The mysterious and powerful Starseers have Captain Alisa Marchenko’s daughter, and she will do whatever she must to get her back, even if it means traveling to their stronghold and confronting them personally. Unfortunately, her strongest ally, the cyborg Leonidas, may become a liability since the cyborgs and the Starseers have a long history of hating each other. It doesn’t help that Leonidas … and Dr. Dominguez have a mission of their own, one that could jeopardize all that Alisa is fighting for.
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Starseers is the third book in the Fallen Empire series and I am really enjoying this series so far. In Starseers captain Alisa, her crew and passengers are on route to planet Arkadius on which there should be a Starseer temple. She’s hoping to find answers there about where her daughter is. The doctor Dominguez has his own reasons for wanting to visit the Starseers relating to his mysterious artifact.
This book follows the trend of the rest of the series with plenty of action and interesting characters. the pacing is quite fast, but the actual main plot points advance very little, but I don’t mind. Each book brings another hint about Alisa’s daughter and the artifact of the doctor and along the way they have enough adventures to keep you entertained. It’s fun to read about how they keep getting in trouble and it has a very cinematic feel to it somehow.
Starseers gives us a better understanding of the Starseers, whom we haven’t met much before. I read Fractured Stars before this series so I already knew a bit about Starseers, but there was still plenty of additional information about them in this book. It was interesting to see how they lived and they didn’t really seem as friendly, but that made sense. Their mind powers seem quite powerful and I think we’ll be seeing more of them along the series. Also the cover for this book paints a good image of their temple.
I also feel like the relationship between Alisa and Leonidas progressed a bit in this book, but it goes very slowly. It’s clear they have each other’s back and Leonidas seems to take her humor a bit better. There are also some interesting tidbits we learn about Leonidas in this book. It also was interesting to see Alisa’s loyalties get questions a bit again, that already happened in the last book, but in this book she doubts a bit more whether the Alliance really is as good as she once believed when she noticed some less positive aspects about it. I like how loyal she is to her friends and also Leonidas as she stands up for him a few times in this book.
The rest of the side characters are there too. Beck and Mica don’t play a big role here, but there are still important scenes with both of them. I didn’t really care for something beck did in this book, but it was very much in character. There is a big hint/ reveal concerning the doctor’s quest toward the end of the book and an interesting development that makes me curious for the next book. I am still not sure why the doctor stays with her though, as they don’t seem to like each other. As Yumi has a connection to the temple there is a bit more we learn about her and her family as well. There are some new side characters that were interesting and also plenty that weren’t.
As they visit another planet again in this book and visit the Starseers, there is more we learn about the world in this book, which was interesting. It also shows some of the prejudice toward cyborgs and how they’re seen. And the two sides The Empire and The Alliance both seem more grey than good and bad as the series continues.
To summarize: I am enjoying this series so far with plenty of action and interesting characters. I like the direction the story took in this book and meeting the Starseers. There are some interesting plot developments mostly toward the end and ofcourse plenty of trouble the characters get into along the way. There are some character developments and new pieces of information we learn which was fun as well as I enjoy reading about these characters. I also think the romance between Alisa and Leonidas is building a bit, but is sure is slow going. All in all this continues to be a great series and I would recommend it if you like action packed science fiction books with interesting characters.