Centuries ago, the human race left the confines of Earth and began colonizing other worlds. Over the course of all that time, humanity split into three main groups: the Terran Hanseatic League, Therons, and Roamers. The Hansa is made up of Earth, its Moon, and several colonies on other worlds, all overseen by the Earth Defense Forces and its Chairman and King. Therons are humans that live on Theroc, a lush jungle-like planet originally home to the sentient, knowledge hungry worldforest. Roamers are a collection of nomadic human clans that live off of the production of ekti, a special fuel source needed in order to power the stardrive that allows ships to partake in faster-than-light travel.
This advanced technological feat was developed by Ildirans, humanoid aliens whose primary planet is Ildira, a world with seven suns. Despite what their level of technological advancement implies, the Ildiran race has stagnated; for many centuries, Ildirans have forgone any sort of improvements in all areas, believing their Empire to have reached the pinnacle of its existence. Instead, they've turned their focus to the past, helped along by their incredibly lengthy Saga of Seven Suns, a historical record of anything and everything that has happened within and to their Empire.
Of course, humans don't share Ildiran ideology in regards to their own race: the discovery of the long extinct Klikiss race has led to the development of the Klikiss Torch, a machine that can turn any gas giant into a sun. This has opened up the possibility of expanding the Hansa's territory to planets previously considered uninhabitable. The gas giant Oncier is picked as the Torch's first experiment, and it proves to be a success.
What appears to be a dream come true quickly turns into a nightmare when aliens known as hydrogues rise out of their gas giant homes to attack humanity. In the blink of an eye, both humans and Ildirans will become embroiled in a war with roots in the distant past, which in turn will inflame civil wars of their present. Fortunes will rise and fall, ideals will be tested, and heroes and villains alike will emerge from the resulting chaos.
The Saga of Seven Suns is a science fiction space opera series by Kevin J. Anderson. The series follows a multitude of characters with each chapter switching perspectives from character to character.
The series consists of the following books:
The Saga of Seven Suns:
- Hidden Empire (2002)
- A Forest of Stars (2003)
- Veiled Alliances (2004): a prequel graphic novel that was later adapted into a novella by Anderson himself.
- Horizon Storms (2004)
- Scattered Suns (2005)
- Of Fire and Night (2006)
- Metal Swarm (2007)
- The Ashes of Worlds (2008)
The Saga of Shadows
A sequel trilogy set a generation after the events of Seven Suns.- The Dark Between the Stars (2014)
- Blood of the Cosmos (2015)
- Eternity's Mind (2016)
- Whistling Past the Graveyard (2016): a novella that takes place between the beginning of Shadows and the end of Seven Suns.
This series features the following tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: The novella version of Veiled Alliances. Anderson's stated he adapted the original graphic novel's script as a writing exercise. He had been away from Saga for half a decade and was understandably having trouble getting back into the world in preparation for The Saga of Shadows Trilogy. The novella is a faithful adaptation, but Anderson also added new material (that explicitly lays groundwork for the follow-up Trilogy).
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: The Ildirans hold to this, due to the thism. While it's painful to break, it's not an ironclad rule.
- Alien Sky: The title says it all, really. Ildira is BRIGHT.
- The Alliance: The Roamer clans, and later, the Confederation under King Peter.
- Always a Bigger Fish: The first appearance of the faeros.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Klikiss and their robots. The hydrogues and faeros, while hostile to terrestrial life, are more an example of Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- Anyone Can Die: Though once established, main characters tend to scrape by fairly well, it can be hard to tell who's going to be important and who's going to die, what with the sheer size of the cast.
- Ax-Crazy: Hansa Chairman Basil Wencelas, who doesn't hesitate to have people killed for his convenience, and becomes more and more unhinged and bloodthirsty as the series progresses.
- Rusa'h after his head injury.
- Thor'h, the only Ildiran to willingly join Rusa'h's rebellion.
- Batman Gambit: Patrick Fitzpatrick III is sentenced to death by Del Kellum after he turns himself into the Roamers and confesses his war crimes against them. Just before Patrick can "walk the plank", Zhett Kellum (Del's daughter) intervenes and asks for leniency. Then Del cheerfully reveals that he was never going to kill Patrick, he was just trying to push Zhett into forgiving him.
- Becoming the Mask: King Peter rises up to become a true king leading the people against the various evils of the galaxy. When Basil rants about "he's not even a real king!" one of his underlings muses "Maybe he is. More than we ever knew."
- Bee People: The Klikess are The Ildirans have a limited Hive Mind through the thism and castes for each function of their society, though the ruler is a male.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Four of them (Basil, Sirix, Rusa'h, and the hydrogues) operating largely independently, though Basil and Sirix have a tense partnership at one point.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: The Saga of Shadows has an alliance between the new Klikiss robot leader Exxos and the Shana Rei.
- Blackmail Backfire: As Peter's power grows, an increasingly manic Basil has the families of major admirals and general held hostage to force them to obey him. During the final battle, when one of his chief generals refuses to fire on an unarmed enemy vessel, Basil threatens the man's wife. Instead of cowering, the general declares that anyone who's reduced to threatening innocent lives to get ahead is no true ruler, and switches sides, with many of his fellow officers following suit.
- Cassandra Truth: Peter is strongly and vocally against using poorly understood Klikiss robot programming modules to create robot soldiers, but is overruled by Basil, who dismisses Peter as paranoid.
- Colony Drop: Jess Tamblyn's attack on Golgen involves hitting the gas giant with several comets.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Borderline, and less so as the series goes on. Still, the hydrogues are initially presented as an uncaring and invincible force of nature, and humans as bit players in the elemental conflict. Played a bit straighter in the Sequel Series.
- Crapsack World: Earth devolves gradually into one of these during the series, mostly because of Basil Wenceslas. The world on which Nira is imprisoned is another.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: It can be done by humans or Ildirans. Really, you're better off getting backup.
- Early on, the only known way to defeat the Hydrogues involved using ships as battering rams.
- Dirty Coward: The Klikiss robots, for all their tough talk, wind up running from every battle where the other side isn't defenseless.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Well, moonshattering anyway, in Ashes of Worlds.
- The hydrogues initial attack is a response to the destruction of one of their worlds with the Klikiss Torch, which converts gas giants into stars.
- Easy Evangelism: The telink/thism network. Mind you, there are strong insinuations that it involves (possibly unintentional) brainwashing. And it also turns out to be as much a weakness as a strength, and gets a lot of humans killed by the faeros who would have otherwise been safe.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Basil has one in the Whisper Palace. The Klikiss robots have one on Maratha.
- Eldritch Abomination: Hydrogues, faeros, wentals and verdani are borderline examples. The Shana Rei, mentioned in Ildiran legends and taking a central role in the Sequel Series are the genuine article.
- Elemental Embodiment: Obviously. The gaseous hydrogues, the sun dwelling faeros, the earth and plant based verdani, and the living water creatures called wentals.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Averted in that none of the four elemental species trump another merely because of their affinity. The hydrogues and faeros are matched while the verdani are weakest without human help. At least not initially. The Wentals Took a Level in Badass in the last book.
- The Empire: The Hansa (malevolent, though according to the exposition it is supposedly organised on a confederal/alliance basisnote ) and the Ildirans (more nuanced).
- Energy Weapons: Jazers
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Sirix doesn't understand that DD actually likes humans, and is loyal to them for reasons other than his programming.
- Likewise, Basil Wencelas's enmity with Peter. His ego and paranoia regarding Peter's criticisms and reservations leave him unable to understand that Peter is not trying to spite him, but trying to help humanity win the Hydrogue War.
- Evil Chancellor: Basil Wenceslas plays with this. Officially, he's just the Prime Minister and answers to the King, but in practice the King is supposed to be a puppet. He gets closer and closer to this as the King assumes more power.
- Face Death with Dignity: Patrick Fitzpatrick III is sentenced to death by Del Kellum after turns himself into the Roamers and confesses his war crimes against them. Patrick accepts this without complaint, acknowledging that he deserves it, and is about to step off the "plank" when this is revealed to be a Secret Test of Character.
- Fantastic Slurs: Hansa people call Roamers "Roachers." The Roamers call the Hansa "The Big Goose" and "Eddies." None of these is a compliment — though Eddies is sometimes used neutrally.
- The Federation: The Confederation.
- Forgotten Phlebotinum
- Four-Star Badass: General Lanyan, commander of the Earth Defense Forces, is genuinely brave and capable. However he is also amoral and sadistic, making this a case of Villainous Valour.
- Adar Kori'nh is an old, obsolete soldier and he knows it, but that doesn't stop him from doing everything in his power to whip the Solar Navy into shape.
- Adar Zan'nh combines Kori'nh's tactical skills and willpower with a level of ingenuity and flexibility that even humans are impressed by.
- Forbidden Love: Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni, at first because Cesca is engaged to Jess's brother Ross. After Ross's death, one obstacle after another comes in between them. They eventually realize that their love for each other was never that secret, and they could have thrown caution to the wind years ago.
- Gambit Pileup: Each leader has their own idea of how best to save their people, however they define "their people." Mage-Imperator Jora'h takes note of this, because at least half of his plans are forced by someone else's dead hand.
- Gunship Rescue: The Wetal-Strengthened/Chained Hydrogue Warglobes coming to the aid of the Confederation and Ildiran fleets above Golgen, in the second-to-last battle against the Faeros. Also a callback/ironic echo to the very first major Hydrogue attack.
- Also, during the battle for Earth the constant arrival of more and more factions.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Nira's various children, the green priests, the various elemental incarnates, the various Verdani/Wental hybrids.
- The Ildirans have a breeding camp set up to produce these with various castes, as human genetic material produces Ildirans better at their inborn tasks. Nira's children were an attempt to strengthen the thism with her Green Priest telink ability.
- Happiness in Slavery: Debatable example with the Ildirans, who are genuinely unable to refuse a command from the Mage-Imperator, but worship him as a God.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Many times.
- Recently-demoted Tal O'nh becomes the first person to destroy a Hydrogue warglobe when he rams his warliner into it.
- Adar Kori'nh later repeats this with 49 ships stripped down to essential crew.
- Robb Brindle agrees to pilot the diving bell into Osquivel to try to negotiate with the Hydrogues, though he knows it's suicide.
- 343 fully-crewed Ildiran warliners are ready to do this to save Earth. Fortunately the Roamers, armed with Kotto Okiah's doorbells, show up in time.
- Villainous example when an unnamed Klikiss robot sacrifices itsef to give its leader Sirix enough time to escape. Sirix is baffled.
- Hired to Hunt Yourself: As a minor element, Eldred Cain. Basil asks him to investigate who the leak to the media of Estarra's pregnancy is, which is revealed when Basil asks about it in light of it also getting leaked that the King and Queen are in effective house arrest. Cain takes the opportunity when asked how the investigation is going to suggest the perpetrator must be very clever for it to be so hard to find leads.
- Hive Mind: The thism is an incomplete example. Ildirans can act independently, but they're all connected together, instinctively know their place and obey the Mage-Imperator unless circumstances interfere. Rusa'h's thism is a straighter example.
- The elemental races are a straight example.
- Horde of Alien Locusts: the Klikiss
- Human Aliens: The Ildirans, except for some of the more specialized kiths, look very similar to humans; humans and Ildirans can even have children together. Thoroughly averted with the other alien species, though; you start with the klikiss, and then get to the elemental races where things get really weird.
- Humans Are Warriors: Which is why Adar Kori'nh takes a crash course in human military history.
- Insane Troll Logic: What you get when you ask a Klikiss robot to explain why they want to kill all humans.
- Insistent Terminology: Davlin Lotze prefers to be referred to as a "specialist in obscure details", not a spy.
- Interspecies Romance: between Nira and Jora'h.
- Also Anton Colicos and Remeberer Vao'sh, who form the only non-straight couple in the series. Yazra'h tries to initiate this with Anton, and is completely oblivious to why he isn't interested.
- Just Eat Gilligan: Jorah considers his father and grandfather's plan to breed a communicator between them and the hydrogues to be problematic. Hundreds of years and untold suffering on a gamble when they could have used that time to make better weapons to fight their enemy instead.
- May–December Romance: The Ildiran Prime Designate Jora'h, who has adult children, and the teenage green priest Nira.
- Also the 70+ Basil Wencelas and 20-something Sarein, though romance may be the wrong word for their relationship.
- Anton and Vao'sh; Anton is in his 20s and Vao'sh is described as being an older man.
- Never My Fault: Basil Wencelas increasingly becomes this as the series progresses. It gets bad enough that former Hansa Chairman Maureen 'Battleaxe' Fitzpatrick accuses him of being pathologically incapable of admitting any wrongdoing.
- No Blood for Phlebotinum: Ekti, a form of hydrogen most often found in gas giants, is vital for stardrive fuel, and much of the conflict between the Hansa, Roamers and hydrogues is fought over the ekti supply.
- Obviously Evil: The hulking black Klikiss robots, who say they have no memory of what wiped out their creator race...
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Peter and Estarra.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Every chapter is written from the point of view of a character, and of course they always think they're right.
- Precursors: The Klikiss have left behind ruins, strange technology, and powerful robots. They aren't all gone, though...
- Psychic Link: Between ALL the Ildirans, between Green Priests and the Verdani, and particularly between Nira's children.
- Punctuation Shaker: epitomised by the Ildirans, though it has some justification due to their ranks being denoted by the PunctuationShakers. Specifically, an Ildiran's personal name precedes an apostrophe, which is in turn followed by a letter or syllable that denotes what kith the Ildiran belongs to. All Ildiran names follow this convention.
- Puppet King: King Peter, and all the former monarchs of the Terran Hanseatic League. Peter refuses to stay this way and tries his best to be a real king, though he knows that Basil may have him killed for this.
- Ramming Always Works: Ramming is the only thing that works, initially. The hydrogue warglobes could not be damaged by anything other then a ship being used as a giant missile.
- Recycled IN SPACE!: the Roamers are basically frontiersmen IN SPACE, not to mention the use of a traditional fantasy-style Elemental battles plot.
- Revenge Before Reason: By the time of the fifth book Eldred Cain believes Chairman Wencelas has fallen victim to this when he attempts to abort Estarra's baby and force her to commit suicide. He flat-out tells his boss that he believes the Chairman has allowed the existing enmity between himself and King Peter to escalate into a personal vendetta.
- Running Gag: Kotto Okiah and his helper compies never stop trying to find opportunities to use the word "conundrum".
- Small Name, Big Ego: The Klikiss robots go on and on about how they killed their creators and are going to kill humans, and maybe Ilidirans. But they lose every major battle they are in, possibly because they were programmed to.
- Space Elves: The Ildirans, especially the long-lived, ethereally-beautiful royal kith.
- Space Opera
- Shiny-Looking Spaceships: the Ildiran navy are decked out in solar sails and other shininess. Most of their time is spent on displays.
- Smug Snake: Basil is certainly clever, and he starts off a borderline
Magnificent Bastard, but as his prolonged Villainous Breakdown happens he gets much sloppier, and is solidly in this trope for much of the series. - Starfish Aliens: The Elementals.
- Summon Bigger Fish: Humanity's best hope for beating the hydrogues is to get other elementals as allies.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The Klikiss robots. And the Soldier compies, in later books.
- The Klikiss robots get complicated when it turns out they were meant to fight Klikiss, in a bid to control the Klikiss instinct to dominate. The Klikiss just didn't account for the possibility that the Klikiss robots would bring in alien races against them.
- Used Future: Roamer ships invoke this aesthetic.
- Villain Decay: It becomes increasingly hard to take the Klikiss robots seriously as the series goes on and they lose battle after battle, even when they have superior forces.
- Villainous Breakdown: Basil has a prolonged one beginning after the appearance of the Hydrogues proves he's not as on top of things as he thought, and getting worse from there.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Cyroc'h, Udru'h. Basil Wenceslas starts out this way, but after breaking down, becomes less "well-intentioned" and more "It's All About Me."
- Wrench Wench: Zhett Kellum, Tasia Tamblyn.
