Empress of a Thousand Skies

This was a wild ride, to say the least. Belleza has crafted a stunning debut that just doesn't quit. I'm not typically one for space operas, but when books this good are being written, it's hard to say no.

Rhiannon is nearly sixteen and, following the tragic death of her parents and older sister ten years prior, preparing to claim the royal title she's never wanted. With vengeance in her heart, Rhee's goal has never been to rule but to find answers regarding the murder of her family and destroy those responsible. But a shocking attempt on Rhee's life just before her coronation sends her world into a deep spiral. Forced into hiding, Rhee struggles to determine who is trustworthy as she begins to uncover the heinous conspiracy at work in show more her universe.

"Survival, it turned out, wasn't the same as living."

Ever since Alyosha joined the UniForce and gained fame on a popular show, his life has been comfortably predictable. Which, for a refugee from a war torn nation with a childhood thick with loss, is nothing to scoff at. But, unfortunately, his prominent status and prejudices against his identity make him an easy mark for a dirty government in need of a scapegoat. Aly finds himself blamed for the assassination of the beloved Princess Rhiannon and on the run to the far reaches of the galaxy. His quest to clear his name will bring him close to an unexpected ally and into the dark depths of the conspiracy threatening to plunge the planets into war and mayhem.

I'm downright obsessed with Belleza's memory cube-using world and her well done interweaving of relevant social commentary. Aly's characterization in regards to this is particularly spot-on, as he struggles with his assumed responsibility for representing an entire planet's population and questions why comparisons are always being made between his dark skin tone and food, to name a few significant examples. Why is this book not longer? My only real complaint, which actually has nothing to do with the book itself, is the altogether befuddling nature of the plot synopsis. The description listed on the book jacket is very misleading and resulted in my expectations about the character interactions in Empress of a Thousand Skies being VERY off. Why would a publisher do this?! show less

Ahahaha, this book.

Dear lord this book.

The cover was pretty, there was some hype, the idea was beautiful.

Let's address problem no.1: "For fans of Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles."

Fans of TLC: This book is not for you. Oh yes, I know it specifically says "For fans of Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles" but the thing with TLC is that it is beautiful. Inspiring. Amazing. *sighs and fangirls* Guys this was like a piece of terrible TLC fanfiction. No it was much worse than that. I can't even begin to explain how bad it was. Who in the name of publishing allowed this lie to be printed all over the book?

Problem no.2: The characters.

Oh the characters. I had no emotional connection to them whatsoever. It was like someone took names and moved them show more around. The characters were so shallow, so unemotional, so uninspiring. And what really sucked, is there was SO MUCH the author could have done with them! I can't even remember the names (that's how bad this was) but the weird guy from that natural planet thing? He could have been so cool. You could have really made him this mysterious, really cool kind of character. But what does the author do?

Hmm... what does the author do?

It brings us to...

Problem no.3: Disappearing Characters

That nature dude I was talking about (god I feel bad about not remembering his name)? I don't even know where he went. Like did he die? Was he killed? I know at one point some guard dude caught him but after that, we literally don't see him for the rest of the book. He's not even mentioned again, save for a few times Rhee thinks about what she didn't trust him (she totally has this weird love thing going on, I swear. It drove me insane!)

The Vincent dude who like totally died randomly? He was probably the only character that I liked and would have wanted to see more of. But then he just disappeared. When they introduced Lydia?

She probably had like 10 pages of where she tried to explain the past 30 years of her life and answer all of these "questions" we had throughout the book and then just decided to die Wow. *slow clap*

Problem no.4: The "plot twists"

Ooh see those quotation marks?

"Plot twists"

Le moi during "plot twist"


Overall, I could go on and on and on about how much I disliked this book, but I'm telling myself not to be rude. *fails*

I didn't even get started on world building...

I don't even want to go there.

This book had so much potential. SO MUCH! And it was just wasted. Absolutely wasted. show less

This review is spoiler-free.

Let me say that I loved this book! First of all, I usually dislike anything to do with sci-fi (except for Star Trek: TOS), but this novel caught my attention on the shelves and I had to take it home! Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. I now call it my go-to sci-fi series.

The main characters, Princess Rhiannon and Alyosha, are quite lovable and deeply flawed, which helps greatly in making you want to see what they can do next. There is a lot of action and twists and turns. No kidding: I was panting while reading the last 50 pages! It was so engrossing. Also, I loved the cube technology (it allows living beings to re-live their memories, sensations, and feelings!) and the different alien races. show more Although there are aliens, the focus is not on their differences, which I particularly liked. It reminded me of Star Trek with how they all know the other races and live with them like it's no big deal. Of course, there is tension because of different point of views, but overall it was a nice change. A funny fact: the story is happening in another galaxy than ours! I think it's a good idea, having them live out their lives out in the open (instead of aliens hiding in our galaxy), all civilized and advanced in technology.

The only negative point I could find was how the author, Rhoda Belleza, uses euphemisms and wording that sometimes reminds me of middle grade fiction. I think her job as a children's book editor showed in this novel... However, it's not always like that and it's worth reading for all the fun and adventure it can give you!

Because of all the action that left me panting and how lovable the characters are and the writing that is sometimes a bit too young for the intended readership, I give this awesome novel a rating of 4 stars out of 5. And that's coming from a woman who dislikes sci-fi in general, remember? So that's saying a lot, in my opinion.

P.S.: I just can't wait for the sequel! I want it now. show less

For every book there is a reader, and I hoped to be a match with this one. I picked it up because the synopsis of the second book in the series looked interesting, but also very much like a second book in a series. As it turns out, I tried really hard to like Empress of a Thousand Skies, but I just couldn't make it work. Maybe I'm not just in the right mood for it, or maybe I'm getting too old for this kind of book.

There were two things that really bothered me about the story and one thing that was annoying but not the book's fault: the world-building and the characters are the biggies, and the misleading cover synopsis is the minor. Unfortunately, world-building and characters are two thirds of a book, and the plot wasn't enough to show more carry the story for me. But I feel safe in saying what I didn't like are things other people will like.

World-building: this is a fantasy revenge quest dressed up in science fiction clothes. I found much of the sf to be highly implausible and lost a lot of enjoyment in reading because I kept losing my suspension of disbelief at some of the supposed science. Worse, a lot of the concepts could have been fascinating from a hard science perspective but were handwaved magic. It actually reminds me a lot of Star Wars now that I think of it, from the revenge/escape plot to the minimal scientific dressing of the magic. There are a lot of alien people, and I do think that was a positive element. The people are mostly humanoid, but they aren't all human. The different planets and moons, despite being one of the more implausible things, have a lot of diversity, too. But I couldn't figure out if this story takes place in a single solar system or across a galaxy, and why places were called "quadrants" when apparently the quadrants are static to the planets instead of the orbits rotating through?? Time, too, seems to not have any differences, even though it can't possibly be 9am everywhere.

Basically, I really like my science fiction to aim for some scientific realism and consistency with known physics, or at least not constantly throw the rule-breaking at me (keep it confined to one planet or ship or something).

Characters: the main characters are all teenagers and it shows. They're impulsive and melodramatic, and while Alyosha seems to have some self-preservation instincts, Rhiannon never seems to think about her actions. She also has been raised to be a ruler but doesn't seem to have actually taken any of it to heart. There's a lot of emphasis on how much happened in their young childhoods, but very little about Rhee's recent life to explain her characterization, so it feels like she's stuck at 6 years old sometimes. I can see this as a fascinating side effect of the cube's memory recording and thus always having memories vividly at hand, but the author doesn't really explore that.

The plot is drawn out and doesn't match the synopsis on the cover at all. Supposedly, Rhee and Aly are both on the run together from people who are trying to kill them, but they never actually meet in the book. There are a lot of standard plot tropes that get waved around as possible foreshadowing and twists, but they're so late and weak that it feels like the entire book is just a prologue. It dragged, and the misleading synopsis made it worse. It makes me dread looking into the sequel, which is the thing that made me interested in the series in the first place.

I really wish the plot had been trimmed up and character motivations were more firmly established. I wish that the two main characters didn't spend the entire book never quite meeting, and that Rhee at least wasn't so dumb. I also wish that if we had to go with the sci-fi setting and concepts, it were confined to a single planet or spaceship or something, to help with the implausibility problem. show less

"Survival, it turned out, wasn't the same as living."

Wow, what an adventure. This book starts off quickly, with Rhee (Rhiannon) and Aly. They are living very differently - Rhee is the soon-to-be princess and Aly is good with ships and building things and helping his friend Vin on an internet show.

It's literally a sprint through pages as Rhee's life is threatened and she is forced to defend herself. Rhee is suddenly fighting to the death and Aly, in a different area, is watching in disbelief as his friend, Vin, chances after a craft in a dangerous and life-threatening way.

The two stories don't really intersect (just barely) but are happening at the same time. You see each sides of some situations, as each is left reeling with their show more current situation and off to the next sprint to try to stay alive. It was difficult to gather details about the worlds, as they are casually thrown at you as the character runs for their life, but it was easy to follow the story line.

And the fast pace keeps you driven! You want to read it quickly - you want to know what will happen next. And even though I felt a few things were easy to figure out pretty early on, I did love the reveal as each character was brought up to speed on what the reader already knew

This is definitely a second book I will read. However I'm out if there ends up being a love triangle. Kara can have Aly. Julian should still love Rhee and not switch! show less

I remember something stopped me from reading this when it first came out and I’m pretty sure it was a negative review but I can’t remember from who…but I’m kind of glad I found this in a yard sale so I had incentive to read it. And I’m glad I ended up liking it.

Crown Princess Rhiannon Ta’an is the heir and sole survivor to an empire currently run by advisors as they wait for her to turn of age and take over. Rhee has been training with her best friend’s father Nau Fruman in self defense and has been versed in intergalactic politics and history. She plans on using all this knowledge and mostly the combat skills to kill the man she holds responsible for the death of her entire family. But all goes wrong the day she is show more shipped off to return to her planetary home Kalu.

On the other side of the galaxy, Alyosha is a reality TV star on a show called Revolutionary Boys shown on DroneVision. Aly gained fame by being one of the pretty boy soldiers that the UniForce follows with a camera to to basically build support for the army. Because he and his friend Vincent have become the poster boys for the UniForce they are given easy jobs as space traffic cops which leads them into trouble when Vin blatantly disregards an order and Aly has to go along with it.

Rhee is forced to flee and go into hiding from an assassination attempt and Aly has to into hiding because he’s being framed for Rhee’s assassination. This is as close as Aly and Rhee come to crossing paths except for one other time when they actually lock eyes and go on with their adventures. So no they aren’t thrown together but they are both thrown into a quest to find the truth.

Why did I like it so much? I’m pretty sure it was the setting. The world was built around intergalactic political turmoil. Rhee is just about to claim the throne and become empress and there’s been unrest among the people because of Wraetan refugees and others. The current political head had been gaining sympathy by painting these people as the scapegoat for all their problems. Or at least that’s how Rhee saw it and she’s convinced that her father’s murder had to do with the peace treaty that many of those political advisors had been against. Part of me really wanted to know how this part of the story was going to be solved and it kept me reading. It’s kind of like how vague and broad Star Wars A New Hope is when you’re watching it for the first time. You know it’s set in space and the guy you’re watching is the chosen one but you want to know why the big bad dude just blew up a planet.

As for the characters I really liked Aly as one of the POVs. He was a bit of nerd and very cool. There was much he had to overcome as a former citizen of Wraeta, the planet that was destroyed in war, and it made him a compelling character. Rhee was okay, it’s obvious she’s only fifteen because of the many reckless mistakes she makes. What’s funny to me is how refreshing it was that she actually acted her age. I don’t care how much training and education you receive because your brain’s maturity can and will default back to your physical age at any given moment. Eventually she grew but I’m hoping it’ll get better in the next book. The secondary characters like Vin, the little droid named Pavel, and Kara were really great too. And it’s interesting that I only liked the ones found in Aly’s chapters...because I thought Dahlen was annoying.

I’ve never read the Red Rising series though I’ve been tempted to put it high on my list for a while now so I don’t know where I would connect this book to those comparisons. I’d compare it to Firefly in the sense that because you get both Rhee and Aly’s different perspectives it gives different angles to the flaws in the current society while traveling on a spaceship (even though they’re not on the same one). I don’t want to drag this review too long and give out even more spoilery examples. But even then it’s kind of like the Illuminae Files in that sense…even though I’ve never read that book I just heard of what it’s about. And finally, it merits the Lunar Chronicles comparisons because of the “lost princess” angle hinted at towards the beginning, political pressures, increasing tensions that could possibly lead to war, space adventures, and an android almost as lovable as Iko. I would probably still recommend this book. show less

While this was a fast read, I was disappointed overall with the story. As many other reviewers have noted the blurb is misleading.

The story alternates between Rhiannon and Aly's point of view: a princess and a reality tv star. The premise was good and there was a lot of action but for some reason the story missed its mark for me. The only likeable character for me was Aly. And I had a problem with the story moving back and forth in time (a LOT of flashbacks).

So overall I was disappointed in this book. Will I read the sequel (if there is one)? ... Maybe but it won't be first on my TBR list.