Starfall - Melissa Landers (Starflight #2)

I read the first novel in this duology, Starflight, a few months ago and absolutely loved it.  Did I have some misgivings about the beginning and how the characters got into each others' presence?  Yes.  Yes I did.  And I brought them up in my review.  But overall, I thought Starflight was a lovely young adult sci-fi romance with a slow burn and a feel that would appeal to those who liked Firefly and Serenity, though Landers' book didn't purport itself to be a substitute for either.  So I had high hopes for Starfall.

Unfortunately, it didn't live up to them.  While there aren't any big, glaring flaws in Starfall, it lacks the magic and pop and sparkle of its predecessor.

The main characters here are Cassia and Kane, two of the shipmates whom we met in Starflight.  Cassia is, of course, a secret princess--as is the way things go.  She fled an arranged marriage on her home world and seems to have started a war into the bargain, and she's been fleeing from bounty hunters called the Daeva ever since--as has Kane, because he helped her escape.  Cassia and Kane are very close, sort of friends-with-benefits sometimes but without the full array of benefits (Landers makes a point of saying that they've never "gone all the way" several times) but their relationship is also fraught with friction because Cassia doesn't really know what she wants.  But when the Daeva get Cassia and haul her back to her home world, she's thrown into the position of becoming a monarch, stopping a war, and putting down a rebellion, all at once, and even when Kane shows up to rescue her--though rescue doesn't end up being needed--it seems like she doesn't have time to pursue any sort of relationship anymore.  And then a mysterious illness starts taking down her people, and she can't figure out how to stop it...

The problem with this book is, I think, that it ultimately got too big for itself.  Starflight had a relatively small and narrow plot, though there was a sideplot that was a bit more expansive.  In Starfall, the big plot--Cassia's political situation and attempts to help her people--are center stage, and the developing and re-developing relationship with Kane is secondary.  The other characters from the cargo ship Banshee also feature much less here than they did in the first book, which was disappointing because the crew was such an integral part of the story, and how their personalities and experiences meshed really contributed to the excellent feel the first book had.  That's largely lacking here, and while the crew does appear, they're supplemented by a variety of other side characters that aren't given much time to develop and so only have superficial personalities, backgrounds, and motivations.  The book also doesn't really feel like a romance at all, even though Cassia and Kane's re-connection is supposed to be such a big part.  Instead, the story mainly consists of them running from place to place trying to solve the mystery of who is wreaking havoc on their home world, and then there's some half-concocted thing about gladiator battles at the end.  Yes.  Seriously.  All of this also contributes to a very weird sort of pacing that was inconsistent and didn't add to the book in any way.

Overall, I didn't feel like this added to the Starflight experience at all.  Starflight was shiny and brilliant and developed a rich universe with potential just waiting to be discovered.  Starfall didn't do any of that, and instead threw much of what made the first book brilliant to the side in favor of a big political plot that dragged.  Continuing with this exact plot but keeping Solara and Doran was the main characters actually probably would have worked better than elevating Kane and Cassia to the starring positions; just that change of perspective would have done worlds for improving this book.  As it is, it's okay, but I can't say it's any better than that.

2 stars out of 5.

Starflight - Melissa Landers (Starflight #1)

Starflight has been on my radar for the better part of a year, since I saw it on My Subscription Addiction as a book that came in a subscription box.  (I don't remember which box.)  It's a young adult sci-fi story with a slow-burn romance, which hooked my attention easily because I had recently finished reading the These Broken Stars trilogy, which I enjoyed immensely.

Starflight follows two main characters, Solara and Doran, in their flight across the galaxy.  Solara needs to find someone to hire her as a servant in exchange for paying her passage to the outer rim of the galaxy where there's a job waiting for her as a mechanic.  Doran, the guy who bullied her relentlessly in school, ends up hiring her, though he seems to have done it mostly to torment her even more.  But when he learns that Solara is a convicted felon and tries to toss her off the ship, Solara manages to switch their positions and get them onto another ship, with Doran suffering some memory loss and now in the position of Solara's servant, instead of the other way around.

This memory loss was my one big issue with the book.  It doesn't last long, but for the duration of it Solara gaslights Doran mercilessly, leading him to believe that he's a different person entirely.  Doran's memory comes back in full force and he's furious with her and everything gets resolved, of course, but this was very not cool of Solara to do in the first place.  I can think of a dozen other ways she could have gotten them off that ship and onto the Banshee without gaslighting Doran (even if she did still use the stunner on him) so the fact that she chose this method made me think a lot less of her, which wasn't a great way for the book to get started.

Overall, though, I really liked this book.  The Banshee's crew are fleshed-out and three-dimension with all of them having their own quirks and backgrounds, which serve purposes rather than just being there as props.  And there are sugar gliders!  And of course, not everything is exactly the way it seems to be when Solara and Doran depart the Zenith for the Banshee, and soon they're all renegades running across the galaxy and trying to figure out how they're going to clear their names or escape.  Everything in this book seems to serve a purpose; it's very well-crafted to that end.  And of course the slow-burn romance is wonderful.  And there are sugar gliders!  Well, a sugar glider.

And here's the thing... Yes, I'm going to do it.  I'm going to compare Starflight to Firefly.  Because that's basically what this book is: YA Firefly.  A ship full of misfits of questionable legality travel across the galaxy doing jobs along the way, with two paid passengers who aren't exactly what they seems, etc.  Some scenes draw upon Firefly very heavily; for example, a scene where a medical clinic is raided for supplies.  It goes down differently from the show, but the parallels are there.  And the Daeva seem to be somewhat like not-crazy versions of the Reavers.  And there's definitely a conspiracy going on, too!

This was a great YA sci-fi romance.  I really enjoyed it despite my doubts at the beginning because of Solara's actions--she really does redeem herself throughout the story, as does Doran.  I hope that the other young members of the crew feature as the main characters in the future books, however--I liked Solara and Doran, but at the same time I don't think they would be interesting as main characters for at least another two books.  I think relegating them to the supporting cast and elevating someone else to main is definitely the way to go.

4 stars out of 5.