filled with dangerous....and deadly intrigue.  And the underbellies of the City show not only unrest, but perhaps signs that the prophesied apocalypse may soon be coming.  To stop it, Khai and Zariya will have to not only survive the deadly city, but perhaps journey across the world to find the other fated defenders that can stop the end....of everything.  To do so both Khai and Zariya will have to truly discover who they themselves are, and what Khai may find in himself is something he could never have previously considered.
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As I mentioned above, there are essentially three books of plot here in Starless, all combined into one volume.  The first arc covers Khai growing up in training with the Brotherhood of Pahrkun, learning not just martial arts in honor as he imagined, but also the ways of a clan of thieves.  In it he learns the importance of stressing "honor beyond honor" - the ability to take actions beyond a code of honor when necessary to preserve the greater good (in his case, protecting Zariya).  This is a pretty interesting idea - essentially it's a bunch of lawful good monks helping to teach the hero to be neutral good instead of lawful.  The second arc covers Khai entering the House of the Ageless, the Royal Court in the desert's capital city, and trying to protect Zariya from the conspiracies and court intrigue amongst the royal family, as well as the unrest amongst the lower classes in the populace.  The third arc is more of an epic fantasy adventure, as Khai, Zariya, and a few other chosen individuals with special powers journey around the sea in search of a lost prophecy in order to find the way to save the world.  Any of these three arcs could easily maintain its own book, with each arc being kind of a different genre than the others.

But what holds it all together is that this is all part of Khai's journey, which is about more than the typical hero's journey.  Khai goes from a boy training in an isolated monastery with strict rules about honor, to one training to be a thief in addition to a warrior and to commit potentially dishonorable acts when the time is appropriate, to a person questioning who he is in terms of gender and sexuality*, to a person questioning what/who it is he truly desires, and so on.  We see all of this from Khai's first person perspective, so Carey shows us his most inner thoughts as he goes through these situations/processes, and it is fantastically well done.

*More Spoiler-filled discussion of this in ROT13:   V unir orra hfvat gur cebabha "ur" sbe Xunv, orpnhfr gung vf gur cebabha ur riraghnyyl qrpvqrf gb hfr, ohg Xunv vf va snpg aba-ovanel naq ovbybtvpnyyl srznyr, univat orra envfrq ol gur zbaxf nf Znyr (nf "Ounmvz", gur grez gur Qrfreg crbcyr tvir sbe n tvey envfrq nf n obl sbe inevbhf ernfbaf).  Vg vf na rkgerzryl jryy qbar rknzvangvba bs n crefba fgehttyvat jvgu uvf traqre - Xunv ng svefg srryf orgenlrq jura ur qvfpbiref uvf erny ovbybtvpny traqre, ohg svaqf uvzfrys nggenpgrq gb gur vzntr ur svaqf va gur zveebe jura ur svefg qerffrf nf n tvey - naq qrpvqvat gung ur vf abg bar traqre be nabgure, ohg obgu ng gur fnzr gvzr.  Tvira gbqnl'f jbeyq, V rkcrpg guvf znl orpbzr vapernfvatyl pbzzba sbe urebrf va gurfr fgbevrf, ohg sbe abj, Pnerl znantrf gb gehyl fubj gur gubhtugf bs n crefba fgehttyvat jvgu traqre naq pubbfvat gb or aba-ovanel (gubhtu vg'f arire chg va gung grez) va fhpu n jnl gung rira n crefba jub pna'g dhvgr cvpgher ubj gung pbaprcg jbexf pna haqrefgnaq Xunv'f qrpvfvba.  

This is not to say that the story outside of Khai's journey isn't very well done - just perhaps a little too truncated at times.  The world and all of its various gods are extremely well done, and I found myself disappointed that we basically never get to spend any time beyond a few brief moments with any of the gods outside of the two gods (Anamuht the Purging Fire and Pahrkun the Scouring Wind) of the Desert - those brief moments are exceptionally well done - we have an octopus god that serves as an oracle, a two-faced god whose people always say the opposite of what they mean, a god that is known as the "Inchoate Terror" to outsiders and inspires great fear as it resides on an Island filled with a thousand ways to kill you, etc etc.  They're all really interesting, but they're mostly seen in the third arc and the heroes never manage to spend much time in any location to really get to know them and how they work, which I really wanted to know.  Similarly the Capital City is certainly interesting and there's a whole court intrigue conflict there which basically happens off screen that I absolutely would've loved to see.

But despite the fact that each of these three arcs feels too short, the overall package works so damn well, and the ending ties it together so perfectly.  I suspect I will be going through Jacqueline Carey's back catalog (the Kushiel series) very soon, because I really want to read more of her after Starless, even if it's not in this fantasy world.

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