Booklog 53/2025: Kameron Hurley: The Stars are Legion – Audiobook

[jacey]

Audiobook narrated by Nicole Pool and Teri Schnaubelt

Organic worldships, peopled by women, are part of the Legion, but ships/worlds are slowly dying.

Zan awakes on Katazyrna with no memory after trying to enter a world-ship called the Mokshi - again. She has survived the raid, barely, but hasn't succeeded in gaining either entry or knowledge. Her sister, Jayd is the daughter of Anat, leader of the Katazyrna, a clan that lives by raiding other worlds. They have their sights set on the Mokshi, but so does the Bhavaja clan, their sworn enemies. Zan and Jayd have a plan, unfortunately Zan can't remember it, but Jayd forges ahead - sent to the Bhavajas by her unfeeling mother to marry Rasida, the murderous Bhavaja leader. This is to seal a truce, but the Bhavaja's break the truce immediately. Katazyrna is compromised and Zan is recycled to the dark and dangerous lower levels, findng new companions and reclaiming threads of memory (most of them not very useful).

I'm sorry if this description sounds garbled. The story is complex. People are either not who they thought they were or are unreliable narrators. The world concept is strange. There's a lot of slime and gore, a high body-count, grand-scale lies and betrayal. The worldbuilding is, in part, brilliant, but let down by lack of clarity. Sure, you can just go with it, but the worldships are never explained, we have no idea of their size or shape, or how they work. Yes everyone is a lesbian - hard not to be in a world of women, and what does it matter anyway? Women get pregnant spontaneously, and give birth to things that the worldships require, not necessarily to children - in fact children are very rare and seem to be prized, however adults are largely canon-fodder, their lives discarded willy-nilly.

Yes, I know this book won a Hugo, but there were times when I almost gave up on it, however, credit where it's due, the narrators did an excellent job and I gritted my teeth an made it to the end - just.

Comments

[gorgeousgary]

I had pretty close to the same reaction. I think I bought a copy before the Hugo nomination (and win) and donated it to the local friends of the library or a charity auction at a con not long after reading it.

My biggest complaint is that I was sold a space opera (based on the reviews I'd read) but large parts of the novel read more like a second-world fantasy.

[jacey]

Glad it wasn't just me.