The Shattered Skies is the second book in the Cruel Stars trilogy by John Birmingham. Released 11th Jan 2022 by Penguin Random House on their Del Rey imprint, it's 480 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback due out Sept 2022. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is campaign space opera on an epic scale. Following directly on from book one, it's engaging and intricate. It's not particularly suited to a standalone read and readers who haven't read book one will probably want to pick up and read it first. The language and descriptions are rough and graphic. The writing, characterizations, scene descriptions, choreography, and plotting are superlative; often sublime.

This is an experienced and talented author at the top of his game and there are passages which transcend the genre and should be categorized as good literature instead of "just" good SF. There are a significant number of sly in-jokes and light humor which raised a smile.

The unabridged audiobook version has a run time of 15 hours and 40 minutes and is capably narrated by Morgan Hallett. She has a rather flat, generic Midwestern American (with a hint of homogeneous Central Canadian?) accent, but does a clear and well enunciated job with the read. I didn't find myself distracted by her accent at any point.

Five stars. Highly recommended to fans of the genre. I would go further and recommend it highly to fans of historical/military epics. The third book in the trilogy is due out 2nd quarter of 2023.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I decided that I’d like to read The Shattered Skies as I did enjoy the first book. Unfortunately, even quite a few chapters in, I couldn’t get into it. I could barely remember any of the characters or what I liked about them. I ended up DNF’ng this book. I tried picking it up on 3 different occasions but could never get more than a few pages before getting frustrated and putting it aside.

I’m sure if I had the read the first book right before this one, it would have been a different story. I honestly didn’t like the first book enough to warrant a reread of it and decided not to waste any more time.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this one.

Space opera lives

Oh how I love John Birmingham. Space opera without apology. " The Shattered Skies" is the second of the Cruel Stars books and it is a corker. Rival civilizations divide the universe: "True humans" that reject all biological enhancements. "Mutants" (according to the True Humans) who enjoy their gene enhancements, neural backups, and multiple renewals. Feudalists who rule as kings. Industrialists whose laissez-faire capitalism crushes the weak. Russian oligarchs who act as you would expect. All in a military dance for control. Yippee what fun.

I got advanced access to this book by NetGalley.

I come to this book being a pretty big fan of its predecessor, The Cruel Stars. I'm not going to say that the Shattered Skies is a bad book, but it struggles under a lot of weight. Some of that is being the second book in the series, some of it is struggling with its characters(and some running jokes), and some of it is fitting way too much book into this book.

The book starts off very fast, with not a lot of interconnecting tissue to the previous book and that is good in some ways, but then I had to do some work to re-connect myself to the world of the Cruel Stars. I, as a reader, like to be immersed in the world that I reading about, and this took me out of the world way to much.

While I appreciate the concept of the Strum, and I really like the way the author starts to actually tell some of the story of the Strum, when they would get referred to as "Space Nazis", I once again was getting pulled out of the story. I get it, I get the pain the character that references Space Nazis is in, but after a while, it just gets jarring to read.

Finally, there are parts of the book that definitely are setting up for the next book, but really, they don't add anything to The Shattered Skies. Those lines, specifically talking about backups, could easy be in book three. I'm going to forget they were there by book three.

There are certainly parts of this book that drew me in, parts that I had to keep turning page after page, which makes it a shame that I got pulled out of the story as much as I did.

I am looking forward to book three.

John Birmingham is one of my favorite authors in the Science Fiction genre. Indeed, several of my first academic papers were on the subject of his "Axis of Time" trilogy. It is, then, no surprise that I jumped at the chance to peruse a copy of "The Shattered Skies," volume II in another trilogy quite different from the "Axis of Time." In "Shattered Skies" he takes up the tale he began with "The Cruel Stars." Birmingham has a unique facility for using his mastery of his genre to explore complex ethical and moral issues embedded in our history and culture without being at all heavy handed about it. Indeed, he is nothing if not thoroughly and consistently entertaining. It
often seems as though he sets out to disrupt our complacency by forcing us to confront inherent biases and contradictions in our thinking. In this series of books, a great war is being waged between two alignments of forces, neither of which is perfect, but both of which are based on our shared human heritage. He is interested in exploring here the conflict between a technologically advanced capitalist society resting on a feudal bedrock of extremely exploitative "Great Houses" (think "Game of Thrones). This group enslave their populations using the contradictions in capitalism and the inherent consequences of grotesque disparities in income. Leaders and the economically privileged can live essentially as long as they like using their technology and relying on sentient AI's at the highest levels to manage their armed forces and hold their people down. On the other hand is a group often referred to by the group I just mentioned as the Space Nazis; these are a less technologically advanced (slightly) group who restrict human ability to manipulate themselves genetically and restrict their use of computers to a very subordinate role. In their messianic zeal to "liberate" those who live under the "Great Houses," and, ironically to "free" them from the technology which they believe has corrupted them, they have adapted a far more authoritarian model for their society with obvious similarities to National Socialist Germany. As is characteristic of Birmingham's work, neither side is without serious flaws. This technique serves to defuse the reader's ingrained tendency to take sides, thereby forcing him or her to draw uncomfortable conclusions which belie any innate tendency to simplify things in favor of one side or the other.

This is the sequel to Cruel Stars and the novel continues to keep the reader interested till the end. It's action packed with many twists and turns. I look forward to the follow on book.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the first book in the series and was looking forward to reading the next one and continuing the story. Obviously this is not a stand alone book, so if you were in after the first one, this will still keep you in.

The book was a bit slow to get going, but picked up pace in the middle and was roaring again at the end. A lot of twists and turns, and some setup for future twists and turns, but there was definitely a lot going on, and a lot to keep you interested.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, maybe not as much as the first one, but definitely enough to keep me interested to read the next one!

I have eagerly awaited the sequel to The Cruel Stars and it doesn’t disappoint. Incredibly faced paced, filled with great dialogue, clever science-fictional ideas, and a great conflict, I found this super readable ad engaging. The Sturm, anti-tech fanatics and “true human” purists are great villains - you can understand how they believe in their cause, yet are genuinely horrific. The other villains - opportunistic capitalists with a bit too much sneering and mustache twirling - add to the pressure on a likable group of heroes. My only nit is that the twelve-year-old princess sounds nothing like even the most sophisticated twelve year old. Great space opera, great sequel, and a great bridge to book three! John Birmingham writes a darn good adventure story.