The Stars Are Legion

By: Kameron Hurley

Narrated by: Nicole Poole, Teri Schnaubelt

Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars. For generations, a war for control of the Legion has been waged, with no clear resolution. As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

Zan wakes with no memory, prisoner of a people who say they are her family. She is told she is their salvation - the only person capable of boarding the Mokshi, a world-ship with the power to leave the Legion. But Zan's new family is not the only one desperate to gain control of the prized ship. Zan finds that she must choose sides in a genocidal campaign that will take her from the edges of the Legion's gravity well to the very belly of the world.

Zan will soon learn that she carries the seeds of the Legion's destruction - and its possible salvation. But can she and her ragtag band of followers survive the horrors of the Legion and its people long enough to deliver it?

In the tradition of The Fall of Hyperion and Dune, The Stars Are Legion is an epic and thrilling tale about tragic love, revenge, and war as imagined by one of the genre's most celebrated new writers.

©2017 Kameron Hurley (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"This gripping book is both hard to read and easy to appreciate." ( Publishers Weekly)

Strangest book ever

I can’t imagine how Hurley came up with this story. It is the craziest space adventure story I have ever heard. The twists it takes you on are plenty and sometimes a little to drawn out but I couldn’t stop listening to it. I fell in love with the characters and the story. Give it a try.

Strange

The concept of the story is alluring but ended up going nowhere in my opinion.

Amazing Worldbuilding

I've followed Hurley since she started and she's one of the great worldbuilders, up there with Sanderson and N.K. Jemison. This one made me sit and ponder so many times trying to both figure out the world and being fascinated by how much sense it made while still being entirely alien. The storyline is not formulaic, even though that could have been fine in the setting but the ending subverted my expectations while still being entirely consistent. I loved it. I wish it were a series.

Straight no chaser

If you like the horror in your far-future horror quest fantasy delivered straight no chaser, this may be the book for you. The reason I'm giving it 4 rather than 5 stars is that it seemed for a spell that it was about to become China Mieville meets Margot Atwood, which would have been cool, but that didn't happen. I came to care about the characters, without which I can't finish a book. Along with compelling characters there is plenty of intrigue, duplicity, betrayal, loyalty, hairy escapes, in other words, just what you read this kind of thing for, because gross creepy monsters can't carry it on their own.

What the...?

I was expecting epic Star Trek style space battles. It took a totally different turn though. The story was very unique and interesting though. Also, I love Casamir!

Fantastical!

I aspire to write this well. All of the visually stimulating details truly compliment the numerous underlying stories.

bio-mechanical matriarchy

This is a bio-mechanical space opera in the BEST possible way. Be prepared for visceral descriptions of umbilical cord elevators and floors made of flesh juxtaposed with sapphic sexual tension.

Highly recommend, but probably don't eat while you're listening.

Ohhh... All the Body Fluids

Leckie's Ancillary series is a recent favorite of mine, and if you like those books, then there are plot conceits and themes this story has in common with "Ancillary" that you should find interesting. Every character identifies as (and is biologically) female while the protagonist struggles to understand her purpose and identity itself. The fundamental difference between "Legion" and "Ancillary" is the former's throbbing, "organic" universe compared to the "artificial" element to the latter's machine-assisted existential origins.

The world-sized "ships" in "Legion" and their inhabitants are fleshy things that excrete blood, mucus and feces at the slightest provocation. Why the author chose to slather almost every paragraph with so much bile, intestines and afterbirth is not completely understood by this reader. The important themes and a realistic topography could have been conveyed with less than half the gore.

It's not that the blood and guts are hard to stomach (which some readers will struggle with) but that the descriptions of puss, cancerous sores and shit are just so repetitive. Perhaps it's necessary constantly be reminded of the relationship between human and ecological bodies as systems through this scaler extrapolation? It certainly caused this reader to think about the relationship between biology, creation and determinism, but that may just be one person's projection? Plus, this is what good story telling can and should do, so while I'm wary of the necessity, there is a purpose being served through the muck.

The political story and basic plot points are built upon multi-layered betrayals and motivations. This makes the characters interesting, if a bit unlikeable. But the protagonist's journey and development are compelling enough to propel the story.

There's little science in this fiction and none of the bizarre forces and "technology" at work here are given even a perfunctory hand-waving. Fans of military, hard or even heavily abstracted sci-fi may be disappointed by the fantasy-in-space feel. The word "magic" isn't used, but the monsters and physical forces at work in this universe are deeply fantastical. But genre non-purists, especially those that factor diversity and convention-busting gender explorations should enjoy many of the ideas and characters presented in "Legion".

I may not be extremely attracted to the ever-increasingly explored themes in "Legion". Yet, to Hurley's credit, the author manages to cut through the tonnage of gore to present ideas that matter with characters that can be cared about.

Oh, a final audio-only comment about the book; the narration by both performers is excellent. I will look for stories featuring these narrators again.

A truly amazing and original book!

Kameron Hurley has done it again! Another innovative sff novel that is gripping, emotional, and just plain awesome!

Robotic voice

Storyline is hard enough to follow, but the monotonic robotic voices reading it makes it even harder to remain attentive.