Book Review: Luminiferous
Luminiferous closes out J. Dianne Dotson’s Questrison Saga with a huge bang.
I’ve been saving this one up for a while. I really enjoyed reading through the first three books of the Questrison Saga, Heliopause, Ephemeris, and Accretion. Their blend of space opera and fantasy with intense action was a lot of fun, and those first three are relatively short. Luminiferous is much larger by comparison, and I knew I wasn’t ready for the saga to end quite yet, so I put it aside until it was time. In short, it was just as much fun as the others, and closes out the series in an exciting, highly emotional, and satisfying way. Let’s get into it.
Blurb
Devastation, annihilation and fear. Leaders sundered and scattered. Decades of control by Paosh Tohon and its Valemog minions have brought the galaxy to the brink of collapse.
Love and war. Spaceships and exotic worlds. Aliens, androids, ecosystems. Mages and presidents. Long cons. Family feuds that led to galactic destruction. Family ties that could save the galaxy.
With heroes destroyed, captured, or missing, Paosh Tohon's campaign seems unstoppable. Yet one world remains immune: a hidden planet, with defenses both natural and unnatural. The secrets and legacies harbored there protect the last bastions of hope, if they can escape the world and withstand the evils beyond...
Review
Something that really stood out to me with Luminiferous which exemplifies and sets it apart from the first three books in the series is the pacing. It really is a standout feature. Where with the others I mentioned I felt they stuffed a lot of ideas into their shorter length and moved through each very quickly without giving enough time for them to settle for my taste, Luminiferous absolutely nails it. It has all the emotional weight of Accretion and more, plus gave me as a reader time to absorb everything. I felt drawn in by and totally invested in Galla-Deia’s struggles and inner turmoil.
Speaking of characters - a brilliant bunch once again! I loved Paul especially, dripping with charisma. Deming was also very interesting, and as a love interest, a great direct contrast to Aeriod in particular, but also for Rob. Gindoo was a lot of fun as well, reminding me of a cross between Yoda, and Aughra from The Dark Crystal. Well, really an amalgam of a lot of wizard mentors from 80s sword and sorcery movies, and I’m here for it. The characters are all well written, distinct, and memorable, and I enjoyed the interplay and tension between the new and returning cast. Oh, and the Seltra. I love me a good ship, and the Seltra was great - definitely a fitting hero ship, and a great replacement for the Fithich.
Plot-wise, I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Luminiferous, and it brought all the threads of the series to a close in a satisfying and emotional way. I do feel like the first half of the book is a bit stronger than the second half, however. The ending, though. I did not see that coming. Now that I’ve read it, the concept of the arrangement at the end seems vaguely familiar to me - tucked away in the deepest recesses of my mind, possibly something classical - but I definitely haven’t read anything recently where that happens. In short, it was really, really good.
Now, I don’t often talk about tropes, and this might be me completely talking out of my backside, but on reflection I feel like the author did something with the traditional fantasy chosen one trope which I haven’t seen before. That being, it’s unusual to have the “chosen one who lives on a farm, hears the call and goes off to adventure” type of thing happen in the last book of a series with already established characters. There’s a good reason for us to reset to this kind of archetype, and it’s only just occurred to me that that’s what happened as I write this review. And you know what? I appreciate it. I like it. I don’t dislike the chosen one trope normally either, but here it’s especially done in an interesting way.
Additionally, I want to take a moment to talk about (our Lord and Saviour) Invisible Tendrils. It’s well established already in the series that the antagonist has these invisible tendrils which only Galla is properly able to see, and… Is this a trope? I feel like I’ve read a few separate books now where this is a thing, like The Eye of the World. I don’t ever see it discussed, but just from my personal perspective and reading habits, it’s weird that it’s happened to me at least three times now. They’re always handled with differing levels of success, with The Eye of the World as the worst version - seriously the end of that book is almost total nonsense. Luminiferous is one of the better examples by far for sure.
In terms of prose, there’s a lot of really beautiful and evocative writing in Luminiferous, especially in the first half of the book, where we get to experience life on the planet Quopeia through Galla’s eyes. I found myself drinking it all in. And it made for smooth reading. I couldn’t put the book down for very long, and was quite disgruntled when the real world came a-knocking and I had to lay it aside. For this reason, I was very thankful for the short bite-sized chapters which are a staple of the series.
Overall, I have enjoyed my journey through the Questrison Saga, and I will absolutely be looking out for future works from J. Dianne Dotson - who has a lot of very interesting looking books on the horizon. I’ve got my eye on The Shadow Galaxy already…
I highly recommend the Questrison Saga for fans of epic fantasy, space opera, first contact style scenarios, epic space battles, and so much more. It’s a real fun time.
