The Blighted Stars

The Blighted Stars (The Devoured Worlds Book 1) by Megan E. O'Keefe


I am giving this a solid four out of five stars for the science fiction, and then subtracting a star for the Romance.

Megan O'Keefe has penned a solid adventure story set in a unique future with characters who face some unique problems. Her story fires on all cylinders from the start as we placed on one of the two star ships approaching a planet called “Sixth Cradle.” Things immediately fall apart as one ship fires on the other ship, which is beset by a problem involving “misprinting” crew members. A handful of crew members abandon ship. Their shuttle discovers that the planet is already in the grips of the Death Shroud lichen, which kills off all plant life native to the planet. The expedition is headed by the Tarquin Mercator — heir to the Mercator dynasty — who does not know that the EX who is supposed to protect him is his deadly enemy Naira Sharp, who has been printed into the EX body for nefarious reasons.

WTF?

There is a lot going on here, and virtually none of it gets explained up front. Yet, the confusion and ambiguity is part of the charm of this book.

We discover through the book, that habitable planets are called “cradles.” Somehow all cradles, and the Earth, have been infected with the Death Shroud lichen, which causes complete ecological collapse within months of introduction. How the Death Shroud lichen gets introduced to planetary ecosystems, and where it came from, are mysteries.

In addition, science has discovered the key to uploading people's memories, personalities, and experiences onto “maps,” which can then be loaded into “printed” bodies. How that happens is not explained, but it allows society to resurrect people and confer immortality.

Society has been hegemonized by six or seven mercantile families that control this high-tech and have areas of specialization. The Mercator family specializes in building starships and mining Relkalite. Relkalite is a miraculous mineral used in building the shield of starship warp cores and in the “pathways” that are installed into “prints.” These pathways improve the printed bodies' strength, stamina, or dexterity.

Relkatite is mined with the Canus fungus, which was found on Venus.

That turns out to be important.

The story has an impressive science fiction component. Tarquin has to figure out what's going on with the Sixth Cradle. How did it get infected? What happened with the ships? What is causing the “misprints,” essentially bodies without human souls loaded into them? He has to do this while facing a dangerous planet loaded with dangerous misprints and no food. This part of the story was wildly successful. The story moves along at a fast clip, and we get answers to the mysteries.

You might think that Tarquin was the story's hero, but you would be wrong. The hero is Naira Sharp, an “iced” Ex, who is a stone-cold killer, and impossibly attractive. An “Ex,” aka “EX” or “E-X,” is a bodyguard with hair-trigger reflexes and killer instincts wired by pathways into their bodies. I assumed that Sharp was a fireplug of a creature, but given Tarquin's infatuation with her, I began to assume that she was built more like Sydney Sweeney.

Sharp is dangerous, beautiful, commanding, misunderstood, and courageous. She is the Mary Sue of Mary Sue.

Her introduction turned this science fiction story into a Romance with all of the tropes of Romance. Tarquin is a gentleman, but he is drawn to this person, who he does not know is the person he testified against for claiming that the Mercators had created the Death Shroud plague. She knows and hates him. But he's cute and noble, and her ice shell begins to thaw. He realizes that he cannot compromise her, but he knows that she is literally “incredible.”[1]

She hates him, but she likes him. She's so confused. Can these two crazy kids ever say what they feel? Just when they do, they are torn away, and her memories are wiped.

I don't read Romances, but I've seen at least one Romance in the process of being written, and I learned that the misunderstanding, sulking, drama, and changing emotions at the backbone of the genre.

I hated it.

Other people like Romance. Their fantasy is not to solve the death of planets but to be so adored that they can act like brats—brats with the ability to kill dozens—and still be forgiven.

I liked the science-fiction element of this book a lot. If that's all there was, I would be signing up for Book 2. But I did not like the Romance element at all. Frankly, I found the Romance far less believable than the Science Fiction, and I did not believe that fungus could become sentient.

Eventually, the story becomes about the mineral (Relkatite) and the fungus (Canus) as the McGuffins of the story. If you are interested in what that is about, you must read the book.

It wasn't a bad story. If you are in the possession of two X chromosomes or are oriented in that direction, you will probably find the story exceptional.

Footnote:

[1] We know this because Tarquin tells his mother that very thing!

“Naira was right,” Tarquin snapped. “She's not vile. She's incredible.”

O'Keefe, Megan E.. The Blighted Stars (The Devoured Worlds Book 1) (p. 417). Orbit. Kindle Edition.