Unconquerable Sun

By Kate Elliott

'An entertaining shoot-'em-up, replete with epic starship battles, court intrigue and Machiavellian betrayals' Guardian

It has been eight centuries since the beacon system failed, sundering the heavens. Rising from the ashes of the collapse, cultures have fought, system-by-system, for control of the few remaining beacons. The Republic of Chaonia is one such polity. Surrounded by the Yele League and the vast Phene Empire, they have had to fight for their existence. After decades of conflict, Queen-Marshal Eirene has brought the Yele to heel.

Now it is time to deal with the Empire. Princess Sun, daughter and heir, has come of age.

In her first command, she drove a Phene garrison from the beacons of Na Iri – an impressive feat. But growing up in the shadow of her mother – a ruler both revered and feared – has been no easy task. While Sun may imagine that her victorious command will bring further opportunity to prove herself, it will in fact place her on the wrong side of court politics. There are those who would like to see Sun removed as heir, or better yet, dead. To survive, the princess must rely on her wits and companions: her biggest rival, her secret lover, and a dangerous prisoner of war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus -- An AdAstra Book
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781800243194

Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott has been writing science fiction and fantasy for 30 years, after bursting onto the scene with Jaran. She is best known for her Crown of Stars epic fantasy series and the New York Times bestselling YA fantasy Court of Fives. Elliott's particular focus is immersive world-building & centering women in epic stories of adventure, amidst transformative cultural change. She lives in Hawaii, where she paddles outrigger canoes & spoils her Schnauzer.

Reviews for Unconquerable Sun

[blackstaffer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Pew-pew, politics, intrigues and treason.
I loved this one, and can't wait to see what Furious Heaven has in store for Sun.

[readinggeek451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating characters in a richly-detailed far future, with an exciting plot. This has elements of military science fiction, both space battles and small-unit work, but it is also heavy on political intrigue and family dynamics. As is characteristic of Elliott's work, it begins slowly, with a plethora of characters and a proliferation of details. But it rewards the wait.Recommended.

[jennybeast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Initially, I was intimidated at the sheer length of the book (covid brain) and excited about gender-swapped Alexander the Great in space, because how cool is that? Once I got into it, I really enjoyed it -- found myself wanting more time to spend with it. I'm impressed that Kate Elliott's writing has developed to this point -- she's always told a great story, but the epic scale is new. Love the space heists, the boy-band fame of the companions and how they use it. Had some issues with Eirene's temper tantrums -- hard to imagine a leader getting away with that sort of thing. Good times. I'm not sure I will be able to hold on to the epic number of people and plots to engage with a second or third book, but this one was good.

Advanced Reader's copy provided by Edelweiss.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The most operatic of space operas. Sun is her mother’s heir, but her mother doesn’t plan to release control over the empire any time soon, and just got married to a new wife who is already pregnant with a potentially competing heir. Sun’s victories in battle may help her but also arouse her mother’s jealousy, and when one of Sun’s companions is killed, the replacement is a resentful young woman who has big family drama of her own. Lots of fighting on space and on the ground, some romance, and much politics. (Loosely based on Alexander the Great, I think.)

[spaceandsorcery · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I had high expectations for this novel - maybe too high - based on the story’s premise: an interstellar backdrop where conflicting powers measure their strength through politics and open war, where intrigue between influential families leads toward a constant shift of alliances and betrayals, while at the center of all this we follow a main character described as the female equivalent of Alexander the Great - the potential for a Dune-like epic was irresistible, but unfortunately Unconquerable Sun did not fulfill its promises as I hoped.The Republic of Chaonia has managed to subdue or assimilate most of its enemies, and queen-marshal Eirene built her power-base through military victories and political alliances, a few of these signed though marriage contracts, like the one binding Eirene to Prince Joao and producing the heir, Princess Sun. Sun is struggling to make a name for herself, moving out of her mother’s encompassing shadow, by taking an active part in Chaonia’s military campaigns, but a sudden shift in the political winds turns her almost overnight into a fugitive, so she must rely on her finely-honed wits, the support of her Companions, and the help of a rival family’s member to regain her rightful place and overthrow an insidious conspiracy enacted by Chaonia’s most dangerous foes. The other two main POVs in the novel come from Persephone Lee, who unsuccessfully tries to escape her powerful family’s machinations by enrolling in the military academy under an assumed name, and ends up among Sun’s Companions; and from Apama, a pilot in the fleet of the Phene, Chaonia’s main adversaries: this was the most interesting character for me, and one of my main disappointments in the story came from the almost negligible “screen time” allotted to her after she was introduced.At the start of the book I was intrigued, both by the fascinating background of this vast galactic milieu and by the potential shown by the characters: sadly, after a while it all seemed to turn into a confused and confusing jumble of daring escapes, heated battles and things going spectacularly boom, which might be all right if one wants only *adventure* and a plot-heavy story, but I prefer relatable characters in my reading material, and I soon realized that there was too little of that in this novel. More than once I thought that this story might work better as a movie - and as such it reminded me of The Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending, where the action overwhelmed any other consideration - but as a book I found it unfortunately lacking.The sheer number of characters makes for a distracting experience because there is no time or space to get to know them, or to be able to differentiate between them - which is particularly true for Sun’s Companions - to the point that any harm befalling them leaves no lingering traces, and even when the story focuses on the main ones, like Sun or Persephone, it’s difficult to see them as people rather than stereotypes. Sun is presented as very determined, but from my point of view she comes off rather as an overbearing spoiled brat, and Persephone - who is strangely given a more detailed focus than the actual main character - is an unpleasant combination of meanness and self-pity, while the author keeps telling us that she is a shrewd operator, mostly by calling her “the wily Persephone” in the title of each chapter where she is the focus. And goodness, does she make a lot of embarrassing mistakes for someone who spent the last few years in the academy being honed for military service!Despite these problems, which became evident after the first handful of chapters, I kept on reading in the hope that the story would find its footing and become the compelling tale promised by the blurb, but as the page count progressed it became more and more apparent that I would not find what I looked for: even skimming over the most repetitive sequences of Sun & Co. running for their lives and then being involved in a long, drawn-out battle that went on and on and on, I failed to find anything that would hold my interest. Once the characters started to adopt the less palatable traits of the YA mold, like unnecessary cattiness or insta-lust for anything moving into their field of vision (yes, Persephone, I’m looking right at you…), I knew that Unconquerable Sun would turn into a lost cause: as Sun took over a Chaonian vessel, ousting a seasoned captain to take command of the operations, I knew that this “Mary Sue maneuver” would be the proverbial straw, and decided to put an end to my suffering.I’m aware that my personal biases are responsible for my negative reaction to this novel, which is the main reason I must warn you to take my opinion with a grain of salt, but when all is said and done, this is certainly not a book for me.

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Space opera full out. Sun, the problematical daughter and heir to a growing buffer state turned empire, escapes a number of accidents and attacks as the story gets off to a deliberate and not very interesting start, but the action starts and complexity of the situation grows and careens through land air attacks and space battles, with hidden reveals popping up like pearls on a string - and we're only getting started.

[bintarab-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy of this book through the Goodreads giveaway program.I enjoyed this book very much. Although this novel is meant for young adults, I recommend it to anyone looking for a good, action-packed, science fiction story. This story is based on real history, with Princess Sun in the place of Alexander the Great and her Companions in the place of his companions/generals/most trusted friends. The author has written a story remarkably true to recorded history while letting it all develop organically so it doesn't feel like she is straining to make her story fit the historical narrative. There is some skilled, clever world-building going on in this book. In the vein of one of the great traditions of science fiction, Unconquerable Sun draws from real cultural traditions to build the new societies in the book. For example, in the course of the story we see characters wearing white in mourning and red at a wedding, in accordance with real Chinese customs. Other examples of Chinese culture abound (the writing, names, dress, etc) but there are other cultures incorporated into the story too: one warrior-race (the Gatoi) sports body markings that made me think of Samoan tattoos and African scarification; a common greeting among those in the story is the call and response formula "peace be upon you/and upon you peace" that is common among Muslims; there are also references to Christian religious traditions; names reference Asian Indian language/culture, as well as Korean, Portuguese, and Japanese cultures -- this book's greatest strength is in this diversity. It makes for an exhilarating read.Elliott deserves high praise for telling this narrative without a heteronormative stance. She also draws attention to social issues like the plight of people living in refugee camps without the privileges and protections of citizenship and of immigrant laborers who are exploited by being charged by their employers for rent, food, etc. The story is written in the past tense for half the book, but there are stretches and random chapters in the present tense. It was confusing to me because I kept looking for a justification for these tense shifts back and forth but couldn't find any. Then too, half the book is written in a third person narrative, with chapters told from one character's perspective (Persephone Lee) in a first person point of view. Again, I couldn't find a reason for this flip-flopping, though this may become clearer in subsequent books in this series. The tense and PoV shifts were distracting.The author has a talent for describing the action in a way that keeps the pace up without making it too hard to follow, a rare talent among "space opera" science fiction writers. As with most science fiction, this is a plot-driven book with no discernible character arc for any of the characters. The main characters are "types" -- the musician, the data whiz, the uber-proficient ex-military bodyguard, and so on -- probably because there are so many of them in the ensemble and it's easier to keep track of who's who if they fit certain roles.All in all, between the amazing cultural diversity and the high-powered action, this is an engrossing story that held my interest from beginning to end. This is a book worth paying hard-earned money for! I give it 5 stars though I think the tense changes, the PoV changes, and the lack of character arcs hold it back from being a "perfect" novel, but a 4 star rating seems too low.~bint