E.S. Raye

Warning: Here there be SPOILERS!

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a book review on my blog, and I just happened to finish The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei over the weekend, so why not!

I’ll start by saying I had not heard of Kitasei’s first novel The Deep Sky, nor had I heard of this, her second, until I went to the bookstore to buy a gift card for someone else. While there, I decided I was in the market for something new (I’ve been reading a lot of older scifi and fantasy later and wanted something published in the last 5 years or so). I looked up “best scifi novels of 2024” and The Stardust Grail was mentioned in several different lists.

Then I found it on the shelf and was immediately sold by the cover and the quote on the cover:

“An Indiana Jones-style outer space heist adventure.” – Veronica Roth.

With that said, I’ll start with what I liked.

What I Liked

World Building

The world-building of The Stardust Grail is fantastic. This is a universe where no one has faster than light travel, but thanks to wormhole-like “nodes” in inhabited systems, all space-faring species can and do explore the greater galaxy.

Furthermore, the extraterrestrial species Kitasei creates are excellent. They, especially the Frenro, are alien in shape, mind, and motivation, much more so than is common in popular science fiction like Star Trek.

Furthermore, Kitasei’s Frenro carry an infection that is not only dangerous to other species, but has also made them galactic pariahs and brought them to the brink of extinction at the hands of other races. But the infection is more interesting than a simple disease. Those infected by it, especially humans like the protagonist herself, are subject to terrible migraines, during which they get glimpses of both the past and possible futures.

Characters

Kitasei’s characters are great. The protagonist Maya, a former artifact thief trying to get back into an academic life, is clearly caught between a dream of a normal life, the long-lost artifact she never found (her personal grail, which also happens to be the grail from the title), and the pressures put on her by the risk of the human race being cut off from the galactic community. But even more than that, she is something of a modern-day Indiana Jones, only her goal is to return artifacts stolen from their rightful cultures. She is a well thought and fleshed out character and I found myself not only caring for her, but rooting for her.

The side characters, including Maya’s extraterrestrial and starfish/squid-like best friend Auncle, Wil, the soldier-turned mercenary, her partner Medix, the robot obsessed with modifying himself to feel more emotions, and Liam, Maya’s friend and academic mentor, are all fully three-dimensional characters with their own motivations and actions that impact the plot.

Plot

Here’s where we’re going to get a little spoiler-y, so be forewarned.

The plot centers around finding what the characters refer to as “the grail.” It is a long-lost device created by Auncle’s people (the Frenro), and the source of the book’s major conflict:

The Frenro have been unable to procreate for over two centuries, because the grail is a critical part of the process and they have all been lost or destroyed.

However, the grail is also somehow responsible for creating this universe’s means of interstellar travel: nodes in inhabited systems that act as wormholes, daisy-chaining the populated areas of the galaxy together. And somehow the nodes in human space have begun to collapse, potentially isolating Earth and the colonies from the galaxy, and even one another.

Both peoples are hunting for the grail with Maya caught in the middle. Although she pretty quickly sides with her best friend who has ached for children for centuries.

It’s a great setup, filled with interesting characters, the majority of whom are either female, non-binary, or robotic. That alone was a breath of fresh air in a genre dominated by male writers and characters.

What I Didn’t Like

Space Battle Shenanigans

Near the end of the second act, around the 65% mark of the story, the characters settle in to defend a planet of Frenro refugees from the battle fleet of another species bend on their destruction.

This whole scene felt really out of place to me. There are no other space battles in the book and it changed the tone from close and personal, to broad and impersonal. What’s more, I felt myself coming out of the suspension of belief when it came to the tactics the characters employ. For example, at one point they deploy a giant net, which they snag one end of on an enemy ship and then stretch it out, catching three other enemy battleships in it. This destroys one and leaves the two more too damaged to continue the fight.

I’m forced to ask (because it isn’t made clear) how big is this net, what impenetrable material is it made from, how far apart do these battleship fly? It took me out of the story in a very real way. Luckily, it’s a relatively short sequence.

Third Act/Finale

Lastly, I wasn’t too fond of the ending. Ultimately, the characters end up on a planet of a long-dead civilization, hunting through an unimaginably large “Encyclopedium” for what may be the final grail in all of existence.

While this Encyclopedium is name-dropped a few times throughout the story, I didn’t feel what they found there was foreshadowed very well. It’s possible I missed it (I read this book mostly at night before bed, and I was pretty sleepy a few times before putting it down), but it didn’t feel particularly supported by what came before.

But my biggest complaint is the deus ex machina that care right at the end.

BIG BIG SPOILERS HERE, so proceed at your own risk.

It turns out the grail creates nodes and allows the Frenro to procreate via the exact same mechanism; the nodes are literally Frenro who have moved on to their final state of development–a change facilitated by the grail. There is no way for humans to use the grail to create their own nodes, nor can they reverse engineer it to do so; it requires a living Frenro.

So, while this solves the problem of the Frenro extinction, it still leaves humanity in danger of being cut off from the galaxy (especially once we learn it was the Frenro making the nodes collapse as a sort of preempted strike against humanity).

Mere pages after this is discovered, a character in the Encylopedium simply gives Maya a big crystal which they quickly discover is an alternate means of interstellar travel this dead civilization once used.

Boom, everyone’s conflicts solved with the wave of a hand. I found it jarring.

Conclusion & Rating

Overall, I did really enjoy this story and the characters, even if the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. In fact, I liked it so much I’ll likely read her first book, The Deep Sky, sooner rather than later.

But, thanks to that ending, I have to give it 3.5 out of 5 wormholes.