Kameron Hurley

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. Here in the darkness, a war for control of the Legion has been waged for generations, 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 the band of cast-off followers she has gathered 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. File Under: Science Fiction

The Stars Are Legion

Maggie Gordon

Wow. Just wow. The Stars Are Legion has to be the most unique scifi I have read in a loooooong time. The premise of the book is thus: Zan wakes up, injured, confused, and lacking in memory. She's on a ship? Or a world? She's not sure. Jayd takes care of her, prepping Zan for another attack on Mokshi. Whatever that is. Nothing makes sense. Her instincts tell her to trust no one, and things only get more complicated from there...

The universe that Zan lives in is filled with organic self-sustaining, planet ships, and they are truly the creepiest things ever. They are multi-layered, massive organisms that produce all of the living things on them. By using the living things on them. All the beings on the ship are female, and they become pregnant spontaneously. Few give birth to human children as pregnancy is seemingly controlled by the ship, so people will give birth to items that the ship needs. 

In true Hurley fashion, the book is a visceral exploration of the organic nature of the ship and the violent nature of the characters. Everything is squishy and bloody and horrifying. It's so uncomfortable to read everything in THE BEST way. Things are so very different, but there are moments of familiarity that make it all seem even more real.

In other reviews, I have seen a lot of criticism that Hurley didn't explain her world enough, but I think that comes from the fact that so little scifi ever really plumbs the depth of what the genre is capable of. For example, a common question I saw was what happened to the men. This assumes that these planet ships ever had everything to do with humanity as we know it. The question of men was not relevant to these characters because men as a concept didn't exist. Just because something is different, doesn't mean that it was relevant. Sure, I would have liked a bit more familiarity with the world, but readers definitely got enough information to make sense of the plot and understand things to the extent that the characters did.

It's not a five star book for me because I think the plot could have been pushed a little more. A lot seemed to hinge on this idea that Zan and Jayd loved each other at some point, but readers came in so late that it felt hollow as the foundation for most of the book. I would also have liked the book to be a little bit longer. But despite a few criticisms, this was a wonderfully innovative, weird, boundary-pushing book!

, but the xenomorph is the entire flippin’ Death Star. Doesn't skimp on action, character, or big ideas. 

Eric Jacobsen

Absolute banger space opera. Star Wars meets Aliens, but the xenomorph is the entire flippin’ Death Star. Doesn't skimp on action, character, or big ideas. 

Sheila

So gory, so angry, so amazing *__* 

This really threw me back to Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha series in that they were also relentlessly visceral and uncomfortable to read in the most addictive way - but The Stars Are Legion turned it up to 11! Wetly organic ships/worlds where no one can be trusted, and a main character with amnesia that could have been such a trope, but turned into an amazing journey of discovery and self-acceptance. 

I'm calling it right now - this is the most original sci-fi you will read this year 8D

Charlotte Rayfield

I don’t even know how to rate this book or even describe it. It’s weird, and confusing and tactile and visceral and messy in all the right ways.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3. I’m being quite generous because I love the concept of an all-woman space opera.

I need to think about this book some more before I write a full review. Just know that I was deeply frustrated reading this and I’m so relieved it’s over.

Bryan Alexander

I'll say this right up front. I have always been in love with the nexus of science fiction and horror. Arguably sf began at with that joining, in Frankenstein (1818), but it has always turned to scary stories for synthesis. Think of Alien (1979) or Blindsight (2006).

I am also always ready for space opera, and this brings me to Kameron Hurley's The Stars are Legion. It combines horror with space opera (interplanetary action, political intrigue, etc.) to excellent effect.

The setting is quite inventive. The main characters live on/in a series of organic planets or planetoids, all clustered around a single star in a formation known as the titular Legion. That clustering is very close, as people can flying from planet to planet very quickly.

When I say "organic" I mean each planet is a vast, living thing and metals are rare. We see floors, walls, ceilings, tools, spacecraft, weapons all made of organic material (think of Door Into Ocean, 1986). Worlds defend themselves by generating defensive fields and scour their immediate vicinity with gigantic tentacles.

And this is where some of the horror comes from. Without getting too far into spoilers, The Stars are Legion shows the Legion to be very far removed from the organic ship of Farscape (1999-2003). The worlds are decaying and sometimes literally cancer-ridden. Civilization is falling. upon itself with skills and knowledge lost. People are routinely "recycled": eaten by monsters or their body parts repurposed for materials, including food. "Flawed" people end up recycled. (Kindle location 1412) Nearly all characters are forced, repeatedly, into unwanted pregnancies (and usually not of human beings). Body horror abounds. The first lines set the book's tone well:I remember throwing away a child. That’s the only memory I know for certain is mine. The rest is a gory blackness.Or:I find my mother in the long translucent stretch of the world called the reflective pool, though there is no water, only a sheen of filmy skin so thin that it reveals the faces and forms of the dead and half-undone floating in the guts of ship’s walls. All those bits of bodies we have recycled eventually pass through here on their way to being devoured and repurposed. Sometimes, if I stand here long enough, I can see the faces of my dead sisters. At one point a sympathetic character claims that dead bodies, rather than children, are the future. (2616)

At the same time this is definitely space opera. The novel begins with a struggle between two ruling families, and features spaceborn armies, interplanetary invasions, several schemes for power, and at least one betrayal. Understanding the world through science will prove very useful.

The plot focuses on two characters, their relationship, and their adventures. Zan is a military leader with extensive amnesia. She loves Jayd, a politically ambitious schemer with a secret to trade on. I'll say more behind spoiler shields, but note that they are both women. All characters in The Stars are Legion are women. This is noted and unexplained, but makes for a fascinating world.

Back to that plot: (view spoiler)[Hurley sets up two powerful ruling families then tears one apart pretty quickly. Our two leads are separated and each follows a different path. Jayd is wed to the enemy while trying to give birth, while Zan has an epic march starting from a planet's awful core. They finally meet up, take over some of the worlds, and launch a new era. (hide spoiler)]
It's a rich and muscular story. 

Women's issues and stories are obviously in the forefront. Relationships between mothers and daughters, between sisters, between same-sex lovers structure the narrative. Conventionally female topics reverberate throughout: pregnancy and childbirth; "women's work," like weaving and nursing; 

There's a good use of what Eric Rabkin called the "transformed language" of science fiction. Characters use a variety of names for things that we'd find familiar - torch, apple, engineer - but applied to very different items.

At times the plot seems to become diffuse. A couple of twists didn't seem plausible. Otherwise,. strongly recommended for readers who enjoy that sf/horror blend.

Matthew Rasnake

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying worldships 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 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.

The Stars Are Legion

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