Light from Uncommon Stars

Every minute I spent reading this book was a minute that I could have read trashy bad fanfics that still have more nuance, plot, character and consistent world-building than whatever this was. I don’t even know where to start.

The writing is bad. Formulaic in language, and committing POV hopping in a way to make sure that we never get to see important inner reactions or emotions of anybody to anything. Pacing is all over the place – the parts that should be emotionally load-bearing get skipped entirely, and there are things like completely new characters getting dropped on us, including their whole family history, about a third of the book in, and somehow we’re expected to care. And was this book not edited? I’m not a native speaker and there were things I’d have called out for editing.

Content-wise, it only gets worse. The world doesn’t feel real and has zero consistency. How do “alien space empires all die of depression when they realise mortality doesn’t go away and nothing is eternal” and “heaven and eternal torment in hell and bargains for your soul with demons really exist, but only here” mesh? They don’t. But sure, shove an emerging sentient AI finding personhood in there, I’m sure that’ll help.

In spirit, this book is pure wish-fulfillment. It literally ends with “oh and also the rich guy gave the self-insert protagonist a Tesla”. There is absolutely zero examination of anything it presents, and zero consequences for anything. Secondary POV character is redeemed(-in-narrative) for not sending the protagonist to hell, after doing the same for six others (zero emotional impact) and also just … killing people who annoy her? Sure, sure, why not. How are your space aliens doing handling their angry school shooter son? Oh, they just pause him, which they can do for 50 years? Grand. The big relationship gets a happy-ever-after even though it was terrible and unfulfilling throughout? Why not. Emphasize excellence as the thing that can’t be bought, but then it can be bought from hell, and the protagonist isn’t great at music, but at the same time she’s this hidden genius whose soul will just let her make the most beautiful music, especially if the secret aliens give her holoprojectors? … sure but why.

There’s a lot of needless detail about donuts, other food, and violins. As somebody who loves classical music and recognised ~half the performer names etc, I can say that this did … nothing. It felt wooden and dead and janky – which is probably the best way to describe the whole book and its characters.

Oh, and actually, the queerness: The trans character is just a trope checklist. Yeah, I know the author is trans – queer people are allowed to write queer people badly, just like everybody else – they don’t have magic writing powers. And this stuff was so bad – a lifeless trauma dump. Ew. The only redeeming feature of this book was complaining about it at book club, and getting very drunk in the process.