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bluestarfish's review
2.0
(Probably spoilers ahead.) The Star Road is a ship that left an earth in chaos, its crew escaping genocide and hoping to find a new world to live on. This mission is unsuccessful so they return to earth and find everything is changed. It's been 250 ship years and 10,000 earth years and things are looking very different after lots of computing powers gets hijacked for a quest for immortality. Stasis and space travel are pretty close to immortality, especially with Zoya Kundara's role of being Ship Mother.
Now that is an interesting function in the crew. She is the holder of stories and memories of the people who left and why they left as she was there. During the Star Road's voyage she has spent most of it in stasis and only woken up to deal with emergencies, and she's the only one left who remembers the earth as home and from 10,000 years ago. I wonder that the 250 years are long enough for her to actually want to go back (and in subjective time it would be even less given she's been asleep for most of it) but I guess home can also have a strong pull.
Once back on earth the ship's crew deal investigate the local situation and Zoya is sent of as an ambassador to meet the Ice Nuns. There are interesting ideas that pop up here and there throughout the story, but a lot of it is touched on or skimmed over and doesn't have that much weight in the story. The Vatican gave the ship an AI priest which is interesting in all sorts of ways that aren't explored by the book. And I loathe the 'Romany are carriers of a virus that kills a lot of people and that they are immune to for seemingly magical reasons because it's never explained' storyline which makes no sense - apart from to kick the Star Road off into space. I suppose it could also be 'the Romany are scapegoated for a disease killing lots of people and then run off the planet' storyline too which makes a bit more sense but that's not addressed either.
Now that is an interesting function in the crew. She is the holder of stories and memories of the people who left and why they left as she was there. During the Star Road's voyage she has spent most of it in stasis and only woken up to deal with emergencies, and she's the only one left who remembers the earth as home and from 10,000 years ago. I wonder that the 250 years are long enough for her to actually want to go back (and in subjective time it would be even less given she's been asleep for most of it) but I guess home can also have a strong pull.
Once back on earth the ship's crew deal investigate the local situation and Zoya is sent of as an ambassador to meet the Ice Nuns. There are interesting ideas that pop up here and there throughout the story, but a lot of it is touched on or skimmed over and doesn't have that much weight in the story. The Vatican gave the ship an AI priest which is interesting in all sorts of ways that aren't explored by the book. And I loathe the 'Romany are carriers of a virus that kills a lot of people and that they are immune to for seemingly magical reasons because it's never explained' storyline which makes no sense - apart from to kick the Star Road off into space. I suppose it could also be 'the Romany are scapegoated for a disease killing lots of people and then run off the planet' storyline too which makes a bit more sense but that's not addressed either.
hornyforbooks's review
4.0
Excellent scifi set in the crystal covered wasteland of future earth. Loved the characters.
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