Chaos Critters Bookshelf: Deathstalker

Review of Deathstalker by Simon R. Green. Simon's writing is a lot of fun. In just part of a chapter, he can make you really care about even minor characters. And there's ten huge books!

Question of the Week

What is your favorite grim-dark book, that still has some uplifting portions? Other than Simon R. Green’s Deathstalker books, we also like Servants of War by Larry Correia and Steve Diamond.

The Review

This week, we pause for another review from Chaos Critters Bookshelf. Now, this one is not one that I would recommend to really young readers. It is for adults due to topics and cursing. Still, it is a good read or listen if you prefer.

Now, to be completely up front about this review, I have been listening to this this series on audio, which is not always the same as reading a book. It is a little darker than my usual tastes run, but Tod suggested it. (I’ve read it many times. It was the series that made Simon R. Green a writer I watched for. -Tod)

Part of why I chose this is to understand writing more complex characters, because man do Simon R. Green’s characters have a lot of (interesting) baggage. Still, I really like listening to it. The narrator, Gildart Jackson, does a wonderful job of changing his voice for the different characters, something that I enjoy. (Despite the setting, sort of sci-fi Britain in far away space, I never pictured any of the characters with British accents. But Jackson does awesome with this. -Tod)

Deathstalker by Simon R. Green is a bit darker than what I usually talk about on the blog. It is a space opera, with galactic evil, a horrible empresses, and horrid injustices at every turn. Even the heroes aren’t shining beacons of which one would want to sing ballads. In fact, at first I actively disliked the main character, Owen Deathstalker, because well, he wasn’t heroic. He had the training. He had the power. He even had the mind. But he would rather just amuse himself in luxury. I found him useless. Of course, then his whole world of luxury came tumbling down and he had to fight for his life. He eventually sees injustice with his own eyes, and that is when he starts to be likeable, because he shows he can be noble.

The full cast of characters, all feel human, fragile. Failures of humanity they might be but they have a life in each of them. A goal, laudable or not. However, I think what I liked best was the (very) slow burn romance between Owen and Hazel, as well as the slow way the different characters develop, grown and change. (Sue me. I like romance).

As for the other characters… they are a mixed bag. Some becoming more brilliant, more honorable, more worthy, while others seem to sink closer and closer until they cross the edge of betraying their own mores for what they think will be their gain. This is defiantly a grim-dark work. It portrays the slow corruption of power, of what happens when good men do nothing, and what rules one might break to rewrite the course of history, in a world that is clogged with political intrigue, in-fighting, and violence of mind and body at every turn.

I will let Tod give you more details, on his opinion of the book series.

And here’s Tod!

This is one of the few series where the “bad guys” point of view is interesting and illuminating. It’s a good example of, even with truly big-bad guys, the little bad guys can have noble (or ignoble) personalities and goals.

Just like the “good guys”.

If you’re reading the series, it’s worth starting with the prequel books. The prequels flesh out some of the characters and cultures of the main series. (Some of these are my favorites, like Captain Silence and Inspector Frost.) But you really won’t miss anything skipping them if you so desire. The compiled version of the prequels is Deathstalker Prelude. It contains Mistworld, which covers a plague on the rebel planet. Then we visit Ghostworld, where we investigate a crashed alien starship with advanced technology. Then, of course, we go to Hellworld, looking for a nice place to live. (Spoiler: it’s not a nice place to live.)

Oh, update! The prequel books show on Libro.fm as “coming soon”! So, it can be listened to as well!

The books after Deathstalker cover the course of the revolution, the aftermath, and related wars: Deathstalker Rebellion, Deathstalker War, Deathstalker Honour, and Deathstalker Destiny. The characters remain interesting and continue to grow throughout all the books. And if you’re like us and often dislike stories with multiple points of view or storylines, each section of these mammoth-sized tomes is also huge. So you get your fill of each story before moving on. (Maybe that’s what keeps the stories so fresh?)

The follow up series includes: Deathstalker Legacy, Deathstalker Return, and Deathstalker Coda. They are sometimes a little slower than the original series. I think part of it for me was that these three books are used to tie up all the loose ends from the original series, which seemed to limit some of the characterization that I loved so much from the first series. The second series follows Lewis Deathstalker who, surprise, is outlawed and chased throughout the Empire, like his predecessor Owen.

Tip of the Week

Apropos of the grim-dark nature of the book reviewed this week, the tip of the week is:

Carry a rubber chicken at all times; it’s the universal symbol for absurdity and can lighten even the darkest of intergalactic meetings.

~Anna and Tod