A year ago, I tried and failed to read Rise of the Red Hand, a book that promised a similar premise to Empress of a Thousand Skies. Thousand Skies was a book I’d heard of with an interesting-sounding plot, but I never gave it a chance. Now I finally have, and the premise was executed magnificently. Why didn’t I read this years ago? Why must books like these go out of print after a few years? Why can’t publishers just keep printing on occasion?
Similar to Marie Lu’s Warcross or Ready Player One, there’s technology in this universe that impacts our minds; everyone stores things they want stored in these special cubes they have in their heads; memories, knowledge, even their very own personalities if they wish, to the point where without them…would they still be themselves? Also, if this is technology…wouldn’t it be corruptible?
There are two main heroes in this book; Rhiannon, an orphaned princess who is last in a line of royal blood, the heir to a powerful dynasty. Her being alive keeps things in this galaxy in the balance, which is especially needed right now with the planet of Kalu threatening invasions. Then one day one of her friends…attacks her out of the blue. She is saved by a Draetan man and they have to go on the run. But she’s not the only one whose life has been flipped upside down. After the news of Rhiannon’s “death” goes viral, a young man named Alyosha, or Aly, working with his friend Vincent on a government ship, is declared the killer, and a huge bounty is put on his head. The both of them will have to find out who set them up, why, and how they will clear their names before they’re both killed.
This book was published seven years ago, yet a surprising thing is its similar themes to what has happened in Gaza and the West Bank. (I am unapologetically pro-Palestinian. My heart has been truly shattered for all the innocent lives lost in this turmoil, as well as all of the innocent Jewish people who feel horrible about the things that were done and are being done in their name, when nothing could be more insulting and antisemitic.) Israel is behaving like Kalu, and Wraeta has turned into a blown-up wasteland of a planet because of Kalu, and the ways they went about doing so, plus the ways the antagonists frame, accuse and attack with no shame and no guilt, is the current Israeli playbook to a tee.
My main point here is that the conflicts it has within its war are paramount to real life. Including the fact the second protagonist, Aly, is a Wraetan who believed that some hard work for the Kaluans would be beneficial to him and they’d see him as one of their own and they’d see the Wraetans weren’t as bad as they believed. And yet after everything, he’s the one to have everything pinned on him, primarily because a Wraetan killing the princess would truly stoke the flames of war, something beneficial to whoever is pulling the strings. (Aly has dark skin, adding to the analogies of the racism in this world.)
What I also really like about this book is it never really slows down. Rhoda Belleza’s style seems to be to have this book feel like a blockbuster thriller, never settling in one place before everyone has to escape. A lot happens in its 314 pages, with constant evil cliffhangers daring us to stop reading. There are some characters that are killed off rather early before we get to know them too well, but it’s entertaining and well-written and Star-Wars-reminiscent enough that it didn’t bother me too much.
Empress Of A Thousand Skies is a refreshing YA roller coaster that reminded me of Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles and Pierce Brown’s Red Rising but more compacted and to-the-point, a style of its own that reminds us all of the fun that can be crafted with a keyboard. It was accurate of the author to compare it to these works.
My grade: 5 stars out of five
William J. McGinn 
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