These Burning Stars - Bethany Jacobs

There's a lot to take on board when you start any new epic science-fiction series and there can often be some initial confusion about making sense of the new worlds, new technology, new religions, warring factions and a troubled history leading up to the current crisis. Any SF reader will be used to that and remain confident that all will become clear and that in the meantime they will hopefully be presented with an exciting situation with compelling characters and ideas. Bethany Jacobs, in her debut novel, can be relied upon to deliver just that in These Burning Stars, with the promise of more exciting adventures to come in the rest of her Kindom Trilogy.

In the first volume we are in the Treble, three star systems which have been colonised in an ancient past from a now largely unknown background. What we do know is that there are several rival families and religious divides and that the three adjoining star systems are connected through jump gates that were fueled by jevite, a mineral mined from the moon Jeve. That moon no longer exists, as it was destroyed a hundred years ago, along with much of the native Jeveni population by the notorious Lucos Alayne, and the jumps are now powered by sevite manufactured and controlled by the Nightfoot clan, which gives them considerable influence in the Kindom.

Trouble is brewing however after an attack by an unknown group on Verdant, the ancestral home of the Nightfoot. The jump gates have been taken down after a reported pirate attack on a Jeveni ship, and the Jeveni, their population now largely exploited for cheap labour, are threatening rebellion. After the death of the Nightfoot matriarch, it's in this troubled situation that the ruthlessly unpredictable Esek Nightfoot and her rather more measured kin cleric Chono have been sent out to track down a memory coin, one of the few objects looted from Verdant that have been reported as resurfacing. Esek and Crono however are too late to stop a transaction between the pirates who have the coin and Sunstep, a wanted criminal, a skilled caster with ties to a number of illegal technologies. The memory coin is believed to have belonged to Lucos Alayne, responsible for the genocide on Jeve, but what secrets might it contain?

Reading a new SF series by an unknown debut author, it's inevitable that comparisons and influences will be considered, and it's at least helpful to give an idea where they fit in to the wide genre of science-fiction. With the use of jevite to power jump gates and the power lying with aristocratic religious-order families who control it, there's the hint of a little bit of Dune here, but only in the broadest of ways. The dark brutality in Esek, immediately hinted at in the opening chapter, reminded me more of Iain M Banks and, if not quite fitting into his ideas for the Culture, what takes place here could certainly be somewhere in that universe. The exploitation of the Jeveni, the mining and the revenge plot that develops, reminded me also of Pierce Brown's Red Rising trilogy. All these are places I'd be happy to revisit in another form (particularly since the loss of Iain Banks), but there's more than enough character and originality, enough action, secrets and mystery to make These Burning Stars thrilling and exciting in its own right, with Bethany Jacobs a welcome new voice on the scene creating a universe that is full of potential.

The world, the characters and the history of the Treble is inevitably a lot more complicated than described above - you really don't want any spoilers going into this one - but it's to the credit of the author, how she drops in backstory and gradually reveals the scale of what is at stake, that it is not difficult to get to grips with this quickly. There are a rolling sequence of chases and action sequences to keep it thrilling, as well as a few intriguing background gaps to be filled. One of the main drivers is a figure known as Six, a formidable cloaksaan warrior in training with the Hand who Esek has rashly provoked and is now having to deal with the consequences. With a family origin relating them to Jeveni and to Lucos Alayne (that name again), who knows what kind of trouble has been set loose on the Treble and how much more is to come in the remainder of the Kindom Trilogy, but I am wholly on-board and ready for more.

Reading notes: These Burning Stars, Volume 1 of the Kindom Trilogy is published on the 17th October 2023 by Orbit. Reviewed from an advance review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley. This is a very promising debut and opening for the trilogy. The ending is a little flat compared to what happens before, but in so doing it doesn't give away where it might be headed next. There is a preview opening chapter of Volume 2 in my review copy that looks back rather than forward, suggesting that there is more in the past that has yet to come to light. Definitely worthwhile following this one.