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A review by christinecc
The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov
3.0
Not great, but halfway decent. All the twists, turns, and hidden allies-traitors-double agents will have your head spinning only slightly less than whenever you last watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3. To be fair, Asimov isn't quite as confusing as the Pirates sequels.
The characters are a lot of fun, if not always well-developed. Asimov has a good knack for giving his characters grounding and little giveaways of their personalities. I like that the main character can show when he's irritated or scared, even when he doesn't mean to. Yes, there's only one female character, which I've come to expect in retro sci-fi. That being said, I like Arta a lot: she displays a lot of courage given her sheltered upbringing, she's knowledgeable about intergalactic politics and power dynamics, and she doesn't give in to threats or fear (and even heads out onto an unknown planet to go warn her love interest about a potentially fatal danger) so she has decent agency. The main character does display a bad habit of trying to shield her from difficult decisions and not letting her in on his plans (I hate that trope).
The ending is what really disappoints. There's no revolution, nothing more than a vague promise of one that might happen later. Oh, and the key to overthrowing the tyrants (Tyrannis, for god's sake) is the U.S. Constitution... Ok. I guess? It kind of came out of nowhere and I'm not sure why that seemed like a good ending but that's all we get.
Recommended if you just want to get through all the Empire books. If you don't want to bother, there's really no need. There isn't anything spectacular here, and Asimov himself considers it his least favourite book. I wish I'd known that before. Ah well.
The characters are a lot of fun, if not always well-developed. Asimov has a good knack for giving his characters grounding and little giveaways of their personalities. I like that the main character can show when he's irritated or scared, even when he doesn't mean to. Yes, there's only one female character, which I've come to expect in retro sci-fi. That being said, I like Arta a lot: she displays a lot of courage given her sheltered upbringing, she's knowledgeable about intergalactic politics and power dynamics, and she doesn't give in to threats or fear (and even heads out onto an unknown planet to go warn her love interest about a potentially fatal danger) so she has decent agency. The main character does display a bad habit of trying to shield her from difficult decisions and not letting her in on his plans (I hate that trope).
The ending is what really disappoints. There's no revolution, nothing more than a vague promise of one that might happen later. Oh, and the key to overthrowing the tyrants (Tyrannis, for god's sake) is the U.S. Constitution... Ok. I guess? It kind of came out of nowhere and I'm not sure why that seemed like a good ending but that's all we get.
Recommended if you just want to get through all the Empire books. If you don't want to bother, there's really no need. There isn't anything spectacular here, and Asimov himself considers it his least favourite book. I wish I'd known that before. Ah well.