“And we might once again gaze at stars.” (p. 41)
In a post-apocalyptic world, Stargazers raise Warm Ones on farms, harvest them for their blood and use them for sport. The best literature leads us to feel sympathy for the villain, but in this novel the villain is also the hero, which increases our sympathy to an excruciating level. We get a look at ourselves through the looking glass of the night sky.
The Stargazers are vampires. They consider the Warm Ones animals, even though they look a lot like Stargazers and have language and culture. For all their superiority, the Stargazers suffer from one major weakness and one minor weakness – they are helpless while the sun is in the sky, and they stifle creativity in their society.
When Byron, branded a heretic by the Stargazer Elders, meets a Warm One and gets to know her as a person, the conflict turns from external to internal. As Alice learned, one should never get to know one’s food by name; such familiarity makes it impossible to eat it.
As with most self-published books, this one could use a good copy editor. However, the minor typographical errors do not stop me from plowing through the story. I want to know what happens next.
On the larger scale, will the air pollution clear up to reveal the stars that once dotted the night sky? On the medium scale, will the Elders relax the draconian laws that restrict the lives of the Stargazers? On the small scale, will Byron survive to complete his mission?
On the most personal level, at least for us Warm Ones (humans), will the human race triumph over the vampires?
Read Miguel Conner’s Stargazer to find out.
Stargazer
by Miguel Conner
2011, Aeon Byte Press
280 pages
Available at Barnes & Noble
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Stargazer/Miguel-Conner/e/9780615367217/?itm=1&USRI=stargazer+miguel+conner
Also available on Amazon Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Stargazer-Dark-Instinct-Book-ebook/dp/B004XDA0HI/ref=kinw_dp_ke?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
and Barnes & Noble Nook
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Stargazer/Miguel-Conner/e/2940012275714/?itm=1&USRI=miguel+conner+stargazer
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6 comments:
Great review! I love Vampire lore and when an author can bring new and exciting concepts to the genre, it makes for a much better story. This review makes me want to buy the book! It also makes me want to reconsider veganism.
thanx, Lady Scribe! are you considering becoming a vegan or giving it up? I'm mostly vegetarian, but I do eat chicken and fish on occasion, and once in a great while, I simply must have a steak
I tried going veg back in the 80's for about 9 months, but I had been doing it wrong and my skin started to breakdown because I wasn't getting enough protein and enzymes from the right combinations of food. But the older I get, the more I hear the benefits of veganism for the body as we age. I do love a good steak however.
it works better if you include cheese and eggs, which after all do not kill the animal -- and I will never give up honey, even if it is "bee slavery"
Hi Tessa,
Miguel and I have had quite a discussion about the lack of copy editing in Stargazer, so, I'm editing its sequel, Heretic. And I did the final, final draft of Jami's novel, A Kindred Spirit...sort of a sideline business from home, while I decide how much longer I want to be a "Teacher's Aide" in our dysfunctional school system...
thanks for the info, FC -- wish I could afford to have you edit my works -- 8-)
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