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inverarityA space opera about alien artifacts and adventurous academics that feels like the wrong genre.
Flatiron Books, 2024, 312 pages
I don't like cozy sci-fi. I've tried it a few times now, and it just doesn't work for me.
Space opera should be grand and glorious and galactic. The Stardust Grail promises that and... it somehow winds up being a cozy tale of found family with aliens who use "xir" pronouns and interstellar anti-colonialism and all the things Gen Z likes. Despite centering around the heist of an ancient alien artifact and featuring dungeon crawls in alien ruins and space battles, I found the pace and tone of this book more suited for a quiet little mystery about academia.
There are all the elements of a pretty decent space opera. Set at some indefinite point in the future where humanity has begun colonizing other planets thanks to "nodes" (wormholes) brought to them by the alien Frenro, the main character is Maya Hoshimoto, a scholar who grew up on a Japanese settler planet but returned to Earth to enter a PhD program. It turns out that before she began her academic career, Maya was one of the best thieves in the galaxy, specializing in stealing alien artifacts. The catch: she stole them to return them to their rightful owners.
The Frenro are an ancient race so advanced they have forgotten their previous technological achievements. They are also dying, unable to reproduce for some unknown reason, and they are hated and feared by much of the galaxy because of their role in bringing a mysterious plague. When Maya's old partner, a Frenro, shows up asking for help, Maya embarks on one last heist to recover what she calls the Stardust Grail, which supposedly will save the Frenro.
The story should have been engaging. The xenology, I will admit, is quite clever and intricate. The Frenro are a truly alien race, and Maya's relationship with "Uncle" always feels... weird. Like, they are BFFs but they never actually understand each other and probably aren't capable of truly understanding each other. The external universe feels ancient and full of history to which humanity is an ignorant newcomer. It's a heist novel, with an ancient alien artifact as the MacGuffin. It's got space battles. It's got academic rivalries and frenemies, a robot trying to become more human, a mercenary with questionable loyalties, and an alien character who's alien and weird but kind of cuddly, despite his description making me think of the mutant offspring of a platypus, an octopus, and a sea lion.
But I found it slow moving. Even the space battles and the dungeon crawls lacked excitement. The relationship between Maya and Uncle seemed to be the heart of the book, so it's basically one of those long novels where the ultimate question is "Will the alien act like an inscrutable alien or demonstrate True Friendship?" It's the kind of book where there is Discourse about the distinction between "settler" and "colonist." It's a novel meant to appeal to readers who would also like to be pursuing a PhD in anthopology at Yale in the far future where they can have intellectual conversations about colonization and genocide, and space battles are just sort of a background detail. There was a distinct lack of futurism or anything like real SF; yes, there are aliens and spaceships, but Earth mostly resembled Earth 2025 with aliens and spaceships "out there."
The writing itself was fine, but I wanted a space opera and The Stardust Grail just didn't click for me. It almost felt like a different kind of book with aliens and spaceships pasted over it, which is how most cozy SF reads to me.
My complete list of book reviews.
Flatiron Books, 2024, 312 pages
Save one world. Doom her own.
Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations—until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future.
Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can’t refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren’t the only ones hunting for it.
Maya sets out on a breakneck quest through a universe teeming with strange life and ancient ruins. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her team of friends new and old. Someone will betray her along the way. Worse yet, in choosing to save one species, she may condemn humanity and Earth itself.
I don't like cozy sci-fi. I've tried it a few times now, and it just doesn't work for me.
Space opera should be grand and glorious and galactic. The Stardust Grail promises that and... it somehow winds up being a cozy tale of found family with aliens who use "xir" pronouns and interstellar anti-colonialism and all the things Gen Z likes. Despite centering around the heist of an ancient alien artifact and featuring dungeon crawls in alien ruins and space battles, I found the pace and tone of this book more suited for a quiet little mystery about academia.
There are all the elements of a pretty decent space opera. Set at some indefinite point in the future where humanity has begun colonizing other planets thanks to "nodes" (wormholes) brought to them by the alien Frenro, the main character is Maya Hoshimoto, a scholar who grew up on a Japanese settler planet but returned to Earth to enter a PhD program. It turns out that before she began her academic career, Maya was one of the best thieves in the galaxy, specializing in stealing alien artifacts. The catch: she stole them to return them to their rightful owners.
The Frenro are an ancient race so advanced they have forgotten their previous technological achievements. They are also dying, unable to reproduce for some unknown reason, and they are hated and feared by much of the galaxy because of their role in bringing a mysterious plague. When Maya's old partner, a Frenro, shows up asking for help, Maya embarks on one last heist to recover what she calls the Stardust Grail, which supposedly will save the Frenro.
The story should have been engaging. The xenology, I will admit, is quite clever and intricate. The Frenro are a truly alien race, and Maya's relationship with "Uncle" always feels... weird. Like, they are BFFs but they never actually understand each other and probably aren't capable of truly understanding each other. The external universe feels ancient and full of history to which humanity is an ignorant newcomer. It's a heist novel, with an ancient alien artifact as the MacGuffin. It's got space battles. It's got academic rivalries and frenemies, a robot trying to become more human, a mercenary with questionable loyalties, and an alien character who's alien and weird but kind of cuddly, despite his description making me think of the mutant offspring of a platypus, an octopus, and a sea lion.
But I found it slow moving. Even the space battles and the dungeon crawls lacked excitement. The relationship between Maya and Uncle seemed to be the heart of the book, so it's basically one of those long novels where the ultimate question is "Will the alien act like an inscrutable alien or demonstrate True Friendship?" It's the kind of book where there is Discourse about the distinction between "settler" and "colonist." It's a novel meant to appeal to readers who would also like to be pursuing a PhD in anthopology at Yale in the far future where they can have intellectual conversations about colonization and genocide, and space battles are just sort of a background detail. There was a distinct lack of futurism or anything like real SF; yes, there are aliens and spaceships, but Earth mostly resembled Earth 2025 with aliens and spaceships "out there."
The writing itself was fine, but I wanted a space opera and The Stardust Grail just didn't click for me. It almost felt like a different kind of book with aliens and spaceships pasted over it, which is how most cozy SF reads to me.
My complete list of book reviews.
