The Stars Undying

My interest in Cleopatra is generally peripheral to my interest in all things Ancient Egyptian - an interest that waned when I learned about more ancient queens like Hatshepsut. Still, Cleopatra (the VII, as there were other Cleopatras before her) is probably the most famous ancient Egyptian queen, especially when you???re talking about mainstream pop culture. 

Which means, of course, I had to check this book out, not least because it promised to be retelling of the story of Cleopatra, Caesar, and Antony but set against a space opera backdrop. And it certainly delivered on that part - but not quite in the way I hoped.

See, I think this novel hews just a little TOO close to history for my liking. It TRIES to get away with it, but when your space Caesar is named ???Ceirran??? and your space Antony is named ???Anita??? or ???Ana??? (depends) and your space Cleopatra has the epithet ???Patramata??? and your space Octavian is Ot??vio, well– You see what I mean? And it???s not just the names: it???s the worldbuilding too. Szayet does not sound like Egypt, but it sure is described as a kind of inverse Egypt where there is too much water instead of too little. Ceiao does not sound like Rome, but it certainly is described that way, with all the names switched out for Spanish- and Portuguese-esque sounding names and terms. Madinabia sounds adjacent to Britannia, and the description of the people there certainly aligns with the Britons the Romans encountered when Caesar (Ceirran?) went a-conquering. And all this before pointing out that, as a retelling, the beats of the plot very, VERY closely align with actual history.

What this means is that it was easy to get pulled out of immersion while I was reading this novel, because there would be moments where I would recognize this character or that location and align it with the historical equivalent. I couldn???t really sink into this world the author was weaving (and it really is quite a fantastic world!) because I???d read about a character and suddenly think ???Oh hey, this is Cicero??? and I???d be pulled out of the story yet again. The recognition???s supposed to be part of the fun of reading these sorts of stories, but it???s fun only insofar as it lets me stay IN the world of the story and not constantly pulling me out of it. Makes me wonder if this wouldn???t have been better as a straight-up historical novel, but then maybe it wouldn???t have stood out from the herd of other historical novels set in the same time period and around the same characters? 

That being said, this story???s got its good qualities too. The prose is really very lovely, and really is what kept me reading to the end. There???s also a lot of clever worldbuilding going on in there too, despite it hewing too closely to actual history as I said earlier, and I rather wish the author had done something else with the ideas and not used them in this retelling. The themes are also intriguing: questions of power and empire are of course very prominent, but there are also questions around immortality and godhood that got brought up. All those themes were touched upon, but further exploration will have to come in the second book.

So overall, this wasn???t an entirely bad read! I just think that it could???ve been better if it hadn???t stuck as close as it did to the source material, as it were. May get the second book when it comes out, just to see if this???ll end the way I think it will based on how the actual history went.