Book Review: Yume Kitasei explores space in an action-adventure novel about a heist

Student Maya Hoshimoto is having a hard time adjusting to Earth after an exciting career as an art thief, stealing looted objects and returning them to her people. When her best friend Auncle – an octopus-like creature from another solar system – offers her one last job, she naturally accepts. But we all know it’s never just one last job.

The Stardust Grail is Yume Kitasei’s second novel, another thrilling space adventure with strong women and diverse characters. As in her first novel, The Deep Sky, Kitasei uses science fiction to recontextualize issues that have long been on our minds and for which there are no easy answers – such as what constitutes personality and whether artificial intelligence can acquire it, or when cultural conformity becomes appropriation or oppression.

Maya believes she can find the Stardust Grail, which may be the secret that allows Auncle to reproduce and preserve the Frenro species. She had sworn her days of stealing and repatriating artifacts were over, but this mission is special; the Grail appears in her dreams.

Because of the infection – an alien pandemic that, if survived, gives some people the Frenro ability to dream through space and time and experience possible futures – Maya knows exactly what she’s after. But Earth’s forces are after the same prey, and given Maya’s small, unknown crew and lack of information on the Grail’s whereabouts, it would be a miracle if she actually gets it. Or survives at all, as former enemies with legitimate grudges keep cropping up along the way.

The plot laid out at the beginning seems predictable enough, but that’s only half of it – we literally only see it halfway through. Then, in true Kitasei fashion, the game changes and things get really interesting.

For me, the story really picked up and touched me deeply in the last quarter. Everything before that was fine – more action and heist than adventure – but in Part 4 we really start to delve into planetary exploration, history and lore, and weird life science fun. And the ending, while a little abrupt, was satisfying and earned.

Jonathan Bush has once again hit the nail on the head with the cover design for “The Stardust Grail.” Both of Kitasei’s novels have beautiful covers with meaningful designs that grow with your knowledge of the story and provide additional reading pleasure.

AP Book Reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

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