This review is a lengthy one. Wow. I absolutely loved Navigating the Stars.
Especially because the premise is around real life history - the Terracotta Warriors, just with a sci fi spin on their origin. The fact I've been to Xi'an in China and have seen the Terracotta Warriors in person just makes it even more interesting for me. And I was so here for it!
In the future, humans have designed technology that has allowed them to travel space at distances so great and so fast, they discover other habitable [for humans] planets. But on those planets what they find amazes them even more. The Terracotta Warriors.
The same kind of Terracotta Warriors that were first discovered underground in Xi'an, China, 1974. A life-size army made of Terracotta, for what reason? Thought to be an army to protect and serve the Chinese emperor in the afterlife.
When humans discover the Terracotta Warriors on other planets, it smashes open the idea that perhaps aliens put the warriors there to begin with, but how many other worlds had Terracotta Warriors? And why? What was their actual purpose?
Lyra's parents are archaeologists and another planet with Terracotta Warriors has been discovered on the edge of human-explored space. But that means that Lyra must go with her parents to this new planet, Yulin, because she isn't yet 18 years old, and her parents won't let her stay on the planet Xinji to live her life. They're not ready to let Lyra go. That's because it will take them 3 months to travel to Yulin, but in actual earth years, that's 40 years that will have gone by for everyone else outside the spaceship they're travelling on.
When they finally get to Yulin, things don't go as smooth as they would like.
What I liked:
- The science. Einstein's special theory of relativity and how spacetime worked.
- Oh. My. God. This appealed to my physicist heart SO much.
- Humans have invented the Quantum net [Q-net] which in turn has allowed them the technology to travel space at vast distances in a short amount of time. Well, short amount of time for the travellers on that spaceship that is. Seconds go by for them each jump but actual years go by for the universe outside. Because time is relative. It was so cool seeing Einstein's theory brought to life in a story.
- While the spaceship is travelling the literal space between point A & B, humans are needed to make sure the star roads are clear and there will be no collisions. The way this was done was by humans entangling in the Q-net and keeping an eye on the star roads. This was an interesting concept. Navigating by the star(road)s.
- The way humans could interact with the Q-net by ‘entangling’ into the net and exploring. To me it sounded kind of like browsing the internet with a virtual reality system but WAY cooler and far more scope to do things, and also more dangerous.
- The pace of the story was really spot on.
- Everything was happening, I didn't feel like things got boring but it also didn't feel rushed. For me it was believable and the timeframe of events was believable.
- I had seen some people say there was a lot of info dumping, but to be honest I didn't think that at all. The way the science and history was explained felt very natural and interesting to me. I was definitely geeking out at the science of it all. Oh, and also the history of the Terracotta Warriors!
- The story was a fun idea.
- I loved how this story took something that is historically accurate as we know it right now and changed all of the assumptions about it. The origin of the Terracotta Warriors. Giving it a sci fi twist is so much fun! I mean I know this is usually what happens when you write a story based on history, but this story idea just feels different to me. Probably because I feel like this could still happen - as in, in the future we might have definitive proof that the Terracotta Warriors were built by aliens. Who knows. lol.
- The layers of the story.
- I absolutely loved how there was more to the eye with this story. I loved that there were different working components that had to be working together as Lyra's own story was being told, and it just felt very exciting.
What I didn't like:
I loved this book so much, I loved the story, the science, the history and the storytelling. So I've been trying to figure out why I don't feel like I could rate this book 5 stars, below are my reasons.
- The predictability.
- I wasn't too surprised by many things that happened, I thought some of the plot twists were a very predictable turn to take. Even though there were no red herrings, I still felt like I knew where the story was going. And then when it happened, it was a little disappointing.
- In saying this, this actually didn't ruin the enjoyment for me. It just made me feel like I couldn't rate it 5 stars.
- The shallow moments in the writing sometimes.
- I mostly liked the style of writing in this book, the only thing I didn't like was there were moments that I felt were glossed over too fast. I wanted to see more or I thought that actually the character would have reacted differently had they had the time to emotionally explore that moment.
- This is definitely a spoiler: For example when the spaceship comes out of crinkling (space travel) and Lyra receives a bunch of messages from her best friend Lan that were sent over the last 40 actual-years. I felt like these messages were really glossed over, it was as if Lyra was emotionless over them. Also, she hadn't even tried to respond to Lan to send her a “Hello, I got here to planet Yulin safely” message. You know, the kind of text you send at the end of date when you get home and you actually like the person.
- These shallow moments stopped me from really connecting and relating with the characters. The story was very plot driven, which is not a bad thing at all, I love plot driven stories. But I also love a bit more of a balance to plot and characters.
- I mostly liked the style of writing in this book, the only thing I didn't like was there were moments that I felt were glossed over too fast. I wanted to see more or I thought that actually the character would have reacted differently had they had the time to emotionally explore that moment.
- There's only two books in this series. Whyyyyyy. I know I will want to read more!
To be honest, the above negative points are actually quite small in comparison with my enjoyment for this book. I obviosuly highly recommend giving this book a shot! It's definitely in my top reads for this year!
Honestly, the science? I can't stop thinking about it. SO. GOOD.