The Actual Star audiobook

I wasn't sure this was my kind of book. I don't read a lot of the kind of historical fiction or speculative fiction that has this level of deep worldbuilding. And with three separate plots and timelines, each with their own full set of characters, at first I struggled to get my feet under me. I actually spent a few weeks reading this, going back to it for a dose of three chapters inbetween my other books. This can make for a disjointed reading experience, but over time I found myself more invested, more comfortable, and able to comfortably move between these three stories all 1,000 years apart.What drew me in was the religious connection across the three stories. All of them are rooted in Maya tradition, but all of them have been changed over time. Our protagonists are in drastically different circumstances, but at their center they are all motivated by a search for truth and a deep sense of faith. I am not sure if this actually deserves to be called "fantasy," there are certainly science-fiction elements in the future timeline, but the only fantastical elements are all part of Maya religion. It is immediately clear that this is a book that takes it's characters' beliefs utterly seriously, and I always enjoy books like that. If possible, I would recommend reading this in print. I read an e-book and didn't realize until I was done that there was an extensive glossary which would have been very useful, but also would have been a pain to flip back and forth to in an e-book version. (And you wouldn't have access at all in audio.) That said, I eventually was just fine, I didn't always remember everything about the future society that the glossary is for, but I was okay just relaxing and letting myself go with it, I got everything I needed even if I didn't get every term. But seriously, the future worldbuilding here is extensive and impressive, even without every little detail, I was able to get swept up in it. Because of the way I spread out my reading of it I honestly didn't even realize how long it was. I knew it was long but I was way off in my guess!In 1012 we have Ixul and Ajul, twin rulers of a Maya empire, and their younger sister Ket. In 2012 we have Leah, brought up in small town Minnesota by her white Catholic mother knowing she is the child of a Maya man from her mother's work teaching in Belize when she was young. Leah is determined to go to Belize for reasons she doesn't fully understand. And in 3012 we have Niloux and Tanaaj, both part of a new nomadic society without homes, without social or family structures, where everything is temporary. Our two protagonists are in conflict about their society's beliefs, with Tanaaj clinging to the past and Niloux trying to push into the future. In this time, the entire social order is based on a religion that combines Maya tradition with Leah's 2012 storyline, as Leah is now considered a saint and her trip to Belize is now the stuff of scripture. The three stories have these common threads, but at first feel far apart. But they all come together for a great conclusion that really satisfies. It's a ridiculously ambitious book that clearly involves extensive research and treats the Maya and people of Belize with deep respect.Part of the worldbuilding of the future storyline is all the potential body modifications characters can undergo. Some of this is your usual quick healing but one of the new social norms is that all people use she/her pronouns and that nearly everyone has both sets of reproductive organs. It was a fascinatingly queer and nonmonogamous version of the future, and also felt like a natural outcome of the idea that the climate has so impacted the earth that these types of measures are necessary to keep humanity going. The gender fluidity also works well for the idea of past lives that's incorporated into the religion. It's particularly impressive the way these storylines all run into each other without ruining what will happen next. We know Ixul and Ajul's empire falls, we know Leah disappears in a cave, and yet this never manages to spoil either story, there are so many questions left, so much left to discover. Content warnings here mostly around self-harm (cutting specifically), which is a regular part of the plot. Also (consensual) incest, ritual sacrifice, and a good amount of violence that is often described in detail. There is graphic sex here, though I found it delightful, this is not a book that is coy about bodies or sex.

Some of the horniest sci-fi I’ve read five stars

Disclosures and content notes:First, I read this as an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own. Second, I am a patron of Monica Byrne and have been financially supporting her work for at least five years, and part of that has meant that I have known about this book, her writing process, and the journey to publication more deeply than any other book I’ve ever read. (I really value this, and her transparence with her patrons, but I know it has influenced how I approached the book.)Third, for content warnings, there are descriptions of self-cutting, human sacrifice, and other contemplated violence. …So, now that’s out of the way……The Actual Star is an interwoven single story about three different timelines each separated by a millennia. Taking place across the world and specifically in Belize, we weave through 1012, 2012, and 3012, each moment at the end of an age and on the precipice of a new one. There are 3 central characters in each of the timelines, each distinct and individually voiced. I always was able to find my way in the story, and even when we picked up after a cliffhanger (basically the experience of the second half of the book) I was able to follow directly into the timeline with the writing. Often, in stories where there are multiple narrators or sections of the world to follow (cough The Two Towers cough Song of Ice and Fire cough) I’ll find myself wanting to skip ahead to my favorite characters. I’ll have a story I’m more invested in even as the tale continues elsewhere. This is not the case here. With these interweaving stories, and the way they are related, and the lore that Byrne has built into this world which is so deeply textured it engages all my senses and whole body, I always wanted to know what was next in each of the timelines. I am in awe of how Byrne has created a new religion, with streams of orthodoxy, heresy, and ideals, and so she can speak to how we make foes out of people who are so closely aligned with our own values, but off, only by a margin. Our disputes for life are about the degree of that margin. This book reads like a soft blanket. It reads like an invitation into a new world. It feels nostalgic while also being innovative. Clearly, Byrne has been influenced by writers like JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, NK Jemisin, Octavia Butler, and Kim Stanley Robinson, but this influence is more about scope and the way one is immersed into a story, than narrative directives. Byrne’s writing is clear, beautiful, elegant, and evocative. I frequently found myself reading a description, and thinking, well, I’ve never heard it that way, but now I have a very clear picture in my head. She writes phrases that should become cliches because of how perfect they are. Her writing is clear and consistent throughout. My only space for wonder about style is whether each of the primary characters could have been differentiated by varied voicing, but I don’t think the story needs it. Byrne’s prose is graceful and poetic, deeply detailed, layered, and textured. This is a book the world needs right now. It’s about our imagination for our future, how our past can impact our present in surprising ways, and how perfection isn’t the same as community. This is a story I’ve never heard before, but it felt like coming home.

There's so much to love about this novel that I hardly know where to start. It's speculative fiction, yet thoroughly researched, with a thoughtful and detailed note at the beginning reviewing the care with which author Monica Byrne has approached this project as well as where she's taken the liberty of educated guesses to fill in gaps in the scholarly consensus. She even cites particular experts by name, including historical linguist Lyle Campbell, whose work I was already familiar with beforehand.As for the book itself, this is of course not the first tale spanning over multiple millennia, but I have seldom seen the process handled so well, effortlessly balancing the vastly different period settings: one group of characters in the Mayan civilization of 1012 CE, one in US and Belize of 2012, and one in a new utopian society of 3012. I wouldn't call it nonlinear -- each timeline progresses steadily on -- but they amplify one another nicely, with clear impacts that nevertheless keep the resolution of each subplot a mystery for readers as we alternate among them. The casual dropping of clues across time is just superbly done too, creating a patchwork constellation of connections backwards and forwards to illuminate the text throughout.The earliest protagonists are heirs to a waning Mesoamerican kingdom, ritualistically preparing to secure their power as their calendar foretells the dawning of a new epoch. Later they have passed into legend with their true fates unknown, and a young woman of our day travels to her father's homeland, her mind churning with inchoate thoughts of a new world order and methods of accessing a state of spiritual transcendence. Further still, a unified nomadic culture spans the globe, its guiding principles apparently based on the teachings that same figure left behind when she vanished without a trace in our era of intensifying climate disasters so long ago. Yet even for the dwellers of that latest point, there are dogmatic tensions brewing that threaten to fundamentally rupture and collapse their familiar way of life.Thematic parallels link these three storylines, along with repeating motifs, like a pair of estranged twins on a collision course to square off against one another. It's even suggested that perhaps we are looking at literal reincarnation -- although I think the writer is wise to maintain that ambiguous uncertainty, as she does with the existence of the divine realm of Xibalba and Maya cosmology more generally. There are competing tenets of faith across this narrative, and they are honored as shaping a genuine reality for their respective practitioners without need of any explicit objective verification. The genre is neither fantasy nor that variety of science-fiction that insists on applying cold rationality to every phenomenon on display. Experiences of the holy (however that's personally defined) don't need to be shunted into a category of Real or Not, and the book is made stronger by embracing that.And the worldbuilding! The ancient moment is clearly the one that's been most heavily-investigated, and it breathes with plausible authenticity to bring that distinctive perspective to life. The future is fascinating too, a queer socialist community that has survived via genetic engineering so that all members are born as what I suppose we'd label intersex, with individuals able to readily change their sex organs surgically (among other body modifications for disability accommodation) as they see fit -- though they almost all use she/her pronouns in honor of their blessed saint. And the present, situated neatly between the two, is recognizable as today while underscoring the liminal threshold of something radically different percolating just beyond our horizons.My one small and admittedly tangential critique, which should really be taken with a grain of salt as part of a much broader conversation about the sci-fi universe at large, is that whenever I hear a story say that every human in the future shares one common religion (or no religion at all, a la Star Trek), I start hearing alarm bells as a Jew. My people have sacred customs we've maintained over untold generations, and if your imagined utopia doesn't have Judaism in it, it's not because we would have suddenly changed our minds about that. You've written our extermination, and tacitly suggested that our current existence is an obstacle of backwardness for our betters to overcome on their way to perfection. Byrne at least is committed to picking at the flaws of that future society, casting it as just another temporary alignment giving way to its successor, but I feel like there are eugenicist implications for marginalized groups that she perhaps hasn't fully realized and grappled with.Regardless, this title is a tremendous achievement that grows in pathos as each separate element nears a joint and mindbending climax, an ambitiously dense yet approachable enterprise with an engaging cast and big ideas I can tell I'll still be thinking about long from now. It's only January, but this is an easy early contender for the best book I'll read all year.[Content warning for self-harm, gore, live human sacrifice, and incest.]Like this review?--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!https://patreon.com/lesserjoke--Follow along on Goodreads here!https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6...--Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!https://lesserjoke.home.blog

Only fifteen days into the year and we've got our first five-star read, folks. That ending was delicious, chef's kiss, full-circle perfect, and it's got me wondering what everyone's "best chord change, that unbearable twinge of bliss" is - for this point in my life I'm usually going to go with the C#m into the chorus in Shearwater's "Quiet Americans."

5 (not actual) stars!There is virtually nothing which which to compare this book. When I describe it to people, it takes me 20 minutes minimum, and then I walk away feeling that I only gave them the icing on the cake and they’re missing all the cake itself— that’s how layered and deep and moving and also surface-level-straight-up-interesting-and-smart-and-creative this book is.The thing I loved most about this book was the 3012 world. I was so incredibly moved, in really extraordinarily powerful ways, by the nomadic, global-democratic, ethico-theo-ecological future envisioned in La Viaja. It was almost tear-jerking to know that there is an author out there— a human out there— who can think so radically about a future for our world, a future that outlives the climate crises and migration crises and capitalist crises we find ourselves currently facing, and might actually be good, better. If there is a sequel somewhere in this author, I hope it explores the 3012 world even more ♥️♥️♥️The other thing I loved most about this book was the lack of binaries, especially ethical ones: there is no outright good and evil. No one is perfectly good or bad— not Ixul and Ajul, not Niloux and Tanaaj, not Xander and Javier, not even Ket and Leah. Everyone is a unique and complex mix of motives, desires, backgrounds, complications, and feelings. This is not a story of good vs bad, nor is it a story of tradition vs innovation or mysticism vs orthodoxy or even, really (I think), about indigeneity vs colonial means of knowledge production (though all of these are at play). What it’s about, maybe (I think), is allowing oneself to be acted upon— by the land, by the Other, by the gods… whatever those may be. It is so much better not to be so wholly self-contained…The other thing (and after this I’ll stop, I promise) I loved most about this book is the way it works upon its reader so relentlessly to change her perspective. In the 1012 world, the movements between Xiabalba, vision, and reality are like an augmented reality, dizzying in their shifts— by design, I presume. The 2012 world slaps you in the face every time, jolting you from a mystic past or a technologically utopian future into a world of fast food, car horns, and flip phones. The 3012 world’s possibility of the future is, as I mentioned above, awe-inspiring in its scope of vision, leading the reader careening around wildly like a kid at a carnival, savoring the sights and smells: gender neutrality, a fascinating global democracy, the technological ethics involved with things like blotting, the complex interweaving of mythic/ancient past (the Tzoyna and the ballcourt) with speculative future (the Panoptica and the aug).If I were going to compare this book with any other, I think it would be The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. Both have similar themes— the complex interweaving of mystic religion and technology, commitments to centering non-white and non-cis characters, and most importantly: that they teach their readers a new way to read. They treat their readers as dialogical partners who are competent and imaginative, who can receive complex and layered and sometimes told-at-a-slant information and move through it with the author, from the light zone, into the dark zone, into the place of fear and powerful imaginative potential.I can only thank Monica Byrne for this book, which, in addition to teaching me a new way to read, has also taught me a new vision for the future, one which I had lost hope of even dreaming of.

I don't... know... This is a weird book, and it's hard to classify. It's a big swing, and I think it was clearly pulled off, but it's definitely not for everyone. Really gory violence and scenes of self-cutting right from the get-go (literally the first scene) will prevent a lot of people from giving it a shot. It's really well written, and the work that had to go into writing this must have been incredible. But there are a lot of reasons it's hard to recommend. For instance, it would be better to read the future parts as an ebook, because there are SO MANY WORDS you have to look up in the glossary. A lot of time you can sort of glean from context but it's so much easier if you can just pause and take a peek, and that's not as easy to do with audio. But then the present day has characters who speak in a Creole dialect very similar to the Belter language in The Expanse. The audiobook narrator does a SUPERB job at making it sound natural and authentic. But trying to read it, I felt like I was back in kindergarten sounding out syllables. I went for five stars because of the writing quality, the fact it never really felt overlong or draggy. The research required for this had to be next-level. It's an amazing accomplishment, but definitely not for everyone.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley to read and review. The most common description I've seen of this book is that it's akin to Cloud Atlas and the works of Octavia Butler. I think that's a pretty cool comparison. I would add that there are some elements that Grant Morrison would be comfortable with and that David Lynch might nod his head at. The book takes place in three time periods and explores themes related to change, the impact of environment on human nature, and the power of belief. The stories intertwine and inform one another and all are seen through the lens of Mayan culture and history. The worldbuilding is solid- especially the culture of 3012- and the writing is descriptive without being too heavy. I really loved this book. I spent hours each day reading it over the course of a weekend and it was time well spent. At some point in the future I look forward to re-reading it!

I'm currently 42% through this book, and I am having a great time! I'm going to write my thoughts so far, and then follow up when I'm finished. At this point, I am mainly thinking about the reviews I've seen of this book, and how they compare to my experience with it. There are quite a few negative reviews! To be honest, the bad reviews intrigued me and are a part of why I wanted to read this in the first place. They seem to have a few complaints in common: there is too much sex in the book, the book has an ideological stance that readers don't care for, or conversely, readers agree with the ideological stance but feel the relevant themes are badly handled. A few are saying there is too much going on and the story is hard to follow. I also saw a review complaining about the frequency of untranslated Spanish. Regarding sexual contentI'm very confused about the complaints that the book is too sexualized. Sex comes up, yes. And the scenes don't "fade to black." But considering what others were saying, I went in expecting this to have the tone of a breathless, horny, bodice-ripping work of erotica. Instead I have found realistic, thoughtful, and relatable depictions of sex. We're in the characters' heads during the act, seeing all the ways they're distracted, hearing their thoughts while they try (and sometimes fail) to stay in the moment and find pleasure. The focus is often on characters trying to take comfort in physical connection with other people. There are frank discussions between characters about what type of sex they do or don't like. One scene describes a character experiencing pain and disappointment. All of this is so very human to me, and tracks with my own experiences. It's also relevant to the themes of the story. I'll admit I'm less familiar with Ancient Mayan religion/Mesoamerican archaeology, but I studied pre-Columbian Andean archaeology in college. Sex was a very important theme in South American religious practice (if you want an example, check out Museo Larco's erotic pottery collection. Sexuality is a theme in Mayan iconography as well). From what I've learned about ancient Mesoamerican religious belief, it was similar in that regard (and indeed these civilizations were connected via extensive trade networks. An obvious example being that the practice of cultivating maize made its way all the way to North America), with lots of focus on fluids moving between people (semen, breast milk, blood), between the sky and the earth (rain), and between worlds (with the Earth personified as a female deity who is impregnated to create life/allow the growth of crops). Indeed, this is a very common theme throughout the ancient world, not just in Central and South America. It's particularly common in agricultural societies, and really does make logical sense. The earth is fertilized and planted with seeds, thus creating life and sustaining civilization. For another example, see the Ancient Mesopotamian story of the marriage of the goddess Inanna to the shepherd Dumuzi. The phrase "Who will plough my vulva?" is repeated ad nauseam (the Sumerians were big fans of repetition in their poetry).I think I saw a review from one reader saying they were excited for the theme of rebirth, but disappointed in depiction of sex. I am baffled as to how one achieves rebirth without sex. Regardless, the negative reviews make it sound like the plot is interrupted every few pages with a heavy sex scene (I think someone said it came up 500 times?). Maybe the second half of this book is a lot more raunchy, but thus far I have found the topic to be handled tastefully and in ways that are relevant to the plot.Regarding ideologyIt's hard not to read the complaints about the ideological themes as a general complaint about the fact that there are queer characters in this story. Frankly, the instant I see someone describe a piece of media as "woke," I stop taking their review seriously. Part of the book is set in a futuristic society that has an anarchist structure, and where most people are intersex and have some degree of gender fluidity. The comparisons to The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are obvious, and at first I was a little apprehensive about reading a book that, on its face, sounded like it would be overly similar to Le Guin's work. I am sure Byrne is taking some inspiration from Le Guin, but this is how art works. It exists in conversation with other artists. That's a good thing. That said, Byrne's imagining of a genderfluid, anarchist world feels very different from Le Guin's. The biology of the people is intentionally designed through technology, as a response to a specific problem faced by that society. The structures this society set up to accomplish their non-hierarchical ideals are not the same as the structures set up in The Dispossessed. But, like in Le Guin's work, the society is facing problems that result from too much complacency, too much faith in those systems, and not enough room for criticism. I love this. Perhaps it is due to my own ideological leanings, and my own experience in anarchist spaces, but this feels very realistic to me. It's the question every good anarchist must ask: How can we create a world without hierarchy, that still allows for individual autonomy? How can we preserve individual autonomy, without allowing hierarchies to develop? This is one of my favorite thought experiments, and I've come to believe it's a question that is best explored through fiction, rather than through debates or academic papers (or at the very least alongside them. Simple academic debate seems to fall short when it's not paired with wild imaginings).There were a couple of reviews claiming the politics of this book are too heavy-handed. I would like to suggest that they only seem that way because we are currently living in the world where these political questions are being discussed. George Orwell's contemporaries complained about the politics in his work. Ray Bradbury (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1953, Astounding Science Fiction 1953), Joseph Heller (New York Times), and Upton Sinclair (National Archives) were also criticized for their political themes. (I also can't help commenting that one of the reviewers who complained about Byrne's treatment of political ideas in The Actual Star gave four and five star ratings to works by Joseph Conrad and Ayn Rand, which makes me wonder if their feelings have more to do with their personal views than with Byrne's handling of political topics. I doubt that anyone has ever called Ayn Rand's work "subtle.")I don't know why there are so many people who believe that art and literature should (or even could) be fully divorced from ideology. It's a ridiculous expectation, particularly when we are talking about science fiction. I find it even more ridiculous for people to insist that scifi and fantasy should be "realistic," and that political commentary detracts from immersion in the story. To quote Le Guin: The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don’t recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It’s none of their business. All they’re trying to do is tell you what they’re like, and what you’re like—what’s going on—what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don’t tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies.All work is ideological. All people have ideologies. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying, to you or to themselves. Regarding ReadabilityThus far, I have found The Actual Star engaging and easy to follow. While I agree that some of the Spanish and Kriol can be a bit difficult to parse, I don't find this problematic at all. Plenty of fantasy incorporates completely made up languages. Spanish, at least, can be quickly translated (and thankfully my high school and college Spanish classes taught me enough that I can muddle through most of it without a translator). The Kriol is legible, but may require more than one try. In any case, the point doesn't seem to be for the reader to fully understand it. We're getting the experience of eavesdropping on a group of people speaking in a different dialect. When it's crucial for us to understand it fully, it's made clear. At other times, I've been able to get the gist.I don't know why people are finding this plot hard to follow. Some are complaining that it's too long. Others that it's too heavy on fantasy. Personally, I'm delighted to see that there are still long-ass works of fiction getting published. It's disappointed me greatly to see things trending toward tight, quick-paced, 90k words or less novels. I like to have time to really get to know a story, explore it, sit with it awhile. And I hate spending $15 - $30 on a book that I'll be done reading within a day.I have now spent far too long writing this review. So I am going to leave it for now, and come back with my final thoughts (and rating) once I've finished the book. But so far, I would recommend it. It's a fun read, and I'm excited to find out what happens.UpdateI finished it. The ending is just. Wow! This book is fantastic and I'm a little sad that it's over.

Engrossing, riveting, emotionally engaging, fascinating. The first book I could not put down in over a year. I read a lot of books during 2020. I had the time. None grabbed me like this one did. Not only did I love this book, I was relieved to know that I could still love a book after the year we all went through.Three intertwined stories thousands of years apart tell a incredible story that grabbed my attention right from the start. I couldn't wait to start reading the next chapter to learn just a little bit more about how the stories come together. The book gains significant momentum and by the end I found myself reading at a frantic pace just to finally know the end.Loved it. Just fantastic. I cannot recommend this book enough.

this was a triumph. there are three worlds — 1000 years apart — and all were expertly built. I am a person who cannot imagine what our world will look like in ten years. to imagine 1000 years, in such detail! ahhhhh I loved it.

As my mother's illness deepens, she often doesn't know where she is. Nothing around her is familiar. She remembers better times more clearly. She remembers other houses. She always comes back--but she also always goes away.As my mother's illness deepens, I find myself awake more often than asleep and so it was last night, I was reading the final chapters of this beauty in the wee small hours. It was the perfect time, when the house was quiet and the world dark, and I could imagine myself away into the cave. It all felt so familiar, this place I have never been to and probably never will--and yet I was there, because of this book, because of the writing that put me there. I went away, and then I came back.I first met Monica's writing when we bought a story from her for Shimmer. I feel like I've watched her career for a long time now--her first book sale, and the moment her second book didn't sell. Her second book--that's this book--took years more work, and you can feel it in every sentence. The care that went into this one, the love that Monica has for a world her mother traveled to. The Actual Star is glorious; the last section of the book is perhaps some of my favorite writing ever, the way the stories and characters all come together. There's no good way to convey how I felt reading those lines in the middle of the night. It was a little prayer. It was, maybe, the way my mom feels; nothing around me was familiar, I was in another place, but then I came back.I hope you will take this journey, too. This is a book I never could have written, but I'm so pleased to have been able to read it.