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Book Review: Stars Uncharted by S.K. Dunstall

In Stars Uncharted by S.K. Dunstall, humanity has a new resource that powers everything from starships to medicine. Most diseases are curable and even old age can be delayed.
Steven McCreedy
Steven McCreedy was born in Richmond. He is a library technician at the Cambie branch of the Richmond Public Library and received his diploma from Langara College in 2008. He particularly enjoys reading sci-fi and non-fiction.

In Stars Uncharted by S.K. Dunstall, humanity has a new resource that powers everything from starships to medicine.  Most diseases are curable and even old age can be delayed.  The resource is rare and finding a new source can be worth several massive fortunes.  Companies are the effective rulers of the galaxy, and they will stop at nothing to find new sources while independent treasure hunters follow every clue to track down legendary stories of untold rich veins.

This isn’t the political and social intrigue of The Expanse or the epic fight for good and evil of Star Wars. This is a straight adventure novel with a small cast of interesting characters: There’s Nika, a legendary body modder, who can alter the human body in a sort of genetic plastic surgery. A talented and resourceful artist, she’s blacklisted and marked for assassination by an angry client. There’s Josune, a crew member on a ship that has found the strongest evidence of the long-lost original source of the resource that drives the galaxy. She’s trying to hide the fact that she has infiltrated a rival treasure hunting crew.  They come together in an accident of circumstance and have to work together to survive.

It all sounds cliché, a version of Firefly in novel form.  It is similar in spirit but it’s no accident: the formula works. I can picture Stars Uncharted as a TV or film adaptation. It ticks all the right boxes: constant action; distinctive characters with interesting secrets; a suggestion of a cyberpunk visual style, all while being a fairly straightforward chase plot.

If I have one issue, it’s that I guessed a particular plot point about halfway into the book.  The further I read the more I wanted to know if I was right but by the time it was revealed I was both relieved and annoyed that we hadn’t been told sooner.   It’s hard to be genuinely upset by this, but I felt like I was being teased well after I figured I already knew.  It’s certainly not enough to hurt my recommendation, though.  The adventure was compelling enough to keep me excited about upcoming installments: Stars Uncharted is the first in a new series.  Dunstall (actually two sisters from Australia) might be my favourite new science fiction author, having also written the Linesman Trilogy.

Steven McCreedy is a library technician at the Cambie Branch of the Richmond Public Library