Kirkus Reviews Best SFF Books of 2017
“Badass.”
– John Scalzi, bestselling author of Old Man’s War
“Taut and gorgeous, pungent with spilled guts. A sharply-flavored, brutal space opera.”
– Cassandra Khaw, author of Hammers On Bone
“The Stars Are Legion is a beautiful work of fiction, a wholly original novel that pops and crackles with big ideas. It subverts old tropes, challenging readers to question humdrum science fiction plots, and imagine an entire alternate reality. And for that reason, it’s the genre at its best.”
– The Verge
“It’s a fantasy-quest saga grafted on to a far-flung space setting, gutsy in every sense.”
– James Lovegrove for Financial Times
“The Stars Are Legion is poised to be Kameron Hurley’s mainstream breakhrough, but apparently no one told her. It’s unlike any space opera you’ve ever read – a bizarro blend of New Weird adventure, political thriller, and body horror; and an intimate examination of two deeply damaged women. It’s as visceral and violently angry as anything she’s ever written, a ragged scream from the heart of a broken world – but one not past mending, if there are people brave enough to build a better one.”
– Joel Cunningham, Barnes & Noble SFF reviews
“[Hurley] excels at keeping the reader involved and supportive of Zan and Jayd when they seem most lost, and even when they are most opposed to each other. This gripping book is both hard to read and easy to appreciate.”
– Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Grabs you like a gravity well and won’t let go. Discovering Kameron Hurley’s work is like finding a whole new galaxy, and she is the star at its center”
– Chuck Wendig, NYT bestselling author of Star Wars: Aftermath
“In a genre filled with generic portrayals of space, Hurley’s take is one-of-a-kind: equal parts love story and revenge tale, mixed with adventure science fiction and body horror.”
– The Washington Post
“It’s kind of awesome fun. You should totally read it.”
– Ann Leckie
“Violent and imaginative, The Stars Are Legion is exactly the book you’ve been craving.”
– Bustle
“Read this one – it’s smart, innovative and compelling in equal measure.”
– Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviews
“Perhaps not satisfying in a conventional way; but then, it’s clearly not meant to be.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“The Stars Are Legion is a space-opera with many original and surprising aspects, and that mixes very diverse situations to create a rich history, with a lot of details, several unexpected plot twists and a very good structure.”
– Dreams of Elvex
“Very fast paced and impossible to put down.”
– James Nicoll Reviews
“Beautiful, brutal as fuck, giant space opera. It is how Science fiction SHOULD BE DONE.”
– Shelf Inflicted
“A space opera like never seen before, putting weird on a whole new level, and featuring a fantastic cast of brutal, amazing women.”
– All About Books
“One of the most unusual and powerfully disturbing space operas we’re likely to see this year.”
– The Chicago Tribune
“A wonderfully feminist view, written by a wonderful female author, with strong women galore at every inch of these worlds.”
– Michael Patrick Hicks
“A wonderful new outing from acclaimed science fiction author Kameron Hurley. If you’re already a fan of hers, you won’t be disappointed. If you’re looking for a place to start with her work, I don’t think you could do better than The Stars Are Legion.”
– The Illustrated Page
“Hurley has written a fascinating book documenting a journey through living ship-worlds, mirroring an internal journey of the mind to a literal internal journey of our intrepid band of characters through the insides of a living ship. It’s interesting, clever, and something very different from what I’ve seen lately.”
– Pop Culture Beast
“A unique and strange, fun book, I can say that The Stars Are Legion is definitely one I won’t forget.”
– Ageless Pages
“As a fan of grimdark as well as a fan of superb writing and grand storytelling, I highly recommend Kameron Hurley’s new novel The Stars are Legion.”
– Grimdark Magazine
“Hurley’s world is worth the effort of getting to know!”
– Helen Lindley
“I would recommend this book if only for the characters, the worldbuilding and all the interesting things Hurley has to say about gender, love and betrayal.”
– The Curious SFF Reader
“A gorgeously crazy book.”
– Bookaneer
“Mind is completely blown. This is an incredible book.”
– View from Ascraeus
“A space opera like none other I’ve read, but it nonetheless combines adventure, passion, sound worldbuilding and compelling storytelling with that elusive sense of wonder so highly sought after in science fiction.”
– Jonathan Crowe
“The Stars Are Legion finally delivers powerfully – if disturbingly – on that space opera promise”
– Locus
“Not for the casual fan of SF despite its page-turning qualities. The Stars are Legion presents an epic war of families, generations, and worlds amongst an intriguingly unique fictional setting.”
– Pop Verse
“The Stars Are Legion is a masterwork… This is deeply feminist, raw, moving stuff. It is current, it is important, and it absolutely deserves your full attention.”
– Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
“One of the most unusual and powerfully disturbing space operas we’re likely to see this year.”
– Chicago Tribune
“A great science fiction read for fantasy-lovers and perfect for people who aren’t precisely squeamish.”
– Girls In Capes
“It’s weird and gross and doesn’t pull its punches.”
– Tor.com
“Kameron Hurley has created something beautiful and moving.”
– Nerds of a Feather
“This book may not be for the squeamish, but it is for everyone who likes their science fiction to stretch their minds a little bit.”
– Just Another Damn Book Blog
“Intelligent, enthralling and ultimately mind-blowing.”
– Morpheus Tales
“Probably Hurley’s best work yet, and a brilliant piece of feminist science fiction.”
– Intellectus Speculativus
“An all-women space opera with war and generation ships and parthenogenesis and a bit of a hero’s journey and a message, ultimately, of something like hope? Perfect.”
– SF Bluestocking
“The potent combination of action and wonder makes The Stars Are Legion a standout. Imaginative without being unrealistic, it offers a glimpse of how radically futuristic technology can exist alongside basic, brutal conflicts that are as old as the first stone tools on Earth.”
– Ars Technica
“With provocative characters and riveting action, for readers who enjoy science fiction adventure-thrillers, this is an epic story not to be missed.”
– Fanbase Press
“It’s a fast and intense read that sucks you in pretty quickly.”
– Tobias Buckell
“The biopunk aspects were fascinating all by themselves. For… multiple definitions of fascinating. A content warning for various flavors of bio-horror is in order.”
– Clement’s Game
“This space opera will remain with you for a long, long time. And trust me, you will never look at pregnancy the same way again.”
– Lightspeed magazine
“The Stars Are Legion cements Hurley’s reputation as a writer of great accomplishment.”
– SF Chronicle
“It’s a great book and it tells a great story.”
– Angry Elves
“It actually blew away my expectations. It’s one of the most imaginative pieces of science fiction I’ve read in ages.”
– Infovoracious
“Gooey, gory, violent, and often surreal.”
– Self Aware Patterns
“The Stars Are Legion is bizarrely original space opera.”
– Finance Follow
“An ambitious and exciting space opera, at once a blistering subversion of space opera’s hyper masculine clichés and a celebration of everything that makes the genre such mind-popping ludicrous fun.”
– Fantasy Faction
“Space opera unlike anything I’ve ever read before. Set on living organic world-ships, the novel is gross, unsettling, unrelenting and utterly glorious.”
– Worlds in Ink
“The Stars are Legion is yet another highly ambitious book from Kameron Hurley and once again she comes through with the good stuff. It has the scope space opera needs, the alienness that anything set in the future should have, and a strong enough story to carry it.”
– BookNest
“Hurley has written a winner, a weird and original novel.”
– eMissourian
“With The Stars Are Legion, Hurley makes space opera worth reading. Not only does she enthrall you with a riveting story about die-hard female characters, but she does her job as a storyteller with exceptional awesomeness: she shoves the weirdness, the peculiar, in your face and makes you beg for more, she mesmerizes you with new worlds and things you haven’t seen before.”
– The Splattergeist
“The Stars are Legion is a refreshing, engaging and original reading experience.”
– Beavis the Bookhead
“An original and enthralling journey.”
– The Grim Reader
“The Stars Are Legion is a deeply unsettling book, but it is deeply unsettling in one of the best possible ways.”
– Dreaming About Other Worlds
“The most mind-blowing space opera I’ve read in a long time.”
– Erik Reads
“The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley is basically everything I’ve ever wanted in a space opera and I very wholeheartedly recommend it.”
– Aithne Reads Books
“Guns, gravidity, genocide. This is Hurley’s most focused and forceful fiction yet.”
– This Is How She Fight Start
“Kameron Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion is an ambitious and exciting space opera, at once a blistering subversion of space opera’s hyper masculine clichés and a celebration of everything that makes the genre such mind-popping ludicrous fun.”
– Fantasy Faction
“A really good read, a page-turner that kept me reading ’just one more chapter’, full of new and interesting world-building. Give it a go, even if you think it might not be for you, who knows, it might be…”
– Susan Hated Literature
“The only thing that could have made this book more bizarre and memorable was if Zdzisław Beksiński had magically risen from the grave to illustrate it. Uterine Horror: the novel. Read it.”
– Thunderhead Fred
“This is the Kameron Hurley novel I had truly been waiting for: about a brutal, broken world that is against all odds, fixable. Right now, this is the most powerful thing I can think of.”
– The Book Smugglers
“The Stars Are Legion finally delivers powerfully – if disturbingly – on that space opera promise.”
– Locus Online
“The Stars Are Legion is a galaxy-spanning saga that will likely cement Hurley’s status as one of sci-fi’s greats.”
– Unbound Worlds
“The Stars Are Legion is sure to be a contemporary classic.”
– Critical Writ
“If you like big scifi stories and can handle technology being mostly biological (which does make for a lot of mucous throughout) I heartily recommend The Stars are Legion.”
– Librarianaut
“Quintessential Kameron Hurley: messy, gory and brutal, full of unlikable characters and hard choices. It is fan-freaking-tastic.”
– Red Headed Femme
“Entertaining, evocative, visceral sc-fi fantasy that recalls 1960s-style bizarre space romps. Recommended for fans of the genre.”
– Right Place, Right Tim
“The Stars Are Legion is a beautiful work of fiction, a wholly original novel that pops and crackles with big ideas. It subverts old tropes, challenging readers to question humdrum science fiction plots, and imagine an entire alternate reality. And for that reason, it’s the genre at its best.”
– 9GagToday
“I liked the female culture that she has invented too, it gives you a completely different take on the usual sci-fi space opera, with the characters. Good, but maybe not one for the squeamish! 3/3 stars”
– Nudge-Book
“Occasionally, a book comes along that manages to combine original world-building with a great story. It is something to revel in, and Hurley has delivered that in spades. Here we have not just an adventure story through a beautifully detailed world, but a complex political thriller that could compete with House of Cards.”
– The British Fantasy Society
“Where has this book been all my life? It’s everything I wanted, I can barely stand it.”
– The Borrowed Bookshelf
“The book is viscerally biological, and like Hurley’s God’s War trilogy not for readers who don’t like body-horror. It doesn’t revel in it, though. It’s not gore for gore’s sake. One of Hurley’s real skills as a novelist is to simultaneously make what is normal for one group of people monstrous for others without judgement. Everything in The Stars are Legion is the consequence of something else.”
– Nyssa’s Scribbles
“The Stars Are Legion is everything readers can expect from Kameron Hurley: dark, bloody, and violent enough to satisfy the most discerning readers of grimdark, and all in one, standalone package – a rarity in a genre where stories are told in a minimum of two to three books.”
– Occasionally Random Book Reviews
“The ideas and resolution were wild as hell, and that is where the novel really shone. It really did feel like it was written during the New Wave era of the late 60s/early 70s; some weird combination between Joanna Russ and Iain M Banks. I’m thinking of some elements of Matter by Iain M. Banks specifically, but structured more like Consider Phlebas.”
– Heradas Review
“A really good read, a page-turner that kept me reading ’just one more chapter’, full of new and interesting world-building.”
– Susan Hated Literature
“I was rewarded with an excellent story that for all its distressing, strange, and depressing moments managed to have a stubborn sense of determination and guarded optimism as well.”
– Beer Rants and Books
“The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley carries a strong social message and deals a deathblow to the notion that females are the weaker sex. These women are brutal, devious and totally badass. Be warned though, this is definitely not a tale for the squeamish.”
– W24
“OMG, OMG, THIS IS AWESOME.”
– Space Station Mir
“It’s unique and unforgettable and so weird – I loved every moment of it, even when the description made me want to put the book down because I’m not actually that into body horror.”
– Acquadimore Books