Review of Radiant Star by Ann Leckie

This was fine. Radiant Star is fine. I want to start this way because I want to ground myself in the actual experience of this book and not succumb to temptation to laud it because of Ann Leckie’s name being attached to it. If you go into this expecting something with the same epic scope as the Imperial Radch trilogy or the deep exploration of alien identity of Translation State, I think you’ll be disappointed. But if you look at this as an interesting, intersecting set of stories that happen to take place on an alien world on the edges of the crumbling Radch, then you will probably enjoy it. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Orbit in return for a review.

The people of Ooioiaa worship at a place called the Temporal Location of the Radiant Star. When events elsewhere (you know the ones) cut the planet off from the rest of the Radch, the people in power jockey for position and for survival. Radiant Star follows several characters, including the Radchaai governor of the colony, a lowly consoror who was raised to be sent away by his consorority, and an ungrateful heir and his scheming wife, and a priest who might become a saint. As their stories intertwine and their goals flow together or against one another, the situation on Ooioiaa worsens, and the drama unfolds.

Leckie uses an omniscient narrator here, which is such an interesting choice. Limited third person is all the rage these days, and even when that limited perspective head-hops, it usually happens across chapter breaks or section breaks. This narrator is truly omniscient, albeit personified as an unnamed author (presumably Ooioiaan) writing about this time from an unspecified point in the future. Their tone is dry, sardonic, yet also a little scholarly. Nevertheless, they provide access to the thoughts and motives of almost every character we meet.

The challenge with an omniscient narrator is that it can make your characters feel flat. When every character is explained to us, when all their thoughts and feelings are lain bare, they become less interesting. There is a power to the mystery created by a more limited perspective. Radiant Star lacks a sense of true danger because we never get close enough to any of the characters. Some are more sympathetic than others, of course. But at the end of the day, the arm’s length nature of the narration means I definitely felt more like I was reading a historical treatise than an intense story following a few characters.

On the other hand, the omniscient narrator gives Leckie more licence when it comes to the scope of the story. I love how each of these standalone Radch novels introduces us to new and interesting cultures on the fringes of Radch society. The frequent shifts between personal pronouns for the same character, depending on which perspective we’re tracking, signals this overtly. As always, I love how Leckie plays with ideas of gender as social construct. But more importantly in Radiant Star is the idea of food as both status and cultural symbol.

Radiant Star is in many ways a novel about the fall of empire from the perspective of a farflung province. Instead of a dramatic rebellion, we see a quiet devolution of power. The supply lines dry up. Famine ensues, unrest, martial law. The governor ponders what to do. All the while, Ooioians who know and care nothing for the wider Radch ponder power and jockey for their own positions within this particular society, and it’s fascinating.

As always, Leckie is so skilled at creating a memorable society that feels both alien and human at the same time. This story does not have the same intense personal and political scope as the first trilogy, and I also didn’t enjoy it as much as some of the other standalones we’ve seen. But that isn’t to say you should sleep on this one if you’ve enjoyed the others.