The Star Shards Chronicles is a trilogy of novels by Neal Shusterman. It follows the struggles of six Ordinary High School Students who were conceived at the same instant that a star exploded light-years away. The coincidence of their birth caused them to receive extraordinary powers; however, as our story begins, our heroes' abilities have been corrupted and twisted against their true purpose by unknown forces.The three books in the trilogy:
Scorpion Shards: The six protagonists struggle to discover the source of their strange and horrific abilities and their connection to one another, and to overcome the otherworldly parasites that have corrupted their powers.
Thief of Souls: Our heroes must face an ancient, malevolent, soul-eating foe who has escaped from his long imprisonment.
Shattered Sky: Powerful and terrifying invaders appear from a parallel dimension, and only the Star Shards have the power to stop this new force...but can they join together in time?
This trilogy contains examples of:
The Atoner: Dillon becomes this in the second book, and Tessic views himself as one in the third book.
Cherry Tapping: Dillon raises this to an artform, destroying an aquarium with a poker chip and the Hoover Dam with a freaking pebble!
Classical Mythology: Thief of Souls reveals that the Greek gods were Star Shards as well.
Darker and Edgier: The series is fairly dark to start out, but the third book, with its older main and supporting cast, shows an increase in sex and profanity.
Death Is Cheap: With Dillon's power to resurrect the dead, the Happy Campers begin to believe this. As do the Shards while under Okoya's control.
Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: In the third book, after Michael dies, Lourdes attempts to create these and fails. In an even stranger example, Maddy replaces Deanna at the very end by giving up her own soul to be replaced by Deanna's.
Eccentric Millionaire: Tessic, who believes in spending his fortune to do good deeds in unusual ways.
Eldritch Abomination: The parasites. Also, Okoya and the Vectors. Hell, their entire species qualifies.
Enemy Mine: With Okoya in the third book. It's also how the Shards treat Dillon at the beginning of the second book.
Enemy Within: The parasites, which corrupt the protagonists' powers and feed off of them whenever they're used.
Fantastic Aesop: Would it be morally correct to resurrect the six million victims of the Holocaust? I don't know, let's try it and see how it works out.
Okoya at the end of the third book. Being kept locked a facility described as catering to your every want can't be too horrible a fate.
Heel Face Revolving Door: Five out of six protagonists go bad and good again at least once, and some do so twice.
Hermaphrodite: Okoya. Leads to some Pronoun Trouble when the other characters can't decide on his gender; the narration refers to him with masculine pronouns "for brevity".
Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: An odd retroactive variation in the third book when the Shards discover they have the power to bring back all the victims of the Nazis' death camps, effectively reversing the Holocaust.
Love It or Hate It: Michael in the first book, In-Universe. Except for the other Star Shards, every woman he meets immediately develops an intense lust for him, and every man he meets immediately hates him with equal intensity. Unintentionally Lampshaded by his guidance counselor.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Infecting Okoya with all the parasites and sending him into an alternate dimension in Thief of Souls turns out to be a very bad idea when the parasites run amok in the alternate dimension and displace its inhabitants, who decide to emigrate to Earth in Shattered Sky.
Okoya in Thief of Souls. He's freed by an earthquake in the prologue.
The parasites in the first book. The only thing keeping them in check is the will of their hosts, as evidenced when Dillon loses control and almost destroys the entire Pacific North West.
Self-Made Orphan: Dillon, whose mere touch can cause insanity, accidentally destroyed his parents' minds.
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