Such an interesting take on an isolated religion. This plot line was by far my favorite of the three. It was so interesting and the world itself felt full.
The “main” plot line follows a woman with no memories of her former life. It started out very strong with her being roped into a heist scheme. However, I felt like the plot stagnated about halfway through the book. It turns away from moving the plot along and become much more character focused. It’s done well but compared to the other plot line it felt slow.
I did enjoy the third plot line, though it is significantly shorter. It was able to tie together the plot together well.
The ending is my main issue with the book. I don’t think enough clues or hints were dropped in to justify the way everything culminates. BUT, I am notoriously bad at picking up clues so take it with a grain of salt.
I really enjoyed reading this book, I think the experience makes up for any gripes I have.

Received through NetGalley for an honest review!

I remembered reading Under Fortunate Stars and generally liking it as a whole (even though it's been a bit so I only remember a small amount), so I was excited to find another book by the author and another space book too! It takes place in the same universe as Under Fortunate Stars, but this book does a really good job of building the world in such a way, you can 100% read this without having read Under Fortunate Stars.

When I got into this, I had no idea what to expect. Amnesiac Page Found gets kidnapped very early on and has to figure out whether she can trust Maelle who clearly has her own plans and if Page wants to help Zhak's plan of having her pretend to be a monk from a closed off planet to get a certain treasure. As we go through the story, however, there are excerpts from books, interviews, and whatnot to help us flesh out the world and the religion the monks subscribe to (although sometimes I wondered if we needed all of them). And, among all that, is another story we see unfold: that of Dalya from Teyr, the closed-off planet the monks are from. We see her grow up entrenched in her religion and how she becomes close to a certain girl, Anda, and how her story intersects with Page's story (although it's a very shaky intersection at best until the very end).

I found Dalya's side of the story much more engaging than Page's, even though I feel the end of Dalya's side went too quick and we were missing some compelling pieces. In the middle of the novel as a whole, I got really bored with Page and started skimming, but near the end, Page's story began ramping up again and I focused back in. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I wish the middle had been a little tighter.

Some spoiler thoughts: what I thought was really clever was the bait'n'switch at the very end. For the entire book, you are sort of led to believe by the fact Dalya is a POV character and so is Page that they are one in the same. However, at the end, you learn it's not Dalya, but rather Anda that eventually becomes Page. I thought the flip was interesting, but on the same coin, it would have been nice to learn more about Anda and what happened to her after she and Dalya split. Dalya's story was nice, but it was very abrupt at the end with a reveal. I kinda wish Dalya's story had been its own novel instead of the pieces we got sprinkled throughout Page's. All they do is sort of tell you where Page came from and what very thin connection Zhak had to that as a whole.

Anyway, I liked the book and my time reading it. It was an intriguing adventure even with the slumps I had near the middle. It was an easy read and I didn't get lost in the world building. The characters, while a little one-note for some of them, were pleasant to get to know. Page and Maelle were very cute once their friendship (and more) got going. If we ever return to this world or even its characters, I'd love to be here for it.

A space opera with excellent world building and interesting characters that interact well. There is a lot of politics and mythology which you feel will be key eventually- not all of it is but helps set the tone. The ending feels a little rushed and convenient to be honest after all the build up but still remained entertaining. Overall a good read

AN UNBREAKABLE WORLD is a story of missing memories and interweaving tales that collide toward the end.

The book has three main perspectives (plus one in the mixed-media elements between chapters). Two of them are Page and one of the people she's working with. It was nice to see someone with a bit more of a clue about the plan - and schemes of her own. It helped round out the story a bit. I also liked that there wasn't a romantic relationship, just a platonic one that is resisted.

The third perspective is unrelated to the other two, taking place on the world that gets spoken about a lot by the others but not seen. It's not until the final pages you discover how they are linked. For once, I didn't mind this because I assumed it was somehow related to Page's missing memories (and thus it felt somehow linked to me).

As well as the chapters, there are extracts from "sources" scattered throughout the book. Fake space-wiki pages (the formatting is so good there) and academic papers and exerpts from someone recording their story. It was an effective way to world build the "unbreakable planet" - a central point of the story if only seen through one perspective.

I thought it as very interesting what information the reader - and the characters - discovered in the end. It is not the "everything is revealed to all" that I might of expected to get. The reader knows more than any one person, which meant there was at least answers to some of the major questions to book posed. I think it would have been deeply unsatisfying if that hadn't happened, and the fact that the characters know far less than the reader certainly made me think more about the ending then I might have otherwise.

Action packed, fantastic worldbuilding, heartfelt, and full of twist and turns. Was drawn in straight away by the intrigue and storytelling style, following Page, Maelle, and Dalya's stories through
such a richly imagined universe. I loved the snippets of history of the system, the folklore and how they all wove together so neatly by the end. Really brilliant and immediately added to my top space opera reads!

3.5 stars

This had all the makings of a great sci-fi novel, and I overall enjoyed the reading experience. The worldbuilding is solid, and I was particularly invested in the politics of Teyr's isolationism and the mythology that informed it.

Unfortunately, the ending completely dropped the ball for me. All the plotlines that had been set up were suddenly resolved - in my opinion - far too easily or entirely off page. I love a queer space heist but this didn't quite give me that. I almost felt like the author couldn't decide whether to prioritise the macro or the micro, so we get a lot of Teyr politics only to have that not matter greatly to the plot, and we have a lot of build up to the heist only to end up with not very much heist.

Despite the flaws, I'm giving this 3.5 stars, because I really did enjoy reading it until about the last 20%. A stronger ending would have made all the difference for me.

Not sure if “cozy sci-fi” is a thing, but this fits the bill. In a world where humans have dispersed across different planets under the Union, Page Found is a thief with memory loss who is kidnapped/coerced into joining a heist for a mysterious relic being carried on a drifting spaceship of sedated monks. Said monks are from Teyr, an isolationist planet cut off from the Union, whose main religious doctrine rests on the idea that they are the original planet from which humanity originated, the “Unbreakable World” at the beginning and end of the universe. Parallel to Page's story is that of Dalya Edamaun, a young Teyrian aristo(crat) and presumptive heir to the planet's Speakership, who befriends an outsider that makes her question everything she's ever known about her religion, her government, and her planet. Also, there's a war between humans and Aliens(™) happening in the background, but that's beside the point.


I actually appreciate the new perspective this book brings into the classic space opera, perfect for those wondering about the Other Illegal Shit happening in the background of a galactic war while the government's backs are turned. Smuggling! Piracy! Theatrical revenge scenes! Religious doomsday paranoia! Found family?! I had a lot of fun reading this, the pacing was good and the world-building was interesting. The book offers glimpses of the larger world's (or galaxy's?) art, culture, history, religion, etc. in various formats in-between chapters, which I found pretty cool (I low-key need a sample of that song). I also loved the writing style, close to my ideal for a sci-fi novel.


However, those who are more interested in getting answers to the Wider Problems like ‘What do the aliens want?’, ‘What will happen to this isolated planet in the midst of a war?’, and ‘Do Page and Maelle ever kiss?’ Might have to manage their expectations. Personally, I see the vision as a cutout of Black Market Shenanigans in the midst of a larger war, but I still think some plotlines were resolved very abruptly, like the Teyr-Meneyr storyline from Dalya's POV (it felt like a deus ex machina that could've been better explained idk). Also a Song plays in the middle of a confrontation scene, no lyric reveal, but I think that's a pretty good way to gauge whether or not the book is for you.


On the cozy sci-fi front, the book had a surprisingly strong Found Family aspect, but in a natural heart-warming way that was kind of cute? Also the concept of the heist was kind of silly in hindsight but so was its mastermind (thee Zhak Evelor, intergalactic richloser) so! Fork found in kitchen. The heist progressed in some very interesting directions, but I liked it! Very entertaining on the popcorn scale imo. I was also pleasantly surprised by the heavy sapphic undertones bere, the relationships are just very cute all around. The story manages to balance its softer aspects with elements of intrigue and suspense. To me, Dalya's story carried the meat of said suspense, mixing coming of age with a sprinkle of political intrigue and religious interrogation, though I wish we got to see a bit more of that last act, could've made the last reveal a bit more impactful.


A beautifully written tale of finding family in the least traveled corners of space.


Thank you to Solaris Books and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

An Unbreakable World is a high-energy space heist—and, at the same time, it's a gorgeous meditation on folklore, religion, belief, and how we decide who we are and what we value. I'm an absolute sucker for SFF that explores questions of faith, and Ren Hutchings has created a full universe with richly textured legends and rituals that I wanted to know everything about. I'm also a big fan of the multimedia aspects, as another thing I'm a sucker for is stories told in found documents. I fell especially in love with the character of Maelle, who wants so desperately to do right by everyone around her (except for the limited few to whom she actively wants to do wrong, in which I support her). There's also plenty of banter, theft, intergalactic subterfuge, and everything else readers who enjoyed Under Fortunate Stars will be looking for. Highly recommend!

I dropped this author's first book, <i>Under Fortunate Stars</i>, two whole tiers in my annual recommendation list because of its truly massive overuse of fortunate coincidence to drive the entire plot. But everything else about it was decent to excellent, and (unlike one of the characters in this book) I believe in second chances, so I picked this one up when I saw it on Netgalley.

I'm mostly glad I did.

True, the main characters still don't have a whole lot of agency; events act on them more than vice versa, and their decisions often don't end up mattering, or are "decisions" to go along with the situation because there doesn't seem to be much other option. But I did come to care about their wellbeing, and almost everything else - the copy editing, the characterization, the plot, the twists - is at a high standard.

The worldbuilding, though, is mostly off-the-shelf space opera, including a threat from implacable alien Others who can't be communicated with and are almost impossible to fight (and yet haven't destroyed humanity, and clearly are possible to fight or the alien ship hulls that form an important plot point wouldn't be available). I don't have much time for this trope, not only because it's a piece of xenophobia originating in the Cold War, but because I've read Murray Leinster's story "The Aliens" from 1959 - more than 65 years ago - which points out how much more likely it is that advanced civilizations would want to trade with us rather than make war. (You can read it on <a href='https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24104/24104-h/24104-h.htm'>Project Gutenberg</a>, if you're curious.) But anyway, here the trope is, mostly providing a background existential threat to provoke reflection, but also a couple of important plot points.

The most original part in the worldbuilding is that there's an isolationist planet that claims, and teaches its people to believe, that it was the original home of humankind, despite the presence of clear marks of "seedships" having colonized it ("they're natural formations," according to the propagandists). One of the several narrative threads follows the niece of the leader of this planet, a cynical politician with a direct approach to silencing dissent and a lot of hypocrisy to hide. We follow the niece as she grows up, interleaved with the story of the tribulations of a young woman with no memory of who she is, thanks to having been cryo-revived, who is caught up in a proposed heist. That story is told both from her perspective and the perspective of another participant in the heist who semi-befriends her. There's also a fourth viewpoint, that of an anonymous (until the end) "storyteller" participating in what turns out to be an oral history project, who fills in bits of backstory that are important to the main plot and that the other viewpoint characters don't have access to.

Like the author's previous book, it's well enough written and has enough depth that it would normally get to the Gold tier of my annual recommendation list. However, also like that book, I'm going to demote it, though not by as much. As well as the implacable-aliens trope, which I personally think needs more thought put into it, and the shortage of protagonism among the main characters, there are also spoilerific reasons:









<spoiler>the story of the niece is a bait-and-switch; we're clearly meant to think the niece is the amnesiac, right up to when it's revealed that she's not, just before the end. But that means that the niece's entire viewpoint has very little bearing on the main plot, making this two novels that are interweaved and have a tenuous point of connection through one character who doesn't remember any of the events in the other part of the story - some of which she isn't even present for - rather than one novel in two timelines. Also, we're implicitly promised a heist, and then there is no heist; that, too, was misdirection. And I do love a heist, and was looking forward to it, so I ended up feeling let down.</spoiler>

The quality of the writing is far above average, but the author makes some decisions that turn this into a book that doesn't map well onto my personal preferences, so it only gets to Silver tier on my annual recommendation list. Other people, I'm sure, will like it more than I did, and even I liked it OK.

dnf @ 20%


Unfortunately this one didn't work for me, but for me-related reasons. The story has at least 3 POV's going on, and I really only connected with 1 of them. The writing is good and the story's concept seems INCREDIBLY interesting, so I would still recommend to both friends & patrons who are interested in space operas, particularly those that are interested in doing fun things with alien cultures and world-building!

My impressions of An Unbreakable World are quite similar to those of Ren Hutchings' debut work, Under Fortunate Stars. Overall, this is a gripping read - I liked the incorporation of various media styles (students' essays, communications logs, oral histories, and mythical tales, to name a few), and found Hutchings' writing style to be really engaging. However, certain aspects just didn't mesh well for me - the ending is, to some extent, open-ended, and I felt like parts of the narrative which I was most engaged with were the ones left inconclusive. Likewise, the final quarter of the book held my attention less well than the parts before it - this could be because I am a very character-led reader, and by necessity, this conclusion involves a lot of action and plot. Unlike its predecessor, I did find myself very engaged with the characters here - and in fact, might have liked more of an emphasis on them (particularly in terms of the resolution of the relationship between two particular characters).
All in all, I had a fun time reading An Unbreakable World, and continue to look forward to seeing Ren Hutchings' writing develop - I've enjoyed both of her books so far, and can already see her style developing further.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Great structure, characters, plots, twists, back stories. Man this was a great book for fans of The Culture or These Burning Stars. Highly recommend.

Ren Hutchings has written a quite enjoyable book with An Unbreakable World, second in her interconnected but standalone Union series. As with her prior novel, Under Fortunate Stars, two linked plot lines from different times converge to solve a mystery; in this case the intersection is more traditional and doesn't involve time travel.

Heroine Page is a petty thief on a remote space station, with no memory of who she is or even how she got there, after a time spent in suspended animation. She struggles to learn clues about her identity. She is kidnapped by criminals intent on a complex scam and discovers unanticipated skills, including fluent knowledge of an uncommon language, all suggesting she may have links to the isolated world of Teyr. Those links are integral to the criminals' plan.

Page's journey is fraught with peril, revelations, a burgeoning relationship with a captor, and many twists and turns. Lots of surprises await the reader and the background world building is interesting. The book moves quickly and is highly readable. The climax is worth the read and contains a surprise or two. I look forward to more by Hutchings, who is growing as a writer.