This book was an interesting queer take on the space/sci-fi genre.  The protagonist is a queer mechanic girl, which is a refreshing change for this kind of story.  The main strength of this story is the rich universe of different space factions, polyamorous family units, and social/political issues that were woven together to paint picture of how the people in this universe live their lives in space.

The main weak points are the characters and their interactions.  The most noticeable is that the characters are barely described; by the end of the book, I don't think I would be able to tell someone what the main characters actually look like or even how old they are.  This made it more difficult to picture them in my mind as I was reading.  For the couple of times descriptions were provided, they were brief and happened a chapter after the character's first appearance, which is somewhat unsatisfying from a reader's perspective.  The environmental and scene descriptions are much better and this is another of the story's strengths.  I could picture a swarm fighter or the recycling tanks and the gooey environment there, but I didn't know how to picture the characters when they were in the tanks.

Another aspect that I found problematic is that the story doesn't allow the characters enough meaningful interactions with each other.  One of the reasons I decided to read this story was because I hadn't read a polyamorous story before.  It's hard to gauge the poly aspect of the story since the characters involved (Triz, Casne, Kalo, and Nantha) are never all in the same room together, and Nantha is barely in the story.  Many of the interactions between the characters aren't structured in a way that carries much emotional weight, and there wasn't much in the way of relationship building between characters.  This is partially aggravated by the fact that Triz doesn't seem to have great chemistry with the other characters.

I enjoy reading queer representation as much as the next person, and this book certainly has it, but the writing may not very accessible to someone who's not already familiar with polyamory or non-binary gender identities.  As an example, one of the characters, Saabe, is referred to by pronouns like E, Eir, and Em.  Presumably, this means their gender is nonbinary, but this isn't explained in the story, and it probably wouldn't be immediately clear to someone not familiar with non-binary identities.  The only place where these pronouns are explained is at the end in the glossary.  As mentioned above, the same sort of problem exists for the poly aspect of the story, which would have been improved if more space had been dedicated to showing how the poly groups in the story form together and function. People already familiar with poly and non-binary identities would likely get more from the story.

Thank you NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press for the ARC!

Local Star is a queer space romp in a contained sci-fi story. You won’t find a sprawling space opera here, but sometimes you just want those delicious little snippets, and that’s exactly what Local Star has to offer. The real focus of the story here is on relationships, romantic and familial. Our MC is Triz, an orphan guttergirl turned mechanic. She struggles with feeling like she belongs, as part of the crew, as a partner in her polyamorous relationship with Casne and Nantha, and as a member of their family. Despite feeling inferior, when Casne is suddenly accused of orchestrating an attack on a planet, Triz stops at nothing and even accepts the help of her ex Kalo, a hotshot pilot.

There is a sort of villain in this story, Rocan, the leader of the Ceebees (The Cyberbionautic Forces, ie cyborgs with voluntary, super human enhancements). I wish we could have spent more time with him because his cause is an interesting one and it brings up interesting discussions, even if his methods aren’t excusable. But that wasn’t the point of this story.

Overall, I appreciated that the MC had internal struggles with her own worth and that her relationships were able to support her and help her come to terms with what she did deserve - happiness with her polyamourous quad and as an individual herself. I will be looking forward to more works from Aimee Ogden.

Local star is a fast-paced space opera / romantic comedy with a lot of action and a strong worldbuilding.

In this book we are very quickly introduced to a complex universe with its own history, rules and traditions. In my opinion, the worldbuilding is too fast and aggressive. We are so quickly introduced to so many unknown words and concepts that it is easy to get lost in them in the first few pages. In my case, it took me a couple of chapters to feel completely submerged in this world. Nevertheless, I do think that was the author’s intent, the first two chapters introduce us to this world and characters and by the end of the second chapter the main plot begins.

One thing I found interesting about this book is how the main character, Triz, is not a pilot, a general or a Fleet officer but a handywoman who fixes spaceships and is also an orphan. That is also quite uncommon in books, especially in science fiction books where we’re used to the story being told from the perspective of those who are in the highest spheres or live the most adventurous lives.

In Local Star we see this world through Triz’s eyes and we get to visit places and emotions that we would usually overlook, like the wrenchworks where Triz works and the feelings of not belonging or not feeling good enough. If Local Star was Star Wars, Triz would be the person who repairs Luke Skywalker’s spaceship and who, for some reason, ends up being caught in the middle of all the action but was never supposed to be there.

Another interesting thing about this book is the concept of quadfamily “a family unit based around a four-person platonic, romantic and / or sexual relationship”. It is very refreshing to find that in this fictional world there are plenty of options for those who want to start a family. Families are comprised of two or more people and they can be female, male or genderless. In the case of Casne’s quadparents; she has two fathers, a mother and a genderless parent that is referred to as “Damu”, a nickname for nonbinary parents.

Additionally, in this novella we don’t only get polyamory relationships, we also get genderless characters with their genderless pronouns (e, eir, em), which I don’t usually find in speculative fiction that often.

Local Star explores polyamory as a natural way of mating and forming families and it introduces genderless / non-binary characters without further explanation. That is what I loved about the book! It is a space opera that makes space for LGBTQ people.

The main characters in this book are Triz, Casne and Kalo. I think that just a few pages in we already have a sense of who Triz is what her motivations are. The same thing happens with Kalo, we get to know him and understand him and who he is. However, in my opinion, we don’t really get to know the rest of the characters as much as we know these two. For example with Casne, we know little about her besides from what happens to her in the book, and I don’t really think we get a sense of what she is actually like and what she wants, other than what concerns her relationships.

The same thing happens with our villain of the story, Rocan. I thought he was an interesting character and I was curious to learn more about him. However, I don’t really think I knew him well by the end of the book.

Another characters that has a lot of importance in the book is Quelian. Quelian is Casne’s father but he is also the person who adopts Triz and gives her a home. He is also Triz’s boss and because of her relationship with Casne, he is also her father-in law. The dynamic between Triz and Quelian felt slightly weird to me because she thinks of him as her father, her boss and her love-interest’s father.

I think for this book, I didn’t really need to know all the characters as much as I knew Triz and Kalo, because in the end they’re the ones driving the story. Nevertheless, I would have liked to know more about Casne and Rocan and about the Ceebees; who they are, how they came to be and what is their ultimate purpose.

We are introduced to the Ceebees through the galactic war between the Fleet and them (the Ceebees or members of the Cyberbionautic Alliance), but we don’t really get to know that much about them. In my opinion, the Ceebees represent more of a philosophical problem or question than an actual villain.

Yes, they are the antagonists of the novella, but I think their role in the story is to make us question things. There’s a moment in the book when certain things about body modification are revealed to Triz, and the reader, as well as her, is left wondering “what makes the Ceebees less than human? Is it really their modifications or is it perhaps their lack of humanity?” For this reason, I believe the Ceebees are just a way of introducing the question of “what really makes us human?”. But perhaps I’m just reading too much into this and Ceebees are just cruel villains that want humanity to be destroyed and have nothing in common with humans at all.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book, it only took me a couple of days to read it and now I feel like Triz and Kalo are two old friends who I love and miss. It is because of that reason that I would have liked for the book to be longer, if it was longer and more slow-paced we could have got to know more about the characters and their motivations and the plot would have felt less rushed. Moreover, I would have enjoyed the story more if all the new terms and concepts were introduced in-text and not only in the glossary. I really enjoy books with invented imaginative concepts and I love a good glossary, but this felt too long for a novella.

However, I really enjoyed how worldbuilding is explored through expressions and idioms. In the book we often see the characters saying things like “shitting stars” or “Gods of Issam”, which are concepts unique to this world.

I loved this complex universe created by Aimee Ogden and I think I would enjoy it even more if this book was the first one in a saga. This way, it would have served as an introduction to the world, and in the following books in the series we would get more character development and more sub-plots.

I will definitely say that if there is a second book, I want the pirates to feature! They are mentioned a couple of times but we never get any action from them, and who doesn’t love space pirates?

Finally I have to add that somehow, I believe this book makes more sense as a romantic-comedy than it does as a space opera. I don’t mean I didn’t enjoy all the complex space elements and worldbuilding, but I think in the end the book is character-driven and it is mainly a love story between Triz, Casne and Kalo.

3’5/5
Rep: LG(B)T - Main characters (heteronormativity doesn’t exist in this book and therefore I will assume all characters are bisexual/pansexual) / non-binary secondary characters / polyamory.

This book is a fantastic, fast-paced, space romp with wonderfully written queer characters. As a polyamorous person, this is the first time I've really seen that kind of representation anywhere and I felt so seen! A fun, quick read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Intersteller!

A fun, rollicking beat of polyam relationships in space. The main characters are: Triz, the protagonist, a former guttergirl raised to a more comfortable living, her partner Casne, and her ex Kalo. Set is a queernorm, polyam-norm world, it's extremely refreshing to see both of those concepts used regularly and without shame. One friend of Tris's also uses (at the time of this ARC) e/eir pronouns! There aren't quite couples here, as most relationships have four people, casually called a 'gon (short for polygon). Casne, her wife Nantha, and Triz are in a relationship, and there's frank discussion that even if Triz does not find someone to complete their gon, they're happy with her all the same. It's a beautiful sort of discussion that validates the desire for partners to be loved and to want to see them happy, as well as saying they love her and they'll happily keep her where they're at, no matter if they're a triad, a quad, or a pent.

There's also the importance of family bonds: though Triz does not have a family of her own, she's more than accepted into Casne's parents' quadhousehold, who accept her. I might wish that Nantha had more appearances as she's mostly offscreen, though the times Triz considers her are clearly with love. I might wish also that Triz's fear/hatred of body mods was more explained, as it is something that plays a part throughout the book.

This book really delivered the description. It was a very enjoyable and fun read, and the book isn't even out yet but I already want more!

I wouldn't say that it's heavy on the sci-fi part and it's definitely more character driven, but there are so many things I loved. I really liked that there's a whole new terminology/vocabulary in the world this takes place in, this is always very lovely to see in SFF.
The story is fast-paced and there's a lot of action, but we still learn a lot about the characters (especially the MC) which isn't always the thing with novellas. The characters are loveable and the polyamory plotline was a really wonderful read (and, I think, also very easily relatable). I would absolutely want to read more about all the characters and where they go from here on!
The representation is probably what drove this story home for me. Nonbinary identities are, fortunately, becoming more present in books, but characters who use neopronouns aren't that common yet - and while admittedly they were minor/side characters, it was still wonderful to see (as someone who also has neopronouns, it really meant a lot).

I haven't read anything else by this author, but I am looking forward to reading more of Ogden's work!