Book Review: The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei
About the book
Save one world. Doom her own.
Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artefacts to alien civilisations – until a disastrous job forced her into hiding.
Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she's haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future. Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can't refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction.
Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren't the only ones hunting for it. Maya sets out on a breakneck quest through a universe teeming with strange life and ancient ruins. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her team of friends new and old.
Someone will betray her along the way. Worse yet, in choosing to save one species, she may condemn humanity and Earth itself.
Why we love it
The Stardust Grail is a thrilling interstellar space heist (think Indiana Jones in space!) that combines a deep space treasure hunt with themes of cultural identity, anti-colonialism and found family.
Set in a distant future long after humanity’s first contact, the known universe is connected via a vast network of nodes, or wormholes, that allow travel between Earth, various settler planets and alien homeworlds.
The story follows Maya Hoshimoto, a grad student at Princeton who researches ancient artefacts from alien cultures. Originally born on PeaceLove, a settler planet that fought for independence from Earth, she’s also a former art thief who once roamed the galaxy searching for the Stardust Grail, alongside her best friend Auncle.
As one of the Frenro, the tentacled, telepathic, aquatic species who built the original node system and whose survival depends upon on finding the grail, Auncle persuades Maya to resume their grail quest for one final adventure. This time though, Earth's military is in hot pursuit and Maya is soon faced with the impossible choice of helping Earth or helping her oldest friend.
Maya is a great central character - smart, loyal and curious, with an innate understanding of the flaws of humanity, she’s haunted by the guilt of past mistakes. It’s the deep friendship and shared history between Maya and Auncle which adds so much humour and heart to this novel, because it soon becomes clear that this future is no utopian, Star Trek–style Federation.
Profound differences in understanding remain because how can humanity ever truly understand an advanced species that functions as a collective, almost hive, mind? And just as early European explorers carried death and disease to the lands they colonised, interstellar travel brings the risk of deadly viruses spreading from planet to planet. Layered onto this is the conflict over who controls the nodes themselves, as well as the uneasy reality of artefacts sacred to one culture ending up in the museums and private collections of another.
With a strong supporting cast and nuanced world-building, The Stardust Grail is a fast-paced yet thoughtful read, that skilfully combines humour and emotional depth. Not to be missed!
