The novel “The Book of the Stars” by Ian Watson was published for the first time in 1984. It’s the second of the Black Current trilogy and is the sequel to “The Book of the River“.
The war between the two coasts continues but eventually the attempted invasion of the east coast from the west coast fails. Yaleen would like to go back to a normal life but the Black Current wants to send her to Eeden while the publication of “The Book of the River” is making her more and more foamous. The young woman is looking for Dr. Edrick among the prisoners, believing that he can still pose a danger, but can’t find him.
Eventually, Yaleen finds time to go to visit her parents and meets Narya, her strange little sister. Her fame grows so a lot of people want to meet her, making it hard to keep her journey private. Dr. Edrick, who survived the war, finds her as well and manages to kill her. For Yaleen it’s the beginning of a new adventure in which she’ll have to face the Godmind.
“The Book of the Stars” picks up Yaleen’s story after the end of “The Book of the River” and is still narrated in the first person by the protagonist. The second novel is basically the second part of a great story so it should be read after the first one, otherwise the reader will miss too many details to really get the big picture.
“The Book of the Stars” begins during the war between the two coasts but this part of the plot is completed quickly to move to the next phase of Yaleen’s story. The protagonist’s death is not the end, on the contrary it begins her adventure on Eeden, where her ka is transferred and where is reincarnated.
Yaleen’s world had elements more typical of fantasy stories than sci-fi. The part of the story set on Eeden contains elements belonging to a more “canonical” science fiction but it’s far from the hard science fiction of other authors. Ian Watson’s can’t generally be classified in a certain sub-genre because the author likes to mix different elements with imagination and the Black Current trilogy is a typical example.
“The Book of the Stars” is still partly set on Yaleen’s world and the part set on Eeden contains a bit of fantasy elements as well. For example, the protagonist is reincarnated in a cherub, although the term is not to be taken literaly. On the other hand, there are artificial intelligences and Yaleen has contacts with humans modified to survive on planets where the environmental conditions are very different from the Earth.
The structure of the story of “The Book of the Stars” is also different than the first novel. The fact that Yaleen travels between different worlds is the most obvious difference but reading the novel you can also notice that the narrative is less linear, a factor linked to Ian Watson’s choice to tell some of the events in a certain sequence and other reasons connected to twists in course of the story.
After her arrival on Eeden, Yaleen is initially alone and must work hard to avoid old and new dangers. The Black Current had warned her that the Godmind had sinister plans for humans and in the course of the novel she discovers the details. In “The Book of the River”, Yaleen found herself at the center of key events in the history of her planet, in “The Book of the Stars” the fate of all mankind depends on her success.
The result is a novel in which once again you can see Ian Watson’s great imagination even if the story ends up being a bit chaotic. Again, this is not hard science fiction and it’s inevitable that a plot developed on ideas based on the kas of human beings may seem far-fetched.
Like the first novel, “The Book of the Stars” has an end but leaves various narrative threads open to the third book of the trilogy. It’s similar to the previous novel also for the fact that the characters are seen from Yaleen’s point of view, who inevitably is the most developed. There are still action and plot twists but this novel takes place over several years, sometimes by leaping forward in time, so the pace is a bit less fast compared to “The Book of the River”.
In my opinion, in “The Book of the Stars” Ian Watson managed to successfully mix even more elements than in the previous novel. If you like these very imaginative stories, I recommend reading the Black Current trilogy.
