The Stars Are Legion
Set within a system of decaying world-ships travelling through deep space, this breakout novel of epic science fiction follows a pair of sisters who must wrest control of their war-torn legion of worlds—and may have to destroy everything they know in order to survive.On the outer rim of the universe, a galactic war has been waged for centuries upon hundreds of world-ships. But these worlds will continue to die through decay and constant war unless a desperate plan succeeds.Anat, leader of the Katazyrna world-ship and the most fearsome raiding force on the Outer Rim, wants peace. To do so she offers the hand of her daughter, Jayd, to her rival. Jayd has dreamed about leading her mother’s armies to victory her whole life—but she has a unique ability, and that makes her leverage, not a leader. As Anat convinces her to spend the rest of her life wed to her family’s greatest enemy, it is up to Jayd’s sister Zan—with no stomach for war—to lead the cast off warriors she has banded together to victory and rescue Jayd. But the war does not go at all as planned…In the tradition ofThe Fall of HyperionandDune,The Stars are Legionis an epic and thrilling tale about familial love, revenge, and war as imagined by one of the genre’s most imaginative new writers.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
4mentions
4people
2018–2026years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I texted a RIP message to a friend-chat with the comment, "easily one of the top five space opera novels of all time"
One of the friends asked Claude-AI "what are the top five space opera novels of all time," and it ranked Hyperion as #2, only behind Dune.
I personally think LLM "knowledge" is… kind of stupid… but I have to admit it speaks to Simmons legacy that even the word swamp recognizes Hyperion as an all-time classic.
(it ranked Stars Are Legion by K. Hurley as #5, which I unconditionally agree with, but am also kind of shocked, I've never heard of this book so much as referenced in any kind of article or conversation. But yeah, read it. Star Wars meets Alien — the Death Star is the alien)
- The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley is a really great, and different read. Totally different world than a lot of sci-fi.
- The Stars are Legion and Alien Clay are the two best sci-fi books I've read in the last year and I don't think they've shown up on any lists, although the latter is another first contact book by the author of Children of Time which has gotten a lot of acclaim (although I didn't care for it).
FWIW Beacon 23 has an adaptation on Apple TV+ and Project Hail Mary has a film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling that's already finished shooting, so I don't know how long they'll stay in the category of "you may never have heard of"
- The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley had some crazy ideas, but lacked some depth I was hoping for.
Nine Fox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee was also pretty good—had a rough start but ended well.
Collapsing Empire by Scalzi was quite solid and well paced.
Of books not released in 2017, I read The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi—it probably had the most 'new' sci-fi ideas out of the books I read this year, which made it both a bit of a challenge and interesting read.
