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Sign up todayThe Actual Star
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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“A sci-fi story unlike anything you’ve read before. Three beautifully imagined worlds, set in 1012, 2012, and 3012, examining history, culture, travel, belief, and sacrifice, with fascinating, compelling characters that will stick with you”
— Autumn • Copperfield's Books
Bookseller recommendation
“In this stunning Mayan-inspired science fiction novel, Byrne expertly braids together three timelines, each 1,000 years apart. In the year 1012, two royal twins prepare for a holy game and sacrifice. In the year 2012, an American teenager comes to Belize in search of her roots. Finally, in the flooded world of 3012, pilgrims follow lessons and rituals learned from the two earlier timelines. Masterful in its detail and suspense - highly recommended. ”
— Mike • A Great Good Place for Books
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas meets Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series, as acclaimed author Monica Byrne (The Girl in the Road) crafts an unforgettable piece of speculative fiction about where humanity came from, where we are now, and where we’re going—and how, in every age, the same forces that drive us apart also bind us together.
""A stone-cold masterpiece.""—New Scientist
The Actual Star takes readers on a journey over two millennia and six continents—telling three powerful tales a thousand years apart, all of them converging in the same cave in the Belizean jungle.
Braided together are the stories of a pair of teenage twins who ascend the throne of a Maya kingdom; a young American woman on a trip of self-discovery in Belize; and two dangerous charismatics vying for the leadership of a new religion, racing toward a confrontation that will determine the fate of the few humans left on Earth after massive climate change.
In each era, a reincarnated trinity of souls navigates the entanglements of tradition and progress, sister and stranger, and love and hate—until all of their age-old questions about the nature of existence converge deep underground, where only in complete darkness can they truly see.
Monica Byrne studied biochemistry at Wellesley, NASA, and MIT before pivoting to fiction and theater. She is the author of the novel The Girl in the Road, winner of the 2014 Otherwise Award, and loves a good thunderstorm.