Dakota 'Dak' Prentiss guards the biggest secret in the world. They call it1 Moss.1 It's your standard grey alien from innumerable abduction stories. Moss still sits at what looks like the controls of the spaceship it crash landed twenty five years ago. A secret military base was built around the crash site to study both Moss and the dangerous technology it brought to Earth. The day Matt Salem joins her security team, Dak's whole world changes. It's love at first sight - which is a problem, since they both signed ironclad contracts before joining the base security team, vowing not to fraternise with other military personnel. If they run away, they'll be hunted for the secret they know. So Dak and Matt decide to escape to a better life on the wings of an incredibly dangerous plan - They're going to steal the alien body they've been guarding and sell the secret of its existence. And they can't afford a single mistake.
Steal the Stars was conceptually interesting given that it started life as a podcast produced and released by a book publisher (Tor). I like the idea of book publishers getting into the world of podcasts, as narrative storytelling has a lot of cross-platform potential. But, I would have liked to see the two platforms working together to create something new and really unique, rather than just telling the same story.
The reality is Steal the Stars was a lot more convincing as a podcast than it was a novel. The first person, spoken narrative delivered better. While there were some interesting elements in the way the book was written (it's a mix of first and second person), it was very slow moving and lacked the drive of the podcast. When you hear the character's own voice it is easier to forgive the logical inconsistencies in their development than when written. As soon as words are on the page, there has to be a lot more development of character, motivation and world to convince a reader. The act of reading is slower than audio. There is more time to take in the nuances of a text, and that is something that the novel sorely lacked. The main character's decisions already felt a little incongruous in the podcast, so I was even less convinced by them in the novel.
I fully recommend the podcast, but the book was nothing more than OK. It's not good. It's not bad. It just exists. I am, however, looking forward to seeing if Tor decide to release any more podcasts, and if they do, it would be great to see them really get creative with the cross-platform potential.
