A good entryway to non-Western fantasy for readers in search of new ground
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When I was a kid, most epic fantasy novels were decidedly Eurocentric. A lot hewed close to the Tolkienic blueprint; others diverged from it, but rarely from its Eurocentrism. Over the past three decades, fantasy authors have grown more daring in terms of the source material they draw upon, and more willing to explore the world and its rich tapestry of mythical traditions, so to speak.
The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah is by no means the first work of epic fantasy to draw from The Thousand and One Nights for inspiration, but it is an excellent place to start for readers seeking something new and fresh, yet also familiar. After all, while these stories are not as central to Western culture as they are for the peoples of the Middle East, they long ago entered into our own cultural discourses—through art, books, film and so forth. Aladin’s lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor—not everyone will have read or heard the actual stories, but few people who read books (or blogs about books) aren’t at least passably familiar with these myths.
The Stardust Thief centers on Loulie al-Nazari, more popularly known as the “Midnight Merchant.” She is a famous collector—and purveyor—of magical relics, and as such is a celebrity in the great city of Madinne. Wherever Loulie goes, so does her companion Qadir, a jinn who can take the form of a human or a lizard. As the book progresses, we learn that Qadir saved Loulie’s life and gifted her an enchanted compass, a relic that leads its owner to other relics and the source of Loulie’s trade.
The city is ruled by a cruel and mercurial Sultan, whose son Omar bin Malik leads the Forty Thieves—a group of assassins who seek out and kill whatever jinn try to enter the city and pass for human. We learn that, in doing so, Omar obeys the commands of his father, the Sultan; and that wherever jinn blood spills, an oasis forms. This too, it seems, is at the heart of the Sultan’s rule—an onslaught of violence that transforms the city’s desert environs and enriches its inhabitants. This is clearly metaphor.
The Sultan, however, is restless and greedy. He hears of a famous relic hidden deep in the dunes of the Sandsea, far outside Madinne’s imposing walls—a lamp that cages a jinn, who will grant wishes to whatever human possesses it. He summons Loulie to his palace, coercing her to seek it out—and sends Omar with her to make sure she does not betray him. But Omar has other plans…
Since this blog’s inception, I have ruminated on the nature of imaginative genre fiction and why I’m drawn to it; why, in comparison, mimetic fiction often seems so dull and dreary. In part, it is the opportunity to “travel” to and “inhabit” different worlds. Given the sorry state of our own, it’s no surprise that readers increasingly want to imagine something different. But even the most imaginative epic fantasy (or science fiction) draws upon and ultimately is a vehicle for understanding the world we actually do inhabit. Sometimes this is hard-hitting and serious; other times, it is like a lightbulb that illuminates a part of the house you’ve never really explored.
That’s ultimately how I think about The Stardust Thief. This is a good story, with a brisk pace, centered on strong characters in a world you immediately want to get deeper into. It isn’t a work of high-minded literary fiction, but its prose is smooth and never gets in the way of the story. Its cliffhanger ending implicitly offers you a difficult choice: to go straight into the sequel or go find the latest translation of The Thousand and One Nights and explore the novel’s source material. At a high level, The Stardust Thief is a fun book that I wholeheartedly recommend to fans of epic fantasy who are looking for a fun summer read.
With that said, it’s not perfect. A few major character decisions are confusing; the goal is clearly to surprise the reader, but there’s a difference between a surprise that makes sense in retrospect and one that just leaves you scratching your head. Some of the interpersonal relationships are not well developed, which in turn makes character motivations more opaque than I’m guessing Abdullah intended.
Overall, though, this is a fun read that I highly recommend for readers who are looking for a good escapist fantasy novel that tries and mostly succeeds in treading new ground.
Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.
Highlights:
- Fun, escapist “Arabian Nights”-derived fantasy
- Likable, relatable characters—but sometimes their motivations are unclear and confusing
- Different take on magic in a fantasy setting, which feels fresh
Reference: Abdullah, Chelsea. The Stardust Thief [Orbit, 2022].
POSTED BY: The G—purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.
