July 1, 2022

It is no secret that I get very hyped for new book releases. I am probably my library’s number one user of the “Suggest A Purchase” form. I, personally, see nothing wrong with this obsession passion, especially when it leads me to amazing finds like Chelsea Abdullah’s debut fantasy novel The Stardust Thief.

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant, purveyor of rare magical relics that may or may not have been stolen. She is just trying to get through life, one sale at a time, and make sure no one discovers that her loyal bodyguard Qadir is actually a jinn. Mazen is a lowly second prince, a lover of stories, who both longs for and is terrified of the adventures that await him in the desert. And Aisha is a fiercsome jinn hunter, one of the elite Forty Thieves, and wants everyone to just leave her the hell alone before she has to actually confront her emotions. All three of these misfits find themselves forced on the adventure of a lifetime seeking a mysterious ancient lamp that could potentially end all jinn forever. To survive, they will need to learn to trust each other, a task made difficult as each one carries with them secrets that could destroy them all.

This book checks so many boxes for me: found (dysfunctional) family, grand adventures into magical lands, the power of storytelling, magical bodyguards, and classic tale retellings. While I can spend thousands of words gushing about all of these things, I want to highlight two that particularly struck me as inventive and refreshing: the known vs the unknown in the worldbuilding and Mazen, the cowardly prince.

The worldbuilding style of The Stardust Thief is top tier. Abdullah has built this entire country and culture off of a known history of magic. I love this. I love to see characters and worlds interact with magic as a normal thing, a part of society that has been there so long no one stops to question it. This automatically lends itself to the type of world discovery I love most in fiction: immersion. We learn about the world completely organically. No one stops to ask “hey, what’s that?” and then receive a half page of exposition. Characters are confident in what they are doing, and they interact with or mention the worldbuilding as is natural. I feel part of the world instead of like I am looking in. Does this mean there are things that, initially, can feel a little confusing? Yes, of course. But Abdullah is an excellent writer, and that confusion translates into tension that makes us eager to keep turning pages. The danger of accepted/normal magic in worldbuilding is that there is nothing new left to discover, and we lose setting-based tension and conflict. Easily avoided in The Stardust Thief because—hold onto your hats and glasses—everyone has secrets! Everyone. Inanimate objects have secrets. So many secrets. These secrets permeate every aspect of the world, making the known worldbuilding fragile and opening up space for the unknown, a.k.a. conflict. Exploring these new facets of the world becomes necessary in order to solve problems, move between locations, and get through awkward campfire conversations between not-quite-friends. This book is a masterclass in setting and worldbuilding that I, for one, will be referencing back for my own work.

But, where The Stardust Thief truly excels and I think catches the reader is with the characters. Loulie, Qadir, Mazen, and Aisha—this cast felt like the greatest D&D party ever. Each one brought something fresh to the table, and their personalities both meshed and clashed in a way that created a layer of natural social tension. And you know who ended up being my favorite? Mazen, our resident coward. This surprised me. When you’ve got fire-wielding jinn and people called the Midnight Merchant in the group, Mazen, from the outside, sounds kind of lame. However, I think Abdullah did something beautiful with Mazen’s character: she made him real. Not to say the other characters aren’t realistic, they are, but Mazen is real in a way I can relate to. He’s scared, introverted, feels inadequate, but desperately wants to do what he can to make the world a better place. He is terrified of the Sandsea and the dangers there, but he wants to go see it, and he wants to have adventures, and he wants his life to look just a little like the stories he loves to hear and tell. He wants comfort and excitement, quiet and purpose. Most fantasy adventures may have reluctant heroes, but not cowardly heroes. And yet there is no real shame put on Mazen for being this way. Because it is understandable. Adventuring is scary! Zombie ghouls and jinn and psychotic hunters are scary! Almost dying is scary! Mazen is the embodiment of these very human emotions and reactions, and I found that representation beautiful and important. I said it with Beasts of Prey and I’ll say it here too: young men need to read these types of male characters. Our world needs to see what this type of masculinity looks like. Mazen is the perfect combatant to toxic masculinity. I want to see more Mazens in my books, so that I can someday see them in my world.

As I said, this book checks a lot of boxes. Tons of boxes. Almost too many boxes. This is the first of a trilogy, and that is quite clear with how the story is structured and where the ending leaves off.  Because so much happens in here, so many questions are raised and ends left loose, I am most likely going to want to reread this book before I read the second when it comes out. This isn’t a criticism, just something to be aware of. Abduallah clearly has the imaginatory bandwidth for epic fantasies, and that cannot be contained within a single novel. With that in mind, I am greatly looking forward to the next book so I can see how the set up of the first pans out across this masterful world. Also, after the emotional chaos of the second half of this book, I am determined to see some of these characters get some happiness if not outright happy endings. (Chapter 38 destroyed my soul. Abdullah, you owe me more story so I may recover.) 

Get this book, read this book, you will not be disappointed. And check out Abdullah on social media. I don’t usually make comments on the authors apart from their work when I do reviews, but I have to say, Chelsea Abdullah has one of the nicest, most positive, most welcoming social media presences I have ever seen. She is definitely worth a follow, and her work worth a read. Enjoy.

Learn more about Chelsea Abdullah HERE