Stars and Bones

By: Gareth L. Powell

Narrated by: Rebecca Norfolk

From the multi BSFA award-winner comes a stunningly inventive action-packed science-fiction epic adventure. A brand-new series for fans of Becky Chambers and Ann Leckie.

Seventy-five years from today, the human race has been cast from a dying Earth to wander the stars in a vast fleet of arks—each shaped by its inhabitants into a diverse and fascinating new environment, with its own rules and eccentricities.

When her sister disappears while responding to a mysterious alien distress call, Eryn insists on being part of the crew sent to look for her. What she discovers on Candidate-623 is both terrifying and deadly. When the threat follows her back to the fleet and people start dying, she is tasked with seeking out a legendary recluse who may just hold the key to humanity's survival.

Gareth L. Powell's Embers of War won 2018 BSFA Award for Best Novel and was shortlisted for the 2019 Locus Awards and the 2021 Seiun Awards in Japan. Its sequels, Fleet of Knives and Light of Impossible Stars, were both shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Best Novel, and Fleet of Knives was also shortlisted for the 2020 Locus Awards.

©2022 Gareth L. Powell (P)2022 W F Howes

Critic reviews

"Gareth Powell drops you into the action from the first page and then Just. Keeps. Going. This is a pro at the top of his game." (John Scalzi)

"A headlong, visceral plunge into a future equal parts fascinating and terrifying." (Adrian Tchaikovsky)

Great!

I enjoyed the story and though the narrator was fantastic. I particularly liked the sentient spaceships, especially the Ocelot character. At times there was a bit too much blood and guts for my taste, but the story was good enough for me to get through those parts. I hope this is the start of a series!

well...

incredibly ambitious concepts but a very shallow execution. no real "heart" to it, despite many harrowing events. flat, I guess? the narrator was quite competent, but perhaps a reading that better expressed the stakes involved would have helped? not sure. have to say that she was a good reader, and perhaps the writing just didn't bring it out in her.

Beautiful new sci-fi novel

Stars and Bones is the newest science fiction novel by multi-BSFA award-winning author Gareth L. Powell. In this brand new series, Powell introduces us to a future where humanity travels the stars far from Earth aboard a fleet of sentient ships. It’s a beautiful vision, and the details of life among the stars are impressive. Stars and Bones is a great introduction to a future reality filled with possibilities.

When her sister’s long-range scouting vessel fails to return to the fleet, Eryn lobbies for her own ship, the Furious Ocelot, to investigate. The trail leads them to a planet known only as Candidate-623 and an alien beacon. First contact with a new species turned deadly, and Eryn must find a way to communicate with a hostile alien intelligence before it wipes out humanity.

By pure happenstance, I managed to get my hands on the audiobook version of Stars and Bones prior to the book’s release and listened to it three times before writing this review, enjoying the story more each time. I still pre-ordered a copy via Audible, it was that good. Narrated by Rebecca Norfolk, I highly recommend the audiobook version.

I look forward to reading future Continuance novels.

An Amazing Book!

I absolutely loved everything about the book and the characters. I fell in love with the plot of the story after 3 sentences. Every personality for each character was well written. I honestly hope this book can become a movie series or something. While reading this book with the audio made everything 10 times better. This book is definitely one you would love to get into!

Pronunciation matters

Good story but the narrator really needed a dialect coach and some basic pronunciation help. A ships bow isn't pronounced the same way a a bow tie.

Very creative, far distant future

Not my usual choice in sci fi but I liked it more than expected. Far out but entertaining. Surprisingly literate.

Another great one

Another gripping story from the wielder of words. Just great scifi story that captures you and won't let go.

WOW great story!

This was a great story, it would have been Even better with a different narrator. She was good but not great. I will be reading anything this author writes.

Good story

Battlestar Galactica meets the Zombie Apocalypse in space with hints of influence from Dug the Dog of Up. Took a little while to warm up, but it was a good story.

Equal Parts Humor & Gore; All Sci-Fi

As mqny have already commented and as my title implies, there's plenty of gore, but it is well balanced with plenty of quirky, entertaining, and even some laugh of loud, humor. Of note, the humor does rely on the suffering of others. Overall, this was an enjoyable listen, especially if you're fan of Anee Lecke & Adrian Tchaikovsky. However, I'd like to address the elephant in the room: the complaints about the gore. The author has yet to fully hone the art of body horror in order to make the bloody scenes more genuinely unsettling/ remarkable/ memorable (i.e. in the vein of Adrian Tchaikovskys' horrorscapes that ate literal & figuratively terrifying or in the style of of Peter Watts' way of making prose poetry in the gruesome but anatomically intricate (and pretty accurate) descriptions of body unraveling). I know many of the other comments mention that there's too much gore (and there is), but it's descriptions are not superbly executed, and subsequently are not excruciating. So if you haven't been exposed Tchaikovsky, Watts, or read "Hyperion", this may be a good starting point. If you're familiar with the works just mentioned- this will feel like light reading.

Overall: It's well worth a listen if you're out of credits, like sci-fi, enjoy quirky humor, and searching for something to fill time while chorin'.

Thoughts about the Narration:

NOW as for the narrator - there's definitely room for improvement. However, despite all the gripes about mispronouncations (of which there are many that I can't place as being specific to American/UK pronunciations they just just straight up outlandish), it wasn't nearly as distracting as I thought it would be. That said, I hope the narrator does take time to research pronounciations of words for whichever accent is being utilized. Moreover, I also found it difficult to figure which character was speaking, as the narrator would start strong with distinctive voices for charcter dialogues, but then would fall out of character halfway through dialog-heavy scenes. I have to say though, I'm a sucker for an Irish lilt, so I really didn't mind lapses as much as I should have and just rewound & re-listened to exchanges. (please note: I haven't looked up if the narrator is Irish or not, but lilt was definitely noted breaking through. So forgive if I'm wrong). Narrator did a solid job with general American accent, but the "Minnesota Drawl" absolutely didn't sound like Minnesota accent. But this is on the author as well as the narrator. Who calls Minnesota accent a "drawl"!? (I'm a Midwesterner. I am familiar with the odd nasally, chipper, clipped accents of Minnesotans).