A 2020 science fantasy space opera novel by Alec Saracen.
Set in a sprawling galaxy once ruled by the human-dominated Empyrean and now by the fanatical, nominally egalitarian Revolutionary Commonwealth, the universe runs on the titular blood of stars: starblood. Stars, in this setting, are sentient, incomprehensible, borderline Eldritch Abomination entities, once worshipped as gods by the Empyrean and now enslaved by the Revolution. Their blood fuels engines, powers weapons, interferes with complex electronics, is used as currency, and can even be used to grant the ability to wield starfire to individual people, the Starborn.
Blood of Stars follows six central characters as they're swept up in the hunt for Ardor Asterion, the long-lost last heir to the Empyreal throne:
- Princess Syren Cosmirel, borderline-alcoholic second-in-line to the throne of Zerraine, a backwater monarchist holdout in the still-independent Cothollian Bargain. More concerned with drunkenly racing with her personal starfighter squadron than her royal duties, especially when they involve her wife.
- Unstable mercenary Cay Dector, struggling to conceal her mysterious fire-wielding abilities and plagued by murderous voices in her head.
- Veteran blood-runner Aghail, a sword-wielding reptilian alien who captains the Midnight Motto, despite the fact that his species is biologically incapable of lying without suffering terrible pain or even death. In hiding to evade creditors after the murder of his son and destruction of his cargo, Aghail finds his hard-coded sense of honour driving him into the open, forcing him to unwillingly seek a vengeance he never wanted.
- Mosmere, fanatical last survivor of the Empyreal Watch. In hiding for decades, rumours of Ardor Asterion's survival and his own bitterly held grudges bring him back into play.
- Exemplar Ro, architect of the Revolution's success and one of its most powerful rulers. Desperate to correct her greatest failure—missing the chance to extinguish the Empyreal bloodline once and for all—the ageing Ro plots one final masterstroke.
- Exemplar Chisis, Ro's principal agent. A ferocious, relentless hunter and feline alien, Chisis is systematically tracking down every extant trace of Empyreal blood while wrestling with his bestial nature.
As their paths intersect and collide, long-held secrets are revealed, ancient agendas come to the fore, lots of things explode, and the galaxy may never be the same again...
If you are looking for the East Asian Fantasy duology of books written by Elizabeth Lim, please see The Blood of Stars.
Blood of Stars contains examples of:
- Ace Pilot: Syren isn't quite there, but Lieutenant Toscus is clearly the best pilot in the entire Zerraine fleet.
- Action Girl: Numerous. Cay, being a highly competent professional soldier, is the most obvious example, but every female member of the main cast—Syren, Toscus, Ro, Saol—gets to do some serious ass-kicking at some point.
- Advanced Ancient Humans: The Empyrean ruled for thousands of years, but technology appears to have regressed to some degree during that time, especially if Saol's theories on the origin of stasis bombs are true.
- Aerith and Bob: "Cay" is reasonably normal; "Lua", "Ardor" and "Syren" aren't out of the question; "Kvir" and "Aghail" are pushing it; and then there are people like Tshkit and Je'Tehol.
- Airstrike Impossible: Several, but especially the ringfighter attack on Chimera Epsilon.
- Alien Sky: The sky over Idyll is a constant ominous red, while tidally-locked Thaudos is beset by ceaseless lightning storms.
- Aliens Speaking English: Or rather Galver (Galactic Vernacular), the Common Tongue of the galaxy. That said, most aliens appear to have their own language as well.
- Alternative Calendar: The events of the book are set in Revolutionary Year 171.
- Ambiguously Brown: Humans—apart from Exemplar Ro, whose ultra-white complexion is clearly unnatural—seem to vary from what we could consider black (e.g. Kvir and the Cosmirel family) to light brown (e.g. Mosmere's "olive" skin").
- An Arm and a Leg: Toscus loses a leg below the knee midway through the book.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Starblood does just about everything, ranging from allowing Casual Interstellar Travel to granting magic powers. Its applications are so broad that there doesn't seem to be anything not powered by starblood.
- The Apprentice: Chisis regards himself as this to Ro, though Ro—especially going by her treatment of Jascar—may not feel the same way about him.
- Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: After retrieving the Asterion, its plentiful supply of ultra-rare blue starblood makes Cay/Ardor rich enough to hire an entire mercenary army to retake Zerraine.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The view of the Revolution, and what we see of Zerraine's aristocracy doesn't exactly prove them wrong.
- Armchair Military: The Zerraine fleet has had nothing to do for decades except military exercises and a small-scale conflict with Space Pirates. Despite that, their battle plans seem sensible. In fact, their defeat is almost entirely down to an almost literal stab in the back.
- Armor Is Useless: The Fortiora wear menacing black armour, which starblood weaponry seems to melt straight through.
- Attack Pattern Alpha: Once starblood weapons are being fired, electronic communication becomes extremely patchy during space battles, so most quick tactical manoeuvring takes this format.
- Badass Army: The Nirnayatma Interstellar mercenaries, though not the most disciplined or regular force in the galaxy.
- The Battlestar: Zerraine relies on dedicated fighter carriers, but all Commonwealth capital ships seem to carry Scorpion fighters, especially the immense dreadnoughts like Chimera Epsilon and Equinox Hammer.
- Big Eater: Cay, apparently. Makes sense, given how tall and muscular she is.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The Arrokhe are fairly ordinary Lizard Folk on the outside, but they Cannot Tell a Lie—except for the hated and ostracised scuche minority, who find it painful but not fatal. This biological Honor Before Reason extends to khasu'sogh blood feuds, which are lethal to the vengeance-seeker if not pursued.
- Blood Knight: Chisis, a predator by nature, takes great pleasure in killing with tooth and claw, and in killing in general. On the other side, Mosmere has tendencies like this as well, especially when fighting the Revolution.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Stars are widely regarded as incomprehensible, though they do display an understandable desire for self-preservation.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Aghail can, but like all scuche, it hurts like hell and might kill him if he pushes his luck. This even extends to figures of speech, requiring him to be very careful with metaphor and exaggeration.
- The Captain: Aghail, though since the crew of the Midnight Motto is him and Kvir, it's almost a moot point. Also Captain Xallas, when he enters the frame.
- Casual Interstellar Travel: Interstellar travel is literally that, travel between the stars. This is done through the Veins, a dimension of what seems to be pure fire accessible only by flying directly into a star. Within star systems, ships can zip around pretty quickly thanks to starblood engines.
- The Chessmaster: Exemplar Ro, who makes a habit of thinking several moves ahead of everyone else. She's starting to lose her edge, though...
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Stars, which is Truth in Television. Simplified to a sliding scale of red, orange, yellow, white and blue stars (with each star producing that colour of starblood), which escalates from very common, dull reds to extraordinarily bright and rare blues. Red starblood is considered "battery-grade", white is "weapons-grade", and blue is more powerful still.
- Common Tongue: Galactic Vernacular, or Galver, is spoken by seemingly everyone.
- Cool Starship: Many.
- The sleek but battered Midnight Motto is equal parts this and The Alleged Car.
- Its giant Arrokhe-built cousins, the Commonwealth dreadnoughts Equinox Hammer and Chimera Epsilon, are kilometre-long black crescents, in sharp contrast to the blocky cruisers forming the bulk of the fleet.
- The Asterion is effectively a gigantic flying sword.
- The slimline, blade-like Zerraine starfighters—323s, nicknamed "daggers"— are cool, but not as cool as the ringfighters.
- Corporate Warfare: Nirnayatma Interstellar, the galaxy's largest mercenary outfit, is so large that it's sometimes contracted to fight itself.
- Crystal Spires and Togas: Seems to be the general aesthetic of the richer worlds in the Cothollian Bargain, especially Cothol and Aerch. Zerraine is more about robes than togas.
- The Cycle of Empires: History before the rise of the Empyrean has been forgotten—or erased—but what little is known suggests that the cycle is in full swing, just very long. On a more recent scale, the nominally egalitarian Commonwealth has replaced one tyrannical regime with another, though some—especially non-humans—seem to think it's a small improvement.
- Deflector Shields: Every starship has them, powered by—you guessed it—starblood.
- Democracy Is Bad: Syren thinks so, at any rate. Toscus disagrees.
- Dirty Coward: Colonel Tshkit, who spends most of his time making sure that he has an escape route if things go sour. It doesn't work out.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Exemplar Ro responds to the escape of Mosmere and the King Father by ordering an entire town of twenty-five thousand people razed from orbit.
- Divine Right of Kings: A central tenet of the fallen Empyrean, and one which persisted in some form into the successor absolute monarchies of the Cothollian Bargain.
- The Dragon: Exemplar Chisis to Exemplar Ro. In the past, Exemplar Ro was this herself to Exemplar Parvian.
- Duel to the Death: Aghail versus his adoptive daughter Cay, sword to sword. Subverted in that nobody actually dies. Also between Mosmere and Saol, then later Exemplar Ro and Ardor.
- The Empire: The Empyrean. Definitely not a good place to be if you weren't human or related to one of the royal families.
- Energy Weapons: Starblood weaponry fires laser-like bolts or beams of starfire.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Ro regards the genocidal methods of the unseen Exemplar Ahlle as "excessive". Chisis, meanwhile, is trying to suppress his own moral doubts about what he's doing.
- Family of Choice: A mainstay of scuche life. Rejected by their own families after being identified as a scuche, they tend to be adopted by other adult scuche, and grow up to adopt some of their own.
- Fantastic Fighting Style: Duels between the Starborn characters are spectacular displays of fire, channelled into specific martial techniques with names like the Smoking River, Dirian Aegis, Half-Hand Breaker or Ecliptic Strata.
- Fantastic Racism: Humans towards everyone else, at least historically. More on a structural level than a personal one.
- Fantastic Rank System: The Fortiora ranks are: Matriculant (private), Allegiant (corporal/sergeant), Jurant (lieutenant), Operant (commander/captain), Evocator (captain/major/colonel), Vexillar (general), and Aspirant (elite general). The royalist militaries follow a much more mundane system.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Technically averted. The Veins seem to compress space in such a way that ships travel at relatively low speeds even while moving between star systems light-years apart.
- A Father to His Men: Aspirant Je'Tehol, who comes across as a Benevolent Boss even while commanding Exemplar Ro's flagship.
- Feudal Future: Not necessarily the future, but definitely feudal.
- Fictional Currency: The Empyreal credit was replaced by the Revolutionary credit. Meanwhile, Zerraine uses 'marks'.
- Functional Magic: Starblood is, more or less, magic, and fuels virtually every machine and device in the universe.
- The Fundamentalist: Both Ro and Mosmere, as their conversation makes clear, are completely committed to their opposing causes beyond all reason. Neither of them come out of it looking good.
- Good Republic, Evil Empire: Somewhere between subverted and played straight. The Empyrean was clearly a tyrannical regime, but the republican Commonwealth which replaced it was little better, in part because its ruling Exemplars were effectively kings themselves. However, the general consensus of most characters seems to be that the Commonwealth was a mild improvement, though the Revolutionary War lasted so long that nobody alive remembers the Empyrean's heyday.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Syren, Aghail and Toscus all start or end up bodily scarred in some way, but Mosmere and Ro—arguably the most "evil" characters—are both dramatically facially scarred.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Comes in handy for Cay Dector in the climactic battle after she discovers that Axiam's starblood heals her wounds.
- Great Offscreen War: The Revolutionary War, which lasted over a century and was fought across the entire galaxy, killing untold billions, ended a generation before the book begins.
- Hated Hometown: Zerraine for Syren, mostly because of the expectations placed on her rather than the planet itself.
- Hell Is That Noise: The unearthly sound of starfire, usually described with words like "howl" and "screech".
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Exemplar Ro's invasion of Zerraine, launched under the mistaken belief that Ardor Asterion was in hiding there, inadvertently leads to the re-emergence of the real Ardor Asterion, Ro's own death at Ardor's hands, and the rebirth of the Empyrean, none of which would have happened if she'd done nothing. Oops.
- Honor Before Reason: All Arrokhe, whether they like it or not.
- Honor-Related Abuse: Any Arrokhe children discovered to be scuche—i.e. more capable of lying than usual—have their tails cut off and are exiled.
- Humanoid Aliens: Many of the galaxy's alien species are broadly humanoid, and many aren't. Chisis is an interesting example, his species seemingly being in the middle of evolving from a feloid form to a more humanoid one.
- Humans Are Bastards: They ruled a racist dictatorship for millennia. Aliens tend not to be big fans.
- Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: At one point Aghail sees what lies outside the tunnels of fire that form the Veins, and it's absolute nothingness.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Ro, Saol and Mosmere regard their actions as falling under this, even when in multiple cases it entailed the mass murder of children for the crime of being on the other side.
- Ice Queen: Despite her fiery powers, Ro's cold demeanour and all-white hair, complexion and clothing move her into this territory.
- Impractically Fancy Outfit: Worn by Syren at one point for political effect, despite her objections to its impracticality. The Exemplars' white robes might qualify too, though they don't seem to impede them much.
- In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race: Not quite one race, but the spectrum of skin tones seems to have shrunk down to various shades of Ambiguously Brown.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: Chisis's obsessive hunt for Cay is driven as much by his repeated defeats and humiliations as his orders or ideology.
- Lost Technology: The ability to create star-destroying stasis bombs was lost at some point in the past. The Revolution, which found them rather than built them, has a vested interest in pretending that they can destroy any stars they want, when in reality their stock of stasis bombs is now very low.
- Magic Versus Science: Starblood disrupts electronics, resulting in computers being extremely unreliable and simplistic compared to our modern technology. Sensors are virtually useless, and physical newspapers and paper files are still in widespread use. Any screen suffers constant static from starblood interference.
- Magitek: That said, starblood can still power fantastical technology like anti-gravity, forcefields, energy weapons and enormous starships.
- Merchant City: The mercantile hub of Thaudos, situated on a trade route between the Cothollian Bargain and the outer fringes of the Commonwealth.
- A Million Is a Statistic:
Je'Tehol's internal monologue, reflecting on how many people his fleet is about to kill: Thousands, certainly. Tens of thousands, very probably. Hundreds of thousands? A strong possibility. Millions? Not implausible. The numbers slipped through his mind, cold and hard as comets, trailing attenuated trains of zeroes.
- Modern Stasis: Technology is an odd mix of pre-computer age and far-future, but seems to have stuck at this level for thousands of years due to the inherent limitations of a starblood-based universe.
- Modest Royalty: She may not be modest, but Syren spends most of her time in a flight suit or, at worst, a dress uniform.
- Monumental Damage: During the climactic battle on Zerraine, a lot of very expensive and very old masonry comes crashing down.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Due to a single crucial—and understandable—intelligence-gathering error, Exemplar Ro's actions led to the exact opposite outcome of what was intended. In fact. doing nothing at all would have caused much less damage. And it still would have been fine, if not for an inadvertent disclosure mid-Evil Gloating...
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Aghail adopting a starving street kid resulted in the death of his son, the destruction of his business, and ultimately an interstellar war.
- The Order: The Empyreal Watch, a regimented military order of Starborn warriors dedicated to defending the Empyrean.
- Outrun the Fireball: Syren and Toscus after destroying the starfire cannon on Idyll. They don't completely outrun it.
- People of Hair Color: All Starborn have bone-white hair, if they have hair at all.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Revolutionary Commonwealth, which is at least attempting to be a totalitarian state in the name of the people of the galaxy. Infighting, fragmentation and overextension prevent it from achieving it completely, but it's definitely the intention.
- Perpetual Storm: One rages over the city of Terminator on the tidally locked planet Thaudos, where the hot and cold air of its light and dark sides meet.
- Posthumous Character: Exemplar Parvian haunts Exemplar Ro even decades after his death.
- Power Glows: When the Starborn use their powers, fire surrounds their hands.
- Power at a Price: The Starborn get devastating fire powers, yes, but their hair permanently goes white and the likelihood of contracting cancer skyrockets, while general health declines. Few make it to sixty.
- Putting on the Reich: Though closer to the Soviet Union than Nazi Germany, the Venators—the military police dedicated to hunting down Commonwealth citizens with any trace of royal blood—wear sharp black uniforms reminiscent of the Nazi SS. In-universe, Syren once wore one to a costume party, resulting in weeks of terrible press for the royal family.
- Practical Currency: Money is fuel is ammunition, as the credit is directly linked to starblood.
- Precursors: Whoever built the stasis bombs, and whoever they used them against.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Arrokhe specialise in shipbuilding more than fighting, but their hardcoded sense of honour takes them close to this.
- Psychic Radar: The Venators and Exemplar Chisis detect their targets by mentally hunting for the "scent" of royal blood.
- Rags to Royalty: Cay Dector, once her true identity is revealed and she acquires the Asterion.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered (deservedly) to Syren by Toscus.
- Red Right Hand: Exemplar Ro has two: her gnarled fingers, the result of her obsessively breaking them to remind herself of the price of failure, and the livid starfire scar across her jaw. Mosmere only gets one, his horrifically scarred face.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Aghail's attempts to convince the galaxy that he's dead come back to annoy him when a door guard refuses to believe that he's alive.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Commonwealth is utterly ruthless in maintaining power and order, having started a program of mass executions that never really stop.
- Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: The monarchist Empyrean and the egalitarian but brutal Commonwealth can be taken as extreme examples of each tendency.
- Royal Mess: Judging from the party on Zerraine, Empyreal planets used a variety of different aristocratic titles with no real standardization. The King or Queen of Axiam was the ruler of the whole Empyrean, but was still just a king who ruled over other kings.
- Science Fantasy: Sci-fi/space-opera in aesthetics, fantasy in terms of magical starblood being the driving force of the universe.
- Space Fighter: Several, from the 323s ("daggers") of Zerraine, to the Scorpions ("Scorps") of the Commonwealth, and the ringfighters of the old Empyrean.
- Space Opera: A sweeping story of long-lost heirs and immense interstellar wars? It can only be space opera.
- Space Police: Different branches of the Fortiora double as military and police, a result of the political hierarchy of the Commonwealth being entirely military.
- Starship Luxurious: The Asterion turns out to be significantly nicer than any starship we've seen before that point, for obvious reasons.
- State Sec: A job shared by the Fortiora and the sinister Venators, who answer directly to the Exemplars.
- Stealth in Space: Possible because of starblood rendering sensors barely usable. A dark, powered-down ship can drift invisibly through space without being detected. An important technique for Aghail as a smuggler, and used militarily by Exemplar Ro in the past and by Captain Xallas in the present day.
- Spanner in the Works: Saol considers herself to be this to anyone and everyone, and she's not wrong.
Saol: Just doing my thing. Upsetting plans, causing trouble, sowing chaos. The usual.
- Take a Third Option: Cay's unorthodox solution of stabbing herself through the heart and making a miraculous recovery results in her duel to the death with Aghail having no fatalities.
- Tragic Villain: Ro was made who she is by Exemplar Parvian's constant calculated abuse during her childhood, and she in turn passed that trauma on to Chisis.
- Villain Takes an Interest: Chisis becomes utterly obsessed with taking Cay down after she escapes his clutches.
- Walking Techbane: The Starborn are especially bad, disrupting any electronics in their general vicinity, but anyone carrying starblood—e.g. anyone with a gun—is as well.
- We Have Reserves
Operant: We have to fight back, Exemplar! They destroyed a tank!
Chisis: We have other tanks.
Operant: They’re slaughtering my soldiers. I can’t just—
Chisis: We have other soldiers.
Operant: Exemplar! What kind of officer orders his people not to fight back?
Chisis: We have other officers.
- We Will Wear Armor in the Future: The Fortiora are all armoured, though the effect seems to be psychological rather than practical.
- Worthy Opponent: Despite their mutual hatred, it's clear that Ro and Mosmere regard each other as this.
