The Cruel Stars

A group known as the Sturm once terrorized the Galaxy, intent on destroying any human who is genetically modified or had cybernetic enhancements. This is the backdrop for The Cruel Stars by John Birmingham. The Sturm believed the Galaxy belongs only to pure humans. They fought a bloody war and nearly won before they were defeated and driven into deep space.

After Centuries with no sign of the Sturm returning, humanity grew complacent. One day a devastating attack takes out nearly all of humanity’s defenses. Now it is up to five heroes to rally humanity and once again defeat the Sturm. Lucinda Hardy unexpectedly winds up in command of what might be the Royal Armadalian Navy's only surviving warship. Booker is about to be executed when show more the storm attack inadvertently frees him. Princess Alessia, a young Royal of an important Corporation, finds herself in charge when her entire family is murdered. Sephina L’trel is the leader of a group of outlaws in the middle of a heist when the Sturm attack throws everything into chaos. Admiral Fraser McLennan, the man responsible for driving the Sturm out of the Galaxy hundreds of years ago is still around and maybe the best hope to defeat them once again.

The first part of the book is an introduction to these five characters and their reaction to the chaos caused by the Sturm attack. Once the introductions are over the story takes off at a frenetic pace that doesn't let up until the very end. John Birmingham knows how to keep the action going. By turns laugh out loud funny and hold onto your seat action. Birmingham knows how to keep the pedal to the metal and this story hums along. The action is often bloody, violent and fast. Character development is not sacrificed, as some of the heroes are conflicted and actually reflective of what’s going on. Even the Sturm believe that their cause is just and for the benefit of humanity. Cantankerous Admiral McLennan is one of my favorite characters ever and had me laughing nearly every time he showed up. The heroes have a long way to go, but this is a series I’m definitely sticking around for.

Morgan Hallet performs my favorite job of narration of the year. Her character voices are distinctive and convey enormous personality and emotion. Admiral McLennan is written as an outrageous and hilarious character and Hallet’s voicing for him takes it to another level. There are a lot of intersecting plot-lines and fast-paced action. Hallet makes them all easily distinguishable and matches the pace of the story throughout. Great story meeting the perfect voice makes the audio version the perfect way to experience this book.

One of my favorite books of the year and definitely my favorite listen. Highly recommended.

I was provided a copy of this audiobook by the publisher. show less

In previous works, Birmingham has delivered cracking sf battle scenes and some truly ugly stereotypes about non-Westerners. This book, set in a far future that’s supposed to have completely different cultures after the diaspora from Earth, provides mostly the former. Based on his past work, I side-eyed casual references to specific Earth cultures that various of his characters seemed to think provided good stock (Japanese, nonracially specified South African) but that wasn’t a big enough part of the book to say anything definitive. Instead, it’s a far future in which a chunk of humanity has embraced various kinds of genetic/phenotypic modification, as well as pervasive computer implants to allow instant “loading” of various show more skills and quick communication. This future remains unequally distributed, however; people who can’t afford modifications eke out a living, or don’t, without them, and one of the POV characters is a woman whose father sold himself into debt slavery to fund her education and implants, allowing her to serve in the Royal Armadalen Navy. (Yes, corporate kingdoms are very much a thing.) Then the Sturm return—the fragment of humanity that rejects all forms of modification and holds that all modified people must be exterminated. So it’s a battle of genocidaires against standard corrupt, unfair hierarchies, with the occasional upright hero like our Navy girl; even when the genocidaires rescue the woman’s father from slavery, their appearance as liberators reads as ominous rather than as truly morally complicated. I thought a bit about the Battle of Britain from the perspective of an Indian nationalist, though there isn’t any very similar character in the book—instead the POVs are from the Navy woman; a young princess who rises to the occasion; a space pirate; a washed-up general who might not be as washed-up as he first seems; and the leader of the Sturm invasion. If you like space battles and references to firing on a position as “servicing” a target, with enough difference in the warring cultures that you don’t have to make any analogies if you don’t want to, then this book might be for you. show less

Birmingham, John. The Cruel Stars. Cruel Stars No. 1. Del Rey, 2019.
John Birmingham is a multi-genre writer from Australia, but he seems to be well versed in all the tropes of American military science fiction. Certainly, The Cruel Stars has a good time putting together a fast-paced action thriller that mashes up several familiar items. We have a young officer thrust into command when her captain’s implanted tech is hacked, driving him into a homicidal rage. Think Honor Harrington without a cat on her shoulder. The enemy are “space Nazis” called the Sturm who want to free the universe from aliens, cyborgs, bioengineering, and anything else that isn’t them. There is a plucky captive princess to rescue. There are an entertaining show more batch of warriors, including a retired Scots admiral, whose snarky repartee would be right at home in Guardians of the Galaxy. There is a strong AI who joins in the banter, and some consciousness uploading tech that seems off the shelf from Altered Carbon. Although all the ingredients are familiar, the mix makes an original scifi cocktail. The next installment of the trilogy is due out August 2020. I am looking forward to it. show less

Loved the Dave Vs series, and was expecting something similar. I was really wrong, this is proper Space Opera stuff. Deep and complicated story lines, which were a bit hard to follow at the beginning, but ended up being really clear.

Really looking forward to the next book(s)

2.5 stars
Sometimes funny, sometimes horrifying, plenty of eye rolls, and 'get real' moments, I honestly don't know what to think or feel about this book.
It drowned in world-building 'facts', not exactly info dumps but TMI because mostly, it just didn't matter to the story.
Too many characters to keep track of.
I also most stopped reading at the 70 page mark because it was all set up and nothing was happening. Then it all happened at once and it was too much. And gross. Horror scenes that went on and on-I get it already, move on.
YMMV Other readers loved it.

The characters and writing are pretty good.
It mostly suffers at the setting and theme level:
--The biggest problem is that the premise doesn't make sense. It is remarked multiple times that the Sturm are vastly inferior in technology. So how does a vastly inferior faction that doesn't even use the type of technology in question manage to make such an effective weapon for it? Doesn't make sense, especially since the ship AI called out the existence of malware, so why don't they have defenses against this type of attack? Especially if they just suffered something similar from the Javan.
--Killing side characters to demonstrate the horrors of war gets old really, really fast.
--The Sturm are inconsistent. D'ur saying he's going to go kill show more Alessia, but then seems to just disappear. Ji Yong for some reason NOT killing Alessia when she gets the chance despite acting like a cartoon villain in her last scene. In general the Sturm swing rather wildly between believable and silly evil.

--Sturm Trooper is just eye-rolling.
--Minor error: Lucinda claims she's not a lesbian, but in the first chapter she notes that she's had girlfriends in the past. show less

Wow! Very enjoyable and complicated story with some fascinating world building. Hard to even start describing all the interesting aspects of the story. The only downside is I have NO idea when the next installment will be available.

Recommended!