The Actual Star takes readers on a journey over two millennia and six continents —telling three powerful tales a thousand years apart, all of them converging in the same cave in the Belizean jungle.
Braided together are the stories of a pair of teenage twins who ascend the throne ofa Maya kingdom; a young American woman on a trip of self-discovery in Belize; and two dangerous charismatics vying for the leadership of a new religion and racing toward a confrontation that will determine the fate of the few humans left on Earth after massive climate change.
In each era, a reincarnated trinity of souls navigates the entanglements of tradition and progress, sister and stranger, and love and hate—until all of their age-old questions about the nature of existence converge deep underground, where only in complete darkness can they truly see.
The Actual Star is a feast of ideas about where …
The Actual Star takes readers on a journey over two millennia and six continents —telling three powerful tales a thousand years apart, all of them converging in the same cave in the Belizean jungle.
Braided together are the stories of a pair of teenage twins who ascend the throne ofa Maya kingdom; a young American woman on a trip of self-discovery in Belize; and two dangerous charismatics vying for the leadership of a new religion and racing toward a confrontation that will determine the fate of the few humans left on Earth after massive climate change.
In each era, a reincarnated trinity of souls navigates the entanglements of tradition and progress, sister and stranger, and love and hate—until all of their age-old questions about the nature of existence converge deep underground, where only in complete darkness can they truly see.
The Actual Star is a feast of ideas about where humanity came from, where we are now, and where we’re going—and how, in every age, the same forces that drive us apart also bind us together.
thought provoking, definitely worth reading, ending a bit too tidy.
4 stars
Content warning
meta discussion of ending
This is an ambitious, genre bending book. It combines elements of magical realism with post apocalyptic science fiction. Probably the most important social contribution is implicit; it imagines a world after climate change, and makes that seem very real and very immediate. It is also full of interesting ideas about utopia and the nature of religion, and includes some thoughtful critiques of some of those ideas. For me the ending was too neat, and if I'm honest, a bit too mystical. That's a matter of taste of course, but I felt like it lost the important tension between the emotional and the intellectual that was the backbone of the rest of the book,
Deeply satisfyingly layered and interwoven, imagined Mayan/Belizean past and future solarpunk Earths, central struggles with violence and disagreement and revolt without compromising voluntary consent, paced like a jaguar moving through ruins.
This was an excellent journey through past, present and a future vision of a post-apocalyptic utopia where technology blends into the background of a religious society. I enjoyed that this novel brought the Maya (who are very much still with us) to center stage. The stories characters in each millenium felt compelling and true. I was propelled through each triad of chapters wanting to know how it would all stich together in space and time. I was not disappointed.