DNF’d at 50%.

I feel like this book started really strong, but it just couldn’t keep my attention. Every part of the story - writing style, world building, characters - was fascinating at first, but didn’t last beyond the first third, when it felt like the entire plot of the book had already happened.

-The characters were intriguing, but none of them but Ana made me care enough about them to keep following their story (and Ana was yeeted off-planet so I couldn’t even look forward to hearing about her). Alecto seemed pretty cool, and I suspected there was going to be at least one story twist concerning him, but I didn’t care enough to read another 200+ pages of Gracia and Ceirran being boring and horny together.
-The world building was really rich, but quickly became overwhelming and a little confusing when several planets/civilizations/languages were not really put into context.
-I really liked the writing style for the most part, though there were moments during Gracia’s narration when she would break the fourth wall in a very informal voice that was very jarring.

I didn’t realize when I first started the book that it was a reimagining of the history of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, but when I started having issues with the book and looked into other reviews, I quickly realized where my problems stemmed from. The character’s actions did not seem to belong to them. They were just playing parts in a story that had already happened. Gracia and Ceirran’s affair happened waaaaaaaaayyyyy too suddenly and didn’t seem to fit either of their personalities. It was really jarring and honestly made me less interested in both of them. Their tour of the planet absolutely killed what little forward movement was left in the plot, but they had to do a tour together because Cleo and Caesar maybe went on a tour together. The political details were too dependent on my knowing the detailed history of Caesar’s Rome and Cleopatra’s Egypt. Without that historical context, the book’s political landscape didn’t make as much sense. Ceirran’s politics were just Caesar’s politics, and weren’t pieced together to form a character outside of ‘Caesar in space’. Ceirran and Gracia’s philosophical debates felt like they were just popular philosophical debates of the time, and there’s very little that is more boring in a book than philosophical debates between two characters that aren’t even interesting to me.

I imagine the rest of the story would have followed along with history, but at this point, I’d rather just read the real history of Rome and Egypt and not get a reskinned sci-fi version that lacks context and presents me with characters that are less interesting than their real world counterparts.

In the end, this book wasn’t for me. It started off strong, and maybe it ended strong as well, but unless I skim through the molasses slow middle and the uninspired characters, I’m never making it there.

HIGHLIGHTS
~be careful of pearls and wine
~unreliable narrators ftw
~gods vs AIs
~a rather important carpet delivery

When I opened The Stars Undying and read the first page, my heart leapt: it instantly gave me the same vibes as the Teixcalaan books. Now that I’ve finished it, I would say that The Stars Undying is in some ways a more approachable Teixcalaan – much less baroque and byzantine, but still possessing a proud and regal grace all its own.

<she taught me to navigate like star charts those who made up what she called the quality of our city: how to distinguish between money and power, how to foment a grudge or end one, how to appease or to leave hungry.>

The Stars Undying is inspired by – or is maybe a retelling of – the story of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and Mark Anthony, and there is plenty here to delight anyone who went through a Cleopatra phase (don’t try saying it was just me, I know full well it wasn’t!) Altagracia – Gracia – is a character very worthy of Cleopatra’s legacy; powerfully intelligent, intoxicatingly magnetic, dedicated to her people, and made up of equal parts cool ruthlessness and inexhaustible passion. Ceirran makes a very convincing Julius Caesar. I know a lot less about Mark Anthony, but his reincarnation Anita is a fierce, fiery, feral creature that might have been my favourite character in the entire book.

There are plenty of Easter eggs for the Cleopatra enthusiasts – none of which can’t be appreciated by someone not familiar with Cleopatra’s story/history, so no worries there. But my favourite definitely has to be the pearl – there’s a(n almost certainly fictional) tale of how Cleopatra once dissolved a pearl in wine and drank it, and here in Robin’s debut, the substance called quicksilver pearl (which is utterly destroyed if it comes into contact with alcohol) is a massive part of the plot and worldbuilding. I was (and remain) completely delighted with it, with the way that Robin drew from the lore around Cleopatra for The Stars Undying and spun it into something wildly new!

Other parts of the worldbuilding didn’t quite work for me – if I sit and think about it, I’m very confused about the level of technology; it feels more like Robin was building an aesthetic rather than multiple planets and their cultures. But crucially, that didn’t actually bother me while I was reading. Stars Undying is the kind of book that drags you under like a riptide; you simply can’t look away from the glorious, blazing cast for long enough to nitpick literally anything. Their charisma doesn’t just mesmerise the characters sharing the pages with them; it’s more than strong enough to hypnotise the reader too, and Robin makes it look effortless.

Which. I mean. Kudos!

<Inside my chest, my heart turned and caught the light.>

Because this book is all about the characters. Gracia and Ceirran are a binary star system, each a radiant, glorious celestial body in their own right, now locked together in an orbit almost too bright to look at. In fact, if I can get very nerdy for a second: the two of them are a cataclysmic variable, a sun and white dwarf bound together, the latter feeding off the former. Specifically, they remind me of ZTF J1813+4251, whipping around each other dizzyingly fast, distorting the galaxy around them with their gravitational waves.

But the thing about cataclysmic variables is that they’re not sustainable; one body is feeding off the other. One will eventually come apart. The title of this book may be The Stars Undying, but one of these incandescent stars is going to die – literally or metaphorically – so the other can blaze all the brighter.

Robin’s skill is in keeping you from being able to tell which is which; is in depicting the passionate struggle of Gracia and Ceirran as they trade roles back and forth. They can’t escape each other; I don’t think they even want to. But they are both simply too much more than the rest of us mere mortals to be able to coexist forever.

(As a side-note? Robin mentioned on Twitter that The Stars Undying was very much written as a Jewish book. I’m not the person to go into that – I don’t know nearly enough about Judaism – but in retrospect? Oh, yes, and oh, wow!)

When I picked up The Stars Undying, I didn’t know if it was meant to be a series opener or a standalone, and the ending felt, to me, like a standalone ending. Which left me unhappy, because as a standalone, Stars Undying just didn’t satisfy. However, I’ve since learned that it will, indeed, have a sequel, which changes things – negates just about everything I didn’t love about it, for one! So I’m not going to talk about those ‘flaws’, because they’re not flaws at all given that this story is not over.

Gods. It’s not over. I have chills. And am looking forward to the sequel with equal parts dread and anticipation and freaking yearning.

You can read the first two chapters for free on io9, and preorder it in all the usual places – which you very much should!

4.5 - thank you SO much to Orbit for sending me this ARC!!

I really struggled for the first 50-100 pages of this book, which is more of a me problem than the book - I don't read a ton of space operas and often find them hard to get into. This one, however, really wasn't very 'space-y' - the vibe is much more ancient empire.

Once I was in, I was IN. The writing is gorgeous and the narrative style so unique. The romance?? Incredible.

I know basically zero about Cleopatra and Caesar aside from the very basics, so I have no idea if that enhanced my reading experience or if I would have enjoyed it even more knowing the story. After a brief google, I see excellent potential for a sequel.

Just a very unique read that really sucked me in, and so fun to read something so different!

I was very keen on the description, and I really wanted to like it.

The title and the cover pulled me in. I was excited about a queer space opera inspired by Cleopatra, Caesar & Marc Anthony, I love science fiction AND history, so I was ready to be enchanted. And yes, the language is lovely, but for me it was often too verbose, to the point where I felt distracted by it all.

The favourable comparisons to Ancillary Justice and A Memory Called Empire, kept me going a bit longer than I would have otherwise, but ultimately, this one did not live up to that for me. I wanted to sink into this, but unfortunately couldn't get into it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit Books for the opportunity to read this e-arc.

This character-driven, introspective space opera would be a great read for anyone who wants to sink into gorgeous prose and take their time with complicated characters--especially for readers who are already well versed in the lives of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. The writing is absolutely beautiful, and the book contains a wealth of easter eggs for those with the background knowledge and interest to hunt them out.

I tried so hard to like this book - the synopsis sounds so intriguing! Cleopatra and Julius Caesar in space sounds right up my alley, I absolutely LOVE space operas and history retellings. However, I just couldn't get into the story and I ultimately DNF-d. The language is too flowery, which took me out of the story and I couldn't focus on the characters or the plot. Maybe I'll try again at some point because it does seem worth reading, but for now I'm throwing in the towel.

I received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.

Oh absolute slay. To be honest i dont know a lot about history so i can´t judge accuracy but this is such a juicy, fun book., very complex and TONS of fun.

I feel like I can generally get my bearings pretty quickly in a new fantasy world but *pinches bridge of nose* it took me so long to finally parse out who was who and what was going on. I will definitely say after the turning point in wading through the confusing bits of the story, it does pick up and become a much more fun read. The premise of this book was very unique, and I was super excited to read it (this was definitely one of my most anticipated reads of the year) but I just ultimately didn't really love this. The dual narrative/time jumping just really didn't work for me here, and it led to some strange plot...wrinkles and, though I can see what the author was intending, the enormity of the world-building was also just too much. I loved the retelling aspect of this story, and I loved the climax/fall-out, but the set up was just too confusing/there was too much going on in the vastness of the world for me to really feel tethered or connected to the story. I would love more from this author, though, because their writing ability and creative choices (in general) were fascinating.

This book was confusing for me to read. Each character has their names so similar that I had a hard time trying to distinguish whose who

While I had the initial struggle to get my bearings on who is who and what is what, I am glad I persevered. I have a feeling that this story will be richer for the reader who is familiar with eastern European history, but it is definitely accessible to the others.
This is a politically charged drama that takes place in space, and while it is a little slower in the middle, the end recovered well enough for me to look forward to book two. This is recommended for a niche audience that loves their historical figures represented in modern literature.
Detailed review to come.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Firstly, I want to say, this was one of my most anticipated reads of this year. I was highly looking forward to it and it sounded like everything I could want (i.e. Cleopatra & Caesar story retold in a sci-fi and futuristic setting). This just sounded amazing.

Unfortunately, I am putting aside this book at 20% complete. Here are my likes and dislikes.

What I Liked: The idea and world of this story is VERY unique. It's imaginative and extremely creative. The lore/mythology of Alectelo and the God is intriguing. The MC's are unique and I was enjoying the retelling of their different histories and how they came to be in the current present.

What I disliked: Throughout my reviews, two features I look for most (my pet peeves if you will) are a structured and well-defined timeline and a fluid story (i.e. cut out any unnecessary scenes/words to help the story flow). This particular story is dual narration and had me jumping around from past and present, without notification or marking it. What marked my last time picking this up, I read about a character who was alive in the beginning of a book, but had somehow died...? The characters are talking about her death, and I can't even recall reading about it? This fact was just lost to the story timelines, and probably the wordiness as well. While I see the effort that the author is trying to make to really give FULL world development, she is here creating an actual universe of multiple planets and star systems. And while I'm sure it's all important, too much of it is so confusing to the readers. I think the world building either needed to be simplified or spread out a little more throughout the story.

Truthfully, I may try to pick this back up. I want to like it and read it fully.

This book captured me with the cover - can we just appreciate how stunning and epic it is? Orbit covers win yet again. But then to find that this book was inspired by the events around Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony? And made more gay?? The queer history nerd was immediately seduced.

Robin builds an incredibly impressive sci-fi world, but unfortunately doesn’t let spend too much time with the world building. This is a story that focuses on relationships, so I was admittedly lost for some of the factions and their settings and had to go back and double check who was aligned with who and why.

But the relationships are the true meat of this book and the romantic/political bond growing between Gracia and Ceirran was worth this entire story. Still, I will admit, I was also desperately waiting for Captain Anita to join the party but the polydream I was hoping for never happened. This story is very much separate relationships at separate times. Oh well, a girl can dream.

The ‘climax’ is rather slow and poetic than what is expected from such a retelling, but I think that it was an incredible choice for a story that is based on an event so well known. The fallout after though?? It’s absolutely explosive and exactly what I was craving the entire way through.

The Stars Undying has sexy tension, excellent banter, and a queer cast that left me wanting just a little more. It is an epic story on an epic scale that I think was just the slightest bit too much for the author to achieve at the moment. But Robin most definitely has my attention for whatever story comes next.


*I received an eARC from Orbit & NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

The Stars Undying is a sci-fi retelling of Mark Antony, Julius Ceasar, and Cleopatra. As someone who is interested in classical history /and/ SFF, the premise of this novel immediately drew me in; I don't think I've ever seen this retelling be done in this way, and the author's overall imagination and creativity really shone throughout the novel.

The strongest part of the novel was the retelling aspect, and how the author chose to incorporate it into a futuristic, sci-fi setting. The development of the characters' relationships with each other (specifically Ceirran, Anita, and Gracia) over the course of the novel was fascinating to read and, at times, I wish that there had been fewer political scenes and more time spent on character development. At points, interactions felt a bit rushed and lacked the depth that I wanted to see. Though this book is a political retelling, it felt unbalanced at times, with too much politics and not enough of the retelling.

As many reviewers have already pointed out, the weakest aspect of this book is the information dump at the very beginning. I found the first 20% or so very difficult to read (and I'm someone who doesn't mind being confused during a heavy world-building session). The author includes so many details and so many characters that it's hard to keep everyone except for the main three straight. From what I managed to gather from the overall plot and world-building, it seems like a fascinating setting. But with the sheer amount of extraneous details and info dumping I found myself skimming, I'm not sure that I even understand half of it.

Something else I was confused by was how Gracia's chapters would sometimes say things to the reader/listener like "I lied to you" or "when I told this story in chapter x, that's not how it happened." Other than confusing me further, I'm not sure what the point of this was. To make Gracia seem more like an unreliable narrator? To show that she's telling a story? It was an odd inclusion that took me out of the immersion of the story. Additionally, there were frequent flashbacks and time skips in most chapters, which made the timeline difficult to keep track of.

Overall, I think this book is well-done, but it was too politics-heavy for me and there wasn't enough time spent developing the characters' relationships with each other. The book is beautifully written and has wonderful prose but at the end, it both left me wanting more and perplexed with what I had been given.

4,5 stars

"In the first year of the Thirty-Third Dynasty, when He came to the planet where I was born and made of it a wasteland for glory's sake, my ten-times-great-grandfather's king and lover, Alekso Undying, built on the ruins of the gods who had lived before Him Alectelo, the City of Endless Pearl, the Bride of Szayet, the Star of the Swordbelt Arm, the Ever-Living God's Empty Grave.

He caught fever and filled that grave, ten months later. You can't believe in names."

The Stars Undying is, among other things, about a pearl, or, I should say, the Pearl, a computer that contains the immortal soul of Alekso Undying, and that makes its wearer his prophet and the Oracle of Szayet. I start with this because as a novel, The Stars Undying feels to me much like the pearl around which so much of its story revolves. For one, this novel is a thing of beauty: it is the product of brilliant work, and I know this because it is apparent on every page. The writing is polished, poised, elegant; it has a kind of classic quality to it that makes it feel at once historical and timeless. More to the point, it's genuinely some of the most impressive writing I've encountered in an SFF novel in recent memory.

Polished and elegant it may be, but The Stars Undying is, also like its Pearl, far from simple or straightforward. It gives with one hand and withholds with the other; gives under the guise of withholding, or else withholds under the guise of giving. It's a novel that doesn't tip its hand--not for the sake of some kind of contrived suspense, but because of the very nature of its world, and of the kind of story that's being told in that world. That is, if the novel doesn't tip its hand, it's because its characters don't. What they say and do is subject to the ever-present power dynamics of their world, to the way power--of the person, of the ideology, of the empire--warps everything around it so that what might have been straight becomes circuitous, so that characters have to tread carefully, and so that we have to read their silences as carefully as their utterances. And this power operates within as much as it does without: caught in these webs of power, the characters are not any less complex to themselves as they are to us.

"It has been a long time since that night, when I lay in the dark between Matheus Ceirran and the image of my god. I have thought of it often since, trying to make sense of it, of how vividly it stands out in my recollection. As I am telling these memories to you, I am turning them over in my hands, I am holding them up to the light. It is in memory that I am trying to find some kind of truth, if truth is anywhere to be found."

All of this is to say, The Stars Undying is a book that, like its Pearl, is comprised of many accounts: Gracia's, Ceirran's, Anita's--its three principal characters--but also Szayet's and Ciao's accounts, the accounts of empire and all the history and storytelling that is attendant to it. It's an incredibly multilayered and rich novel, and the way it slowly and intentionally develops those layers is just exquisite (in the moment, but also, and perhaps especially, in retrospect). The word I keep reaching for here is simmering: there is so much bubbling beneath the surface of this story, some of which breaks its surface by the end, and some of which remains buried, subtext left to carefully put together based on what we know of these characters and their dynamics.

What I love most about this novel is, simply, how much it trusts its reader. There were so many points while reading it that I wanted something--a feeling, a suspicion, a thought--to be made explicit, to be specifically explained and justified--but that's not what I got, and I loved it. I loved that this book didn't give me what I wanted, but made me work for it. The Stars Undying is a novel that develops its characters--and, by extension, lets you work to decode them--by way of conversations. And there are some truly stunning scenes here: complex and thorny and compelling moments between these characters, all of whom are already fleshed out and alive in their own right. (Ceirran and Gracia? Endlessly fascinating. Gracia and Anita? ELECTRIC. Ceirran and Anita? So surprising.) You know these characters, but you do not quite grasp them; they are many things, but they are not reducible to any one thing. And that is such a feat on Emery Robin's part: to craft characters who both reward and repel your efforts to know them, who are always both familiar and strange. Needless to say, I was utterly drawn in.

All this, and I haven't even touched on the worldbuilding yet, which is remarkable and everything you could ever want in an SFF novel, really. What stands out in particular is the sheer level of detail that animates this world. Szayet and Ceiao are suffused with so much life: they come with their own their own--sometimes distinct, sometimes overlapping--histories, cultures, ideologies, religions (or lack thereof), architecture, geographies, resources, languages. And it's not just that you know them, it's that you understand why they are the way that they are: the histories that animate their ideologies, the geographies that shape their economies, the sociopolitics that govern, and justify, the power they wield and the power they seek.

(And I haven't even mentioned the whole Cleopatra-and-Julius-Caesar retelling aspect of this because I only know the barest of barebones about that history and so can't really speak to how it was incorporated into the novel. But if this book is incredible without me knowing anything about what it's retelling then I can only imagine how good it is when you're actually familiar with its historical basis--which I am definitely planning on brushing up on when I reread this.)

I honestly don't know what else I can say about this book: The Stars Undying is a singular novel, and I absolutely adored it. I was already 100% going to read its sequel, but god, after that brilliant ending, nothing can come between me and that second book.

Thank you so much to Orbit for providing me with an e-ARC of this via NetGalley!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Because this was compared to both Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice AND Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire (both my favorite books of all time), it's safe to say this book was my most anticipated release of 2022. I had expected it to be an easy five-star, but unfortunately it was only a 4-star for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the political intrigue in this book. Of course, being a retelling of Caesar and Cleopatra's stories, it was bound to have a lot of intertwining politics, and that was masterfully done. The writing was beautiful as well, and I especially found the conversations had about religion in the world Robin built to be especially interesting and well-done.

However, I found the characters to be quite wooden, and I didn't feel as if I was rooting for them until about 75% through the book - which was way too late for me, because I am a character driven reader. So, even though the plot was expertly done and I wanted to know what happened next, the characters just didn't hold my interest. The book was also very slow-moving. It took a long while for me to become interested in the plot itself.

All in all, a good space opera that I would recommend for people looking to sink their teeth into a lot of political intrigue, but not one that I would re-read anytime soon.

DNF at 5%. While I'm a big fan of space operas and sci-fi as a whole, this book couldn't hold my attention. I think it has to do with a lack of exposition and just how the prose was written.

Thanks to the publisher for the complimentary hardcopy ARC and the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

#OneWordThreeTitles challenge + review

I saw this challenge on @bookbruin’s gorgeous feed recently & thought it would be a good chance to use “stars/star” and feature a recent thick sci fi read: Emery Robin’s THE STARS UNDYING.

#multitasking ;) .

The blurb calls this “a sweeping, spectacular space opera inspired by the lives & loves of Cleopatra & Julius Caesar” & I feel like that’s most of what you need to know .

At the beginning of the book Gracia is trying to take control of her planet & wrest the title of Oracle from her sister. She uses a visiting Commander of the Empire to help her do it.

But let’s not forget the Commander’s lieutenant, religious tensions in the Empire, & questions of sovereignty, all of which add more drama to the provocative & compelling story.

As previously mentioned this book is thick & I loved that for us all. The storytelling is great & the author tells a story that both had me thinking & absorbed in the plot twists, particularly the big revelation & the secrets of our unreliable narrator. The engagement between sisters always had me on the edge of my seat.

But I will admit to occasionally being confused. The book kind of jumps in & then there are moments when the other characters allude to something without spelling it out. I guess that really helps ramp up the mystery of it all but I wanted to find my footing a bit more .

THE STARS UNDYING is a dense, often magnetic read but there are moments when I plodded through a bit. Still, a great read that I don’t think I’ll forget.

4.5⭐️. Out 11/08.

[ID: three books & a red prayer plant are arranged on a table. At the top left is The Brightest Star in Paris, top right is the plant, bottom left is The Stars Undying, & bottom right is Written in the Stars.]

Review copy (eARC) provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I tend to avoid plot summaries in my review because the Amazon and Goodreads summaries do a way better job than I could, but in short, this is an alternate take of sorts on Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.

This book is more of a 3.5 than a 4 in my head, but I chose to round up because I think my reasons for not liking this book as much are more about me than the author or the story. I think I was expecting more of a historical tale and less of a romance story, and that's not what I feel the book is like...but again, that's more about my reading preferences than a problem with the book.

I will admit that this was a bit difficult to get into because the initial world-building was set up in a way that I found roundabout and incredibly confusing especially when you have an unreliable narrator. After the first maybe 20% of the book, however, I got a much clearer picture of the book as well as its place as a Julias Caesar and Cleopatra retelling. Once I broke through this initial quarter of the book it was an enjoyable read from that point onward.

The Stars Undying was a very solid debut from the author and, in my opinion, did a fantastic job of integrating a historical retelling with a futuristic setting. The author accomplished this in such a way that while you do know this is a retelling, you can also picture this as its own story, as its own entity. Really a masterful job.

From a storytelling and crafting aspect, Emery Robin did an amazing job, but with that being said, the pacing was just too slow for my taste in some areas. And I do think it fell a bit short in the ‘space’ aspect of the space opera.

All in all a very solid debut with a great idea, the only real drawback being some slow pacing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

CW: war (themes and on page violence), death of a parent

This was my first space opera and it was such an interesting twist to have this also be a Ceaser and Cleopatra retelling. There's some great political intrigue and a lot of questions. I really enjoyed that there was an unreliable narrator and all the twists and turns that were remiscient of the history but also put its own unique twist on it. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for what this author does next.

Steam: 2.5