An Accident of Stars

Saffron Coulter is a typical teenage girl dealing with the things teenage girls, well, deal with. Except she's stuck in a school system where the "boys will be boys" mentality means her and her classmates have to put up with some really rough behavior. Which is why Saffron is taken aback when the mysterious Gwen Vere stands up for her to one of the biggest bullies in the school. Gwen tells her she's looking for a job at the school. Saffron is intrigued and wonders if someone like Gwen could give her hope for change.

When Saffron learns Gwen has been spotted behind the school, she rushes to find her and thank her. What she finds is something she never could have imagined. She comes upon Gwen running into what looks like a portal of some show more kind. Throwing caution to the wind, Saffron follows--something that could lead to great adventure or be the biggest mistake of her life.

Saffron finds herself in Kena, one of several other worlds besides her own. And while Kena is full of magic, it's not a happy fantasy realm. Its leader, Vex Leodon, misled people to come to power and is nothing short of a tyrant. But it just so happens that Gwen is part of a group dedicated to bringing him down. Having followed Gwen into Kena, Saffron has little choice but to take a side and hope she can find a way back home. But when the opportunity to get back presents itself, will she take it? Or will Kena prove so inviting she will choose to stay there forever?

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I know that describing a book as "fun" isn't very specific, but that's really how I have to start this one. I enjoyed being thrust into the world of Kena with its people and its history. Foz Meadows has done an outstanding job building and presenting this world to readers. The rich backstory and the political dynamics make for a strong setting and compelling plot.

Of course, I have to also acknowledge a well-written young adult science fiction/fantasy story that doesn't revolve around the female protagonist's love interests or include a love triangle. Have we finally moved on from that trope? Let's hope so.

What I would say I most love about this story is the strong character development. As I went through the story, there weren't many moments when I found myself questioning a character's behavior. And those moments were shortly answered with a bit more history of a character or relationship dynamics.

I definitely recommend giving this one a read. show less

I so enjoyed AN ACCIDENT OF STARS for various reasons. The plot seemed to nod at many other fantasy novels - worldwalking, portals, something in the hedge right outside of the school, technology that makes learning languages easy, kings with secrets, queens from other lands also with secrets - while feeling like something new. The main character's attitudes and feelings were refreshing, including the ways she reacted to the many new experiences and traumas with which she was almost immediately confronted. Sometimes she was more adventurous than I expected, but then the author made it clear that her natural adventurousness and courage were squelched at a school that allowed those with more societal power to run roughshod over those with show more less. The final moments felt shocking and a bit rushed, which means waiting for the second book is going to be a bit agonizing. I liked the ways that various characters had a wide variety of different skin colors, traditions, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations and relationships. I look forward to reading book two though I'm still pretty broken up about something that happened at the end of this book. show less

An Accident of Stars is a queer feminist portal fantasy told from the point of views of four female characters. Saffron is a high school student in Australia who follows a strange woman through a portal and enters another world, Kena. While born on earth, Gwen has been traveling to Kena for over thirty years and considers it home. She even became involved in local politics and made an unwise choice in supporting a man called Leoden in his bid for the throne. Now Gwen and her allies are hunted by him, including Zech, the adopted granddaughter of an exiled matriarch, and Viya, Leoden’s runaway consort.

An Accident of Stars hits a lot of high points for me. For one, it has a greater focus on the relationships between female characters show more than almost any fantasy novel I’ve seen. I particularly loved the mentor/student relationship between Gwen and Saffron. While the official blurb frames Saffron as the protagonist, I think that’s belittling the role played by the other POV characters. Saffron serves as a clear reader insert but all four women have their own story lines and no one receives the clear majority of page time.

I also enjoyed the world building of An Accident of Stars. It has that vivid quality that makes the world practically leap off the page. While it’s not as strange or otherworldly as some fantasies I’ve read, Meadows did put thought into making Kena unique and different from the rest of the SFF section of the bookstore. For instance, the primary social ties in Kena are based around polyamorous marriages, which plays a role in the political intrigue. All in all, An Accident of Stars feels fresh and original.

There’s also a huge amount of diversity to the book’s cast. Gwen is the first explicitly, the-word-is-used, aromantic protagonist I’ve encountered. Saffron also explicitly identifies herself as bisexual, which seems to be considered the norm for Kena. Beyond orientation, Gwen’s a middle aged black woman who is amazingly badass and gets to carry large parts of the story and Kena itself consists mainly of brown skinned people.

Unlike a lot of the big name recent fantasy series, An Accident of Stars is not grimdark. That doesn’t mean that there’s not pain and suffering – Saffron encounters some pretty quickly upon her arrival to Kena, and the battle scenes are harrowing sequences that scar the protagonists both physically and mentally. However, for all that An Accident of Stars never has the unrelenting darkness of grimdark fantasy. Our protagonists are not anti-heroines but heroines. They may be flawed, but at heart they are good people who I grew to like and care about.

This isn’t to say that An Accident of Stars is without its flaws. While functional, the plotting was never compelling and the story lacked a sense of urgency. Leodan was not an interesting villain. We’re told of some of the horrible things he’s done, but for the most part he just feels bland. On the other hand, his consort Kadeja establishes herself as a dangerous character from her very first scene. Still, the ending of the book gives me hope that the plotting could amp up in future installments. The only other grievance I have to point out is that Saffron sometimes felt like a vehicle for worldbuilding info dumps.

The ending of An Accident of Stars left me much more emotional than I would have suspected upon the beginning, thanks to a surprise plot twist that I honestly did not see coming and that leaves me yearning for the second book. An Accident of Stars is one of the most promising starts to any series right now, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

I received an ARC of An Accident of Stars from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. show less

I loved this book! Saffron, Gwen, and Zech are amazing characters. The worldbuilding is fleshed out and really interesting. There's an expansive cast of supporting characters with complex motivations. The Shavaktiin are a fascinating concept.

This book was really excellent. It has a good solid story (it's a portal fantasy), but its strengths are the characters and character development. For one, I can't remember ever having read a book with so many non-traditional characters. To start with, there are a tremendous number of women. Women of all sorts and sizes, many with competence, bravery, and character. And not to forget, positions of power. Then there are people of varied shades. Then, even more noteworthy, characters who are lesbian, aromantic, and transgender.
A second positive point is the treatment of emotion. Yes, we have a classical portal fantasy with a story that may be solid, but doesn't stand out that much. For once though, there is room for crying, for trauma, show more and for bewilderment. It isn't ignored; the characters feel lost some times, even the ones originating from the world the story takes place on. It feels realistic, and, well, mature.

I am very curious about the next instalment. show less

An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows is the first book of the Manifold Worlds series and, as the series title kind of suggests, is a portal fantasy novel. It, loosely speaking, follows the story of a teenaged Australian girl when she follows someone through a portal and into a world of magic.

The most interesting thing about An Accident of Stars was the way in which the story is told both from the perspective of the teenaged Saffron going through a portal for the first time (and, of course, not finding what books like Narnia and Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz promised) and from the perspective of Gwen, a woman in her fifties who is now a veteran of "worldwalking" and people who travel between worlds are known in the book. On the show more one hand, Saffron has an almost standard reaction to being in a fantasy world, although her thoughts are more culturally sensitive than some of the older works would have been. On the other hand, Gwen understands what Saffron is going through but from a standing of "been there, done that" as well as a standing of much greater maturity and world experience, tells the story from a different view. If Saffron is the main character, Gwen is watching the story and putting things into context that Saffron can't (immediately).

That said, Gwen is certainly still one of the protagonists, watching the story while being a part of it. Which is ironic given the religious sect based around doing just that. And is kind of meta when you start to think about things which are spoilers.

The third protagonist is Zech, a girl more or less both Kenan and Vekshi (details being spoilers) who gets involved first with Saffron when the Earth girl is lost and alone in a strange world, and then in larger world events. Zech was cool and I liked that despite her being 14 and two years younger than Saffron, the two were able to be friends without age mattering too much (except for spoilers).

This was a very enjoyable read. I'm not sure I'd call it fun because a lot of bad things happen to Saffron. Bad things which are pretty par for the course in fantasy books, but which become extreme trauma when put into the context of happening to an average contemporary Earthling teenager. I liked the way the book highlighted how horrible some fantasy tropes are when not normalised by all the characters they're happening to. Like how traumatic a short battle can be, for example. Overall, I didn't have any complaints except maybe that sometimes Saffron's inner thoughts were more socially aware than I would have expected, but not implausibly so.

The book ended a little abruptly and with very little having been resolved. I am very keen to read the next book and I'm hoping I won't have to wait too long. The publisher's website indicates that it's coming in May, so not too long away. I highly recommend An Accident of Stars to fans of portal fantasy and to any readers looking for a feminist fantasy read.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog. show less

Portal fantasy for adults! I have no idea how to review this book. There were things I didn’t love about it, but not anything that would make me not recommend it. It was a fun read, there are great characters, the worldbuilding was solid and I’m looking forward to the sequels.

So, while it’s not my favorite book that I read this year, I liked it a lot and I’ll certainly reread it someday.