This book captured me with the cover - can we just appreciate how stunning and epic it is? Orbit covers win yet again. But then to find that this book was inspired by the events around Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony? And made more gay?? The queer history nerd was immediately seduced.

Robin builds an incredibly impressive sci-fi world, but unfortunately doesn’t let spend too much time with the world building. This is a story that focuses on relationships, so I was admittedly lost for some of the factions and their settings and had to go back and double check who was aligned with who and why.

But the relationships are the true meat of this book and the romantic/political bond growing between Gracia and Ceirran was worth this entire story. Still, I will admit, I was also desperately waiting for Captain Anita to join the party but the polydream I was hoping for never happened. This story is very much separate relationships at separate times. Oh well, a girl can dream.

The ‘climax’ is rather slow and poetic than what is expected from such a retelling, but I think that it was an incredible choice for a story that is based on an event so well known. The fallout after though?? It’s absolutely explosive and exactly what I was craving the entire way through.

The Stars Undying has sexy tension, excellent banter, and a queer cast that left me wanting just a little more. It is an epic story on an epic scale that I think was just the slightest bit too much for the author to achieve at the moment. But Robin most definitely has my attention for whatever story comes next.


*I received an eARC from Orbit & NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

The Stars Undying is a sci-fi retelling of Mark Antony, Julius Ceasar, and Cleopatra. As someone who is interested in classical history /and/ SFF, the premise of this novel immediately drew me in; I don't think I've ever seen this retelling be done in this way, and the author's overall imagination and creativity really shone throughout the novel.

The strongest part of the novel was the retelling aspect, and how the author chose to incorporate it into a futuristic, sci-fi setting. The development of the characters' relationships with each other (specifically Ceirran, Anita, and Gracia) over the course of the novel was fascinating to read and, at times, I wish that there had been fewer political scenes and more time spent on character development. At points, interactions felt a bit rushed and lacked the depth that I wanted to see. Though this book is a political retelling, it felt unbalanced at times, with too much politics and not enough of the retelling.

As many reviewers have already pointed out, the weakest aspect of this book is the information dump at the very beginning. I found the first 20% or so very difficult to read (and I'm someone who doesn't mind being confused during a heavy world-building session). The author includes so many details and so many characters that it's hard to keep everyone except for the main three straight. From what I managed to gather from the overall plot and world-building, it seems like a fascinating setting. But with the sheer amount of extraneous details and info dumping I found myself skimming, I'm not sure that I even understand half of it.

Something else I was confused by was how Gracia's chapters would sometimes say things to the reader/listener like "I lied to you" or "when I told this story in chapter x, that's not how it happened." Other than confusing me further, I'm not sure what the point of this was. To make Gracia seem more like an unreliable narrator? To show that she's telling a story? It was an odd inclusion that took me out of the immersion of the story. Additionally, there were frequent flashbacks and time skips in most chapters, which made the timeline difficult to keep track of.

Overall, I think this book is well-done, but it was too politics-heavy for me and there wasn't enough time spent developing the characters' relationships with each other. The book is beautifully written and has wonderful prose but at the end, it both left me wanting more and perplexed with what I had been given.

4,5 stars

"In the first year of the Thirty-Third Dynasty, when He came to the planet where I was born and made of it a wasteland for glory's sake, my ten-times-great-grandfather's king and lover, Alekso Undying, built on the ruins of the gods who had lived before Him Alectelo, the City of Endless Pearl, the Bride of Szayet, the Star of the Swordbelt Arm, the Ever-Living God's Empty Grave.

He caught fever and filled that grave, ten months later. You can't believe in names."

The Stars Undying is, among other things, about a pearl, or, I should say, the Pearl, a computer that contains the immortal soul of Alekso Undying, and that makes its wearer his prophet and the Oracle of Szayet. I start with this because as a novel, The Stars Undying feels to me much like the pearl around which so much of its story revolves. For one, this novel is a thing of beauty: it is the product of brilliant work, and I know this because it is apparent on every page. The writing is polished, poised, elegant; it has a kind of classic quality to it that makes it feel at once historical and timeless. More to the point, it's genuinely some of the most impressive writing I've encountered in an SFF novel in recent memory.

Polished and elegant it may be, but The Stars Undying is, also like its Pearl, far from simple or straightforward. It gives with one hand and withholds with the other; gives under the guise of withholding, or else withholds under the guise of giving. It's a novel that doesn't tip its hand--not for the sake of some kind of contrived suspense, but because of the very nature of its world, and of the kind of story that's being told in that world. That is, if the novel doesn't tip its hand, it's because its characters don't. What they say and do is subject to the ever-present power dynamics of their world, to the way power--of the person, of the ideology, of the empire--warps everything around it so that what might have been straight becomes circuitous, so that characters have to tread carefully, and so that we have to read their silences as carefully as their utterances. And this power operates within as much as it does without: caught in these webs of power, the characters are not any less complex to themselves as they are to us.

"It has been a long time since that night, when I lay in the dark between Matheus Ceirran and the image of my god. I have thought of it often since, trying to make sense of it, of how vividly it stands out in my recollection. As I am telling these memories to you, I am turning them over in my hands, I am holding them up to the light. It is in memory that I am trying to find some kind of truth, if truth is anywhere to be found."

All of this is to say, The Stars Undying is a book that, like its Pearl, is comprised of many accounts: Gracia's, Ceirran's, Anita's--its three principal characters--but also Szayet's and Ciao's accounts, the accounts of empire and all the history and storytelling that is attendant to it. It's an incredibly multilayered and rich novel, and the way it slowly and intentionally develops those layers is just exquisite (in the moment, but also, and perhaps especially, in retrospect). The word I keep reaching for here is simmering: there is so much bubbling beneath the surface of this story, some of which breaks its surface by the end, and some of which remains buried, subtext left to carefully put together based on what we know of these characters and their dynamics.

What I love most about this novel is, simply, how much it trusts its reader. There were so many points while reading it that I wanted something--a feeling, a suspicion, a thought--to be made explicit, to be specifically explained and justified--but that's not what I got, and I loved it. I loved that this book didn't give me what I wanted, but made me work for it. The Stars Undying is a novel that develops its characters--and, by extension, lets you work to decode them--by way of conversations. And there are some truly stunning scenes here: complex and thorny and compelling moments between these characters, all of whom are already fleshed out and alive in their own right. (Ceirran and Gracia? Endlessly fascinating. Gracia and Anita? ELECTRIC. Ceirran and Anita? So surprising.) You know these characters, but you do not quite grasp them; they are many things, but they are not reducible to any one thing. And that is such a feat on Emery Robin's part: to craft characters who both reward and repel your efforts to know them, who are always both familiar and strange. Needless to say, I was utterly drawn in.

All this, and I haven't even touched on the worldbuilding yet, which is remarkable and everything you could ever want in an SFF novel, really. What stands out in particular is the sheer level of detail that animates this world. Szayet and Ceiao are suffused with so much life: they come with their own their own--sometimes distinct, sometimes overlapping--histories, cultures, ideologies, religions (or lack thereof), architecture, geographies, resources, languages. And it's not just that you know them, it's that you understand why they are the way that they are: the histories that animate their ideologies, the geographies that shape their economies, the sociopolitics that govern, and justify, the power they wield and the power they seek.

(And I haven't even mentioned the whole Cleopatra-and-Julius-Caesar retelling aspect of this because I only know the barest of barebones about that history and so can't really speak to how it was incorporated into the novel. But if this book is incredible without me knowing anything about what it's retelling then I can only imagine how good it is when you're actually familiar with its historical basis--which I am definitely planning on brushing up on when I reread this.)

I honestly don't know what else I can say about this book: The Stars Undying is a singular novel, and I absolutely adored it. I was already 100% going to read its sequel, but god, after that brilliant ending, nothing can come between me and that second book.

Thank you so much to Orbit for providing me with an e-ARC of this via NetGalley!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Because this was compared to both Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice AND Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire (both my favorite books of all time), it's safe to say this book was my most anticipated release of 2022. I had expected it to be an easy five-star, but unfortunately it was only a 4-star for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the political intrigue in this book. Of course, being a retelling of Caesar and Cleopatra's stories, it was bound to have a lot of intertwining politics, and that was masterfully done. The writing was beautiful as well, and I especially found the conversations had about religion in the world Robin built to be especially interesting and well-done.

However, I found the characters to be quite wooden, and I didn't feel as if I was rooting for them until about 75% through the book - which was way too late for me, because I am a character driven reader. So, even though the plot was expertly done and I wanted to know what happened next, the characters just didn't hold my interest. The book was also very slow-moving. It took a long while for me to become interested in the plot itself.

All in all, a good space opera that I would recommend for people looking to sink their teeth into a lot of political intrigue, but not one that I would re-read anytime soon.

DNF at 5%. While I'm a big fan of space operas and sci-fi as a whole, this book couldn't hold my attention. I think it has to do with a lack of exposition and just how the prose was written.

Thanks to the publisher for the complimentary hardcopy ARC and the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

#OneWordThreeTitles challenge + review

I saw this challenge on @bookbruin’s gorgeous feed recently & thought it would be a good chance to use “stars/star” and feature a recent thick sci fi read: Emery Robin’s THE STARS UNDYING.

#multitasking ;) .

The blurb calls this “a sweeping, spectacular space opera inspired by the lives & loves of Cleopatra & Julius Caesar” & I feel like that’s most of what you need to know .

At the beginning of the book Gracia is trying to take control of her planet & wrest the title of Oracle from her sister. She uses a visiting Commander of the Empire to help her do it.

But let’s not forget the Commander’s lieutenant, religious tensions in the Empire, & questions of sovereignty, all of which add more drama to the provocative & compelling story.

As previously mentioned this book is thick & I loved that for us all. The storytelling is great & the author tells a story that both had me thinking & absorbed in the plot twists, particularly the big revelation & the secrets of our unreliable narrator. The engagement between sisters always had me on the edge of my seat.

But I will admit to occasionally being confused. The book kind of jumps in & then there are moments when the other characters allude to something without spelling it out. I guess that really helps ramp up the mystery of it all but I wanted to find my footing a bit more .

THE STARS UNDYING is a dense, often magnetic read but there are moments when I plodded through a bit. Still, a great read that I don’t think I’ll forget.

4.5⭐️. Out 11/08.

[ID: three books & a red prayer plant are arranged on a table. At the top left is The Brightest Star in Paris, top right is the plant, bottom left is The Stars Undying, & bottom right is Written in the Stars.]

Review copy (eARC) provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I tend to avoid plot summaries in my review because the Amazon and Goodreads summaries do a way better job than I could, but in short, this is an alternate take of sorts on Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.

This book is more of a 3.5 than a 4 in my head, but I chose to round up because I think my reasons for not liking this book as much are more about me than the author or the story. I think I was expecting more of a historical tale and less of a romance story, and that's not what I feel the book is like...but again, that's more about my reading preferences than a problem with the book.

I will admit that this was a bit difficult to get into because the initial world-building was set up in a way that I found roundabout and incredibly confusing especially when you have an unreliable narrator. After the first maybe 20% of the book, however, I got a much clearer picture of the book as well as its place as a Julias Caesar and Cleopatra retelling. Once I broke through this initial quarter of the book it was an enjoyable read from that point onward.

The Stars Undying was a very solid debut from the author and, in my opinion, did a fantastic job of integrating a historical retelling with a futuristic setting. The author accomplished this in such a way that while you do know this is a retelling, you can also picture this as its own story, as its own entity. Really a masterful job.

From a storytelling and crafting aspect, Emery Robin did an amazing job, but with that being said, the pacing was just too slow for my taste in some areas. And I do think it fell a bit short in the ‘space’ aspect of the space opera.

All in all a very solid debut with a great idea, the only real drawback being some slow pacing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

CW: war (themes and on page violence), death of a parent

This was my first space opera and it was such an interesting twist to have this also be a Ceaser and Cleopatra retelling. There's some great political intrigue and a lot of questions. I really enjoyed that there was an unreliable narrator and all the twists and turns that were remiscient of the history but also put its own unique twist on it. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for what this author does next.

Steam: 2.5

the genius of this book is how cleopatra keeps saying 'reader i lied. that was a lie, from a liar (me)' but the book made me believe her. 'but heather', you might say, 'aren't you just a lesbian'. and well. that's true. but still.

and you're like oh, unreliable narrators, we've seen those before. first of all that's because they rule, second of all the way robin handles it, it's not just gracia and cierran seeing events differently from their own perspectives, it's two larger than life characters trying to shape the world in their image, made heartbreakingly human by the delusion that they might move forward in this together.

then there's ana. anita. the perfect foil to them both with all her passions on heady display, perfectly antony but you've never seen him like this. and her tension with gracia is electric. we know what happens in the stories, and here we see exactly how, and why these two get each other. i can't say more. i'll eat my own fist.

as far as i'm concerned this IS the julius caesar retelling, this is it. it's not just "what if it was in space", though that part is cool - the exploration of imperialism past and current especially. but with a light touch robin takes the Big Moments we remember from the story and makes us anticipate them, dread them, understand them better. the last line WILL punch u in the throat.

thanks to orbit/netgalley for the chance to read it early.

The Stars Undying is an ambitious character-driven sci-fi novel regaling the love affair of Cleopatra and Julius Ceaser, chock full of political intrigue, intelligently written layered dialogue, and an interrogation of godhood, legacy, and memory.

The first thing I must say about this book is that besides Caesar being stabbed to death by his compatriots, I know absolutely nothing about the historical figures and the historical events this story is based on. In fact, I know so little about the stories of Cleopatra, Ceasar, and Anthony that for some reason, I had it wrapped around my head that this was a retelling of Cleopatra and Anthony’s relationship. Cue my confusion 80% through the book where their equivalent characters have spent the majority of the story on entirely different planets with little contact.

The Stars Undying, first and foremost, is a character study between our Cleopatra, Gracia, and Caesar, Ceirran. We begin the story with Gracia having been deposed by her sister, and fleeing for her life, manipulating her way into Ceirran’s audience, and bed, to gain the manpower to reclaim her throne. From here on out, we get to experience the quickly developing relationship between Gracia and Ceirran and their courtship through a battle of wits. I’ve seen one reviewer describe their relationship as a romance of intelligence and that really is such an apt description. Every conversation has layer upon layer of meaning, left to the reader to infer with meanings not revealed til many chapters later. How the two bounce off each other, the lengths they go for each other was definitely one of the strongest parts of the book.

I love that Robin has written these characters in a way that they are people, flawed and imperfect, but oh so fascinating to read about. Ceirran has this aura of kingly confidence throughout the book, that every obstacle in his way is but an annoyance, that every battle has a forgone conclusion (his victory) and he must simply put the effort in to arrive there. Gracia, on the other hand, lies. She lies to her subjects, she lies to Ceirran and his companions, but most importantly, she lies to the reader. She lies to the reader all the time, and it makes reading this story such an interesting experience, because after the first admitted lie, you find yourself questioning Gracia’s portrayal of every event and action, asking yourself if there were facts misrepresented (and often there are).

The worldbuilding of The Stars Undying is truly incredible. The development of Szayet and Ceiao’s respective cultures, their governing bodies, religious belief, etc, are so richly done. The immersion into Szayet’s culture through Gracia’s eyes, then later Ceiao’s capital city and the anti-religion beliefs as experienced by both Ceirran and Gracia felt both subtle and expansive. The overarching influence of Alekso the Undying, conqueror of many of the planets in this story and the way these different culture interact with his legacy adds another layer of depth and creativity.

My lack of familiarity with the source material is perhaps where I began struggling with certain aspects of this book. I didn’t always find actions taken by Ceirran and Gracia, mostly Ceirran, always convincing. Without going into spoilers, Gracia and Ceirran spend the second half of this book with a secret that will completely change the culture makeup of Ceirran’s empire, and it’s a change that is very unpopular with the existing governing body. To me, it seemed like the two didn’t spend enough time softening up that group of people before going public with it. I suspect it has to do with the author attempting to match certain events and motivations of characters in the source material, but wasn’t able to transfer it over in a fully convincing manner,

Overall, I rate this book a 4/5. The character work, political intrigue, and thematic exploration throughout this book are phenomenally done. However, I found myself struggling with parts of the story, likely because I have little familiarity with the source it is trying to retell.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for providing me with a digital copy for review.

The Stars Undying was a gorgeous, beautifully written book that, unfortunately wasn’t for me. I tried so hard to love it, and I wanted to, as it sounded like everything I usually love. But while the prose was gorgeous, the story itself left a lot to be desired. The characters, with the exception of a few, just felt a little bland. It was hard to care for them. The reader is also just dumped right into the middle of the action, and while that usually works for me, this story was on so grand a scale that I just felt like I was missing something the whole time. Maybe it was because I’m not familiar with the story of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, which is what this book is based on, that I felt lost for a majority of the time. Ultimately, I think fans of that story will love this, it just wasn’t for me.

First, thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the ARC!

This is pitched as a space opera inspired by ancient Rome and Egypt, including Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, which is pretty accurate, despite my minimal knowledge of Cleopatra and Caesar. The concept is unique and sounded like a fun spin on your typical space opera.

Unfortunately, this book was incredibly tough to get into for me. I felt lost a lot of times, as though I was missing some key information along the way even though I wasn’t. And while I am content to be confused about “what is going to happen next,” I am not so keen on being lost on the world building. You can tell this world and conflict was well thought out by the author, but it spilled onto the page messily. The world building was spotty, but I could feel that it was all there, behind the words. I am not sure what happened from brain to page but I think something got lost. That is the best way for me to explain it.

The characters were not pulling me in either. No one really jumped off the page for me, except Anita, who felt more lively than everyone else. Everyone went along their predetermined role in history and it gave me nothing to invest in these characters.

And lastly, the plot…I love political books. But I don’t think a book being so very focused on political with nothing else to offer (characters, world building, magic system, action) can do it for me. Each chapter felt like a drawn out meeting with some strangely placed flashbacks that went on for a long time in the middle of each chapter. And the constant POV swaps didn’t help this because each POV character is doing similar things to the other, there was no variety.

I think this was a very ambitious debut that will appeal to very specific people, those that enjoy heavily political sci-fi books and those that very much love the ancient history that this book pulls from. I think it just missed the mark for me, I am not the reader for this book, sadly.

Emery Robin's debut novel <i>The Stars Undying</i> is a sci-fi retelling of the story of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and Mark Anthony, and the political power struggles they were involved in. I typically stay away from retellings, as I don't like to know where the story goes, which is impossible to achieve within this genre - unless you're unfamiliar with the story being reimagined. It was not the case here, I am decently well versed in the historical facts, and, honestly, not a big fan of the era, yet I decided to reach for this novel as it was compared to one of my favorites, <i>A Memory Called Empire</i>.

In the end, I find this a difficult read to rate. The book is well-crafted, and the prose is - truly - fantastic (a feat for a debut author). The writing gripped me from the first page, the narrative voice of Gracia (Cleopatra) especially strong.

Where it started falling apart was the world building. This universe is vast. Its history - as you can imagine - intricate and complicated. The introduction to it is so dense, containing so much information (delievered with very little detail), that I was immediatelly lost. And, despite the length of the novel, I was never really able to become properly established in the story - the context was never made clear, only skipped through. Those readers who are intimately familiar with the historical fact might have been able to follow on the proper context, on the twist, turns, decisions and machinations. I was not one of those readers. As a result, I constantly felt as if I was missing something - despite being a very attentive reader. I just couldn't get a firm grip on the political realities and alliances of the central conflict and that took away from my investment (and enjoyment).

Ceirran (Julius Ceasar) disappoints. He is just not compelling. Gracia (Cleopatra) is a much stronger character, if morally ambigious (which makes it harder to root for her). The one truly outstanding character is Anita (Mark Anthony), but the amount of her presence in the novel is not enough to compensate. The motivations of these characters are so veiled in innuendo that I felt like I needed to take notes throughout to be able to follow.

Lastly, the sci-fi aspect of the novel falls short of the mark. It was a huge factor in my decision to read the book, yet it seemed like the author just needed that setting as a backdrop, and was wholly uninterested in it. The characters talk about space battles that already took place, or watch them as flickering lights in the sky, but they are not part of the story. The AI (Alekso/Alexader the Great) is so ruefully underused, it's almost criminal. It's advertised as a space opera, but I honestly did not think it deserved the title.

This book did not fulfil my expectations. I would absolutely recommend this to those who are huge fans of the historical characters and events used as inspiration - their knowledge of the details will surely flesh the story out in ways that were not possible for me. The ending is what it is, if you know your Roman history, you have some idea - I can, at best, describe it as anticlimactic.

<i>Thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review</i>

This was a very well-crafted book that unfortunately was not for me.

Let's start with what I did like: the writing was fantastic. This book had none of the writing issues I've come to associate with debuts. The prose, while dense, was immersive and beautiful without being overly flowery. The pacing was good and I just generally thought the book was constructed really well. Even though this particular book didn't work for me, I will absolutely check out what Robin writes in the future based on the skill evident in this book.

I also really liked the character of Gracia, our Cleopatra of the book. She was exactly what I wanted from a Cleopatra character - ambitious, morally grey, but still sympathetic. I don't have a deep knowledge of the history here, but Gracia matched my image of Cleopatra while also managing to add a lot of depth to her character and surprising me at times with the decisions she made.

Where this book started to fall short for me was with the character of Ceirran, our Julius Cesar. Honestly, I just found his POVs boring. They were extremely political, and while we were often told that Ceirran was a charismatic leader, I don't think it came through in the text. The book is told in alternating POVs between Gracia and Ceirran, so every other chapter became a bit of a drag to get through. Because I didn't love Ceirran, I also found it hard to buy the romance between him and Gracia. While their political scheming was interesting to read, the romantic elements didn't really captivate me. I was far, far more interested in the relationship between Gracia and Anita and wish that had got more page time instead.

The sci-fi elements in this book are really just a backdrop for the very political plot. This book could have been set anywhere else with very little changes. There were references to space battles and advanced technology, but very little of that ever made its way into the real story. Even the AI in this book didn't really feel like an AI. It could have easily been magical instead of technology based. All of this is fine, and very much an intentional decision by the author. However, for my personal taste, I would have liked the book to lean harder into the sci-fi elements. I picked up this book because it was Julius Cesar in space, but the space part was really just set dressing.

I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the history being retold here, or who likes very political plots where the motivations of every character can be analyzed and picked apart. There's tons of skill on display here, and I imagine this could be a favorite for a lot of people.

DNF @ 50%

I really wanted to like this book, and I really tried to.

I don't know if space opera just isn't for me, but I couldn't get into this book. Partly as well was the writing style, which again, I couldn't get into. I don't care for the main characters, and everything happens too quickly.

This could be a great book for someone, but sadly, I am not that someone.

The author has a brilliant mind for creating intricate multifaceted story worlds with dramatic plots. The sheer scope of this story is impressive and I wanted so badly to be immersed in it. I can see all of this objectively, but I’m afraid the story just wasn’t for me.

The beginning is really dense, with a lot of information thrown at readers without proper context - names, places, world, factions, legends, etc. It’s all just too much to comprehend all at once and completely. This is my biggest concern, that many readers will not push through.

Although it truly does build into an adventure of epic proportions, I struggled to connect with the characters and the plot because of the first section. On the one hand, the setting is otherworldly and the lore is immersive, and I really wanted to be transported into the scenes. But the sheer amount of information that I was trying to absorb just left me slightly overwhelmed instead.

I think with some reworking to the first third of this book, it could have made for a much better start for the reader experience. I believe the author has intriguing concepts for creating a unique, spacey world, but the execution of it left much to be desired.

For readers who do manage to stick it out and grasp the story, I think that science-fiction lovers will enjoy it. It is accurately referred to as a space opera, and that’s the exact feel that I had while reading it. Even though my own experience with it wasn’t exactly raving, I still think it is a commendable debut and I’d be interested to see what this author has in store for us all next.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ I so very desperately wanted to like The Stars Undying. When I got an advance copy I practically screamed with excitement. I mean “Cleopatra and Mark Antony in space for fans of Memory Called Empire”? You couldn’t be more in my wheelhouse if you pitched a book as “for Miranda, specifically.” Unfortunately there were too many things that didn’t work for me about this for me to really get on board.

It ended up being a very frustrating reading experience because I wanted to like this book and there was a lot to like. In fact this book was very close to being truly great. The settings are immaculately drawn, from the Atlantis inspired planet that stands in for Egypt awash in sun and luxury to the cold streets of an alternate Rome full of monuments and ruins, these settings are fully lived in. The character of Cleopatra has all the charisma you’d want and a interesting character arc. The idea of the computational pearls and Cleopatra wandering around with the ghost of a past conquerer in her head is a great note. In short this novel had a lot of good ingredients and unfortunately squandered them. Because somehow (and I’m still trying to work out how the author managed it) Julius Ceasar is boring. And you’re in his head for half the book. Every time I turned the page and saw his name as a POV I would groan inside. Especially against how invested and interested I was in the Cleopatra character—it really impacted my enjoyment. The other complaint I have is similar to the complaint I have about The Declaration of the Rights of Magicians which is that it for all the “set in space” it hews too closely to the known history at the price of surprise and the unexpected.

Perhaps I am too hard on this book, and perhaps the marketers did it a disservice by comparing it to Memory—which is one of the best books of the decade—thereby setting my expectations too high. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask this book to grapple a little more deeply with the sources of power and the consequences thereof, and to give Julius Ceasar the larger than life personality he deserves. #bookstagram #bookreview #thestarsundying #spaceopera

A very solid space opera, one that I enjoyed wholeheartedly. The author's attention to detail is impressive, even if I had not originally known the original stories of Cleopatra and Julius Ceasar. You can tell when an author enjoys (and knows!) what they are writing.

The first-person POV took a while to get used to, but by the end, it flowed beautifully. I also especially enjoyed the world; the world-building was phenomenal.

All around a fantastic book. I enjoyed the characters, their relationships/dynamics with each other, and the actual retelling itself.

This book was one of the most unique retellings I have ever read. I truly enjoyed the author's attention to detail not only to the world but to the original Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra story. I have never read a space opera before so this admittedly took me a long time to get through. I would not count that against the book because shortcomings may have been a result of my own unfamiliarity.

The author has an amazingly fluid writing style that kept the story engaging. I look forward to reading more from this author and more from the adult science fiction genre!

Rating: 4/5 stars