Thronebreakers
The Crownchasers series, Book 2
Rebecca Coffindaffer
HarperTeen
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Alyssa Farshot told herself she didn't care who took up the royal seal and responsibilities of the imperial throne, so long as it wasn't her. She told herself she had no interest in politics, that she'd be happy when the whole crownchase - the archaic scavenger hunt across the known galaxy in the wake of the old emperor's passing, to determine the heir - was over and she could go back to being an anonymous explorer on her own ship.
When she watches her best friend, on the very cusp of victory, be ambushed and shot by the boy Edgar, she realizes she was lying. She did indeed care very much about who ruled the galaxy... especially when he's a cheater and cold-blooded murderer.
Unfortunately, she is the only witness to what happened... and politics being politics, nobody wants to make waves on behalf of the last daughter of an all-but-extinct noble house, a daughter who hasn't exactly been a public darling and brings nothing to the table but a wild and unreliable reputation. Even her late best friend's mother seems willing to swallow the bitter pill of Edgar as emperor. This, everyone tells her, is a fight she cannot hope to win. But it's also a fight she cannot bring herself to walk away from, especially not when his first acts only confirm how unfit for the title he is, unleashing robotic enforcers and further elevating the religious cult of Solaris that has already infiltrated far too much of the government for Alyssa's comfort. If she can't take the crown from the new-minted emperor, she'll just have to smash the throne out from under him.
REVIEW: Thronebreakers takes up about where the previous book ended and maintains the same high-octane pacing, punctuated with setbacks, losses, and more than a little snark. The death of her best friend in front of her eyes, and the acquiescence of so many to Edgar's questionable claims to power, push Alyssa ever further into rage, and further toward accepting that, like it or not, she is a leader, and there are some causes that need champions, even if they're not politically popular (or if they distract from her primary occupation of galactic thrill-seeking). Edgar, meanwhile, always more comfortable with numbers and robots than emotions and people, struggles to grow into a role that does not truly suit him, plagued by feelings of inadequacy that drive him to greater extremism... and make him more susceptible to voices in his ear that warp his rule. The greater villains feel a bit flat, and one or two minor elements of the climax and finale (which wraps up the arcs, but leaves just enough of a crack in the door for future adventures in the same universe) feel like loose threads or pulled punches for reasons I can't put my finger on, but all in all this is quite an enjoyable space opera.
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