THESE BURNING STARS

An intricate plot for revenge drives this far-future SF political thriller, a debut novel that is also the first of a trilogy.

The planets of the Treble are ruled by the Kindom, a religious order, and the wealthy First Families. Esek Nightfoot, a cruel, vicious, and sociopathically self-interested Cleric and First Family scion, cut off all career opportunities for a brilliant student called Six, challenging them to do something “extraordinary” to impress her into taking them as a novitiate. Six’s “extraordinary” act was to leave school before graduation and begin collecting evidence that exposes the Nightfoots’ complicity in a genocide. Esek has pursued Six for years, often with the uneasy assistance of Cleric Chono, a far more pious person who feels loyalty both to Six, a former schoolmate, and to Esek, who once pulled Chono out of a sexually abusive situation. Their quest eventually leads to Jun Ironway, a gifted hacker who holds a piece of the data implicating the Nightfoots and also has her own dark history with both Esek and Six. Does Esek want to kill Six, as her family’s matriarch demands, or make good on her promise to make them one of her novitiates? Or does she have something else entirely in mind? As the political situation of the Treble becomes more unstable, the chase careens toward a violent and shocking endgame. The narrative jumps around in time, fully filling in past events that are initially referenced in the present-day story. At first this seems unnecessary and confusing, but as several staggering twists emerge, it becomes clear that the choice is utterly necessary and the confusion might actually be the author’s method of obscuring a key revelation. The reader may figure out that revelation before it explodes in the text but will likely be surprised by a good part of what follows. The author also does an excellent job of applying what are typically high fantasy or historical fiction tropes (the tension between religious and secular entities, the unrest over the hereditary passage of power, and the fraught relationship between mentor and student) to high-tech science fiction (perhaps Dune was an influence?).

An exciting start from a fresh talent, offering emotional and political complexity plus plenty of interplanetary action.