RogerBW's Blog

On Vicious Worlds, Bethany Jacobs 01 May 2025

2024 SF, second of a planned trilogy. The big events of the last book are bringing down the repressive government! Guess what comes next… Spoilers for These Burning Stars.

After some early flashbacks, this book mostly happens in the setting's present day, though split between locations. On the new colony world of Capamame, settled by the ethnic-minority Jevese at the end of the previous book, there's a whispering campaign against the government, and ongoing sabotage which even the great caster (hacker) Jun can't seem to get a handle on. Back in the Kindom, Chono and Six have returned to try to free the first batch of Jeveni who came back from the new colony and were promptly put in a labour camp; and of course they too are promptly arrested, but they may have political uses.

Esek is not here, but Esek's influence very much is, among the people who knew and mostly despised her. They;re determined not to repeat her errors, which helps resist temptation when the new tyrannical government (not the same flavour at the old one) starts to offer it. I was reminded somewhat of Heavenly Tyrant and its portrayal of the way a hopeful revolution can suddenly turn into Tyranny 2.0, but I found this middle volume much more positive, partly because the protagonists here are astute enough not to let themselves get sucked in.

"You do sound righteous, Graisa the Honor. But I came back to the Treble to see five thousand wrongfully imprisoned Jeveni freed. I came back to defend the rights of the Jeveni who never left. From Capamame, I've watched reports on the rising number of resistance cells. Have any of those cells put their energy toward protecting the endangered Jeveni? No. Have they used their fight with the Kindom to remind people that the Jeveni are mere scapegoats for Kindom atrocity? No. This Treble you imagine, freed from Kindom oppression: What room have you made in it for the Jeveni?"

There isn't as much progress in plot here as in the first book; this is after all a middle volume. But there is progress in character, and I very much enjoyed it.

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