Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on April 5, 2021 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
Local Star is one of two novellas coming out in the first half of 2021 by SF/F writer Aimee Ogden, who has seemingly only before written shorter SF/F fiction. It's a stand alone novella (although I really wonder if she's written in this world before) featuring a space opera setting in which polyamory and queerness is utterly normalized, with people living in triads or quads utterly normally. And I enjoyed it quite a bit, as it managed to deal with some serious themes while showing a solid space opera conflict (bad guys and fighting and war) while dealing with interesting themes of love, acceptance and more along the way.
More specifics after the jump.
Plot Summary: Triz came up from the gutters of her Hab, where she was rescued from the life of miserable poverty by a loving family, the daughter of whom, Casne, is one of the loves of her life. But Casne has a partner and while Casne wants Triz to officially join the two of them in a triad, Triz doesn't want to feel like the third wheel....and wants desperately to find a fourth, so they can all be a loving quad with someone special to call their own. For a time, Triz thought that might've been Kalo, but they broken up for reasons she doesn't quite understand, and he went off to war with Casne. Except now Kalo's back, and everyone's celebrating a great victory....awkwardly for Triz.
But when Casne is arrested for alleged war crimes and conspiring with the enemy, Triz will do anything to clear her name. That something will require a greasemonkey from the gutters like Triz to work with her ex and use all her background....if she wants to save the ones she loves, and to find potentially true happiness.
Thoughts: Local Star tries to do a lot. You have a space opera plot with a potential mystery (that's obvious from the start, so thankfully it's not really the main focus) with some action sequences. You have a protagonist who is lonely and wants to fit in and has to get over her own self doubt over her origins and others wanting her. You have a protagonist who also has to get over a bit of prejudice - in this case over mechanical augmenting of someone's bodies (a prejudice caused by the fact that the evil bad guys all have them) even as she's comfortable with things like transitioning (a normal part of this world as is the polyamory). And you have a protagonist who is trying to deal with the ex she clearly - to the reader - hasn't quite gotten over, even if she isn't quite sure what drove him away. It's a lot.
And here's the thing: Most of it works, such that it all combines to form a really lovely happy ending that made me want more of this world. Yeah the mystery isn't great, and the action sequences are kind of just there, but Triz is a really easy character to like and to want to find a happy ending, and all of her friends/love interests are so lovely and good natured. And everyone comes out happy in the end. Sure this book has a glossary that's almost as long as two chapters of this novella (with some fun quips in the glossary but it still feels extra), but all that did was combine with the rest to make me wish this was a full length novel, not a novella. And well, if that's my biggest complaint about a happy-ending providing story? Well that's not a complaint at all really.
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