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A review by skycrane
Starless by Jacqueline Carey
3.0
I think Starless has the same strengths as most of Jacqueline Carey's books, which is that there are characters I care about. This makes the first half of the book very good, as Khai grows up and develops as a character, and as he transitions from his life in a desert monastery to a life as a princess's bodyguard. The characters introduced later are also fairly interesting, but here the pacing becomes a problem, and there's just not enough time for them to fully become people. The main plot of the book doesn't really start until two thirds of the way through. Everything up to that point is setup. It's very good setup, but then the actual plot feels rushed.
The pacing is a bit of an issue, but the main problem with this book is that the entire story is foretold. This starts early on with the Seer, the leader of the brothers of the fortress of the winds. As you might guess by the title, he can see the branching paths of the future, and he uses this ability to guide his own actions and tell other characters what to do. Fortunately, he rarely talks about it much. It only gets worse later, when the prophecy hunters show up. After this point, all agency is removed from the characters. It's an incredibly unnatural style of storytelling, and one that is unfortunately common in fantasy. It removes all tension or uncertainty and, worst of all, erodes belief in the story world as a real place. It's like the author addresses the audience directly to say "Remember, the characters are just constructs I invented, and they only do what I write for them to do. Obviously you knew that, since this is a book, but sometimes people temporarily forget and get invested in the story world, and we can't be having that."
I still liked the book. It was enjoyable to read, but also infuriating.
The pacing is a bit of an issue, but the main problem with this book is that the entire story is foretold. This starts early on with the Seer, the leader of the brothers of the fortress of the winds. As you might guess by the title, he can see the branching paths of the future, and he uses this ability to guide his own actions and tell other characters what to do. Fortunately, he rarely talks about it much. It only gets worse later, when the prophecy hunters show up. After this point, all agency is removed from the characters. It's an incredibly unnatural style of storytelling, and one that is unfortunately common in fantasy. It removes all tension or uncertainty and, worst of all, erodes belief in the story world as a real place. It's like the author addresses the audience directly to say "Remember, the characters are just constructs I invented, and they only do what I write for them to do. Obviously you knew that, since this is a book, but sometimes people temporarily forget and get invested in the story world, and we can't be having that."
I still liked the book. It was enjoyable to read, but also infuriating.