Book: Unconquerable Sun
Author: Kate Elliott
Release Date: 7 July 2020
Source: ARC received through employer
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
I had meant to have this review up like two weeks ago, but life being life, things got in the way. So, my review for Unconquerable Sun comes out just in time for the official release. This book is available as of today! Read the review, and then go and buy it!
Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott (perhaps best known for her YA series Court of Fives), is a massive space opera played out on an epic intergalactic scale. In this intricately-plotted narrative, ambitious Princess Sun of the Chaonian Republic, heir to the throne of a great galactic empire, must fight to survive the ire of her temperamental mother, the secrets of her foreign consort father, and the political machinations of forces within the empire who wish to remove her as heir to the throne, all while in the midst of a long-standing war with a rival galactic empire.
The Chaonian Republic has long been at war with the Phene Empire for control of vast swaths of the galaxy, where FTL intergalactic travel is made possible by an ancient system of “Beacons” built by a long-dead civilization. Now, as the efforts of Princess Sun have given Chaonia a great victory in the war, and the Phene Empire readies for a massive counter-assault, Sun must deal with an attack from within her own ranks. Her mother, Queen-Marshal Eirene, is temperamental, volatile, suspicious, and under constant critique for choosing Sun’s father (a Royal of an enemy government) as one of her consorts, and therefore does not trust her own daughter. On top of that, someone among the Noble families is attempting to either kill or discredit Sun and the retinue of Companions she keeps by her side. Along the way, Sun allies herself with a diverse array of characters – including her secret lover, an unstable prisoner of war, a woman who may or may not be a spy, and the winner of a pop media Idol contest. Each of these allies, and many more besides, have secrets and goals and ambitions of their own. It is anyone’s guess who can be trusted, and who will betray the princess.
Kate Elliott is, of course, a highly respected writer of both adult and YA sci-fi/fantasy, and this novel may be her best yet. The world (or galaxy) building is detailed and immense. Because of this, the first fifty pages or so are dense and a bit difficult to push through. Elliott does not shy away from throwing a vast amount of information, terminology, slang, and names at the reader, and leaves it up to you to keep track of it all and connect the necessary dots. I personally have no problem with this kind of “throw them into the deep end and see if they can swim” kind of writing, but some might have difficulty with it. I promise, however, that the effort is rewarded by a intricate plot full of political intrigue and fast-paced space battles, which pulls much of its inspiration from the stories of Alexander the Great (indeed, one of the taglines for the marketing of the book is that it is a “genderbent Alexander the Great on an interstellar scale”).
In addition, many of the cultural details of the worlds and peoples in this novel are pulled from a variety of cultures such as ancient Greek and Roman, a few different Asian religions, and even a bit of the Romani — all mixed, combined, and riffed-off-of in unexpected ways. Perhaps my favorite aspect, however, is that the characters feature a diverse range of ethnicities, sexualities, and complex beliefs/motives. I think perhaps a good ⅔ of the characters are queer of some variety or another, and there are black, brown, and “Asian” people all over the place.
This novel is an unapologetic space opera (I saw someone calling it Space Fantasy, which I object to. Space Opera is its own genre and it’s not “fantasy” at all, even if some of the “science” is soft and unexplained). It is a grand adventure, political intrigue, and military scifi, wrapped in a space opera on an immense scale that rivals the works of James S.A. Corey, Kameron Hurley, and Lois Bujold McMaster.
I might be my favorite read of the year so far, and I absolutely cannot wait for the next one!
As I said at the beginning, this book was released today, so it is available everywhere books are sold! You can find it at any of these links (or at your local bookstore, of course – SHOP INDIE!):
Also! Author Kate Elliott will be in conversation with N.K. Jemisin about the book tonight at 7pm Pacific, through the efforts of Mysterious Galaxy Books. (I will, of course, be attending!)
Amanda Haimoto Rudd 