The Blighted Stars by Megan O'Keefe

The Blighted Stars
By Megan E. O’Keefe
Orbit 2023

Imagine a far distant future. One in which everything is controlled by a handful of incredibly wealthy families. Families who are so powerful that when people are faced with choosing between life and death, they feel pressured to choose death because, “The terror of offending their boss was greater than the fear of being left behind to die.” Now imagine a crisis. Something existential. Something that threatens life itself. What if it came to light that these powerful families knew more about this crisis than they let on and had decided that they weren’t particularly interested in doing anything about it? What would you do?

For Naira Sharp the answer is easy: burn it all to the ground. A former security officer for the ultra-wealthy Mercator family, Naira suspects their involvement in the spread of something called shroud lichen. A fungus that is quickly spreading and infecting planets across the galaxy, eating away at everything living until the planet is a dried up, grey husk incompatible with human life:

Shroud lichen was both the harbinger and the axman for planetary collapse syndrome. The lichen would annihilate this planet’s vegetal life until there was nothing left but a skeleton, destabilizing the ecosystem from the root up. Nothing could kill it without killing the plant life it consumed, and no one knew how to stop its spread once it had begun.

Naira is furious that the Mercator family is not doing enough to counter the spread of the shroud lichen, so she joins up with the Conservators—a group dedicated to stopping the spread of the shroud, and the family responsible for it, by any means necessary.

Enter Tarquin Mercator, second in line to the Mercator family dynasty. Tarquin is a geologist. He has been over every inch of the family’s mining operations and is certain that they have nothing to do with the shroud lichen. To prove his family’s innocence, Tarquin signs up to accompany a mining expedition to a planet called Sixth Cradle. After a Conservator attack leaves Tarquin and Naira stranded on Sixth Cradle, they are forced to work with each other to keep themselves and the other survivors alive until they can find a way off the planet.

The Blighted Stars is the first novel in “The Devoured Worlds” trilogy by Megan E, O’Keefe, author of “The Protectorate” trilogy. This trilogy was written during the first two years of the pandemic. And the thematic connection between our collective Covid-19 experience and the shroud lichen is readily apparent in the narrative. An infection that is spreading out of control, popping up everywhere. The survivors of the Conservator attack being isolated from the rest of humanity. The emotional and psychological effects of this isolation. The general lack of concern, maybe even outright lying about the severity of the shroud lichen, by the people in power. It is easy to see the parallels between this world and our own.

Readers who have been paying attention to the news will pick up on another major theme in The Blighted Stars: climate change. After all, Canada is still on fire. Large portions of the United States, Asia, and Europe are suffering through unrelenting heatwaves and torrential flooding. Temperatures are exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit in South America, in the middle of winter. The parallels between our situation and the collapse of planet after planet under the weight of the shroud lichen couldn’t be more obvious. And there as here, the wealthy elite largely intend to do various amounts of nothing about it. The Blighted Stars is as much a novel about climate change as it is anything else.

Appropriately for a book about a planet-killing fungus and climate change, O’Keefe infuses the narrative with horror. There’s just enough horror to appeal to readers who enjoy the genre, but not so much that it would deter those who don’t. One of the more terrifying aspects of the story is cracking. In this world, death can be delayed for a time through what amounts to backing up a person’s consciousness on a hard drive and 3D printing a new body. There are risks to such a procedure, of course. The biggest risk is cracking—essentially file corruption, the risk of which increases with each subsequent printing or particularly violent death.

The Blighted Stars is also a story about two people born on opposite sides of a highly stratified society who find themselves drawn to one another despite the many reasons it could never work between them. Naturally, this relationship is growing and evolving at the most inappropriate time. Naira and Tarquin are at times awkward, uncomfortable, and quick to recoil when they remember they’re supposed to be enemies. The will-they-won’t-they, enemies-to-lovers romance works to balance out the heavier themes of the book.

The Blighted Stars is tightly paced and packed with all the twists, turns, and revelations expected from a science fiction adventure story, with just a dash of horror and romance thrown into the mix. The tension builds right up to the end of the book, setting the stage for what can only be an intense second installment. And readers won’t have to wait long to find out what happens next. The Fractured Dark is set to be released in September 2023.

Amberlee Venters is a freelance editor and writer living in Northern California.