Reviews

this book was written for me and it's probably going to be my favorite book of the year but in a way where i'm pissed about it because i should have written this. my GOD the way this book interacts with history and the concept of myth-making is so craziness-inducing. this goes so far beyond "cleopatra in space" but it is also doing so much justice to the concept of cleopatra in space. flawless writing, incredible characters, bisexual love triangles, cicero is there, what more can you ask for and i can't even like. get into how great this is because i'm no-joke going to write an academic thesis on it

laelyn's review against another edition

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3.0

"The Stars Undying" has one of the most intriguing premises a book can have for me: a space opera version of Caesar and Cleopatra, with a woman taking Marcus Antonius's role? Perfection. I did enjoy Robin's debut in a lot of ways, but ultimately it was a rather forgettable affair, unlike the book's source of inspiration.

It's a well-written book and I enjoyed the world-building with lots of sci-fi words - that are confusing at first, admittedly, but you get used to them quickly. Now, the world-building isn't all too complex, and you don't actually learn much about all these planets and systems our Caesar, Ceirran, is happily conquering. But there's enough to keep the reader interested, and the main focus is not what happens on these planets anyway. It's a book about clever characters manouvering politically, it's about court intrigue.
I liked both our pov characters, Ceirran and Gracia, though my favourite character is easily Ana, our Marcus Antonius. It took me a while to warm up to them all, and other than Ana there are no actual likeable characters in there and their characterization is often a little inconsistent, but they're complex and interesting.
As expected, there's a lot of political manouvering, and while I very much enjoy that, it also got a little repetitive after a while. The rather slow pace of, especially, the middle part of the book made the most fascinating aspects of the story - Gracia's relationship with her God (an AI type being based on, I'd wager, Alexander the Great) and her plans to turn Ceirran into an immortal God as well - get dragged down a bit. Maybe the book was just too long for its contents. There are a loooot of people and places and events happening in the background, a lot of concepts and themes woven throughout, but because of the slow pacing and the way the story is constructed, none of them really matter too much in the end.

"The Stars Undying" is an impressive debut, a challenging read due to its pacing and sheer density both of content and form. I recommend it for people interested in a new take on Cleopatra's story, but most of all politics-focused, slow space operas with epic battles that only ever take place in the background of the story.
3 stars.