Review of Astra Idari Beyond Lights’ Reach (Stargun Messenger Book 2) by Darby Harn
BlurbThe Stargun Messenger Saga continues!
Astra Idari saved the universe. Got the girl. Transitioned from android to a human. Now all she wants is to enjoy her happily ever after. When her original programmers lay claim to her singular memory, Idari has to run for her life.
Again.
Her programmers unleash Omna Devor, a vicious, unstoppable AI that infects everything it touches. With Devor spreading through Idari’s neural net, Idari seeks a mythical utopia for advanced AI to find a cure or face deletion.
Her journey leads her across the stars, from her friends and family, and deeper into a cosmic mystery that goes beyond the data in her head. As Idari races against time to save her life, she discovers her programmer’s true objective: an ancient secret in her memory that could change the galaxy, forever…less
Let me say at the outset that Stargun Messenger, Book 1 of this series is one of my favouritest books. I didn’t know it was part of a series because it had a plot that was more or less satisfactorily tied up.
And then I saw this. It has been on my TBR since release and only now did I get around to reading it.
One of the things I loved most about Stargun Messenger was the prose. It was poetic and had a haunting, dreamlike quality that stayed with me for days after finishing that book. By the time I started reading this one, I had half convinced myself that maybe my memory was exaggerating it.
Let me say that it WAS NOT. If anything, my memory had underplayed just hauntingly poetic Darby Harn’s writing was. I was mesmerised from page 1 and even now, days later, I can’t think of it without being awed.
Astra Idari should be resting and relaxing on some beach with her lover and her found family of misfits. She saved the last living star, foiled the Scath plot, saved the world. Time to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, right?
Wrong.
The very first sentence of the book tells you how wrong that concept is: “Thing about saving the universe no one tells you. You still need to make a living.”
So, here she is, attempting to make a living while Emera searches for other living stars, refusing to accept she is the last one, and Faero has grown increasingly sullen. The rest of her crew are there for the ride and doesn’t seem to care for anything.
But then, something from her past reappears. The corporation that made her wants her back. Or more precisely, they want the memory of the titans that’s in her head. A vicious and parasitic AI called Omna Devor (pretty sure pun is intended) is sent after Astra and there seems to be no corner of the universe where she can hide from it.
But there are more secrets to the universe than she knows and more corners of it hidden from her view.
Having already said enough about the author’s prose (but have I? Is it possible to say enough about something so beautiful?) let me move on to the other parts of the story. The plot was intriguing enough. This is not about finding love or oneself anymore, but a real, present danger that would destroy the shreds of happiness Astra has found for herself. Running and fighting are both bad ideas, and there are times when Astra makes decisions that makes me want to shake her.
Faero is the other PoV in the book. Having known her as CR-UX for most of Stargun, I found her even more likeable in this. She has issues, but she’s not blind to them. She just doesn’t want to work on them. It’s her turn to find herself, and her place but she though feels her co-dependency with Astra, she doesn’t really want to break free of it yet. As a character, Faero is interesting and drives the plot to its inevitable conclusion as much as Astra does.
If you love space opera, queer fiction, and sci fi, this is a book you don’t want to miss.
I’ll just wait around for the next book to release.
You can find the book here!
You can find my review of Stargun Messenger here!
