The Stars Are Legion

I feel like I should've liked this more as it had Zelazny meets XistenZ vibes, but throughout the book most of the goings on are gross or repetitive and I found one of the main characters boring and unlikable.

Half of the middle section is a fun bit of adventure with characters I liked though, so not all bad.

Pros: very unique world, interesting characters, intrigue

Cons: body horror

Years ago Zan and Jayd came up with a plot to save the worlds from their inevitable slow decline. When Zan wakes up from her most recent attempt to retake their neighbouring world, Mokshi, she has no memory of who she is. Again. Jayd's manipulations are getting them closer to achieving their goal, but her betrayals are catching up to her and others aren't playing their roles the way she expected.

This is a very unique novel. I have never read of a world, or rather a series of worlds, so... bizarre. They're things of flesh, orbiting a sun and populated solely by women who birth the components the world (ships?) require. While each world is unique, the lords of some of the worlds discovered that they could prolong the lives of their worlds by sharing flesh, though this causes other problems. I was a little concerned going into the book as I heard it was body horror. While there's some disturbing imagery around birth, cannibalism, flesh, etc., it wasn't as bad as I feared.

The narrative is told from the viewpoints of Jayd, who knows what's going on but isn't very forthcoming, and Zan who's trying to navigate situations she no longer understands. It's clear that she can't necessarily trust Jayd, though it's also clear that she loved Jayd deeply at one point.

The plot is fairly straightforward, despite it's being drawn out. The book itself is a quick read as you're anxious to find out who Zan really is, what Jayd's plan is, and why the Mokshi is so important.

If you're looking for a good book outside the ordinary and you have a strong stomach, give this a try.

Hurley???s take on grimdark, as has been showcased in her other works besides this novel, has more to do with the violence and bloodiness of being a woman. On one hand, a woman can be a destroyer, as the excerpt and many other scenes throughout the story show, but she can also be a creator ??? but that process of creation means to be wracked with the pains of childbirth, and covered in its blood and muck. In other stories, pregnancy and birth are portrayed as miraculous, even magical (consider the virgin birth narrative in mythology and Christianity), but that is not the case in [this novel]...

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-AO

Some very interesting concepts here. In a world of only women, people live on living ship-planets. Women birth randomly as the worldship requires, and they only give birth to one particular thing, as the worldship requires. The worlds are ruled by warlord women, and there are many layers to each world–so many that the bottom-most layers have no clue the top layers even exist. Each layer is its own world. The very heart of the world is where people go when they are recycled–when they are no longer needed or have offended those in power.

Our here, Zan, has been recycled before, and she awakens with no memories of who she is or what she's doing. She thinks she's part of he Katarzyrna world, but part of her knows this is not true. And everyone in the Legion wants a piece of the worldship she keeps trying to infiltrate for her bosslady. The Mokshi is a ship that has escaped the tethers of the Legion, and everyone thinks that this ship holds the key to saving the other worldships, all of which are decaying at varyingly rapid rates.

And then fights and politicking and lady bromances happen until Zan realizes who she really is.

There are some really interesting ideas here, like living ships, which really reminded me of Farscape. There are some interesting characters, though I wanted to see more of them. I'm possibly a horrible person because the character I wanted to read the most about was Rasida, even though she's terrible. She's also one of the most interesting characters.

The world is a little mindboggling, though, because it is just so very weird, and there is no explanation for why this is so. Rather than reading this as hard sci-fi, it should be read probably more as fantasy sci-fi.

Some of the the world-building is weaker than I expected, and so are some of the characters and their relationships. But this was enjoyable, I wasn't bored, and I was intrigued by an all-female world. But there is nothing BUT the women. There are no other options, so for non-binary character awesomeness, The Left Hand of Darkness is superior. Still, this was a nice introduction to Ms Hurley's fiction, and I'd give her another go.

I really enjoyed this. Didn't miss the men one bit! Some great lines in there and a powerful hopefulness that worlds can live together in peace. Disturbing imagery and yet another story of womens bodies being used to confronting ends... yet this one very original in that.

Merged review:

I really enjoyed this. Didn't miss the men one bit! Some great lines in there and a powerful hopefulness that worlds can live together in peace. Disturbing imagery and yet another story of womens bodies being used to confronting ends... yet this one very original in that.

My first 5 star book of 2017!!!!!
Man, I did not want this to end. It could have been double it's size and I would not have cared. I've never read anything like it before and it was mesmorizing. I've been trying to read more and more science fiction lately, and now I'm screwed because this set the bar so high nothing is going to compare. The fact that it was all lady action was just icing on the cake.
The story kind of blew my mind, but this is one of those books that makes perfect sense when you are reading it but as soon as you describe it to someone else it sounds insane.

I know this is a standalone, but I would totally dig it if this became a series. I want more Zan, but more Das Muni too.