Scan barcode
siavahda's review
5.0
I don't know if I'm totally qualified to judge the poetry of this stunning little book - my English Lit A-level was quite a while ago now, and it's not as if any school course can really teach you about poetry, not in a way that matters (unless you were blessed with a truly amazing teacher, maybe).
All I can say is that I loved it. The beautiful cover grabbed my attention, and the concept - two cosmos-creating goddesses and their romance - convinced me to take a risk on this verse-novella. I've never actually enjoyed a novel in verse before, but if ever a book deserved supporting it was this one, right? And the risk definitely paid off! Despite holding myself back a little during the first few pages - bracing myself for disappointment - the wonderful Seya and Tia pulled me into their gravity almost immediately. I found myself cradling my ereader in my hands and holding my breath as the two goddesses narrated their story by turns - the whole world just stopped and disappeared as I reread verses and entire chapter-poems, both to marvel over them and to make the book last a little longer. When it was over, there was this pure silence in my head for what felt like a very long time.
The book is divided into alternating chapter-poems, many named after a cosmological object or phenomenon, as Seya and Tia take turns telling their sides of the same story. I can't really express how incredibly clever and appropriate it seemed to see their story laid out in terms of white dwarves and pulsars - because of course they and their relationship both grow as the universe they built together does, every star and planet marking an event in their time together - as Seya says at one point, 'Do you remember all those stars we hung...I made them each my shrines/to us...full of old and beautiful memories./They are too painful to delve/into now'.
That's just a tiny glimpse of the exquisite imagery that fills these pages, by the way.
The poems themselves vary between those that do not rhyme and those that do - that any rhyming scheme was used at all surprised me, since I haven't seen it in verse stories before. But there's an inescapable rhythm that pulls the story along - not the same all the way through; the structure of the poems shift and change beautifully, reflecting what they convey - that taps into your heartbeat like Shakespeare is supposed to do, but rather than keeping it steady makes it dance. The overarching story - I'm not sure, but I think it follows the Big Crunch theory, that of a universe which bursts into expansion, only to finally fall in on itself and compress in a reverse big bang - the big crunch - which in turn fuels another expansion, the birth of a brand-new universe. That's my interpretation of how we mortals would experience or explain Seya and Tia's tale.
And speaking of Seya and Tia - I am amazed and delighted by how Murray managed to create and write two characters who are unquestionably deities, and who are thus more-than- or un-human - and yet are so beautifully painfully human at the same time. The moment when things start to go wrong for them - I know that moment! I have lived that moment, I have done what Tia did for the sake of people I love, and I was not expecting to be so gut-punched by such a relatable, familiar pain and mistake! Is it odd that that makes me really happy, that Murray wrote something nearly all (if not all outright) of us can immediately understand and recognise? It probably does, but that's not relevant. What's relevant is how heart-in-your-mouth it feels to read this common human mistake writ out in terms of galaxies and gravity, made into something awesome (in the original sense of the word, awe-inspiring and terrible) even as it's such a fundamentally human thing. I can't put it into words, but oh, how perfectly it's captured in Murray's poetry!
'so I bring down the stars
in a shower of luminescent tears.
All of this was once ours!
Until, except, why did you --'
That even a goddess is reduced to speechlessness... I just can't get over how powerful it is.
Not, by the way, to suggest or imply that Tia is the 'villain' for making her mistake. She isn't at all, and neither is Seya. This isn't that kind of a story - it's not some 'Rachel & Ross' thing where everyone picks a different side; they both make mistakes, but not the kind that could make anyone question their love for each other. (If anything, the exact opposite - their mistakes are the kind that can only be fuelled by love.) Even as deities they refuse to be defined - Seya isn't simply a 'creation' goddess any more than Tia is nothing but destruction. Seya breaks stars to make new ones. Tia creates planetary rings and the molten cores of the planets themselves. I don't know if there are words in English for how inextricable from and vital to each other they are, but it's wonderful to see goddesses too complex to be pinned down in a simple box. It's not light vs dark here, even if those things are still important.
This is the book that proves that some stories belong in verse. All the ones I've seen before - the poetry just felt like a gimmick. Here, it is beautiful and powerful, the only thing that could come close to doing justice to this story and these characters. I love poetry, I know how stunningly powerful it can be, but Birthing Orion has reminded me that the stories that are too big and too much for prose - poetry is the only art form we have to express a love story told in stars.
I expected a let-down that couldn't live up to its premise. What I got is something that blew me away and captured my heart and definitely won't be giving it back. Instant favourite, dearly beloved, and without question one of my best reads of the year.
So. Much. Wow.
All I can say is that I loved it. The beautiful cover grabbed my attention, and the concept - two cosmos-creating goddesses and their romance - convinced me to take a risk on this verse-novella. I've never actually enjoyed a novel in verse before, but if ever a book deserved supporting it was this one, right? And the risk definitely paid off! Despite holding myself back a little during the first few pages - bracing myself for disappointment - the wonderful Seya and Tia pulled me into their gravity almost immediately. I found myself cradling my ereader in my hands and holding my breath as the two goddesses narrated their story by turns - the whole world just stopped and disappeared as I reread verses and entire chapter-poems, both to marvel over them and to make the book last a little longer. When it was over, there was this pure silence in my head for what felt like a very long time.
The book is divided into alternating chapter-poems, many named after a cosmological object or phenomenon, as Seya and Tia take turns telling their sides of the same story. I can't really express how incredibly clever and appropriate it seemed to see their story laid out in terms of white dwarves and pulsars - because of course they and their relationship both grow as the universe they built together does, every star and planet marking an event in their time together - as Seya says at one point, 'Do you remember all those stars we hung...I made them each my shrines/to us...full of old and beautiful memories./They are too painful to delve/into now'.
That's just a tiny glimpse of the exquisite imagery that fills these pages, by the way.
The poems themselves vary between those that do not rhyme and those that do - that any rhyming scheme was used at all surprised me, since I haven't seen it in verse stories before. But there's an inescapable rhythm that pulls the story along - not the same all the way through; the structure of the poems shift and change beautifully, reflecting what they convey - that taps into your heartbeat like Shakespeare is supposed to do, but rather than keeping it steady makes it dance. The overarching story - I'm not sure, but I think it follows the Big Crunch theory, that of a universe which bursts into expansion, only to finally fall in on itself and compress in a reverse big bang - the big crunch - which in turn fuels another expansion, the birth of a brand-new universe. That's my interpretation of how we mortals would experience or explain Seya and Tia's tale.
And speaking of Seya and Tia - I am amazed and delighted by how Murray managed to create and write two characters who are unquestionably deities, and who are thus more-than- or un-human - and yet are so beautifully painfully human at the same time. The moment when things start to go wrong for them - I know that moment! I have lived that moment, I have done what Tia did for the sake of people I love, and I was not expecting to be so gut-punched by such a relatable, familiar pain and mistake! Is it odd that that makes me really happy, that Murray wrote something nearly all (if not all outright) of us can immediately understand and recognise? It probably does, but that's not relevant. What's relevant is how heart-in-your-mouth it feels to read this common human mistake writ out in terms of galaxies and gravity, made into something awesome (in the original sense of the word, awe-inspiring and terrible) even as it's such a fundamentally human thing. I can't put it into words, but oh, how perfectly it's captured in Murray's poetry!
'so I bring down the stars
in a shower of luminescent tears.
All of this was once ours!
Until, except, why did you --'
That even a goddess is reduced to speechlessness... I just can't get over how powerful it is.
Not, by the way, to suggest or imply that Tia is the 'villain' for making her mistake. She isn't at all, and neither is Seya. This isn't that kind of a story - it's not some 'Rachel & Ross' thing where everyone picks a different side; they both make mistakes, but not the kind that could make anyone question their love for each other. (If anything, the exact opposite - their mistakes are the kind that can only be fuelled by love.) Even as deities they refuse to be defined - Seya isn't simply a 'creation' goddess any more than Tia is nothing but destruction. Seya breaks stars to make new ones. Tia creates planetary rings and the molten cores of the planets themselves. I don't know if there are words in English for how inextricable from and vital to each other they are, but it's wonderful to see goddesses too complex to be pinned down in a simple box. It's not light vs dark here, even if those things are still important.
This is the book that proves that some stories belong in verse. All the ones I've seen before - the poetry just felt like a gimmick. Here, it is beautiful and powerful, the only thing that could come close to doing justice to this story and these characters. I love poetry, I know how stunningly powerful it can be, but Birthing Orion has reminded me that the stories that are too big and too much for prose - poetry is the only art form we have to express a love story told in stars.
I expected a let-down that couldn't live up to its premise. What I got is something that blew me away and captured my heart and definitely won't be giving it back. Instant favourite, dearly beloved, and without question one of my best reads of the year.
So. Much. Wow.
bookdeviant's review
4.0
amazing verse novel!! I'm going to have to reread, but the writing was beautiful.
theknightswhosaybook's review
3.0
I am very upset that this wasn’t amazing. Lesbian space goddesses? How can you go wrong with that premise? But this is a novel in verse, and it just didn't work for me. The poetry didn't blow my mind or make me feel anything particularly strongly. It was okay, but if you've read the blurb then you've already read the best line in the entire book:
And you should get more out of an entire book than you get out of its blurb. So this might be the book for you if you love novels in verse, but if you don't feel strongly about them as a genre this book probably won't wow you.
Too fondly have I loved these stars;
all these galaxies we once called ours.
And you should get more out of an entire book than you get out of its blurb. So this might be the book for you if you love novels in verse, but if you don't feel strongly about them as a genre this book probably won't wow you.
simonlorden's review
5.0
This book was beautiful in every way.
First, the art. If the beautiful cover wasn't enough, the background to every poem is a picture of stars, galaxies and space stuff.
The poems themselves tell a coherent story about two goddesses making stars and galaxies, and also having... relationship problems that are surprisingly human?! The poems are all about a similar topic and yet different, I never got bored while reading them, even though I usually find collections repetitive.
All in all, I loved this and I'm kind of tempted to get a print copy.
First, the art. If the beautiful cover wasn't enough, the background to every poem is a picture of stars, galaxies and space stuff.
The poems themselves tell a coherent story about two goddesses making stars and galaxies, and also having... relationship problems that are surprisingly human?! The poems are all about a similar topic and yet different, I never got bored while reading them, even though I usually find collections repetitive.
All in all, I loved this and I'm kind of tempted to get a print copy.
More...