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Starless Is a Shining Example of the Power of Epic Fantasy
Jacqueline Carey has a fiercely devoted fanbase. Her Kushiel’s Legacy saga introduced us to a heroine who is deservedly featured on lists of “best fantasy heroines” lists to this day—courtesan-spy Phedre, who enjoys a good book, a great dress, and wild, abandoned sex in equal measure. Her motto “Love as thou wilt” has become a rallying cry for her fans, and possibly one of the phrases from a fantasy novel most often appearing as a tattoo. It is also, to my thinking, the raison d’etre and motivating factor of much of Carey’s work.
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Carey’s new standalone epic fantasy Starless is no exception. The hero is Khai, born lucky (or perhaps very unlucky), the circumstances of his birth fating him to a grand destiny. When a member of the royal house of Zarkhoum is born during a lunar eclipse, it is written that they will be provided with a “shadow,” another child born in that same highly charged moment, who will guard the royal forever after. At birth, Khai is named ward the Princess Zariya, youngest daughter of the king, and the first female of the royal house to ever be born with a shadow. Khai is raised and trained for the task by Brotherhood of Parkhun, a desert order of warriors following an ancient (but still very much present and opinionated) god. If all goes according to plan, Khai will join Princess Zariya at the age of 16, and ward her the rest of their lives, which are likely to be very long—the family has a monopoly on god-blessed seeds that grant extraordinary longevity.
In Carey’s novels, however, destiny is never simple. A long-prophesied enemy is gathering strength in the West. Long ago, the sun god Zar cast down his children from heaven in anger, binding them to the lands where they fell. They able to dispense limited sorts of divine wisdom and aid to the humans living in their lands, but cannot return to heaven until Zar deems their punishment done—save for Miasmus, a god who has slumbered for a thousand years without ever having a chance to live. But he has started to awaken, and is none too happy with the waking world.
Khai and Zariya clearly were not brought together by fate (nor the author) to hide behind high palace walls while the world burns beyond them. They must venture out, delve deep into the world’s problems, join a band of prophecy-seekers trying to avert the end of everything. Along the way, they find out that the gods have both given and asked much more of them than they think they can bear.
Carey has a great gift for creating a deep sense of place in her novels, and Starless is another kaleidoscopic book of a thousand colors: the arid desert where the crows eat you when you die; the steam- and gossip- filled baths teeming with secluded royal women; the biting, salt-filled sea wind as felt from the prow of a raider’s ship; every scene as richly hued as new pigment on vellum canvas. There’s nary a sentence that isn’t full to bursting with vivid imagery. Purple prose has a bad reputation in genre writing, but it’s a tool that can be skillfully employed; not content with purple, Carey masters the entire rainbow, and proves herself capable of matching writers like Catherynne Valente, Guy Gavriel Kay and N.K. Jemisin.
Indeed, Khai and Zariya’s quest seems designed to show us a world, and introduce us to its many varied cultures. The pair often need something from the new people they encounter, and they don’t take it by force, but by meeting the strangers on their own terms, and earning what, in many other tales, heroes would simply expect as a matter of course. What this means in practice is a series of fascinating variations on a theme—here’s what this culture thinks about that, and how this one differs, and this one. While the march to the final battle drives the narrative, this consideration of what it truly means to be heroic is truly compelling.
Self-actualization has always been the goal of the hero’s journey, and Carey never fails to consider the important step of exploring one’s gender and sexuality. She has long spotlighted the many forms sexual expression may take, always in a tone of celebration or at least exploration, and without judgment. This means that some readers will wrongly dismiss her novels as smut or romance (the bias against romance being another topic altogether), and it is their loss; for other readers, this aspect of her work is hugely important.
We watch Khai struggle with the Zarkhoum’s ideas about the rights of different genders, and how gender performance is an integral part of being allowed to do the things a shadow is raised to do. Khai’s sexual and gender exploration is ultimately a celebration of life and growth, and we are witness to moments of joy around the discovery of the possibilities of the flesh—especially the discovery that limits that looked like impassable brick walls are actually illusory veils that can be passed through at will.
Carey pushes back against the fantasy tropes of god-touched destinies and happy endings. Endings happen, but without the “ever after” part. The best her heroes can hope for are glimpses of bliss, moments of idyllic peace they know are transitory. Prophecy and destiny never equal certainty, or only the certainty that your choices matter. Complications don’t go away, nor does the striving to surpass them. A desire for desires, Tolstoy called it. Carey gets that. Humans weren’t built for pat endings. Nor, thank the gods, was Starless.