9 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2024/06/09/the-stardust-grail-by-yume-kitasei-review/

The Stardust Grail joins the ever-growing list of pandemic novels—both those written during and those that mention it as a plot-point within their pages. But don’t hold that against the Stardust Grail, for it’s pretty damn good!

Good pacing, great characters, and even decent backstories—not just for Maya, but for virtually everyone that pops up more than once. There’s lots of colonialism discussion, but as a (once) anthropologist myself, I didn’t mind it. In fact, I found it relatable—helping to humanize Maya both before, and after, we drop the unimaginable choice on her. Credit to her, however, Maya never wavered in her decision. From the blurb, I’d’ve expected a constant waffling throughout, the equivalent of a will-they won’t-they romance. But no: Maya makes her choice and sticks to her guns.

I also appreciated the lack of any tangible romance. Most books have one, and even when they don’t, try to tack it on in an attempt to… I dunno, cram all the genres into one? It’s not that I’m <i>opposed</i> to love, I just don’t want it tacked on at the end, distracting from an otherwise incredible adventure.

And the Stardust Grail is an incredible adventure—basically a hunt for buried treasure (just with bigger stakes), but on a grander scale. Yeah, there could’ve been more mystery, more clues, less… thriller-y? But what the author went with worked all the same.

Audio Note: The narration—done by the amazingly talented Katharine Chin—was tremendous. I withdrew my request for any other format after reading a few chapters and there’s no doubt that was the right choice. The reader really helped bring the story to life; the gravity of the situation, the desperation (more exasperation) of the characters (Maya especially), just everything about this one seemed aided by a good narration.

I had really loved Kitasei’s debut, The Deep Sky and had really liked the themes she had built her story around. I definitely went into this one with high expectations and it absolutely didn’t disappoint. There were a lot of elements to this story, and Kitasei kept the world building well balanced well with the action packed plot. Beyond all the action though, I loved the themes Kitasei explored in this one. The interspecies friendships and interaction really reminded me of Becky Chambers’ novels. I also loved the anti-colonialist commentary. I also think this will be an entertaining one to read even if you aren’t too familiar with sci-fi.

I had previously enjoyed Katharine Chin’s narration in a few other books and really liked it in this one as well. The voices she did for the different characters were memorable. As long as you can remember names well, the plot was easy to follow on audio.

Huge thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC of this one.

*5 stars*

This promised a thrilling anti-colonial space heist and it definitely delivered, but it is also a quite contemplation on morality and friendship.

I had a great time with The Stardust Grail, I can definitely see myself rereading this in the future. It’s just non-stop adventure and I think it would still be very digestible for people who don’t read a lot of sci-fi. The pacing was so well done, it never felt like it lagged even between action scenes. The found family and elements of interspecies cooperation reminded me of my favorite parts of the Wayfarer series and I think this would be perfect for fans of Becky Chambers.

The audiobook was great. The narrator really gave each character their own voice that really felt fitting for each of them. I would definitely recommend listening to this.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ALC of this work. All opinions in this review are my own.

Maya is a thief, but she's kind of trying not to be.

Well, until the one thing she's been searching forever for, comes back on her radar; The Stardust Grail. This artifact will supposedly help the human race - but she doesn't want to use it for the human, she wants to give it to an alien race of beings to help them rebuild instead, Truly a survival of the group Maya deems most worthy. Her own humankind or that of Uncle's.

I love books where there's a rag-tag bunch of misfits working together towards a semi-collective common goal. Since this is more or less a heist job to steal an artifact. They have a great dynamic, lots of wit and sass and they can get the job done. Maya's character seems to have some precog dreams which guide her (in a way) towards some of her objectives but they are also vague enough where she has to try and interpret them and their meaning in the moment.

This book was fun, high energy, engaging, and a pretty quick read. I think I listened to the audiobook fairly non-stop for about 3 days.
I did receive an advance audiobook from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I do plan to also do a YouTube review for this book as well which I cannot wait to share. This book was well worth the read with some hard hitting topics relevant to today's society and environment, as well as how humanity may view other races of beings should the time come we interact with them.

Sometimes when I read a book that is a bit of a mess with its pacing and structure, I try to look past that to see the potential of the great story that we could have had. But unfortunately here, it was so messy that it was extremely difficult to look past it at all.

(Apologies in advance if I spell any of these names incorrectly, I listened to it on audiobook)

Maya is a student at Princeton in the far future. The child of settlers of a different world, she has a complicated relationship with Earth, who often see her people as simply colonists who view Earth as their true home, while settlers actually take pride in their identity separate from Earth. As a child, Maya was infected with a virus spread by another octopus like alien race, the Fremroe. While this infection killed many humans and aliens alike, Maya survived, and has residual abilities as a result of it, such as being able to mentally connect with other Fremroe or other infected beings, as well as dreaming of both the past and the future. While Maya truly is a graduate student at Princeton, her motivations are really in finding more information on a lost alien artifact, the Stardust Grail, which is said to be the only device that will allow the Fremroe to reproduce, something that is becoming critical as their numbers dwindle. Specifically, she is trying to help her best friend Uncle, a Fremroe and her right hand as they thieve and pillage stolen artifacts across the galaxy, returning them to their rightful owners. They can travel across the galaxy using gates that were created by the Fremroe, but due to the strange nature of Fremroe memory and a kind of hivemind culture, they don't all remember the specifics. So Maya and Uncle set off in a chase to track down the Stardust Grail, joined by Will, a disgraced soldier fighting for the pro-Earth faction, and her med-bot who is trying to become more human. Conflict after conflict, the group gets themselves into dangerous situations as they try to save Uncle's species, but also perhaps the entire galaxy.

Okay so what's to be said about this. Firstly, I want to say that I loved The Deep Sky so much, and I was really looking forward to that quality of a story here, but this is nothing like that. While The Deep Sky is a mystery wrapped in a sci-fi setting, this is Indiana Jones wrapped in a sci-fi setting. And I think the struggle with maintaining both the action and the intrigue was ultimately what made this book suffer. After the first act of the story when Maya and the crew leave Earth, it kicks off a seemingly endless cycle of "go to place to steal something, run away. go to place to steal something, run away. go to place to steal something, run away..." ad infinitum. But to keep it fresh, towards the end it just gets, frankly, absurd. As if a child is coming up with the next story beat, desperately trying to dial up the action and stakes in every paragraph to the point that it seems ridiculous. Get attacked in the temple, someone gets hurt, but actually they're okay. Oh there's a big monster that grabs someone, but they kill it. But they encounter a plasma wall! But they get through it. They leave the temple and face the deadly flora and fauna! But they kill it. Actually they go back into the temple now. Robots!!

It was all just too much, and it ended up feeling like a slog. At about the 50% mark, I couldn't believe that the story was still going, but also not getting more interesting. They had the same goal the whole time, and they just limped along to get to it rather than the story shifting and winding its way to the conclusion. Add to this that I feel the author was really trying to create a Becky Chambers Wayfarers-esque dynamic amongst our characters. That is, make everyone lovable and complex and create dynamic relationships between characters in a very character forward story, but the nature of this story really didn't allow for that. All relationship development was surface level at best, and at worst felt forced.

I don't know, this became exhausting fast and I really wanted to like it. I'll still read anything from the author, but if you really liked The Deep Sky, temper your expectations when you pick this up.

Also the nonbinary character was named Pickle, and I can't get over how nonbinary that name is.

The Stardust Grail was a huge surprise for me. I picked it up thinking the blurb was worth giving a try, but I didn’t expect to love it like I did. Heist stories can be great when they’re well done or frustratingly cheesy when done poorly. The good news is Kitasei wrote a great heist but more than that, wrote a great heist that made you think about life, choices, and just because you can do something, should you. It’s worth noting, though, that the plot is slow to start and took a while to really get a feel for what was going on. Kitasei did well with the world building — not only setting the scene on different planets but also describing/developing different populations. One of the things I loved best was how well Kitasei developed characters and their relationships. I’m a sucker for found family which was well done as part of the relationship developments. This book was also more emotional than I was expecting. It was equal parts highly entertaining but also devastating. I read this via audiobook and felt that the narrator, Katharine Chin, did a great job at bringing this story to life. There were so many different things happening, characters to keep track of, etc, but Chin managed to tell the story in such a way that kept you hooked. I would recommend checking this story out as an audiobook or doing a combo of listening and eyeball reading.

“𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣’𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙩𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙨.”

Maya (ex-art thief, now grad student)’s best friend in the whole universe is an alien who’s species is facing extinction without the fabled Stardust Grail. Now, she is on a mission to find it, but her and her group aren’t the only ones searching for it.

I want to preface this review with the fact that I digested this novel via audiobook, and I think that’s may have actually hindered my enjoyment of it. The performance itself was fantastic. Katharine Chin brought these characters to life, and I especially enjoyed her performance of Auncle.

Where I had difficulty was actually understanding what was going on, and I think it would have helped me tremendously to actually *see* the words in front of me. I usually have no trouble with that, even with dense fantasy, but for some reason, I just couldn’t wrap my head around some of the terms and descriptors being used, and would actually suggest having a physical copy of the book to reference for those reading for the first time.

Other than that, I did enjoy the found family aspects to the story, and how our MC had to grapple with how specific decisions would affect one species or another. And the final act was full of action which was exciting. Overall, as a fan for character-centered stories, I did feel disconnected from the characters in this one, which also made it harder for me to fully engage with the story, but I definitely think others will enjoy the ride more than I did.

Thank you to @macmillan.audio for providing me an ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What this book is giving:
✅ Science Fiction
✅ Aliens
✅ Xenoanthropologists
✅ Found Family
✅ Heist

Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️½ / 5

Thank you to NetGalley and to MacMillan Audio for the ARC audiobook of The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei.

The narration by Katherine Chin was very well done - oddly, her narration for Uncle reminded me a little bit of Finding Nemo's "I SPEAK WHALE" (in a good way!).

I have been anxiously awaiting this book for months and screamed a little when I got the audio. Kitasei's first novel, The Deep Sky, was so poignant and powerful and engaging - she is truly one to watch in the sci fi realm. She has an excellent ability to add depth and emotion to each of her characters, even the minor ones, while still touching really strongly on deeper than surface level themes. The Stardust Grail is a bit different in that it's a space opera/space heist vs The Deep Sky's murder mystery thriller, but Kitasei sticks the landing while changing up the genre. Kitasei still finds ways to make you think of the deeper understanding of what it is to be evolved, human, and different within the action of the story, and not as a visible/audible sermon.

The Stardust Grail follows Maya, a human, and her best friend, Uncle, a species that has been nearly wiped out of the galaxy due to genocide. Maya and Uncle used to do cultural heists of works that belong to other species, and returning them to their rightful owners. When their last job goes badly, Maya returns to her PhD program on Earth and tries to move on with her life. When a book is discovered that could lead to a cultural artifact that could save Uncle's species from near extinction, Maya and Uncle team up with Medix, a medic robot, and Wil, a soldier, to hunt the object down, while racing a human faction trying to find the artifact first as they believe it can solve the problem of the disappearing nodes that allow for inter galaxy travel.

There is so much more happening in the book past this description, and it is truly an engaging and fun read. Kitasei is a must watch and a must read and her second novel only reinforces that fact.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

The Stardust Grail is a riveting, innovative read with a fantastic cast of characters and a delightful plot.

I had a fantastic time with this one. The characters were so fun and fresh. I loved the battles, settings, and Star Wars vibes. It took me a few chapters to get into, but once I was hooked, I was HOOKED. The pacing, character development, and ending were lovely. I highly recommend this one!

The narrator did such an excellent job with the accents. Each character sounded different, and the voices beautifully matched the characters and world. I had a fantastic time listening to this ALC.

Thank you to the publisher for the free ALC!

4.5 stars

Come for the heist novel stay for the contemplations of existence and morality.

The Stardust Grail was so much more than I expected it to be. In this book, we follow ex-art thief Maya who is essentially hiding in graduate school after a heist goes very, very wrong. Despite efforts to leave her past behind, Maya is roped into “one last mission” that has the potential to save an entire alien race.

The Stardust Grail grabs your attention with the SciFi heist setup but there is so much to discover in this book. There is found family with a really fun and eccentric cast of characters. Characters navigate discussions of identity and morality. The story explores history and who is remembered as the “good” and “bad” guys. Halfway through the story, the book takes an unexpected, weird turn and from that point on I was completely hooked.

Yume Kitasei has quickly become an auto-buy SciFi author for me. I was a big fan of her debut, The Deep Sky, when I read it last year. What I particularly love about both of her books is the way she creates a sense of culture and how culture and identity are central to these far-future SciFi stories. These elements make the stories rich and engaging.

In The Stardust Grail, the sense of rich cultural identity shows itself both in the human beings and in the other life forms in this universe. The story is not just humans and then everyone else are these generic aliens. There’s a really rich sense of diversity and culture among the other space-capable people in this universe. There is this extensive sense of politics, art, history, and conflict between these people. Human beings are such a small part of the history of the universe as a whole. This book really captures the sense of things being so much bigger than one person. But at the same time, the book highlights the impact of individual choice through this line that recurs throughout the book:

You cannot live in the universe without leaving footprints

I would highly recommend the audiobook if you're interested. There are some cool moments where the narrator plays with voices that really add to the reading experience.

4.25⭐️

I enjoyed last summer’s The Deep Sky immensely, so imagine my excitement to receive a copy of Yume Kitasei’s latest work, the Stardust Grail. It did not disappoint.

The Stardust Grail is an action-packed space adventure filled with delightful characters. It came to life much like a movie and kept me on the edge of my seat. There’s great world—building, philosophical and ethical questions, and did I mention action? A fun fast-paced read to enliven your universe this summer.

Katharine Chin did an excellent job narrating the audiobook, giving a unique voice to each character.

Thank you Yume Kitasei, Flatiron Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

4.5
This hits a lot of favorite elements for me. I love a team on an adventure or quest, fast-paced moving forward, searching. The team sometimes may not be made of all friends, and they have to learn more about each other becoming friends in the end. All of this added to space and different races, including fun machines trying to act like humans. It's entertaining, the quest itself is exciting, a lot happens, and it may take a bit to warn up to the characters at the start, but the narrator helps to keep our interest. I love the Medic unit.
Satisfying space treasure hunt with an extra mission. Like a fun tomb raider meets star trek..
Well written, easy to visualize, and good balance with humor and action.
Thank you, publisher, for this e-arc.

My thanks for the audiobook ARC goes to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio. I'm voluntarily leaving a review.

Genre: Sci-fi, Speculative Fiction, Philosophical Fiction
Language: Some swearing
Representation: LGBTQ+ and multiple races

Have you read anything by Becky Chambers? THE STARDUST GRAIL reminds me of A Psalm for the Wild-Built because of the philosophy discussions, but Kitasei's novel is on a larger platform—meaning multiple worlds, space opera vast.

This kind of read is always interesting because I want to see the merry ride the author will take me on. I've always thought sci-fi is the perfect vehicle for theorizing about or discussing uncomfortable problems or foibles in our society.

In addition to the philosophy, you're going on an adventure. The quest seems impossible. And when they're almost there, everything because even harder and more convoluted for our team to figure out.

Finally, I also enjoyed the narration by Katharine Chin. It was easy to follow, and she made the story come to life.

Happy reading!

This was probably one of the most unique fantasy/sci-fi book I've read thus far. It had intriguing world-building, great characters, and even a heist. I think the uniqueness had to do partly with the fact that the humans and "aliens" are living together in some sort of harmony, but also not. I loved the fast-paced story telling. The author weaved so many ideas this is novel. So looking forward to future books by this author.

Been a bit under the weather so let's read a story involving getting infected with some inconvenient recognition. I did not get any benefit from my cold.

"The Stardust Grail" by Yume Kitasei (out June 11, 2024) follows Maya Hoshimoto, a galactic art thief. Stealing from various places to return alien artifacts to their civilization of origin. But we are following her in grad school. With an old classmate as her advisor because she has been gone so long. But when her old partner, an alien that you can call a bit of a gregarious octopus, drops into orbit because of a possible lead to save xer species from extinction Maya has to take a leave of absence. Also steal a book from the uni that has further details on the lead. And the device they are looking for might be capable of preventing humanity from being cut off from the rest of galactic civilization, so yay ethical conundrum!

Narrated by Katherine Chin, fantastic work. The exasperation of being in academia and wanting to contribute really resonated through your voice. *flashbacks*

Reasons to read:
-That belongs in a museum...of the cultural of origin's care
-Delightful robot
-Really sweet reshaping technology
-A great ethical issue
-I enjoy when things go sideways for large organizations that just start blasting

Cons:
-I would have left my advisor there, no question

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. This is my introduction to Yume Kitasei’s work and I really loved the book and the audiobook. The story felt like it could be a really fun plot of a Star Trek episode, with loads of space adventure, xenoanthropology, and goofy robots. The audiobook narration is really well done — it provides an immersive experience as you follow the crew from planet to planet as they try to find this lost artifact. I’ll absolutely be pre-ordering the hardcover and reading it again.

Review also posted here:
https://www.tiktok.com/@kasiasffrealm/photo/7376020100207496491?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7370886501465900586

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7umnJ-v235/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I really enjoyed The Stardust Grail! I listened to the audiobook version, and the narrator did an amazing job, especially with the different voices for each character. The story of Maya Hoshimoto, a skilled art thief turned reluctant hero, is both thrilling and immersive. The plot is packed with action, high stakes, and a fascinating blend of human and non-human characters. The narrator’s performance truly brought the characters to life and made the listening experience even more engaging.

When I wasn’t listening, I was constantly thinking about what would happen next. The book is not just entertaining but also thought-provoking, exploring themes of loyalty, morality, and the tough choices one has to make. The blend of sci-fi and fantasy elements is perfect, making it a must-read for fans of both genres. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an exciting and captivating adventure.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sending this audiobook for review consideration. All opinions are my own. Publication date is set for June 11, 2024.

This fun space heist novel reminded me of Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers Series. Maya, a human ex-thief is lured by her alien friend and mentor into one last job. Along with a robot and a mechanized soldier, they travel to mysterious planets in search for the titular grail, which is the last hope of an entire race. A rival team is following them, and they don’t have as many qualms to take what they want. My favorite feature in this genre is always the world building, and this book has it in spades. The culture, history and societal rules at play here are very well thought out. Maya may be human, but she grew up on an alien planet, so her point of view differs from her earth-born companions. The conflicts and misunderstandings are humorous, but also poignant. The relationships between the characters are more realistic than they had any right to be, considering some of them are not even human. Katharine Chin really gets them, her audiobook performance gives them such distinctive voices, that you can picture them all vividly, including the aliens. The plot flies along, taking twist after twist and tackling universal and relatable issues like friendship, love, loyalty and hard choices. Enjoyable and fun.
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Macmillan Audio.

I love a good heist novel, and while this comes down on the "more to say about society" than "fun heist hijinks" side, that's mostly due to its scope, the fact that it's not just an object in the balance, but the fate of multiple species and worlds.

I love the world Kitasei has set up here - I'm not sure how far-future it's meant to be, since a lot of the Earth scenes feel familiar enough to make it feel not /too/ far-future, but the galactic sense of it feels wonderfully developed. It's nice to get a sense of multiple cultures within an alien race, as well as a sense of multiple human cultures continuing even through settling new planets or moons, instead of smashing each species into one example.

I do wish we got to see more of Maya as a thief or get more of a sense of that part of her life before we meet her - the only previous job we get into detail is one that went badly and we get more of the aftermath than a sense of who she is as a planner, how she and Uncle typically went about jobs, how artifacts were repatriated, etc. We know she's the planner in this crew, but the addition of Medix and Wil is a new one, and I wish we got a better sense of Maya and Uncle's heist past.

That said, I love the addition of Medix and Wil, Wil as an excellent foil to Maya's rock-solid faith that she's doing the right thing in the face of an increasingly complex situation with literally alien morals and decisions, and Medix with a wonderful spin on "what does it mean to be human" when there are so many forms of sentient life to model.

"You cannot move throughout the universe without leaving footprints" is definitely a theme here as the heist starts to unravel into something much more wide-reaching and with much more historical repercussions than anyone initially assumed. The impacts of different cultural values and ways of communication get magnified when meeting new species, and the question of "when there is no right decision, how do you choose?" comes up in many different forms, giving the whole book a nice sort of weight in our time even while on a galactic scale.

As an audiobook, I loved Katherine Chin's narration, especially for the alien characters, as she really gave them a sense of this not being their native mode of communication but doing their best to adapt to human speech. There's a character at the end that her narration gave me chills and she does a wonderful job melding everything we'd heard so far and elevating it.

4.5 stars, rounded up. Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
TLDR: This is a beautifully written and well developed space adventure heist that gives off serious Becky Chambers vibes, tackles big concepts in a delightful way, and has a cast of super lovable if terribly flawed characters.

I LOVED The Deep Sky so much, and when I saw this available on NetGalley, I jumped on the opportunity. I've decided that this summer will be filled of reading things that make me feel joy, and this was entirely that. The story revolves around Maya, who has befriended and worked with an alien for years and has been hunting for this artifact. Maya is a fantastic main character who is so relatable (especially the migraines - never have I ever seen an action hero with migraines!) and really lovable. The other cast of characters - from Medix to Liam to Uncle - were all super well developed and charming, too, and I fell in love with all of them in different ways. They all added a lot of depth to the plot as a whole.
Speaking of the plot as a whole, I really loved the premise. As someone who works in libraries and loves museums, and someone who also feels a lot of pressure about the ethical-ness (is that a word?) of artifacts, this made me think a little differently. The story was paced well, although there were parts of it that felt like they were lagging just a bit (I think it was the combination of the science-fiction-let's-give-you-all-the-history and the sheer amount of detail that entailed), and areas in which the character's actions / motivations felt at odds with their... actions and motivations. The pace and ideas just shifted a bit too much too quickly in areas, and didn't shift enough in others.

Overall, though, this was a lovely science fiction read and did scratch my 'similar to Becky Chambers' itch that I seem to always have. I highly enjoyed it, despite minor distractions.