The
Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew
Williams is a science fiction novel that reads like a tv show or a movie. This
is not a bad thing as the debut novel is full of action, mystery, and where the
world building features a massive number of very different characters that are
fully formed beings with their own personalities. The alien species are incredibly
diverse and so too is the lore of the series.
Jane
Kamali has one job. She is an agent for “Justified” and her mission is to recover
gifted children from different worlds and bring them to safety. The gifted kids
are the key to saving countless worlds and lives from the return of the pulse. The
pulse was a giant wave of energy that affected various worlds differently by destroying
the technology of each world. Some of the worlds were massively impacted while others
were not as much. Each world suffered to a different degree and that wave of
destruction often changed the societies on a given world.
The
Pax and other groups like it want the gifted children to turn them into super
soldier killers to help conqueror the galaxy. The Pax are a group of fascist zealots
who believe they are the ones that are the rightful rulers of the galaxy and
have yet to have any of their technology or abilities affected by the pulse. The
latest target of The Pax is a telekinetic girl named Esa. It is up to Jane and her group to save Elsa as
the fate of everything hinges on her.
I
know the premise sounds cliched, but that is just the beginning of the book.
There is way more depth then one can go into here without spoiling large chunks
of the novel. It is clear that the
author put tremendous thought into this novel as everyone has considerable
depth of character internally as well as externally via relationships. This is
a complex tale of good and evil at work in The Stars Now Unclaimed that
is not remotely hinted at in the jacket copy or premise of the book. This is book one of the series titled, The
Universe After, and the moniker truly fits as, once the pulse hit,
everything changed everywhere.
The
book is full of moral depth with lots of philosophical debates and characters
behaving realistically. It is a very complicated read that has plenty of jokes
and great action sequences. Relationships and characters grow and evolve over
time. I highly recommend The Stars Now Unclaimed
by Drew Williams.
My
hardcover reading copy came from the Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public
Library System. I have a library hold in place for the sequel, A Chain
Across the Dawn, and have requested them to buy the third in the
series, The Firmament of Flame. Whether that purchase will happen with the budgetary cutbacks caused by the pandemic, I do not know.
The Stars Now Unclaimed (The Universe After Book 1)
Drew Williams
Tom Doherty Associates Tor
August 2018
ISBN# 978-1-250-18611-9
Hardback (also available in audio, eBook, and paperback
formats)
448 Pages
Scott
Tipple ©2020
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