Stars and Bones by Gareth Powell- The prologue is well done a sets up an intriguing premise, but the story after, for me, starts out as a slog of Space Opera cliques that take all the wonder out. Powell is very good at creating a vibrant cosmos, but populates it with rather dull participants. Shame, I was looking forward to this. Not a complete loss really, just not as good as it could be.

Gah!! What a fricking awesome read "Stars and Bones" is! The core of the story is immense, the characters built so well, and the settings so real you can see yourself there... Has Gareth L. Powell had a glimpse of humanity's future? I could easily believe he has! The writing is just out of this world, and I truly hope there will be more to come from this world.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Stars and Bones is an exciting and fast-paced space opera about humanity escaping a menacing force that turns out to be not what you think.

I enjoyed the novel! It was very easy to read, moves at a quick pace, everything is easy to picture and envision, and I liked the small twist at the end with the antagonist. There are elements of modern and classic sci-fi, including a touch of horror - the novel has generational ships, space travel, an apocalypse (kind of), sapient AI, and aliens, amongst other things. It reminded me of a lot of different sci-fi movies/books but it didn’t feel like a mish-mash of allusions roped together. It exists in its own world.

It was fun and would make a cool movie.

Yet, the novel moves too fast at times and I sometimes had to stop myself from trying to figure out whether something was plausible. For example, when extracting all the humans from Earth, what about those Indigenous tribes in the Amazon that rarely see other humans, or Mennonites/the Amish who reject technology - were they taken from everything they know and thrust into these spaceships? The novel touches on “dissenters,” those who don’t like being on the Arc ships, but this poignant idea didn’t get enough focus.

I really liked what the nefarious entity ended up being, but the ending was a little too “cerebral” for me (that trope just isn't one of my favourites). I also thought the “solution” to the problem had a bit of a deus ex machina aspect. I don't mind a bit of deus ex, to be honest, but this one was a bit much and kind of too obvious in its revelation.

And while I did find the story entertaining, it’s a bit forgettable. The characters aren’t very deep and while their motivations are clear, I can’t say I found them overly interesting. Some characters had promise, like Tessa with her dissension views, but were only given one chapter for their POV and others, like the cop, felt unnecessary. It also seems like Eyrn, despite only being a pilot, is given a lot of control and responsibility for the fate of humanity when there are supercomputer AIs who are charged with protecting the human population that could make more informed choices.

The story simply doesn’t take a breath to delve deep into the characters, whether by playing them off one another or letting them ruminate, so while they aren’t flat, they could have used some more layering. For example, I wasn’t sure why Eryn is hesitant to engage in a relationship with one of the other characters, and the depth of certain characters’ reactions to others’ deaths wasn’t very hard-hitting.

Then again, this is a very quick, action-driven story. It’s like a movie versus a series; we sometimes have to remember that we’re spoiled now with the media we get - due to series, we’re given such depth to every character that when we get a standalone or short book, we forget that we can’t possibly get that without losing the pace of the novel.

As such, the book entertained me, I enjoyed the twist at the end, there’s nothing distressing in it really, and it was fun. If you’re looking for a fast, fun, space opera with an interesting take on aliens, this will definitely hit the mark.

Stars and Bones grabbed my attention to read for its dystopian setting in space and the contact with aliens the synopsis promised us. It gave us this but I was as a whole not quite satisfied.

The story in itself is basic. They find a threatening alien that gets taken back to the arc ships and starts a infestation that doesn't seem to be able to be stopped. And it is up to our crew to stop it. In itself there is a lot of room for play and depth which I think wasn't utilized enough.

We meet Eryn, our mc, on her space ship the Ocelot. The Ocelot is a sentient space ship that can walk around using an envoy (a human look a like). They are bonded and their bond clearly shows through their interactions. The Ocelot would do anything to keep Eryn safe. There were other sentient ships with envoys including the arc ships the humans inhabit. They were a super awesome bit of this story! As was Sam the cat who got a piece of technology to talk to the humans. All pets have this.

Eryn and Ocelot are our main mc and who we get the most point of views of. However there are quite a few more point of views to the story that in placec felt quite pointless. There was Haruki who told us the story of how we as a species came onto the arc ships and had to leave our Earth behind. But it was told in 3 chapters and it was a lot of tell not show. When he does come into the now he has no real role to play. Then we get Victory from that period with a point of view that had no addition. And a Tessa whose point of view was also not needed for the small role she played. It made the whole of the story feel chaotic.

And then there was Li, a character who was present from the start who was quite one dimensional and only served as Eryn's love interest. A love that I didn't quite feel either. There was more feel in Eryn for an ex that could have been instead of the actual love interest in front of her.

Having said that, I did enjoy reading the story and I see so much potential in this setting for other stories. Especially with the ships and envoys.

There is a surfeit of brilliant space opera at present: The ‘Salvation’ trilogy by Peter Hamilton, ‘Galaxias’ by Stephen Baxter (not to mention his ‘World Engines’ duology), ‘Inhibitor Phase’ by Alastair Reynold (which marks a triumphant return to the ‘Revelation Space’ saga), ‘Shards of Earth’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky (who also wrote the enthralling ‘Children of Time’ and its sequel) and the recently concluded ‘Expanse’ series by James S.A. Corey.

What this means is that the bar has been set very high of late, so a book like ‘Stars and Bones’ by Gareth Powell has to be judged against some very high achievers. Sadly, for me, it falls short. This is not to say it is a bad book. There is a lot I liked about it, and I think it is a very good entry point into the hard SF space opera sub-genre for those readers who don’t normally read SF.

Speaking of hard SF, my main problem with ‘Stars and Bones’ is that it is a bit hazy on the details and the science. Yes, a Dyson Sphere does play an, er pivotal role, but the concept of the ‘substrate’ (what Star Wars termed ‘hyperspace’), for example, and its role in allowing for near-instantaneous interstellar travel is a McGuffin that is all too common in SF these days to avoid the implications of Einsteinian reality.

The main plot is not that original either: Humanity is on the verge of destroying itself when an alien called an Angel of Benevolence swoops in to save the day. It handily obliterates the rings of Saturn to build a fleet of arkships and sends the species on its merry way to explore for a new home. (There are billions of humans and only a few thousand arkships, each of which is a unique environment or conglomeration of cultures – Powell’s tantalising peak into this setup of the co-called Continuance was the best part of the book for me).

Unfortunately, a pitstop on a (seemingly) uninhabited planet when an arkship goes missing unleashes a (seemingly) unstoppable force that quickly infiltrates the fleet like a combination of the protomolecule from ‘The Expanse’ and the icky stuff from ‘Night’s Dawn’. Genre readers just know that the proverbial is going to hit the fan when a strange planet is only designated by a number, with LV-426 being a classic example.

There are some nice touches here, like technology allowing the cat Sam to mind-meld with both humans and arkships (leading to much acerbic commentary in the background about the general stupidity of humanity). I thought Powell has too heavy a hand in anthropomorphising the ultimate (and inevitable) showdown, but he does a pretty good job of setting up the next novel. I’m certainly curious enough to see what direction he takes his story in next.

Full Disclosure: I received an advanced copy of Stars and Bones by Gareth L. Powell from Titan Books via NetGalley.

I'm not sure what originally drew me to this book. Maybe it was the idea of a mystery in space. Maybe it was the description of all the arks with their various environments. It was probably the promise of a talking cat. Whatever it was, I am really glad it did. The story is told through multiple perspectives, including sentient machines, although there is one character I would consider the main. Eryn is a scout ship navigator trying to figure out who/what killed her sister when things go terribly (an understatement) wrong. What was really impressive is how quickly you get invested in these characters even though there is a lot of action happening. You wouldn't think there was enough room for character development, but there is! While it would be easy to just focus on the action, the story did raise some interesting ethical and moral dilemmas if you like to do a bit of deep thinking.

Bonus points for space animals that can communicate with people. Also, Sam is spectacularly catty and realistic.

English sci-fi author comes off his Embers of War series with a new space opera series anchored by some huge concepts. Stars and Bones, the first book of The Continuance, starts with a disastrous alien encounter and goes from there, but that encounter is the in the context of a far different future for humanity than comfortably ruining the Earth. That encounter is the precursor to an existential threat to the remnants of the human race but also leads to a deeper understanding of some of the underpinnings of the universe they find themselves in.
Seventy five years before, a massive alien intelligence, known as an angel or “the Benevolence”, saved humanity from destroying itself and the planet but did so on the condition that the planet was left alone. A fleet of one thousand giant arks, the ‘Arks of the Continuance’ was built, each run by its own superpowered artificial intelligence, and the remnants of humanity forced to board them and begin a peripatetic life of wandering through the universe. But when the book opens a survey scout has unearthed a deadly threat. An omnivorous intelligence that kills the crew and later makes its way to the fleet where it starts to deconstruct and repurpose all matter. It comes down to scout pilot Eryn and her intelligent ship Furious Ocelot to lead the search for Frank Tucker, the man who discovered faster than light travel and first communed with the angel in the hope that he can save them.
Stars and Bones is big concept space opera but many of those concepts have been used before: massive generation ships with their own personalities (cf Iain Banks) ; an alien goo that can deconstruct and absorb consciousness of organic matter and repurpose it together with reconstruction of inorganic material (cf James SA Corey); the massive ruins of alien civilisations (cf Alastair Reynolds); and immature alien intelligences who just need a guiding hand (cf more than one episode of Star Trek). That said, Powell brings a coherence to his universe and all of this is deployed well and driven by a mystery/thriller plot with the clock ticking down to the end of humanity.
But on the other hand, it is not clear why the ‘council of ships’ puts all of its faith in Eryn and her small group, or why the alien invader takes so long to move through the fleet after decimating one giant chip in a matter of hours, or why, when Eryn is finally given a key to resolving the crisis it is hidden from her until “the right moment”. The characters are fun to spend time with, and as some are killed the stakes feel high and the action moves quickly enough to ignore some of these niggles but maybe not quickly enough for all readers.
All in all Stars and Bones is one for space opera fans. Powell delivers a pacey, action filled tale set in an interesting universe, even if it is one that draws on a range of well used space opera tropes. And given this is the first, scene setting volume in a series, Powell has left himself plenty of scope to take this series in new directions.

I have read several other books by Gareth Powell and was really excited for this story as I loved his previous works. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this anywhere near as much as I thought I would.
The story is set some 75 years in our future where all of humanity has been essentially evicted by some higher beings in the hope of preserving Earth and it's ecosystem from humanity's destructive ways. The premise is really interesting and was my favourite part of this story - it would have been nice to have the worldbuilding of the arks expanded on.
The story is fast paced, easy to read and with plenty of action, which I am sure will appeal to many readers. I loved the brief appearance of the cat (who could talk) and could have happily read a whole story about them!
Unfortunately for me, the characters let the story down. I didn't have any connection with them and they felt very flat. I can tell when I am completely invested in a story (and it's characters) when I don't feel like I am reading a story, but living it with them. In this case, I was very much aware I was reading. The dialogue didn't flow and I didn't really understand any of their motives. I also couldn't tell the difference between any of the characters - they all spoke the same and pretty much had the same temperaments - even the ships/AIs. I also felt like some elements were a little unbelievable (yes, I know it is sci-fi but rules still need to be adhered to in each world to make it a realistic story). The AIs came across as no more intelligent than the standard character.
I am very much a character driven reader so this didn't do it for me - but it was still a good story and if you enjoy soft sci fi and plenty of action you should give it a go.

Ok, I feel like I need to give a disclaimer. I liked this book. I've been following Gareth Powell for a while now and I've wanted to see his writing style, so I jumped at the chance to read this book. Anyway, I liked the book, even though I will have a few unhappy things to say about it.

First, it's a fast read. I'm not a quick reader, and it moved me along at a good pace. In fact, pacing was almost always great. Even in the dreaded second third of the book, when many a story bogs down, this one didn't. Very refreshing.

Second, the plot and characters were fairly well developed. Overall, I could see Gareth's plan as it unfolded, yet the twist at the end was good. It was enough of a surprise that I didn't see it coming, but was still believable. Main character and immediate supporting cast was good and engendered empathy.

Unfortunately, I kind of thought the entire story hung on a fallible premise. That mistake didn't keep me from reading and enjoying the book, but it did make the overall believability difficult. I felt I was being asked to suspend belief on one too many things. I also felt I was seeing a few political/social messages delivered in a stilted, non-natural way, like he was forcing them into the story. His politics are none of my business, of course, but I think the messages could have seemed more natural. Hence the 4 stars instead of 5.

I enjoy greatly the writing of Mr Powell. He's characters are compelling and her style is a frenzy page-turner that keeps you hooked on the pages until the very last one. A must read of 2022.

Stars and Bones

[Blurb goes here]

I'm not too keen with the way this novel was written (first person view from most of the characters). This becomes confusing at times, specially when you kind of skip the chapter title, the only clue as to whom the chapter is narrated by. The stile seemed unnecessary, If I'm being honest. The first quarter of the novel is a really fun ride, but starts to wind down bit by bit. Not that there's lack of action in the rest of the novel, but since the first part was more interesting than the rest, the other three quarters of the novel feel lacking.

Still I enjoyed it, even when there's a lot of unnecessary back story coming from most of the actors.

I will certainly look for more books written by Mr. Powell.

Thank you for the free copy!

75 years from now humanity is on the very brink of destroying life on Earth in a nuclear war when they are rescued by alien beings known as the Benevolence. They are banished from Earth but set free to travel space in giant arks. Then one of their scout ship discovers that the crew of another ship have been horrifically murdered on a planet and the murderer now appears to be loose among them.
This book has a brilliant cover and a great premise. I love the idea of the arks and they work brilliantly in the novel. Each one has its own distinct character as well as a very individual AI to run it. I think that the Ais or Envoys were possibly my favourite part of the novel as their personalities were the strongest characters.
As a murder mystery in space, the book worked. The plot was interesting and the way it was worked out with the Science Fiction elements felt right to me. I did feel that the identity of the murderer was fairly predictable though. However, for me, the book fell down on characterisation. When the most interesting characters in a book are the Artificial Intelligences, that doesn’t seem to say a lot about the rest of them. The main character, the navigator Eryn was generally well written but most of the others seemed very much like stock characters.
It was an OK read and if you love space opera then you may well love this but I don’t think that I will be rushing out to buy any future books in this series.
Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a DNF for me around 30%, so my review is for the story up to that point.

Stars and Bones by Gareth Powell has an interesting premise, which I won't bother to reiterate here as the summary does a pretty good job. While a lot of the "hard" science seemed somewhat inconsistent to me (though I'm not a physicist so what do I know?), I did appreciate the way Powell used "navigating the substrate" as a justification for why space navigation wasn't an entirely automated process.

Unfortunately, I felt really disconnected from both the characters and the plot. This is a multi-POV novel, which I frankly found unnecessary as you're with Eryn most of the time. To make matters worse, she isn't really the most interesting character to read about and I ended up not caring what happened to her. A lot of the characters felt pretty "stock space opera-y" as well, which I wouldn't have expected from a writer with Powell's accolades. I also felt like the story read like it was happening right now. Like, the dialogue and attitudes of the characters felt very 2020s to me, which didn't make sense for a far-future sci-fi novel.

Now in all fairness, space operas are a hit-or-miss subgenre for me in general. If you are a massive fan of space operas, or like stories that feel very "of the moment" despite being set in the far future, this might be for you.

I eagerly anticpated this novel due to the buzz that it had achieved online but i was thoroughly disappointed in its execution.

This novel has many great ideas, cultures and feelings. These ideas can be endearing but also disappointing. I found myself wondering whether i was seeing something wrong in how hard this was to follow and it distracted me from what the author was trying to achieve.

I usually commend multiple POV chapters but there were many interruptions and not enough time spend on others to even warrant the holes in logic or inconsistencies.

I loved this book the concept, the characters, the humor. If you like Sci-fi, and space adventure please pick it up.

This novel is a fresh start for Powell, after wrapping up the Embers Of War trilogy. It’s set in a new universe, with an excellent and original background, and sees Powell moving towards the darker territory of, say, an Alastair Reynolds. There’s a lot of pain and anguish in this book and a focus on violent death and emotional distress that wasn’t there before. That’s not to say he’s suddenly gone all grimdark on us, as a key theme is found families, and relationships strengthening under pressure, and the core of the novel is the kind of rattling space opera fun that has become his trademark, but it is more sombre than some of his previous work. Nevertheless, it’s a great read that SF fans will have a lot of fun with. No idea if it’s a standalone or the beginning of a larger series - while the story is largely done at the end of the book the setting is strong enough to stand some more novels in this universe, and I’d welcome them

This book was a whirlwind of science fiction delight! I loved the random quirky humor sprinkled throughout. It balanced out the catastrophic background of panic and mystery of a new alien life. Sam is by far my favorite character with wonderful use at the end of this story. Eryn’s journey was heart wrenching, yet beautiful. This universe was wonderfully built, with beautiful detail. The commentary on capitalism, climate and nuclear woes was also enjoyable and added so much more weight to the story. I loved the journey and I know other science fiction lovers will too.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC. I will post my review publicly closer to publishing date as requested by publisher.

STARS AND BONES is a fun kind of space opera: it stays mysterious and thrilling throughout, without getting too one-note. I particularly liked the first half or so (the first 40%), when it was mostly an intriguing first contact novel turned cosmic horror. The characters are just about developed enough, the world developed (loved the concept of the “angels”), the plot makes for a very readable space opera.

Where it somewhat fell apart for me was past that 40% mark. Though I liked it until the very end, the plot started to show some cracks there, where multiple moments made me question the story (which I rarely find myself doing, these days). “Plot holes” (real ones, logical irregularities, plot armor, sudden tone changes, broken character motivations, …

Cool ideas barely held together by a muddled plot.

This is a review of an uncorrected ARC. I am grateful to Titan Books for sending me a copy.

---A poor story in a fascinating setting---

Gareth L. Powell is a BSFA award-winning writer that I had been meaning to read for a while, so when this book appeared on NetGalley, I requested a copy with anticipation and started reading it as soon as it arrived.

The setting is excellent. Humanity is saved from the brink of self-annihilation by a powerful benevolent alien that immediately proceeds to exile all humans to wander the stars on board a thousand-strong fleet of AI-piloted ships. There are many cool ideas. Ship AIs physically manifest as blue human-looking 'envoys'. Each ship has a distinct culture and feel. And humanity politics has largely moved to a post-consumerist utopia, though there are still those who cling to the vestigial politics of the old world. There are even snarky talking cats, and idea that is surprisingly endearing.

Unfortunately, I found most of the other traits of this book disappointing.

--The Science (and Economics)--
Not every science fiction book should be hard, but there should be a modicum of coherence and self-consistency. There were quite a few obvious logical holes, which I found distracting (and I am excluding: the substrate, the use of the 'Observer Effect', the collars that cats are now born with, etc.). For example [redacted as it includes spoilers, please refer to my Goodreads review to view].

--The Characters--
1) As the main character, Eryn is shallow and annoying. On many instances, she spends pages self-doubting and hand-wringing, taking us along for endless internal monologues. Then in the very next moment, she suddenly becomes determined and clear-minded. She has no clear qualifications for the job of saving all 15 billion humans on the Continuance, yet is repeatedly picked by others to fulfil this role.
2) Frank, Shepperd, Genet, and Madison are walking stereotypes.
3) Li is a one-dimensional character that only serves as a love interest. Her repeated unrequited affections are cringe-worthy.
4) Haruki and Victoria are both rather interesting, but are barely explored.
5) My favourite characters? The envoys. The Alexandria's only appears for a couple of pages, and totally steals the show.

--The Story--
The story is narrated using POVs, but there aren't enough different POVs to warrant the use of this device. 75% of it is told from Eryn or the Ocelot's POV. The action is jarringly interrupted by long internal monologues. The story is full of plot holes and logical inconsistencies. Here are a few examples. [Redacted as it includes spoilers, please refer to my Goodreads review to view].

I know that you shouldn't want a book based on its cover, so thankfully, once I saw that it was a book by Gareth Powell it was one that I knew I had to read. The cover though is absolutely stunning and definitely catches the eye which is exactly what you want.

Set seventy-five years in the future, the human race has been cast out of a dying Earth to wonder the stars in a vast fleet of arks. The good news is that you do get to hear how the Earth started to die and humanities role in it.

For the most part, the story follows Eryn, who responds to a mysterious alien distress call when her sister goes missing. Eryn insists on being part of the crew sent to look for her. What she discovers on Candidate-623 is a horror beyond what any of the crew could imagine. When the threat follows her back to the fleet and people start dying, she is tasked with seeking out a legendary recluse who might just hold the key to humanity’s survival.

The ships have AI's built-in which can then fragment off sections to smaller scout vessels almost like children - they're their own entity, just formed from an AI with far greater capacity. What's interesting is that the scout ship AI's make their own host bodies, some to a humorous effect like a hammerhead shark walking around, or in the case of Ocelot's (Eryn's ship) where he presents himself as a portly man. In between a few chapters the focus changes from Eryn's point of view to the Ocelot's just to add another dynamic and shows how differently they can think compared to humans whilst having an unbreakable loyalty to their human "owner".

The action throughout is intermittent but plentiful. Even in the quieter moments, everything is chugging along at a set pace because the threat is always there and growing. There's a lot of dialogue between characters or even to the AI's but nothing that you'd class as pure filler - it's relevant and even the bits that don't push the story forward give you a bit more of a look at the current state of the human race, answering some questions that you want to know.

One part that some people might not like is that Frank, the legendary recluse who might be the key to saving the fate of humanity. Is he? Realistically, he didn't do much other than giving Eryn the opportunity to speak to one of the "angels". Other than that, he was just there once they found him, offering some moral support where needed but also annoyed at his recluse life being interrupted. For me though, I don't mind this. There's too much in books of "this person can save everyone" and not enough finding them and then realising that no that isn't really the case. I like the "I don't know" kind of response and although it might seem like a pointless journey to have got to that point it does add a bit of realism to an otherwise pure sci-fi romp. He's not entirely useless though as his presence alone on the Arks allows Eryn to get permission to do what she needs to do. I liked Frank, but can definitely see people questioning the point - I just hope that people can view it as I did in that him not knowing the answers himself is actually pretty realistic, despite what everyone is told beforehand.

Overall though, the story is a gripping and thrilling sci-fi novel that kept up a solid pace throughout, that even threw some humour in there for good measure. Some of the descriptions of the entity they find are graphic and really add to the horror of what the characters are seeing and are up against. The reanimating of the dead in a warped way just to mimic humans it absorbs is horrific, but the ability to mimic the AI and ships is something else and definitely not something that you want chasing you through space! Stars and Bones is another good book by Gareth Powell and it makes me look forward to what he has in store next.