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A review by frakalot
Star's End by Cassandra Rose Clarke
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is an excellent story. I had a few issues with it but loved it overall. This review is perhaps a bit of an incoherent collection of my thoughts about the book.
I thought the characters were all fantastic and the dialogue was consistently mature. The plot is spectacularly complex but not at all incomprehensible and the universe that the author has created is fascinating. The narrative jumps around to various events in time which is a technique that I always find frustrating and in this case it even felt unnecessary. We would learn vague references which could have been expounded upon in the current timeline but instead the author chose to whisk us back to experience each of the significant events. I just think we didn't need quite so much detail.
Esme takes all of the responsibility for her father's cruel work on her own shoulders and strives to right his wrongs in her own way. She plays investigator, working her way up the security clearance levels and piecing together the secrets that helped her father build his corporate empire. She was mostly very good at this but occasionally did that thing where a character has been expecting something all along but doesn't believe it when it comes out to be true.
"He was the sort of person you wanted to die and so you knew never would."
One of the main themes explored is that if you want to improve a system your best chance is to learn the system and manifest change from within the system, but that this tactic comes with the risk of being changed by the system, potentially perpetuating the system unwittingly.
It's a slow build up to the way things are described in the blurb. A viral disease breaks out on Star's End which people are referring to as "the flu" but everyone who catches it inevitably dies within a few days. There's no cure for it and Esme's father evacuates the family to a space station but they manage to bring the virus with them. It reminded me of when our recent/current pandemic peaked in Victoria which drove people across the border to South Australia to escape it and the associated lockdowns, but of course they only managed to drive the numbers up in SA until the numbers were comparable and SA introduced its own lockdowns.
Actually, although there is always a lot of drama happening the whole story felt like a slow burn and I think this had something to do with experiencing every single detail.
The tech in this universe was intriguing. Minds are plugged into car computers when driving. One security guard has night vision as an engineered part of his body, not a pair of goggles. Humans are engineered by Coromina, the company which Esme is being groomed to inherit the leadership of. Their main line is weapons manufacture, but it is largely defined by genetically engineered soldiers.
Definitely worth checking out and if the author writes more scifi I'll be interested.
I thought the characters were all fantastic and the dialogue was consistently mature. The plot is spectacularly complex but not at all incomprehensible and the universe that the author has created is fascinating. The narrative jumps around to various events in time which is a technique that I always find frustrating and in this case it even felt unnecessary. We would learn vague references which could have been expounded upon in the current timeline but instead the author chose to whisk us back to experience each of the significant events. I just think we didn't need quite so much detail.
Esme takes all of the responsibility for her father's cruel work on her own shoulders and strives to right his wrongs in her own way. She plays investigator, working her way up the security clearance levels and piecing together the secrets that helped her father build his corporate empire. She was mostly very good at this but occasionally did that thing where a character has been expecting something all along but doesn't believe it when it comes out to be true.
"He was the sort of person you wanted to die and so you knew never would."
One of the main themes explored is that if you want to improve a system your best chance is to learn the system and manifest change from within the system, but that this tactic comes with the risk of being changed by the system, potentially perpetuating the system unwittingly.
It's a slow build up to the way things are described in the blurb. A viral disease breaks out on Star's End which people are referring to as "the flu" but everyone who catches it inevitably dies within a few days. There's no cure for it and Esme's father evacuates the family to a space station but they manage to bring the virus with them. It reminded me of when our recent/current pandemic peaked in Victoria which drove people across the border to South Australia to escape it and the associated lockdowns, but of course they only managed to drive the numbers up in SA until the numbers were comparable and SA introduced its own lockdowns.
Actually, although there is always a lot of drama happening the whole story felt like a slow burn and I think this had something to do with experiencing every single detail.
The tech in this universe was intriguing. Minds are plugged into car computers when driving. One security guard has night vision as an engineered part of his body, not a pair of goggles. Humans are engineered by Coromina, the company which Esme is being groomed to inherit the leadership of. Their main line is weapons manufacture, but it is largely defined by genetically engineered soldiers.
Definitely worth checking out and if the author writes more scifi I'll be interested.