Stardust Rising [Mecha Fantasy] (COMPLETE)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Saviour or destroyer? Warrior or liberator? The inevitable… or the possible?

When a mysterious disaster causes amnesiac war hero Lieutenant Zelen Athelstan to lose his ability to pilot an Eidolon, Corporal Asena Shiranui is tasked with healing his mind and bringing him back to fighting shape.

Asena is chosen for her unique ability to evoke repressed memories, but there's a catch. The only way she or anyone can get through to Zelen is by impersonating the AI entity that had supported him throughout his legendary career before it too was destroyed in the same disaster that claimed Zelen's memories.

What Asena learns about the gifted yet broken soldier threatens to shake the foundations of her sheltered life, enough to alter the course of humanity's 140-year-long war against a faceless enemy...

What to expect:

- mecha battles and missions

- sprawling character-driven story with POV shifts

- military dictatorship setting built upon a near-extinction event

- MC's "power level" may fluctuate dramatically along with what's happening in the story

- flawed characters with emotional baggage (don't say I didn't warn you!)

This story in its current form is COMPLETE. No more updates on Royal Road.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2023
Author: Larkspur Wren

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.7/ 5.0
Followers: 720
Views: 226,326

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

jollybaneRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Fantastic action sequences that just keep on coming. If you came to this for mech combat against hoards of enemies you will be a very happy camper. The authors descriptions of places are just sublime as well I'm going to drop in a quote from them as an example.
"In stark contrast to the front garden’s Zen, the house itself was a rusted fortress of scant artistic value. A holdover from the early days of the Syntropy War, it was a disorientingly haphazard collection of concrete blocks and metal plates, made even more hideous by extensions that had been added on the whims of Shiranui patriarchs through the ages."
Super creative job of painting the scene for readers instead of blandly explaining them before everyone starts shooting. highly recommend .
Conrad StokesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is for a review swap, but I mostly stopped doing review swaps because giving a good score to an so-so story leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth. Not so with this fantastic fiction.
Honestly, I’ve been reading this fiction and and despairing because the comparison to something I write versus what Larkspur conjures is night and day. Fantastic characters, fantastic world building, and excellent grammar.
How does Larkspur write this well, so quickly? That’s what keeps making me pull my hair out.
It’s no surprise, given that this author has written another amazing story in Fenghuolun, but while that story was nice and all, this one really gets me going.
Is a mech story if you can’t tell by the big ‘ol mech in the cover, but it’s also a human story with two main POVs that are so cleverly intertwined that I hardly notice when they switch. Top that with worldbuidling that expertly teases you with a depth that respects your intelligence without handholding and you have a story that easily earns a place in one of my favorite fictions to read.
It’s like, I’m there in the culture with the characters, but I’m learning with them rather than through them if that makes sense and that’s a hard thing for a writer to pull off as well as Larkspur.
Give it a try, because honestly it has a little something for everyone: action, hinted romance, tragedy, and more that blends together for a story that I can unashamedly say 5/5, read it now.
Edge ValmondRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
To get into things a bit, this story I can't quite put my finger on it. Kinda reminds me of Gundam? Maybe? Probably FMP. Either way, the similarities are there to an extent. Needless to say, it does quite well to give a solid grip and create a more impactful story with the heavy scenes when they arise.
Style:
I do not grade style, but if I gotta give something about it. Know it is in the third person PoV, and I've been fine with this. It flows good as well.
Grammar:
Didn't spot anything wrong, can just be me. Though, this simply means it is good enough.
Characters:
With the weight of things, these characters are brought to life with the surrounding conflict, allowing you to feel for them. Such as with the main character, and the situation she faces.
Overall:
It is a great story, and I think I forgot to mention it is a mecha one. So, yeah, for those who likes this stuff, this is it. You get a great story all around, except for one point. The story does get into some more I guess technical stuff, but this is for the genre. The issue is that, it needs more to really spring the story to life. It is there, and I see it at times. So, while this review is early. This likely means, it improves on this as it goes along.
GreenHexagonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So I didn't expect much when I started reading, but Damn was I surprised. At first it was a bit hard to follow, as I got used to the authors style. After that... well, without spoiling things.
shit got real.
I haven't had a real investment in a story, in the characters, in a while. This satisfied that fix for me, and at this point I'm just waiting for it to finish so I can read it again.
KittyJinglesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Do you like mech fighting action? Broken soldiers and the support staff trying to fix them? A fiancee having to impersonate her future husband's beloved AI partner?
I'm drawn in by the mystery of what happened to Zelen, trying to figure out what is up with this family trying to put him back together, the background of duty bound officers and rigid war time society
There are some new terms thrown around (social castes and abilities) but there's no info dumping, context and reading more clears things up. Binge a bunch of chapters and you'll be fine with the terms. I'm enjoying the world building and the urgency of this secretive task Asena must complete. The stakes are high for her personally and for the survival of humanity. Mech battles!
Mind the tragedy tag, and the author is not kidding about the emotional trauma
ThatWriterGuyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Already the author of the acclaimed Fenghuolun, this is another story that knocks it out of the ballpark. I expected to just watch mecha fights, but while mechas are important, the true meat of the story is the characters and story.
Style: 5/5. The story is easy to read that even I, someone who doesn't tend to read mecha stories, was able to read through it easily. As can be seen from the statement above, the author is already famous for these kind of stories on Royal Road. And the craziest part was that it participated in Writathon. How do you write an amazing story like this with such a time limit?
Story: 5/5. Let me set one thing clear. Mecha fights exist in this story, but it's not the sole focus. In fact, the bigger focus is rather an amnesia plotline that's done rather well. Instead of being an excuse to have a character start fresh, the entire story is about restoring the amnesiacs memories. Mix with that a unique political system and overarching threat of AI trying to kill humanity and you have a great setting.
Grammar: 5/5. The author writes well. As always, spellcheck programs catch most errors here.
Character: 5/5. This is where the story shines. Zelen was a Reiter, essentially a mecha pilot. After an unknown incident, he has amnesia. The story slowly reveals his story through flashbacks. The other main character is Asena, who's the true star of the show as she tries to give Zelen his memories back by pretending to be his Spiegel, which is a primitive possibly-AI aid that isn't susceptible to the AI trying to kill humanity. The relationship between the two main characters is tragic and must be read to understand.
TismonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let me preface this by saying that I am generally not a fan of this type of story (i.e. slow burn, mech with a ton of world-building via different POVs and characters), but this particular work is just very well executed stylistically. The only faults that I would give are due to my own biases, so I won't dock any stars off of that!
If you have no issues with a slower start, where the tension between scenes/chapters ramps up gradually, all the while you are exploring this really fascinating sci/fi mech world, then this is an awesome read. If you're looking for action right off the bat, maybe this isn't quite right, but I would still give it a read for at least the first few chapters. But if you are looking for a very character driven narrative that explores some mature themes, then this is the right book for you!
Ultimately, the prose really sells this work!
AsureZealotRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
A near perfect blend of tragedy, hopelessness and bittersweetness all around.
What some may call an amazing blend of a side of humanity.
For those with anime culture, I would summarise it as a blend of gurren lagann, 86, and then some sprinkle of code geass. For the others, fight against unmeasurable odds, weight of individual choice and the importance of history are some of the strong traits of this novel.
While the first part is still grounded, you're in for an escalation in mystic wonders like few novel manages to make u follow.
No real issue in pacing, though the uniqueness of this novel making it sometimes disorienting for the reader, which somehow reinforce its message.
The only reason for a 4.5 star story rating, is as all the reimagined classics u can foresee the end if you are used to them.
Instead of grammar, I'll talk more about the presentation, as in I would have liked more use of royal roads features, such as colored text or boldened, to better help the reader navigate through a heavy novel.
I, for one can say this book is one I'd be proud to have in my science fiction bookshelf, and one I for sure will come back to, to not forget the human need to hope.
Zenopath (AEV)Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story starts a little rough, as it throws a lot of concepts and words at u that aren't fully explained until later. It jumps backwards and forwards in time via its framework of memory retrieval. In short, its a bit though to get into.
On the other hand, it's amazingly gripping and very deep world building. The characters feel vibrant and the payoff as the characters start to unravel secrets feels impactful. It feels like layers are being peeled away to deeper secrets until the story not only makes sense, but moves you.
I strongly recommend you give this a chance. I've been very vague in this review because I can't say much without spoilers, but it's the feel of slowly getting to understand what's really going on that makes this story worth the effort.
Triangle TollRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Stardust Rising is one hell of a ride. Rejecting the more primitive tropes it instead surrenders itself to a plethora of convenient, if overused narrative motifs that both juice up the story and bring it off-balance. Chasing the grandeur of the giants among mecha genre, it inadvertently gathers some less successful bits and pieces the genre carries along. I'm heavily limited in terms of what I can say about it because of the sheer spoiler potential, but I'll try to paint the picture in broad strokes.
The plot really lets itself go between Evoker and Dreamer. I'd easily give Evoker a flat 5, minus its concluding chapters that steer the story away from the direction it had. With the whole picture in mind, I understand why things go the way they do, but Stardust Rising would've benefitted greatly from a few fully charged passes of LA [OCCAM'S RAZOR]. Too many concepts are piled atop of each other and handwaved away as they outlive their use long before reaching actual conclusion. I am willing to assume I wasn't perceptive enough, but for me the finale of this ride failed to answer half the questions Dreamer was so eager to pose.
The story's style conforms to the same pattern as its plot. Dreamer features much more diverse arsenal of stylistic choices and strays away from the rock-solid grounded experience Evoker gave us. Even if execution of each individual element is above and beyond, they combination of every single one of them produces a palpable sense of dissonance. This really is the case where less can be more.
Even the fights themselves are not spared. The tight moment-to moment action is forced to yield more and more ground to the plot eating into the proverbial screentime that rightfully belongs to mechanised violence. The high-octane exchanges are so good that I consider it a crime that we see them being sidelined and muddied with plot powers instead of being ramped up to 11 as we reach the story's apex.
I hacked a whole star off the character score to mourn