Steal the Stars by Nat Cassidy

Published by Tor Books on November 7, 2017

Steal the Stars is a science fiction thriller that is considerably more creative than most science fiction thrillers. It is based on a podcast. I haven’t listened to the podcast, but I enjoyed the novel on its own merit.

Dak, short for Dakota Prentiss, is the security chief for a research lab owned by defense contractors called Quill Marine. She introduces new employee Matt Salem to the alien they call Moss, inside a ship that looks like a walnut, deep under the ground where it crashed eleven years earlier. The thing they assume to be the engine (they call it the Harp because it looks like a harp) powers up every 100 hours but the ship doesn’t move. Neither does Moss, who shows no sign of being alive except for his body heat. If he’s alive, he might be dying, given that the green stuff covering his body (it looks like moss) is slowly but steadily receding.

Quill Marine is thinking of exhibiting Moss (there might still be money to be made in carnival attractions), but it’s more interested in marketing the Harp as a weapon, since it pretty much sucks the energy out of everything (and everyone) nearby when it powers up. Dak doesn’t much care what Quill Marine’s loathsome CEO decides to do with Moss or the Harp as long as she keeps her job. But when she violates policy by having an affair with a subordinate — a work rule violation that will get her sent to a private prison — she starts thinking about a way to get herself out of a ticklish situation. Of course, her solution is even riskier than the affair.

Most of Steal the Stars is a smart action story with an underlying love story. Not a trashy romance story, but a realistic love story. The kind where sex drives the love and obsessions are stupid and dangerous but a recognizable part of life. The kind where love has unfortunately consequences. The realism of the love story is a nice balance against the unreal premise of the alien encounter story.

It isn’t actually the alien that’s difficult to accept, but the story’s background isn’t well developed, and the temptation to ask too many questions (how can employees be sent to a harsh prison for violating an employment contract by kissing?) must be resisted to enjoy the story. Fortunately, the story is sufficiently captivating that I found it easy to suppress those questions.

Quite a lot of Steal the Stars is a setup for a big reveal that the reader knows is coming. Part of the fun is wondering exactly what will be revealed. As the novel neared the end, I began to worry that there wouldn’t be a reveal, that the story’s central mystery would not be answered. The surprise comes in the last pages, and it is worth the wait. Perhaps it isn’t entirely a surprise, because the reader will probably expect part of what happens to happen, but the aftermath of the thing that happens is surprising and satisfying.

Along the way to the story’s big moment, the novel creates strong characters, delivers tension that ramps up considerably in the novel’s second half, and asks some pertinent questions about human nature. How much of that is attributable to the author of the novel (Nat Cassidy) as opposed to the author of the podcast (Mac Rogers) I can’t say, but I assume they both deserve credit for telling a story that is clever, creative, and captivating.

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