"Steal the Stars" by Nat Cassidy, based on the podcast by Mac Rogers, offers a unique blend of science fiction and romance set against a backdrop of governmental secrecy and extraterrestrial mystery. The novel excels in its character development and the emotional depth of its protagonists, creating a compelling narrative drive. However, some readers might find the transition from audio drama to written form a bit uneven, with certain plot elements feeling more suited to performance than prose. Despite this, Cassidy's adaptation captures the essence of the original series, delivering suspense and a thought-provoking commentary on love and loyalty against the odds. "Steal the Stars" will likely appeal to fans of the podcast and readers looking for sci-fi with a strong emotional core.

An interesting read. I don't actually remember requesting it for review, but it was during a time when a lot of podcasts were getting novel/book options and versions. It's interesting, and pretty well-written, but ultimately didn't grab me as much as I'd hoped. I've heard that the podcast is better, so I'll give that a try soon.

Steal the Stars is based on a 14-episode podcast that has been adapted and expanded into a novel by the author Nat Cassidy.

Steal the Stars is primarily a science fiction love story between two characters, Dakota and Matthew, but it feels like an epic novel as the story takes on some crazy plot turns.

Dak is an employee at a secret service facility. She is on high alert, and her high-pressured lifetime job leaves her never considering a future beyond the here and now. In her line of work, there really are no consequences for what she does in the outside world. After all, she is working for an agency that is harboring a UFO and spaceship!

Introduced as an ex-military, all-around bad ass, her character was intriguing from the start. In part one titled ‘The Death of Dakota Prentiss,’ the first lines inform the reader that she has just broken a guy’s collarbone twice her size. Along with the chapter name, the reader is led to believe that this incident is the pivotal moment that changes everything.

Back at work, she learns of a new recruit joining the security team. On first sight, Dakota knows that something is different, and her life changed forever. Matt is the change. He is also ex-military and years younger than Dakota. When they first met, Dakota hoped and prayed that Matt passed all the security checks and was already willing to risk her own life for his for a man that is a stranger.

The problem is that their job has a strict policy of no fraternizing with co-workers. Their magnetism meant they couldn’t stay away from one another, and you know that this will become a tragedy.

Their relationship started out as purely sexual, and the couple had nothing else to cling to. They were both ex-military and had been trained not to discuss their previous tours and their personal lives, and they soon discovered they were not on the same page of this ‘risk it all’ love.

Dak’s vulnerabilities were juvenile, and the way they were played out in the novel didn’t seem to ring true of a middle-aged woman that had been alone for so long. Her selfishness and her jealous traits undermined how she was introduced at the beginning of the novel. They say that love does funny things to you, but as the reader, this was infatuation, lust, and loneliness rather than love.

When Matt called it quits in a boyish manner after Dak had risked it all, it felt like a ‘told you so’ moment. Her rage at that moment was entirely understandable. It was a great moment in highlighting their difference in personality.

That was where the novel felt like a young adult book, as the relationship was built on no depth. When they decided to run away together with the Alien to sell to the Chinese, the plan is hurried and illogical with too many gaping failures.

Dak and Matt’s relationship was pretty much disinteresting to me. I was far more invested in the relationship that Dak had with Lloyd and Patty, her two best friends at work.

The first half of the book was the most interesting when I learned about the UFO named Moss, the Harp that is effectively a nuclear weapon, and how the agency goes from scientific research to being requested to replicate the harp.

It was the science fiction that kept me engaged more than the love story. Dak’s complicated relationship with her colleagues that yearned to be her friend was frustrating, and I wanted her to let down her guard to those that had put in the time and effort.

An even more complicated element to the novel was Dak’s relationship with other women. With both Patty and a friend from her past, there was an underlying acknowledgment that both women loved her, and they expressed discontent that she loved a man over them. I felt there was so much to read into this and the authors intention from Dak’s unrequited love (whether sexual or not) to these two women.

Overall, Steal the Stars is a good read, but next time give me more aliens and a little less love.

Steal the Stars by Nat Cassidy based on a podcast by Mac Rogers

Steal the Stars is a 2017 podcast (created by Mac Rogers) and subsequent novelization (written by Nat Cassidy) which centres around forbidden love between coworkers. In a world where the United States is controlled by a vague and sinister corporation, an alien has crash landed off the Pacific coast, and scientists are running out of funding to unlock the secrets of an extraterrestrial; the central plot may be the least interesting aspect. Frustratingly, we don’t get much else — the world lacks depth and the plot wears thin. In the end, the potential for an interesting multi-media experience was sullied by an unimaginative and thin story.

At some point in a military-industrialized United States’ future, a secret military base is hidden deep underground the innocuous-sounding Quill Marine facility. Dakota “Dak” Prentiss is in charge of keeping the base secret, at the cost of her life, because the scientists and military personnel are studying actual, literal proof of alien life: a being that crash-landed in its ship on Earth eleven years prior, is covered in a strange moss-like substance, and who seems to be in some kind of permanent catatonic state. Inter-personal relationships are strictly forbidden, as per a specific fraternization clause in the employee guidebook, which reads as follows:

Relationships of the same and opposite genders are prohibited if they compromise or appear to compromise supervisory authority or the chain of command, are or are perceived to be exploitative or coercive in nature, involve or appear to involve the improper use of rank or position for personal gain, or create an actual or clearly predictable adverse impact on discipline, authority, morale, or the ability of command to implement its mission. Such relationships are frequently sexual in nature, but this is not always the case, and is not necessary for this prohibition to apply.

Steal the Stars by Nat Cassidy based on a podcast by Mac RogersJana: Dak is good at her job, but it isn’t fulfilling, and Matt Salem’s first day on her security team is the day Dak decides that she’s going to throw the rulebook out the window and hop on the “forbidden love” train for reasons which are murky at best (and infuriating most of the time). Apparently love at first sight is capable of bringing out the absolute worst in people, both personality- and behavior-wise, but Steal the Stars can’t decide between being a horror/sci-fi novel and a romance novel, so all of Dak and Matt’s terrible ideas are played off as the most reasonable courses of action. It’s very strange.

Steal the Stars by Nat Cassidy based on a podcast by Mac RogersSkye: I think it’s important that you point out their reasons as ‘murky at best’. No matter where the story was going, it was built on that shaky foundation. It was baffling to me, in both the podcast and the book, that the creators went to so much trouble to centre the story around a forbidden love trope. Most frustratingly for me was that there was a clear, ironclad loophole in the contract (quoted above). That contract explicitly stipulates that relationships of any kind are strictly prohibited if they affect the chain of command. Based on the wording of the contract, there shouldn’t be much of an issue. The creators therefore made a paradigm for relationships to be taboo, but then that paradigm — when read to the letter — is situational. In the various scenes where this contract comes up, it’s treated as ironclad — none of the characters notice the ‘if’ statement. Which, frankly, given how much time is given to the contract, is incredibly convenient at best, and sloppy at worst.

Additionally, if any relationship that might threaten the chain of command is taboo, then friendships would be watched just as closely as sexual relationships. Dak’s second-in-command, Patty, states multiple times that she would follow Dak anywhere. To me, that clearly threatens the chain of command. Patty is devoted to Dak. How could she be trusted with orders from higher up the command chain that might contradict Dak? Isn’t that more of a problem than Dak having the hots for the new guy? Overall, I think there could have been a much more interesting story between Patty and Dak.

Jana: I couldn’t agree more. I don’t understand throwing away your entire life and literally ruining dozens of other peoples’ lives just because you want to keep screwing a coworker and the rules forbid it in certain scenarios. (But only certain scenarios.) And Patty would have been a way more interesting complication to that contract! How could she possibly obey orders that would put Dak, her close friend, in danger? It’s like Rogers (and Cassidy when adapting his podcast) didn’t even take into account the possibility that friendship could just as easily cause a problem until the very end, when Patty shows up out of nowhere for no reason. No one ever seems to think that friendship can be just as messy and problem-causing as sex, unfortunately.

Skye: Absolutely agree. That could have been a new and interesting angle. For me, the relationship Dak and Matt were building became more frustrating as time went on: they sometimes reflected on how ridiculous the situation they were putting themselves in was, but never took it further than idle confusion. Again, I was often reminded that Dak and Matt are given very little reason to love each other, nor to be willing to die for each other. The love at first sight (or, in this case, kiss) did not cut it for me. I found myself continuously mystified by their ongoing willingness to follow each other into the uncertain future. Moreover, they take concrete risks that, based on what they know about themselves and the company they work for, make very little sense.

Jana: I hated how Matt had no choice in anything Dak was doing to get them out of what I can only describe as a mostly awesome and cushy job. Maybe some chapters from Matt’s perspective would have helped understand why it’s important that these two people should be together. But without that, Dak just came across as possessive and combative.

Skye: It was all just so sudden, and I never felt like it really added up. The motivations just weren’t satisfying to me. Beyond the unsatisfactory motivations of the main characters, I had a tough time with how it all wrapped up. Without spoiling too much, there is a twist ending. To me, it felt more like a secret trump card than an interesting plot development. It could have been that by the end of the book and podcast I was over the story as a whole, so the ending didn’t pack much of a punch for me.

Jana: You know what I think would have worked better? If there were hints peppered throughout the book, from the beginning, that something else was going on behind the scenes. I kept wondering if that’s the direction the story was going in when the moss-like substance was first mentioned — especially because people keep poking the maybe-dead alien, and breathing the air it’s in without any kind of protection, which seems inexplicably stupid — but it went nowhere until the very last minute. Then it’s not something the authors are building toward, it’s just a secret trump card, like you said.

Also, I wanted to like the hidden alien and the attempts to figure out who he was and how his technology worked. I wanted something more interesting than a standard grey alien with a big head and thin limbs. I wanted more insight into how these corporations were basically taking over elements of the American government, and I wanted to know if that was just localized to America or if other countries were experiencing the same political turmoil. What kind of a world are these people living in? But so much of the story was about this woman and her utter disregard for everyone but herself that there didn’t seem to be any room for anything else. And I couldn’t get a good idea for how far in the future this was all supposed to be happening — there are still Home Depot hardware stores, but journalists don’t have free expression any more, but also high-tech semi-magical handcuffs exist?

Skye: I think you have it spot on. The aspects I found fascinating were minimized, and more space was given to the most predictable, unoriginal aspects.

I both read the book and listened to the podcast. After consuming both media of this story I think the Steal the Stars novelization was better than the Steal the Stars podcast. The voice actors for the podcast were solid, but there wasn’t a lot they could do to improve the written material. There were more than a few plot holes and confusing motivations in the podcast. Now, the novelization seemed at least somewhat aware of some of the flaws in the original writing of the podcast and did address them by adding content which closed some of the minor plot inconsistencies and added a bit more depth overall to the cast of characters. The podcast, especially in contrast with the novelization, was shallow in places (like the goals of the central company and organizational structure of the world [Post-singularity? Post-apocalypse? Post- something?] overall) which made it difficult to suspend disbelief, on top of some of the thematic and characterization issues I also had.

Jana: As far as the podcast goes, I tried listening to it, but I had a hard time differentiating the various actors, and the dialogue sounded so clunky. Far too much exposition and explaining feelings/thoughts aloud. I couldn’t figure out when Dak was talking to people and when she was just thinking to herself. I think they were going for a “radio drama” kind of presentation, but none of that worked for me. And I thought it was really weird that the podcast has Dak talking about Matt in all of this, where the book has her talking to him.

Skye: Although the novelization filled in frustrating spots it was still dealing with the same overall story, which had a myriad of flaws we have been exploring. The novelization, though being written by a different person than the podcast, is very nearly a direct word-for-word transcript of the podcast except in those spaces where the author chose to clarify problems or add sentences to smooth over rough spots. Something that, quite frankly, should have happened before any of the material saw the light of day.

Jana: Agreed. Steal the Stars needed a lot more polish before being offered up to the masses.

Overall, our Steal the Stars takeaway isn’t a positive one. If you’re a speculative fiction reader interested in podcasts with similar themes and genre-leanings, Skye and I both heavily recommend Welcome to Night Vale, which has become a media giant offering various podcast options under the Night Vale umbrella, and there are plenty of other choices out there for listeners to explore.

Published by Tor Books on November 7, 2017

Steal the Stars is a science fiction thriller that is considerably more creative than most science fiction thrillers. It is based on a podcast. I haven’t listened to the podcast, but I enjoyed the novel on its own merit.

Dak, short for Dakota Prentiss, is the security chief for a research lab owned by defense contractors called Quill Marine. She introduces new employee Matt Salem to the alien they call Moss, inside a ship that looks like a walnut, deep under the ground where it crashed eleven years earlier. The thing they assume to be the engine (they call it the Harp because it looks like a harp) powers up every 100 hours but the ship doesn’t move. Neither does Moss, who shows no sign of being alive except for his body heat. If he’s alive, he might be dying, given that the green stuff covering his body (it looks like moss) is slowly but steadily receding.

Quill Marine is thinking of exhibiting Moss (there might still be money to be made in carnival attractions), but it’s more interested in marketing the Harp as a weapon, since it pretty much sucks the energy out of everything (and everyone) nearby when it powers up. Dak doesn’t much care what Quill Marine’s loathsome CEO decides to do with Moss or the Harp as long as she keeps her job. But when she violates policy by having an affair with a subordinate — a work rule violation that will get her sent to a private prison — she starts thinking about a way to get herself out of a ticklish situation. Of course, her solution is even riskier than the affair.

Most of Steal the Stars is a smart action story with an underlying love story. Not a trashy romance story, but a realistic love story. The kind where sex drives the love and obsessions are stupid and dangerous but a recognizable part of life. The kind where love has unfortunately consequences. The realism of the love story is a nice balance against the unreal premise of the alien encounter story.

It isn’t actually the alien that’s difficult to accept, but the story’s background isn’t well developed, and the temptation to ask too many questions (how can employees be sent to a harsh prison for violating an employment contract by kissing?) must be resisted to enjoy the story. Fortunately, the story is sufficiently captivating that I found it easy to suppress those questions.

Quite a lot of Steal the Stars is a setup for a big reveal that the reader knows is coming. Part of the fun is wondering exactly what will be revealed. As the novel neared the end, I began to worry that there wouldn’t be a reveal, that the story’s central mystery would not be answered. The surprise comes in the last pages, and it is worth the wait. Perhaps it isn’t entirely a surprise, because the reader will probably expect part of what happens to happen, but the aftermath of the thing that happens is surprising and satisfying.

Along the way to the story’s big moment, the novel creates strong characters, delivers tension that ramps up considerably in the novel’s second half, and asks some pertinent questions about human nature. How much of that is attributable to the author of the novel (Nat Cassidy) as opposed to the author of the podcast (Mac Rogers) I can’t say, but I assume they both deserve credit for telling a story that is clever, creative, and captivating.

RECOMMENDED

Steal the Stars is the novelization of the podcast produced in 2017 by Tor Labs. You can listen to the podcast for free here. I actually listened to the entire thing before picking up the book but of course, you don’t have to do that to enjoy the novelization by Nat Cassidy.

Steal the Stars follows Chief Dakota Prentiss, also know as Dak, a woman working for Quill Marine, a private research laboratory lead by Sierra Corporation, an organization so big and powerful that it basically rule the Pentagon. Quill Marine isn’t a simple laboratory but an incredibly complex research facility dealing with alien artefacts and Dak has to assure the protection of the site.

Dak isn’t particularly happy with her job but at least, it is so time-consuming that she doesn’t have to think about how shitty her life is. When she has the time, she spent her money on alcohol and tries to forget about her past in the army.

Every day ressemble the others until Matt Salem, a new recruit, joins the team at Quill Marine. He is young, sweet, beautiful and clearly attracted to her. The thing is, if you work at Quill Marine, you can’t “fraternize” with your fellow colleages meaning that their affair is doomed from the start. You can’t just quit working at Quill Marine because of the things you see at the facility and you cannot run away either since Sierra Corp basically rules the US.

So Dak and Matt’s only solution is to buy their freedom stealing a few things at Quill Marine: an alien named Moss and an harp capable of shutting down electric network. Of course, as you can imagine, things don’t go so smoothly for them.



I first experienced Steal the Stars with the podcast. The entire production is really fantastic, it is narrated by a full cast and it has cool special effects. The pacing is also pretty damn perfect and I binge the entire thing in just a few days. However, I think I prefered the book over the podcast because it allowed me to understand the characters more.

Indeed, in the podcast, I was thrown off by how quickly the relationship between Dak and Matt developped and how intense it seemed. I mean, I don’t like insta-love, I just don’t think things like this happen in real life, of course, attraction can be immediate but love? No. So to see two people barely knowing each other falling head over heels in love after such a short period seemed a bit off to me. However, in the book, I understood a bit more where Dak was coming from, she’s old, depressed about her life and is basically waiting for her miserable life to end so, of course, when a beautiful knight in shining armour arrives, you cannot be indifferent to that. Also she is so desperate that it is easy for her to mistake a simple need for companionship for love.

Their relationship isn’t healthy, it is not something to strive for, they just want to survive and escape their miserable lives. In this book, this desesperation is much more explicit than in the podcast and this explains a lot of what happens toward the end. (The ending is amazing by the way, I totatlly did not see it coming!).

I have to say though that Steal the Stars is much more a character study of Dak than a thriller. The first half is slow-paced and I read a couple of reviews mentionning it as a problem. I didn’t mind it since I listened to the podcast first and I already knew what was going to happen and it allowed me to understand the characters more but I can see why it would bother a few readers. If you are interested by Steal the Stars but you don’t know which format you might prefer, give the podcast a go. It is free and it will give you a sample of the style and the pace.

All in all, I would recommend Steal the Stars, it is a bit different to what I am accustomed to reading (or listening!) but it kept me on the tip of my toes and I really enjoyed it!

4 stars.

Noteworthy experiences while reading this book: I thought it was an interesting idea that this was based off of a podcast. That I will now have to listen to!

Check out author's other books or related books? O yes I hope that there is a book two to this one.

Recommend this book? Yes fans of aliens and science fiction will love this one.

Notes and Opinions: I didnt know this was based on a podcast series until I noticed we had done a promo post for this title a little while ago. I thought that was fairly interesting. This was a very different take on the whole alien thing and it was done very well. I thought this one was slightly funny at how many complicated check points you had to go through to get to work. The characters were great Dak, Matt, and Moss were wonderful as a cast and this one was a very quick read. This one does have some insta-love in it but for this story it worked out well. It wasn't the focus of the story at large so that might have had something to do with it as well.

This book will keep you on your toes as you travel along with the gang as they try to help Moss get free of the government. I couldn't help but hope for a book two!

Go Into This One Knowing: insta-love but it works.

Steal the Stars is a novelization of the Tor Labs podcast of the same title. The story fits neatly into two well-known categories of the genre. The most obvious for much of the story, is in its setting in a very-near-future of our world where government has been completely privatized. All government functions are performed by large corporations that are much more efficient at most governmental operations - but also much more mercenary and considerably more invasive. It takes place at a research lab funded by one of these mega-government companies as the corporation decides to monetize its investment in studying the first alien known to have landed on earth, just as one of its team members decides to make one last reach for freedom, for herself, her lover, and the alien who is about to be vivisected. However, things twist in the end from a flight from corporate greed to an entirely different type of story, one where the humans discover that everything they have thought about the aliens they have been studying has been utterly and radically wrong - that nothing is as it has seemed.
VERDICT: Recommended for SF readers who like stories where the protagonists fight against seemingly impossible odds, and/or those who enjoy stories where the ending forces the reader to re-think everything that has gone before.

I love anything science fiction.. and I grew up watching X-Files etc so I was really intrigued to read this book. Aliens, extra terrestrials beings… who wouldn’t want to read about it right?!
I have a confession to make, I waited a while to review this book….. why? because I wanted to listen to the Podcast. Steal The Stars in based on a Podcast by Mac Rogers and I really wanted to listen to it first before I reviewed it.Why? Cause I got bored half way reading the book. If you really want to read this book, i’d suggest you listen to the Podcast instead.
Don’t get me wrong.. This book wasn’t bad… I love the whole concept of the book- The secret facility, the love story between Dak and Matt… I loved it! But I just found the whole book to drag on ..and I found Dak’s ‘inner-monologues’ to be …hmmm…how should I put it? I just wanted to roll my eyes.

This whole review is sounding so weird but I am torn.. Loved the Podcast… the book?Not so much. which is weird cause it’s basically the same thing (almost) but the experience was entirely different for me. That being said, I wouldn’t have loved the Podcast as much if I hadn’t read the book first because the Podcast does leave some information hanging (But if you’ve read the book, you know it all).

Note: The whole narration is done by Dak.. and I have a love/hate thing going on with all her “You said’s”. It a different style of writing for me and I’m not sure whether I like it or not. I gave it 4 stars because of the Podcast.

Earlier this week I featured the podcast Steal The Stars here on the blog for my podcast feature, Deanna Listens. I was also able to get my hands on an advanced reader copy of the novelization thanks to Netgalley that was written by Nat Cassidy. If you listen to the podcast, and I really think you should, you may know him as Lloyd.

I wasn't sure if the novelization was right for me. I liked the podcast a lot, and I love that stories are being told in this medium, so I wasn't sure if the novelization was just going to be a complete rehash of what I just listened to. At times it is pretty identical to the podcast itself, but there are also these really great similes that I don't remember being in the podcast. I think Cassidy did a really good job of giving us more insight into the characters. I think the novel also give us a little more background on the Sierra Corporation, and why they suck! I don't recall finding out why the character only known as X is in prison, but this is told pretty explicitly in the book. It really hammers in why Sierra is the worst!

I still have so many questions. Like how did Sierra come to take over the world so quickly? I think these are questions for the reader to ask, and are not necessarily something that is answered within the story. This story is a sneaky dystopia, it's so very subtle and looks like our world right now or the not too distant future that you don't realize what has happened to the world until much later in the book.

One thing that is different about the podcast vs. this novelization in the tense that it's written in. Dak our main character is telling the story again to Matt, with all the "you saids." I thought this was an interesting writing style, and I don't think I've read a book that employs this before. We also find out right off the bat that Dak's life took a turn for the worst, when in the podcast we are left in suspense and are not really sure what is happening yet.

I liked this book a lot, but I also wonder if I liked it so much because I liked the podcast too? I don't think you need to do both forms of this story, but you can if you want. Podcasts aren't for everyone, so if that medium doesn't work for them I think it's great that there is a book out there that they can read. The book tells the same story, so you are not missing anything if you don't listen to the podcast first. I am very interested to see what people who haven't listened to the podcast feel about it this book. I enjoyed it a lot, and if you like subtle dystopia and military sci-fi I highly recommend it!

*I received an ecopy of this book in exchange for my honest review via NetGalley.com. This in no way influenced my review.

That ending….wow… I can’t actually decide if I liked the last chapter, but the rest of this book was phenomenal.

Steal the Stars is the novelization of a podcast of the same name from Tor Labs. To clarify, I have not listened to the podcast, but after reading the book, it’s certainly being added to my podcast list. I can’t say how close the book is to the podcast in terms of plot and narration, but by from the rather atypical narration style and pacing, I’m going to guess it’s pretty close.

This book is about the lives of Dak Prentiss, chief security guard of Quill Marine, and Matt Salem, a recent hire. Quill Marine, which disguises itself as an innocent marine research base, is actually one of many top-secret research laboratories owned by the Sierra Corporation; Sierra being a vague yet menacing corporate entity that may or may not secretly run the US Government. The overall mood of this book is rather morose and pessimistic and feels like a painfully accurate reflection of today’s political climate. However, unlike many science fiction stories, the spotlight of this book is not on Sierra and the happenings in Quill Marine, but on Dak and Matt themselves. This story follows their lives, their emotions, and their relationship as they live in a science fiction backdrop.

Dak and Matt are not your normal protagonists. Dak is portrayed as a solitary and aggressive person who does what she needs to, regardless of consequences. In the first chapter, we see her getting into bar fights. She uses (and occasionally abuses) her authority, manipulates her connections, and flat-out lies her way out of situations. Matt we only see through Dak’s perspective. While he’s portrayed as the perfect man, given his job description and previous career choices, there’s likely more than one skeleton in his closet. Together, they make an interesting duo of very flawed people existing in a very flawed world.

The narration is done in an interesting combination of first- and second-person. Dak is narrating the story, but while doing so, she’s often addressing Matt, using ‘you’. It’s a very intimate way of story-telling and given how emotional this can book get, a very successful one too.

The pacing is also VERY slow, perhaps the slowest I’ve read in terms of plot. The events in the summary don’t actually happen until more than half-way through. However, because the focus of the first half is on the development of Dak and Matt’s relationship, I never found the slowness frustrating. It also helps that as their relationship develops, the world does too. We’re slowly introduced to all the interesting technology and aliencraft inside Quill Marine, as well as a very accurate depiction of scientists floundering while trying to decrypt alien tech and xenobiology. The pacing does pick up significantly in the last third, and by the end, the action comes at a rapid-fire pace.

My one problem with this book was the ending. While I don’t want to give too much away, I thought the final chapter largely destroyed the set up of the rest of the book. To me, the second-to-last chapter would have made a fantastic ending that would take the story on a path not often tread for endings. This is not to say I didn’t find the revelations in the last chapter interesting, but just that I didn’t think they fit with the rest of the story.

Overall, I rate this book a 4.5/5. It would have been a 5 without the last chapter. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a very character driven science fiction novel.

Wow.

I think my heart rate has come down enough to review this now.

This was fantastic. The premise and key story elements alone are great. A Bonnie and Clyde love story. A secret military facility. A 20-minutes-into the future overly-corporatized America. A real Area 51 complete with alien. But it’s the intrigue and pacing layered over the top of these that really lifts this story into five-star range.

Steal the Stars is a story in two parts. Where the first part is interesting, with lots of questions and world building, the second half hares off into the desert and over a cliff. It’s a fairly stark turn and it might put some readers off, but I loved both parts equally and I was surprised at how nicely both story elements synced up in the one narrative.

I started listening to the podcast version of Steal the Stars before switching to the novelisation, so I feel I can comment a bit on both here. The podcast is really well produced. The acting and audio production are excellent. I can find radio plays a bit disorienting, but Dak’s first person perspective really helps to guide the listener through what’s going on. The voice actors bring a lot of charisma to their roles and set up emotional connections with the characters a lot faster than could be done in text. Lloyd, for example (fun fact: voiced by Nat Cassidy who wrote the novelisation), I loved from his first sentence. There’s a warmth and charm there that you can get from 30 seconds of conversation that takes a bit more to convey on the page.

Having said that, Cassidy has done an excellent job with the novelisation. The prose style retains the feel of Dak’s narrative voice in the podcast, while providing the description and background information required for transitioning the work to text. I found in some ways the text was more comprehensive, and more clearly conveyed some actions and world building elements which were less clear in audio cues or weren’t able to be included in the podcast due to space.

It would have been easy to go bare-bones on the additional information and fleshing out in the novel and stick to just what was required to convert the story to a text version of the podcast. But I was pleasantly surprised at how much additional material Cassidy slipped in without losing the tone, pacing and sequence of the podcast. Special shout out specifically to how well Cassidy worked in ‘Dak-style’ metaphors and similes.

Dak herself is a different strong, female protagonist which I appreciated. Middle aged. Stocky. Physically competent. Practical. Her trajectory and character arc over the course of the story is fascinating to watch. It’s internally consistent and yet quite extreme. Each step of the way felt inevitable, but in a way that felt driven by Dak’s choices and as if it could never have gone any other way. Particularly the second half had this increasing tension and pace to it that felt like it was hurtling headlong into a doom with only a slim chance of survival and the window just kept getting narrower the further you went.

The romance and chemistry between Dak and Matt was intense and well-depicted. This wasn’t a slow burn or a coy young love. This is two consenting adults in one of those once-in-a-lifetime crazy chemistry encounters.

I found the ending strange, but not problematically so. Without spoilers, I enjoyed the reinterpretation of well-known facts in a way that was logical in hindsight but not obvious as you went through. I found it a bit abrupt and in some ways unsatisfying for it, but overall I think I liked it. I like the questions it raises about what happens next. I like the neatness of some elements of the ending and the significant can of worms opened by it as well. I liked having some answers - but not all of them - and getting to see a glimpse of the next story to come.

Whatever format you check this out in, Steal the Stars is a worth experiencing. It’s different to a lot of other scifi out at the moment. It’s punchy and fast. The style and tone are unique and vibrant, and it’ll leave you wanting to rant and debrief with your friends.

An advance copy of this book was kindly provided by Tor Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Written by Nat Cassidy, this is based on the podcast everyone is currently talking about, Steal the Stars, which was written by Mac Rogers.

First things first - I haven’t yet listened to the podcast, wanting to provide a review from the aspect of someone behind on the times and not yet invested. I assumed the majority of reviews would be from people who are already fans, and so while I download each episode as they come out, I haven’t yet jumped in.

What strikes me immediately about this is the sense of self of Dak (Dakota) - the novel is written in a very personal view which helps, but her attitude and thought patterns shine through. It’s written with stark honesty, which, in a place of secrecy is a weird justification that makes for writing you simply can’t put down.

You’re drip-fed facts. We know she works for a company that is a front for something that freaks out the locals. They think they deal in weapons, that there’s a chance for something like Chernobyl, or god knows what. From the outside it appears to be a company that has ‘marine’ in the title, but it certainly doesn’t repair boat motors. We see her enter her place of work and that immediately there’s a deadline, but also a ridiculous amount of security that needs to be passed… and left wondering why.

Of course we’re given a new guy to follow, which is the easiest way to introduce the readers - everything has to be explained to him, and we get to learn alongside. And he, too, is someone instantly likeable. Possibly because we know Dak doesn’t want to have to shoot him in the back of the head, so we don’t, either. Also because he’s taking in all this utterly batshit crazy circumstances pretty cooly, and is in awe of Dak herself.

I always love seeing that. Two highly-capable people who respect and appreciate the abilities the other has - and especially when the man is military also and knows the woman could kick his highly-skilled ass? Excellent. I’m hooked.

From here it gets real pretty quickly. I won’t say much more because 1. Spoilers, and 2. I’m still reading and don’t want to waste any more time here. Let’s just say this book gets the full five stars, and I’ll be listening to the podcast tonight. Coz I’ll certainly be done with the book by then.

(Review written previously and set to auto-post closer to publication date of the book. Podcast will have long since be enjoyed so come talk to me about it!)

This one has a interesting punch at the end. Something is not as it seems and the main character just does not get it until the end. This was a pod cast first and then the story was released as a book. Dakota “Dak” Prentiss is the head of security and she tells the story starting with her obsession with Matt Salem. That drives the story with all of its twists and turns. Interesting read.