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A review by tilduke
These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
## Ratings
Cover: ⭐⭐⭐
Initial Draw: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐
Pacing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Finish Line Feeling: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
## Review
#### Cover
The cover of These Burning Stars is nice and simple if not a little generic. It doesn't really give you any insight into the story or evoke any particular emotion.
#### Initial Draw
I love sci-fi so any new sci-fi that pops up I am willing to give a go. The main plot reads as:
Jun Ironway, hacker, con artist, and only occasional thief, has got her hands on a piece of contraband that could set her up for life: evidence that implicates the powerful Nightfoot family in a planet-wide genocide seventy-five years ago. The Nightfoots control the precious sevite that fuels interplanetary travel through three star systems. And someone is sure to pay handsomely for anything that could break their hold.
Which sounds intriguing in itself. I work in cyber security so anything in the hacker culture vein gets extra points for me when it comes to picking it off the shelf.
#### Characters
The characters overall I didn't find particularly exciting. Not great but not bad either. I'm a sucker for a strong character driven story but this delivered less in character development and more in political intrigue and cat and mouse.
Esek and Chono were the two supposed "good guys" but it was clear that Esek was being portrayed as unhinged from the start so it really didn't provide much in the way of shock factor the more she did anything and everything in her persuit of justice.
The hacker Jun, Six and associated cast were much more engaging. I'm not sure if the intention was for the reader to engage with them more from the start but that was certainly what kept me interested.
#### Pacing
Pacing was fast and flowing but the jumping around between characters and time periods did break the flow a bit. In general it could do with a more engaging overarching story as a large chunk of the book was just between the hands and six going tit for tat over finding or evading each other.
I did enjoy the pace and constant action though as without it the story could easily have lost me.
#### Finish line feeling
Overall I found this book enjoyable but I don't think it will turn out to be overly memorable. It's an amazing effort for a debut novel and I am really keen to read the remaining books in the trilogy.
My hope is that the world that Bethany has created gets fleshed out more in future series as it seems to have a lot of potential to be explored and expanded upon with other stories. Similar to something like the Scythe book series.
Cover: ⭐⭐⭐
Initial Draw: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐
Pacing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Finish Line Feeling: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
## Review
#### Cover
The cover of These Burning Stars is nice and simple if not a little generic. It doesn't really give you any insight into the story or evoke any particular emotion.
#### Initial Draw
I love sci-fi so any new sci-fi that pops up I am willing to give a go. The main plot reads as:
Jun Ironway, hacker, con artist, and only occasional thief, has got her hands on a piece of contraband that could set her up for life: evidence that implicates the powerful Nightfoot family in a planet-wide genocide seventy-five years ago. The Nightfoots control the precious sevite that fuels interplanetary travel through three star systems. And someone is sure to pay handsomely for anything that could break their hold.
Which sounds intriguing in itself. I work in cyber security so anything in the hacker culture vein gets extra points for me when it comes to picking it off the shelf.
#### Characters
The characters overall I didn't find particularly exciting. Not great but not bad either. I'm a sucker for a strong character driven story but this delivered less in character development and more in political intrigue and cat and mouse.
Esek and Chono were the two supposed "good guys" but it was clear that Esek was being portrayed as unhinged from the start so it really didn't provide much in the way of shock factor the more she did anything and everything in her persuit of justice.
The hacker Jun, Six and associated cast were much more engaging. I'm not sure if the intention was for the reader to engage with them more from the start but that was certainly what kept me interested.
#### Pacing
Pacing was fast and flowing but the jumping around between characters and time periods did break the flow a bit. In general it could do with a more engaging overarching story as a large chunk of the book was just between the hands and six going tit for tat over finding or evading each other.
I did enjoy the pace and constant action though as without it the story could easily have lost me.
#### Finish line feeling
Overall I found this book enjoyable but I don't think it will turn out to be overly memorable. It's an amazing effort for a debut novel and I am really keen to read the remaining books in the trilogy.
My hope is that the world that Bethany has created gets fleshed out more in future series as it seems to have a lot of potential to be explored and expanded upon with other stories. Similar to something like the Scythe book series.