The Stardust Grail

A Novel

De: Yume Kitasei

Narrado por: Katharine Chin

Long-listed, NPR Best Book of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, Esquire Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2024

Save one world. Doom her own.

Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations—until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future.

Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can’t refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren’t the only ones hunting for it.

Maya sets out on a breakneck quest through a universe teeming with strange life and ancient ruins. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her team of friends new and old. Someone will betray her along the way. Worse yet, in choosing to save one species, she may condemn humanity and Earth itself.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

©2024 Yume Kitasei (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Kitasei’s outstanding sophomore outing clears the high bar she set in The Deep Sky, combining a high-stakes space adventure with exquisitely crafted worldbuilding and plausibly imagined interspecies communication." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Broad in scope, covering everything from the rise and fall of alien civilizations to what it means to be a person, this is a luminous work, vacillating between the highs and lows of human experience and how they might translate across alien worlds." —Kirkus, starred review

"Come to The Stardust Grail for Indiana Jones-style outer space heist adventure, stay for the sensitively drawn characters and thoughtful exploration of other forms of life far beyond our own—Yume Kitasei's second novel is an engaging, fascinating story that you don't want to miss." —Veronica Roth, New York Times bestselling author of Chosen Ones

Interesting premise

I think I would’ve enjoyed this book had I read it on paper. The audiobook makes the slow pacing stand out more and the alien pronunciation game hard to follow. I also would like to see Auncle’s speech written out and see what the narrator based her interpretation on, for me it took away from my enjoyment enormously. Rather undoable really. Didn’t enjoy listening.

Science fiction as meant to be

To me the best sci to is about humans, alien. species and exploration. This author has created a universe where humans and aliens all interact with unexpected consequences. What is is normal and expected behavior, even necessary for survival, may be impossible to understand and detrimental to other aliens. This book has an excellent plot that slowly exposes all of the above. The narration is great and the characters likeable. The world building is fascinating. Highly recommend listening to or reading this book.

Performance

Excellent use of tone and voice changes. The characters could be easily identified, which made the entertaining story even more interesting.

Interesting mix of Sci-fi and mystery

Liked this title, it was an interesting mix of Sci-fi, gore, and seeing an alternate future

Great story, interesting characters

Very much liked the story, and the pacing was great . Ignore the review that says they've read this before, because they are either lying or didn't read it. It's obviously not objectively great; I'm not insane enough to boldly state my opinion as a fact.

But if you like To Sleep In A Sea of Stars with a slightly higher chance with the writer going back to this universe soon, you may want to check it out.

Entertaining YA sci-fi

This will not give anybody a headache, I speculate. Don’t expect sparkling writing, but a serviceable read when concentration might be hard to find.

Pronouns are out of control

For literary purposes it might have been interesting idea to give alien pronouns to every character (including humans), but for comprehension and enjoyment this was a very bad idea. The narrator does her best but it becomes very tedious very quickly. It’s also hard to follow which character is being referred to during conversations with more than two characters.

Seen this premise before.

The narration of UNCLE in this book is incredibly annoying--pull my hair out annoying. I just couldn't continue. This is a DNF for me.

While the writing is good, the premise fell short. We've seen this premise over and over again: scholar girl with a cause, leaves everything behind for it, blah, blah, blah.

Toss in not enough humor and not enough tension, boom you have The Stardust Grail.

Hard pass.

Really Frustrating

Most of this story is just irritating. The main character grew up poor on a colony world and had to endure a terrible sickness, but despite such difficult and humble origins she is accepted to Princeton, not once, but twice. She has also spent a great deal of time traveling the universe with her best alien friend. She has family, friends, and a promising future. But don't expect her to be grateful or content. She spends the entire book vassilating and mopey. It gets old fast. She never seems to be able to commit to anything. When she's on earth in school, she's procrastinating and squandering opportunities. When she goes back into space, she's adamant that this is the last time and she can't wait to get back to school. Then, when it seems like the job is done, she's whining about not being ready for it to end. Following this character's journey is like taking a long walk with sand in your shoe. Now, let's talk about the story itself. While the premise is good, there is a lot left to be desired. Whenever something comes up that the author doesn't want us to understand, the explanation is just "There have been wars in the universe, and lots of stuff has been forgotten." The alien races and technology portrayed are so briefly explained that you never really understand how or why they are reacting the way they are. Maybe the intent was to be mysterious, but it just leaves you saying "What?" Over all the whole thing is very unsatisfying.

Not my cup of tea

Unfortunately, *Stardust Grail* wasn't to my taste. The constant cry of "Mayyaaaa!" became a grating refrain throughout the book. The plot lacked originality and was filled with rather unlikable characters. While it drew inspiration from adventurous tales like Indiana Jones, it didn’t quite live up to the expectations or the hype.