Cached US Kindle giveaway on bsky: 6 copies of Yume Kitasei's The Stardust Grail, over at https://bsky.app/profile/kithrup.bsky.social/post/3lgbk6cfst22y
Cached US Kindle giveaway: 6 copies of @yumewrites.bsky.social's The Stardust Grail, which I *have* but have not *read* in the last 3 minutes. Ah well. I got it because it sounded interesting, and of course the author promoted the book and sale, so I must reward that. #KindleBookGiveaway
It's fun, it's fast-paced, and it takes time to explore Maya's moral choices, and themes of friendship, loving academia as an outsider, and historical research.
Like the setting, the characters add fun twists to the stocks they could be. Mercenary Wil's size, power armor, and conflicted loyalty remind me of The Expanse's Bobby, but her disabilities are a new take. Medical robot Medix owes a lot to both the EMH and Data, but explores humanity in a unique way.
(4/n)
But Maya is more than that: she used to be a thief, one with an agenda: freeing artifacts from museums (yes, of course there are alien artifact collections!) and giving them back to their rightful owners.
When she and her old associate Auncle get a lead on the Grail, the novel switches to heist mode as they assemble a team and plan, skirmish with the military, have things go sideways - until they realize they have yet more spoilery things to do.
(3/n)
The viewpoint we get to investigate this world feels very new and fresh though: it's the point if view of archaeologists and historians, of people studying artifacts, one of them the titular "Stardust Grail" not all agree is a real object. Maya is such an academic, and we meet her as a very realistic stressed first generation grad student writing a paper on a deadline.
(2/n)
So. Yume Kitasei's "The Stardust Grail". It's very very good! For some reason I find it hard to explain why, but I'll try.
The world isn't that original: humanity has made first contact and settled on some alien worlds connected to a FTL transport mode network. Some aliens are mysterious, some are helpful, some are warlike. There are mercenaries and a navy and catastrophic failure of some nodes.
(1/n)
Maya's moral stances are strong like Holden's in The Expanse", but she's not a privileged white boy, and that adds a lot of depth. And the aquatic aliens are their own thing, really.
There are no romantic subplots here; it's friendships holding it together and carrying it. I like that very much as well.
(And she writes that paper in the end.)
(I like that very much, too.)
(5/n, n=5)
*starts to write a review of "The Stardust Grail"*
*realizes ve must think more about the fact the Maya is, basically, a good and non-annoying James Holden*
"What I’ve seen is, life seeks other life. Humanity spent so many years looking skyward, hoping we weren’t alone, and look what we were willing to do to keep the door open. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know what you’re thinking, or even, frankly, how you’re thinking when you don’t have a brain. You’re my best friend, and even when you get on my nerves, there is no one I’d risk more for."
"Elephant was still talking, and Maya realized she had lost the thread. Something about carbonated drinks and squirrels."
I also see what you did *there* 😝 #Mach6
"Med-IX, medical robot, Class III sentience, constructed in Shanghai. He does not sing opera."
I see what you did there 😏
Sean Eric Fagan
Jules