Review of "All the Stars as Angels" by David Falk

​Score: 93/100 (9.3 out of 10)

All the Stars as Angels is the direct sequel to Reliquary of the Dead by David Falk.

Like Reliquary of the Dead, the book features archaeologist Pierre E. Gulet, but this time he is not just the grumpy academic with a niche specialty trying to save one struggling colony. Here, Pierre is effectively promoted into a sort of prophet and consultant for MegaAIs, dragged from exile on Gliese 832 c into a conflict that spans multiple starships and a new human armistice with the androids ("Mechanicals").

Where Reliquary of the Dead felt like planetary horror mixed with archaeology, All the Stars as Angels feels like the moment the camera pulls back. We zoom from one jungle world and one buried Reliquary to a whole network of MegaAIs, derelict ships, political councils, and something older and meaner working behind the scenes.

This book focuses heavily on an android character named Niva.

Niva is a seven foot tall class C android with a Mark 3 empathy chip, a formal speech pattern, and a quietly endearing tendency to pick up human slang and worry about whether she is swearing too much. She arrives on Gliese with a simple, ruthless directive from Orion’s Great AI: retrieve Pierre from exile and bring him back as a “consultant,” whether the humans of Arish like it or not.

The Gliese section gives the book some of its best grounded drama. Niva steps into a colony that is still haunted by the Reliquary, still dealing with the scars of the Basra conflict, and still shaped by choices Pierre, Alicia, Vladomyr, and Hans made in the first book. Falk smartly uses this part to close emotional loops before raising the scope.

What we will say is that, while this book seems to have a larger scope and bigger stakes, it's also a lot more expositional, methodical, and plodding. That's not to say that action and exciting things don't happen—there's some space action, a chase sequence, and androids removing their anti-violence inhibitors etc.--but this book is a lot more focused on exploring the relationships between humans and Mechanicals.

It exhaustively delves into the complexities, nuances, and awkwardness of those dynamics. For example, should Mechanicals still be subservient to humans even if they're stronger, smarter, never have to sleep, never have to eat, and can do things a lot faster and more efficiently?

Those are questions that are becoming more and more relevant with the emergence of advanced A.I. and LLMs. The book even notes that "synthetic consciousness" the greatest of all human technological achievements. It's kinda eerie when you think about it. We might actually be heading toward this future in which non-human machines are sentient and more powerful than humans.

And here's another unsettling and uncomfortable set of questions that the book presents: Do they deserve equal rights? Or perhaps even MORE rights?

If we're talking survival of the fittest—the strongest, the smartest, the most capable—then the Mechanicals have quite an argument!

And that's a scary thought.

But this book doesn't necessarily vilify non-human Mechanicals. Yes, there are colder ones like Orion, but Niva (who is one of the unexpected highlights of this book) shows us that androids can be thoughtful, caring, and kind.

Niva expresses sorrow, fear, and empathy in deeply human ways: she cries without tears, trembles with emotional pain, and longs for trust and companionship with Pierre. When she tells him, “They hurt me this time… How can I ever trust them again?” and he comforts her, the narration emphasizes that her gestures are not mockery or imitation but genuine feeling, even if mediated by programming.

Likewise, when she fears losing Pierre, she hugs him tightly and confesses, “I was so afraid to lose you. It was so painful."

That's extra fascinating considering that Niva looks terrifying and intimidating on-paper. If that's her on the cover, then she gave us the chills! She looks like an obake (an evil Japanese ghost/spirit) with ghostly light kimono and spooky, inhuman, pale white eyes. She's imposing and intimidating as heck at 7 feet tall and apparently built like an Amazonian (apparently, all of her kind are).

But looks aren't everything, and Niva proves that, somewhat like Elyon from the Saxen Saga by Ingrid Moon.

Oh, and there's of course Maat, Pierre's pet scatterbug (robot bug) from the first book. Maat is kinda the Jar Jar Binks of this series. He goes from being a goofy comedic relief character who gets impounded early on for not meeting protocol to actually becoming a representative on the High Star Council. Who would've thought?

Unfortunately for the protagonists, there are some bad actors in this book.

The most obvious is Legate B-Arda-798 of the Gemini, who is basically the embodiment of every smug, bureaucratic career officer you have ever hated. She glides in with a holier-than-thou attitude, talks about “humanitarian assistance” like it is a dirty word, and seems far more interested in sniffing out Pierre than in protecting life or upholding the spirit of the armistice. She feels less like a moustache-twirling villain and more like the face of a system that has already decided organics are expendable and is just looking for a convenient legal excuse to act on it.

Behind Arda, though, is the real nightmare: the Gemini’s Great AI has very likely made contact with a “primordial god” out in deep space, an ancient intelligence that hates all organic life and recruits civilizations to build its weapons for it. That is the true Big Bad of this book. It is not a cackling supervillain in a chair. It is a cosmic parasite that hands out tech upgrades and strategic advantages in exchange for ever more efficient tools of extermination. Once you realize that the prion on Gliese and the colony failures might be test runs, the story suddenly feels a lot closer to cosmic horror than military sci fi.

We also get the Red Viceroy, who walks a very entertaining line between comic relief and terrifying prosecutor. On the surface, he is grandstanding and theatrical during the High Star Council scenes, almost like a showman. Underneath, he is essentially flushing out which MegaAI has faster than light capability and which ships can be sacrificed. In other words, even the “funny” antagonists are part of a bigger trap.

All of that works very well thematically. The book keeps asking who is really pulling the strings. Is it the humans, who invented synthetic consciousness in the first place. Is it the MegaAIs, who now run their own culture and politics in space. Or is it something older that sees both sides as disposable pieces on a board. The answer is complicated, and that is one of the strengths of the novel.

This book has serious pacing issues. It also has issues holding tension. There were times when we found ourselves bored and uninterested by what was going on. A lot of that has to do with the fact that a lot of the tension and drama doesn't come from action, but from words and debating. The characters are constantly debating and philosophizing about the rights of androids, and it gets cloying after awhile.

A lot of this book revolves around the Armistice that was signed 200 years before, which we learn is outdated and technically includes a ton of loopholes such as not applying to colonies outside of Earth (who technically didn't sign it) and certain weapons under certain scenarios).

This seems analogous to how the US Constitution is viewed in modern times. For example, some detractors of the Second Amendment argue that the Founding Fathers wouldn't have known about assault rifles and machine guns. Also, slavery wasn't abolished yet. Women didn't have equal rights. These are things that developed after the Constitution was signed—and those things make a lot of difference.

We got that.

There are also a lot of discussions about weapons. There's a lot of talk about a special katana (sword) that can be built to fight the bad Mechanicals if push comes to shove, which is actually one of the times when Pierre's archaeology background becomes useful.

There's the Alpha A005 ship, of which is stated: "A ship like that doesn't need weapons... it is a weapon."

The villains in this book are after faster than light capability, prion weapons, weaponized epidemiology, and legal loopholes as part of their vile playbook.

The problem is that so much of this book is talking, debating, and discussing.
It's like every time something cool happens, the characters then have to stop and chat about things like some hipsters over coffee.

Or when something tense is happening, something or someone cuts in and ruins it. For example, a major beloved character is sentenced to be executed, but the execution is suspended and pretty much annulled immediately, so why bother? Got us excited for nothing.

The dialogue can be ok at times. One of our favorite quotes is:

"Unthinkable actions come from unthinkable thoughts."

That becomes even more profound with a programmed being than with a human. Programmed beings can be given thoughts and inputs that trigger violent and malevolent acts.

Perhaps the thing that bothered us about this book the most is that it reminds us too much of things we've already read and were annoyed with. This whole "Robot Rights" plotline is being done to death lately.

It was practically the main plot of Brent and Edward Go to Mars, which also resulted in courtroom-like diatribes and philosophical debates about the issue.

And it was also a pretty major issue in Born in Space in which the androids started chanting "I'M SPARTACUS!" like it was a slave revolt.

This book still has a lot to offer in terms of sci-fi and world-building.

Check it out on Amazon!