Wednesday, June 14, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The City Beneath the Hidden Stars by Sonya Kudei



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 September 27, 2022 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.

The City Beneath the Hidden Stars is a fantasy novel from an indie publisher by author Sonya Kudei. I requested the novel out of pure curiosity on NetGalley, as its publisher blurb noted that it was "based on the myths and history of Zagreb, Croatia", a country I know very little about whatsoever. So I was intrigued to see how the novel would turn out, given my love of trying books based upon different cultures from around the world, even if the book's description had some of the stulted language that I often see and dislike in Indie/Self-Published Books.

And The City Beneath the Stars was kind of a pleasant surprise. The book features a narrative style that sometimes feels as if it came from a Douglas Adams-y book, with quips and asides that are clearly aiming (and are often successful) to amuse, although it goes long sections without much of those quips and I usually find such half-hearted commitment to that style to be a little annoying and pointless. The book's main characters are enjoyable, but really aren't particularly built up or developed that well, and there really aren't any major relationships between characters here for the story to grow, as all characters wind up having to confront (willingly, unwillingly, or even knowingly) the rising of a dark evil queen from the distant past. And yet, despite all of the above, the narration and the characters remain incredibly charming and amusing, even when things are played straight, and it all winds up culminating in a kind of bonkers story that made me smile even despite all the things it seemingly did wrong that I usually dislike. I'll try to explain better after the jump, but yeah, I enjoyed this book a lot.


------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------
On a seemingly random night in Zagreb, a brilliant flash is seen in the sky, hitting the ground near a local tram. The light resolves itself into a starman, or more properly a Star Daimon, named Leo Solar, who has been sent to fulfill a mission that he really wishes he didn't have to undertake. For Leo's mission requires him to remain on this boring world called Earth and this even more boring city as he searches for signs that the legendary Black Queen of Bear Town Fortress is returning for a new reign of magical darkness.

To the people of Zagreb however, the Black Queen is just a long forgotten story - a historical figure who died in the 15th century and whose name only registers at this point as part of a silly children's game. But to a few individuals in Zagreb, they begin to see things that make them change their mind. For college dropout/local newspaper writer Dario Taubek, crazy reports of the Starman and the Black Queen arouse his interest, especially when a monstrous giant raven attacks a heavy metal concern. For grade school student Stella, a child's game gives her a vision of the Black Queen and its giant spider being let loose, and she becomes determined to do something to stop it.

The efforts of Leo, Stella, Dario, and others - Star Daimons, humans, and other creatures - will set the tone for a confrontation in Zagreb like no one could imagine.....
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The City Beneath the Stars is written in a third person narrative that is generally irreverent in tone, and is often cracking jokes in its descriptions and narration, ala Douglas Adams. It does these jokes a lot in early chapters before they become a little less common as things go on....although what happens in the narration does sometimes itself lead itself to humor in ridiculousness, even without things getting just TOO ridiculous so as to be distracting. It's the type of narration that often annoys me in books because it tends to feel half-assed, like the author gave up on a joking style partway through, but here it kind of works because the joking asides are actually amusing and the story never takes itself too seriously, even as things get too dire.

And it's helped by the matter of fact way the story is told, with characters who in some sense fit certain archetypes but in other ways don't. Leo for example gets probably the most page time, and his desperation to finish his mission so he can get off this boring planet and get his powers back (rather than actually help people), plus his exasperation at how difficult everyone who could possibly help him seems to be, is incredibly fun and amusing to follow. Dario is more boring as the guy who wants to find something exciting other than being browbeaten into helping his landlady with her really annoying chores or just writing up minor things for the newspaper rag he works for, but even he gets amusing as he gets swept into things by being in the wrong/right place at the wrong/right time (although one plot where he's seduced by an obvious bad guy is a little annoying). Stella and her kid friends, who deal with normal kid things like bullies and cruel teachers, are also enjoyable as she is desperate to hunt down the spider she is sure she unleashed and is sure must be in the cellar of the school.

Very few of these characters get like actual character development, and they don't relate to each other in ways you'd expect: Stella doesn't wind up being trained by Leo as you'd expect, nor does Dario wind up becoming his sidekick as he meets up with Leo and learns Leo's story as would normally happen in this type of book. There's a bunch of other minor characters as well who get some time as well, all of whom have their own minor stories that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things...and yet they feel right even when not amusing and make this world feel more real, even as ridiculous as it is. The way the plot unveils itself at the end, with a bunch of random characters from the Stars joining up for maximum chaos only adds to it all, and while some of that feels abrupt and weird (I had to search back for one character's name to see where he came from because his appearance in the narrative was really random) it somehow manages to work.

This is a really weird and tough review to make, because so much of this book is things I've noted that I disliked about other books. And yet it somehow does work and is really charming and I kinda want to recommend this to more people. Give it a try. 
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