Ghosts & Ashes

April 1, 2017

Gr 8 Up-Continuing a few months after the events of Star Host, this sci-fi novel begins with Ren and Asher at odds with each other. Ren is having trouble moving on from the traumatic events he's experienced, and he struggles with his technopathic powers now that he's aboard a ship chock-full of technology. Asher's training as a soldier doesn't allow him to place his loyalty to Ren above his devotion to the Phoenix Corps, no matter what he feels for Ren. As Ren slowly slips further and further away from humanity without his anchor, the crew of Star Stream decide that a trip to Ren's home planet might be best for him. What they find there devastates Ren and his friend Jakob. Though the conflicts are more internally focused in the beginning, they feel no less dire than they did in the previous volume. Ren's post-traumatic stress disorder is presented realistically alongside his challenges with his powers. Readers will cheer him on as he struggles to maintain control of himself. Ren and Asher's relationship is more hot and cold this time, with the justification for their ever-changing feelings toward each other becoming increasingly weaker as the plot moves forward. There are also a few side plots on Erden, Ren's home planet, that feel underdeveloped. However, there is enough to keep readers engaged until the cliff-hanger ending. VERDICT A solid purchase for libraries with a sci-fi reader base or those looking to develop LGBTQ genre fiction collections.-Kathryn Kania, Goodwin Memorial Library, Hadley, MA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2017
This sequel to The Star Host (2016) brings a fraught romantic pairing into constant deadly space peril.Since escaping the planet Erden on the Star Stream at the end of the previous book, Ren's star-host magic has been spiraling out of control. His usually brown eyes frequently gleam with the blue of his "technopath" power, as he finds himself controlling the ship by accident in his nightmares. His slow-burn relationship with Asher is falling apart; how can he trust a boyfriend who has such loyalty to the star host-hating Phoenix Corps? The crew of the Star Stream attempts to stabilize Ren by bringing him to his home planet, but that only reveals deadly plots that play out against a backdrop of nameless, primitive villages. While traveling with a band of revolutionaries, Asher and Ren fight and then reconcile time and time again. The Montague/Capulet love affair between two white young men--one a planet-born star host, the other a born-and-bred spacer and soldier--doesn't rescue this effort from dialogue that makes little contextual sense or planets that feel like a movie-studio backlot. Still, the pacing is solid enough to keep readers entertained while they wait for some good Firefly fan fiction. Queer science-fiction romance for teens is badly needed, but readers needn't settle for thinly constructed worlds, flat characters, and tepid prose. Try Alexandra Duncan's Sound (2015) instead. (Science fiction. 12-14)

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