The Language of Liars

by S.L. Huang

A story of secrets, body jumping, and the power of language, The Language of Liars is a poignant, thought-provoking new masterpiece from S. L. Huang, award-winning author of The Water Outlaws

Speak another people's language. Know them. Become them.
And discover you've destroyed them.

In his training as a spy, Ro was warned: you will always be living a lie.

Jumping into a Star Eater's mind in the first place requires a moment of perfect psychic connection, and he has studied all his life to comprehend their species. Admires them, respects them, is reverent at the idea of being one of them—the only species physiologically capable of mining the element needed for lightyear-spanning space travel. The species all others crave to know more of, but who have notoriously shared so very little. The species Ro's own small civilization, with its dwindling resources and withering reach, needs to know more about.

It will feel real, his elders impressed upon him. It will never be real.

But Ro's certainty runs deep: he will be different. Ro will not be an imposter hiding the truth of his past, because his heart will be one of them. He will be one of them.

To understand is to become. It never occurs to him that the mere act of understanding can destroy.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Novella, Fantasy, Adult, Audiobook, Aliens

176 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2026

Reviews

[Yun · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐

When you talk about stories that pack a punch, The Language of Liars sure got me pretty good. And the fact that it's a slim 150 pages? Well, that just means the wallop was even more powerful.

I went into this not quite knowing what to expect. All this talk about language and linguistics means I can't help but compare it to another book that came out not too long ago. (If you know it, you know it.) That book was excruciating long and dull and preferred to beat the reader over the head with its simplistic messages. Was I in for the same treatment here?

Thankfully no. Though both tales centered around the insidiousness of colonialism and using language for power, the execution couldn't be more different. This story felt unique, innovative, and provocative, and it's exactly the sort of memorable tale I'm always searching for.

If you know me, you know I'm a bit of nut for science fiction. It's probably my favorite genre, and when done right, it encapsulates all that makes us human—our endless need for exploration and connection and compassion. And that's exactly what we get here. Our main character Ro isn't even human, yet his quest to understand different species and languages and cultures, as well as his moral dilemmas, couldn't be more relatable. (In fact, it reminded me a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, an old fav of mine.)

The way this story builds up is quite masterful, all reaching towards a climax that's about as striking as you could hope for. It's been a while since a story has so thoroughly and metaphorically beaten me up, so I'm definitely going to be remembering this for quite a while.

Regarding the length, I've been loving novellas more and more recently. The shorter format means we don't have any time to waste. There's no long winded worldbuilding, no getting stuck in the weeds. The more compact style of storytelling necessitates jumping straight into the good stuff, and in return, the narrative demands our upmost attention in order to follow along.

A quick note—there is a fair bit of linguistics jargon in here, especially in the beginning, but don't let that bog you down. You don't need to grasp all the technical terms in order to understand or appreciate the tale. Just try to power through it and you'll be richly rewarded. In fact, once I got through the initial pages, I read the rest of the book in one long inhale.

If you're a science fiction nut and the sort to enjoy a story that's both stimulating and brutal, don't let this one pass you by. I bet you're going to be remembering it for a long time too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
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[GCR | Book Realm]

Thank you to Dreamscape Media for the audiobook via NetGalley.

This was a strong read for me. For such a short novella, there was a lot going on, but it still kept me interested the whole way through. I really liked how much it was doing with language, power, identity, and everything underneath the surface of the story. The ending also worked really well and brought it all together in a way that made it all land.

[Wole Talabi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Language of Liars is, quite simply, a brilliant book. A fast paced and thoughtful linguistic deconstruction of the colonial mindset and enterprise. Its 'Get Out' meets 'Embassytown' with shades of 'Dune' while being something entirely its own. Incredibly clever and written with a love and reverence for the power of language, it will have you turning the pages in a frenzy to see what happens next. I inhaled it all in one sitting and you probably will too.

- Wole Talabi, author of SHIGIDI AND THE BRASS HEAD OF OBALUFON

(Official blurb based on an ARC)

[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think I am clever enough to understand this.

I really enjoyed The Water Outlaws by this author. I love anything to do with linguistics.

So why did this utterly flop for me?
I just had no clue what was going on the whole way through. I got the overt themes of integration, learning, and colonisation: yet there were so many unexplained jargon thrown at me that it lacked any resonance. I also didn’t feel any emotional connection.

As a novella where I didn’t care about the characters or and the plot was overshadowed by overcomplicated concepts: this didn’t work for me.

Audiobook arc gifted by publisher.

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[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever and incisive, with an unapologetically academic tone and razor-sharp emotional and thematic clarity. This isn’t just a story about colonization; it’s about the insidious erosion of culture, language, and tradition.

I loooved the way The Language of Liars really indulged in its focus on alien linguistics, particularly the pivotal theme of context: languages do not map directly onto one another. Everything is contextual. The way this permeates every interaction, leading all the way up until the climactic revelations, was brilliantly executed.

I kind of expected to come away from this book feeling like it had bitten off more than it could chew; World-building for not just one, but two completely different alien species, along with that heavy focus on linguistics, was really ambitious for such a short novella. But honestly? No threads were dropped, the ending was set up really well, and nothing ever felt muddled or confusing. I’m seriously impressed by how tightly executed this story was.

Thanks to NetGalley & Dreamscape media for providing me with an ALC. I really highly recommend the audiobook!

[Greekchoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[John Wiswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the finest Science Fictional works that grapples with deep linguistics that I've read, bouncing up onto the level of China Mieville's Embassytown for me. Like that book, The Language of Liars isn't just about language gaps and struggling to understand each other better. It's about the things misunderstandings have enabled, and secrets buried by allegedly advanced societies. At once approachable for new readers and chewy for veterans of SF reading, just about anybody should give this book a shot.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media for the copy.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Language of Liars is a spacey book that follows Ro, a linguist and a spy who has spent his life preparing to merge with a Star Eater.

This is a very promising and ambitious novella that plays with the power of language, but I was a little torn by the book. My main struggle was that I didn’t feel engaged with the story and struggled to follow it. I found Ro pretty boring and uninteresting, his whole thing was that he was curious and that he loves linguistics. Unfortunately, I realized early on that I don’t care about grammar, phonetics, and all the yada yada about linguistics.

The book focused a lot on world-building… but it didn’t focus on it enough. We get a lot of the language and enough of the context, but visually I didn’t know what the aliens, Star Eaters, or Pontos looked like. This affected the pacing. It was very slow, then too fast, then back to slow. Idk, I feel the story happened between heavy layers of morphosyntax and grammar, another layer of melodrama, and Ro’s boringness, I was just not too into it. 2.5 from me, rounded up cuz the language stuff was cool despite me not enjoying it. I did enjoyed how the book reflected on language and colonialism, I wish this had gotten more focus.

I wonder if this would have worked better if it were longer 🤔

*ARC received for free, this hasn’t influenced my rating.

[Kaye Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to ask for a sequel, but I would also understand if Huang left this as is. I thought I knew where this book was going, but the twist is what made this book four stars. Even though I'm left silently staring at the wall, that was beautifully and brutally done.

[Bogi Takács]

This was truly awesome, one of the best novellas altogether in the past few years as far as I'm concerned. The protagonist, Ro is a nonhuman sentient being of a species that lives underground, and he is training to become a capital-L Linguist. These Linguists learn the language of the Star Eaters, a mysterious species without whom space travel would break down. Once a Linguist understands the Star Eater language well enough, they get transported into the Star Eater's mind with a mind jump. The idea is that this would let people of other species spy on the Star Eaters. At least this is what Ro thinks at the very beginning of the story, but nothing goes as planned.

I'm not going to spoil this for you, you'll have to read it for yourself. This is one of those rare stories which have a very well-thought-out idea behind them (not described above), but which at the same time manage to be emotionally resonant. There is everything in this. Sadness. Fury. Incalculable desolation. Even procrastination, confusion, unmooredness.

I am a small-l linguist and I thought it was great as a story about language and communication, too; but it's so much more. It's also about... not precisely colonialism, but to get into this would be spoilery, so let's just say really adverse cultural interactions.

Last year I bounced off of a lot of the Tordotcom novellas, and I was starting to wonder if the entire imprint was going in a direction that's just not for me - but this one was very precisely for me. It was also heartbreaking, so there's that. But I think the world needs this story; I definitely needed it.
___
Source of the book: Print ARC from publisher (thank you!)
(Dates read are inaccurate, I read this one a while ago)

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

me: *finishes my syntax problem set after four hours* great, time to relax!
me: *goes on a walk and starts audiobook full of linguistic theory* ah, relaxing!

Ro has spent his whole life studying the remarkably complex language of the Star Eaters with the hope that one day he will be able to jump into one of their minds and use the intel to solve the problem of why the species—who mine a resource crucial for interstellar travel—have been steadily dying out. When he manages the jump, Ro finds a civilization more confounding than he could have imagined, but he will risk discovery for information because the lives of countless species are at stake.

Jokes aside, holy crap, this novella packs a serious punch. Linguistics nerds will enjoy Ro's analyses of the Star Eater language. I fear it will go over everyone else's heads but it's not crucial that you understand everything he's talking about, and as a Linguistics major I ate it up. I was a little confused on some of the detail of Ro's motivation early on but it's not too hard to fill in the gaps later on. The story is well-paced and not overly-dense or bogged down by a bunch of in-universe language. Even the weird bits are pretty easy to follow. It's really hard to talk about this book without spoiling it, but I'll just say that the twist got me and I really appreciate the messaging that Huang is conveying about linguistic inquiry, particularly when it's being done for the wrong reasons, as someone in the field.

This is my first of S. L. Huang's books but I'll be sure to check out their backlist because, boy, this book is smart and a slap in the face at the same time!

Thank you to S. L. Huang and Dreamscape Lore for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

[Jay Brantner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Language of Liars is a long novella that uses linguistics minutiae to explore both imperialism writ large and a language-loving lead whose abilities cast him awkwardly in the middle of powerful machinations. If that description calls to mind R.F. Kuang’s Babel, there is reason for it, and indeed, I suspect Babel fans will quite enjoy The Language of Liars. That said, Huang’s offering is significantly shorter and a fair sight more subtle in its execution, so those who were critical of Babel for its pacing or moral self-assuredness shouldn’t let the comparison put them off. The Language of Liars does require patience for academic details, which will surely pose a barrier for some readers, but it isn’t written purely for an audience of linguistics, and it remains engaging for those (like me) with little experience in that particular field of study.

It opens in an unassuming corner of a galactic compact with nary a human in sight and stars a member of a furred species with a hive-like social structure and an empathetic ability that allows them to jump into the bodies of the long-lived Star Eaters. Though such jumps are extremely rare, they remain a closely-guarded secret that’s vital to the continued survival of a race that otherwise has little leverage to ensure access to the Star Eater-mined meridian element that powers so much of society. The promise that the lead may one day execute a jump is the only reason his advisors tolerate his absent-mindedness and maddening tendency to shirk unpleasant responsibility. But when he does finally break through, those same barely-tolerated character traits make him a deeply unreliable agent, struggling to stay hidden while persistently questioning the orders relayed from home.

At the risk of applying human categories to alien characters, the lead comes off as neurodivergent—and not in the classic “there’s a race of aliens (or group of robots) who act like neurodivergent humans” sort of way; on the contrary, the lead is considered both exceptionally linguistically adept and exceptionally inattentive among his own people. As such, relatability may vary from reader to reader, but I found it remarkably easy to immerse in his narrative, even without particular previous knowledge of linguistics. The bulk of the story features not so much imposter syndrome as being a literal imposter, but it still makes for a psychologically claustrophobic experience, with the lead forced to put on extended act without any confidants that may allow him to drop his guard. His fascination with some of the more puzzling attitudes and expressions common to the Star Eaters provides an overarching mystery that drives the story, and the way he bristles against the incurious attitudes from his own society will doubtless strike a sympathetic chord with large swathes of the sci-fi readership.

Though the clues to the puzzles are often linguistic in nature, the reader gets enough context from the lead’s internal monologue to understand the broad shape of the mystery, and each chapter opens with an epistolary snippet that provides further background on the history and culture of the Star Eaters. When combined with information from the lead’s training and firsthand behavioral observation, there’s plenty to puzzle over for readers from a large variety of backgrounds. In fact, I’d argue there’s sufficient foreshadowing for the reader to anticipate major elements of the final revelation. Often that’s a mark against a book, but I don’t find it to be so here, as the impact on both the characters and the thematic exploration give the revelations an emotional weight that hits even if some of the details are suspected in advance. Sometimes a gut-punch is a gut-punch, even if you see it coming.

Ultimately, both the resolution of the mysteries and its impact on the lead are inextricable from the major themes being explored. The heart of the story involves the former enslavement of the Star Eaters and how they have come to be willing workers in service of an alliance who had abused them for so long. And while the details are mostly delivered obliquely, through epistolary snippets and the lead’s experience impersonating a Star Eater, they nevertheless pack an emotional wallop and offer sharp challenges to societies trying to brush their darker histories under the rug. The fact that it’s a story largely about the treatment of the Star Eaters without any actual Star Eater perspective may draw unpleasant comparisons, but in this case, it’s a feature and not a bug. The storytelling perspective may prevent the reader from directly immersing into the Star Eater mindset, but the perspective choice shoulders thematic weight of its own that more than makes up for what is lost.

There are moments where the academic jargon can become distracting, but by and large, the lead is relatable, the mystery is compelling, and the ultimate resolution hits like a ton of bricks, both from an emotional and thematic perspective. One of two moments of being lost in linguistic minutia doesn’t detract much from a book that checks so many other boxes—The Language of Liars is the best novella I’ve read all year, and it isn’t close.

18/20

[Tiffany Haineault · Rating 2 out of 5]

Advanced readers copy from netgalley

I’m not sure what it was about this book, but I found it to be a bit confusing. It could have been because I’m not really someone who reads sci-fi and so the explanations and descriptions of thin gas flew right over my head. Honestly this was very close to a DNF but I figured I’d stick it out since the audiobook was less than 5h.

I was never quite sure what our main character was or what their end goal was. It felt like these being could have communicated better with these other aliens and things would have been fine. Though I have a feeling it’s about a nation wanting resources and believing they’re entitled to them. That the other nation that has that resources is below them and should just do as they’re told. It also gives the main characters nation the right in infiltrate and control the lesser beings.

I will admit that I did add a star to my rating because of the ending. I want expecting it and it did have a huge impact on me. I thought it brought a lot of the story together. I was still very confused though.

[Kuu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ALC.

I loved this book. It's amazing. The narration was great, and the concept was RIGHT up my alley. Like, what do you mean, this is a book about linguistics as a tool of imperialism?? And the author has at least partially created a conlang with super cool grammatical concepts that are SO intriguing?? Do you live in my head Ms Huang.

I took a bunch of notes while reading it that I think sum up perfectly how happy I was while reading it, and I'll just paste them here for full authenticity.

- aourgh this slaps... brief discussions of dehumanisation through linguistic othering vs forcing normative humanity on a clearly non-human entitity as a form of anthropocentrism/anthroposuperiority and ignoring their stated lack of preference as an act patronisation my beloved
(quick editing note: YES I know that Ro isn't human either but this still applies.)

- AIURGH the economic value of reproduction and the pressure and blame put on individuals/the group "in control" of reproduction as endangering the fate of everyone, while neglecting historical abuse and systemic improvements and seeing this group not as equals but as a resource that needs to be controlled. sl huang ur mind....

- "we left them with nothing, then we wondered why they stayed" WAAAAAAAAAA

- official guidelines vs defacto everyday abuse and intimidation...

So, as you can tell, I very much liked this book, and had lots of thoughts WHILE READING which frequently (depending on the book), I just read something and focus on reading, and get the Smart Thoughts afterwards. Not with this one. I need someone to also read this book and discuss it with me and fully geek out about it. Going to text my friends and be like "hey read this book I want to yell about it". This was SOOOO GOOD and the plot twist at the end... ugh S. L. Huang your MIND. While this is a very short read, it manages to pack SO much into it and really inspire thoughts and discussions and that alone is already a massive skill. And then it was actually super well written and engaging? Bye I'm off reading every single other work by her (and apparently I have already read As the last I may know and really enjoyed it, so this is on brand).

I recommend this to literally everyone and will go out of my way to bully my friends into reading it. That's both a promise and a threat.

[domsbookden · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not really sure why this is labeled as sci-fi when it's very clearly a fantasy, or maybe sci-fantasy if you really want to stretch it.

The rushed, disorganized execution didn't do the premise any justice, and the tone was oddly New Adult/YA with a "chosen one"-esque MMC.

I think the central idea would have translated into an excellent full-length fantasy novel, maybe even a duology, with more intentional, methodical development and cleaner world building. Instead, we got what felt like the first draft of an outline for said novel, reconfigured into a novella format. If it hadn't been so short, I would have DNFd it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Tammy - Books, Bones & Buffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

The nitty-gritty: A high stakes, emotional tale that explores language and communication between species, The Language of Liars is both thrilling and heart-wrenching.

The Language of Liars is a beautifully written science fiction story about communication and how powerful language can be—in both good and bad ways. S.L. Huang uses linguistics to explore the different ways words are used among different cultures, in this case, alien beings. I was fascinated by this idea, and while I’m certainly not a linguist myself, and I didn’t completely understand all of the terms the author used, Huang’s story and characters made this book not only accessible, but engaging on an emotional level. I was rooting for Ro, the main character, who finds himself caught up in something so big that the future of the galaxy might be at stake.

The story is set in a world full of many different alien species. Ro is a Ponto Linguist whose greatest desire is to learn how to “jump” into the body of a Star Eater, a mysterious, dying species who is able to sense and mine a critical compound called meridian, without which space travel wouldn’t be possible. Jumping requires detailed knowledge of the Star Eaters’ use of language, but none of his teachers think Ro is smart or talented enough to actually do it.

So no one is more surprised than Ro when he suddenly finds himself part of a Star Eater colony, inhabiting the body of an individual Star Eater. He jumped successfully, and now he must integrate into the society, learn how to mine meridian, and send reports of his findings back to Orro, his home planet.

Unfortunately, Ro didn’t study hard enough and finds himself struggling to communicate with the Star Eaters, but it isn’t until he has his first meeting with a Ponto representative that he realizes things are not as he thought. All Ro wants to do is learn about the Star Eaters and play a part in discovering why they haven’t been able to reproduce, but he’s horrified to receive orders that don’t line up with his benign, curious nature.

This is a short book full of big ideas, but I can’t imagine it being any longer. Huang deftly conveys all the necessary information without any filler, which results in a fascinating story about an alien race on the brink of extinction and the young Ponto who is determined to save them. Despite being thrown into a completely alien world (there are no humans in this story) and floundering a bit in the beginning, it didn’t take long to sympathize with Ro, whose enthusiasm for the Star Eater’s linguistics and history is contagious. I loved the epistolary snippets at the beginning of each chapter that add an extra richness to the world-building, especially a timeline showing various political factions making decisions for the Star Eaters, which was actually horrifying.

The Star Eaters seem to be little more than slaves, who work in shifts round the clock mining meridian and following a mantra they’ve perhaps been spoon fed—”Work is life”---while controlled by Overseers, huge snake like creatures who keep everyone in line. Ro experiences this first hand and is shocked by some of the things he sees. It’s at this point that his perception of the Star Eaters begins to change.

The real emotional impact of the story comes near the end, when Ro makes a linguistical breakthrough that changes everything. The implications of Ro’s discovery are heartbreaking to say the least, but luckily Huang ends her story on a hopeful note that brought tears to my eyes.

The Language of Liars was a wonderful surprise, don’t miss it.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.  

[Lucille · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5/5
Saw some things coming but anyway great great novella about aliens and language

[Aimee LaGrandeur · Rating 4 out of 5]

A striking novella exploring the world through the lens of language. The ending totally took me away, feels deeply timely despite being deep space with no humanoids in sight.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my anticipated new releases for this year. In The Language of Liars, young Ro is training as a linguist in a galaxy dependent on the enigmatic Star Eaters, who are the only species who can extract a vital metal. But Ro has a secret task—use his skill at linguistics to jump into the mind of a Star Eater and act as a spy for his small and precarious species.

This is another tordotcom novella, and the plot fit perfectly at its length, neither stretched nor compressed. The main character Ro is from an alien species (claws, fur, mostly quadrupedal), but he feels very young, equivalent to his late teens at most. It's his naivete and raw enthusiasm for the art of linguistics that leads him to bumble through a much darker plot than he's suited to. But without spoiling anything, in the end it's Ro's innocence that allows him to discover what no one else could. Ro's world is comprised entirely of alien species without recognizable humanoids, which is a fun choice. We don't get a clear view of the culture, since unreliable Ro was not paying attention in the non-linguistics lectures. But the glimpses we get through Ro's point of view of a civilization precariously balanced on the brink of war are sharply drawn.

A meditation on greed, cultural erasure, and the meaning of language. Not a word is wasted here, and I'd say A Language of Liars is one of the better novellas I've read in a while.

[Whitney (SecretSauceofStorycraft) · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first 5 star novella of the year!!! (Only second 5/5 ⭐️ of the year!)

We follow Ro, an alien in a civilization unrecognizable and curiously devoid of humans, he is an alien linguist and asked to become a spy and replace the consciousness inside a mysterious and crucial creature that allows for travel between the stars. It is his people’s hope that with the insights Ro learns we can figure out why these creatures are no longer reproducing. Not only is this very philosophical story but its surprisingly accessible and packs in a gut-punch of ending! You simply must pick it up IMO.

[iam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this story of aliens, language, and understanding! It's so rare to see a SciFi setting without humans, and following Ro as his life as a Ponto and then as a Star Eater was absolutely delightful.

The mystery around the Star Eaters, and the plot around language, jumping, and trying to understand Star Eater culture, was super super cool.
I also loved the worldbuilding and the multiple alien species, most of which we only get a small glimpse of.

Ro was a fascinating protagonist too, with how he is maybe a bit too interested in liguistics, and while he is not the bravest, he is certainly not a coward either.

It's a short read, which worked wonderfully for the plot, though I found myself wishing for more, if only because I didn't want to leave this setting behind. I also want to know what happens next!!!

The final plot twist was done very well - it was foreshadowed enough for me to have suspected it, but still not so obvious that I was sure of my suspicion, and the way tension was held throughout the story was great, too.

As always, Emily Woo Zeller did an amazing job at bringing the characters and plot alive with her voice.

I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

[Francesca Forrest]

The part of the story that was most interesting to me, which was Ro's efforts to understand and be understood by the Star Eaters, was undermined by the reveal about them--which, in any case, I realized was a high likelihood from the moment Confusion was introduced as a clever cover for Ro's people's murderous scholarship.

I was disappointed, because what I thought was going to be a story about the difficulty of communication across cultural gulfs ended up a story about the evils of exploitation, appropriation, erasure, and genocide. In fact, because of the way the story is set up, trying to interact with and understand vastly different beings is to be complicit in those evils. In this one particular case, not all cases, but with an implication about study and scholarship more broadly. And I'll concede that there's something to that warning: because studying people (e.g., linguistics, anthropology, sociology) makes people objects, in a sense, and the act of studying changes the people being studied.

But.

I definitely don't think you can throw away the goodness of interacting and trying to understand others across huge gulfs. That's what being human is all about; that's what making friends and learning new things is.

... Anyway, this has drifted away from the story. The bottom line is that the story's thrust was at something other than what I thought it would be. No harm, no foul, just not what I was looking for.

On a lighter note, I loved "unbothered" as a common response on the part of the Star Eaters.

[paula a · Rating 4 out of 5]

3’75/5

First of all, thank you netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity of listening to this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Following this audiobook was at first kind of hard. I got lost easily, but after the 60% mark, it was addicting!

Narration style is very academic, which makes sense. It’s plot twists and relationships portrayed feel so realistic, and social commentary is well engrained in the story. It doesn’t take you out: the author has made sure it makes sense in the world she has created.

Audiobook wise, the narration is top tier. I have absolutely no notes (and I tend to have a hard time following audiobooks)!

If you like science fiction, languages and social commentary, this book is definitely for you! :)

[༶ Laura ༶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible read. Thought-provoking, emotional, mysterious, and packed inside such a compact novella. This worked so well - I hadn't even finished listening to it when I decided to buy a physical copy so I could re-read it with my eyes. This is a book for those who like sci-fi with aliens, books about language and etymology, and Babel and the idea of translation as colonization.

Emily Woo Zeller narrating was fantastic as always and just knocked it out of the park.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ALC.

[Matt]

this book is so high on my anticipated reads of 2026 I swear to god

[Nisnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How many had convinced themselves that stealing a culture, a language, a mind, was warranted by the noble yearning of scholarly study? How many had eagerly participated in that erasing, with only the seemingly minor act of inserting themselves? Others had reached for justifications that they were saving civilization, saving their worlds...

So many lies."

What a weird little book that I ended up liking a lot more in the end! It was a bit hard to get into at first, and the characters being aliens without well-defined appearances didn't help me there (I need good visuals). But the last quarter of the book was incredible and made me appreciate the build-up a lot more. Such a unique, interesting take on the power of language and colonialism. I'm reminded of a quote from R.F. Kuang's Babel that sums up this story's conflict pretty well: "Translation is an act of betrayal."

I really enjoyed all the linguistics and how every character interaction is crafted through this lens. Really cool concepts of what alien language could be like. There was a ton of linguistic jargon that even my language-obsessed brain had to pause and look up what certain terms meant, so some parts of the story were a bit hard to understand and visualize. It did remind me of the vibe I enjoyed a lot in A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine and made me reflect on how language affects us even down to simple greetings and acknowledgements. Super cool.

A quick read but one with a ton of unexpected depth. Highly recommend if you enjoy linguistics and anthropology.

[Daggry]

Hm. Excellent at the premise is, this story wasn't for me, or at least wasn't for me right now. I love the speculative approach of asking: what if this real-life issue were turned into a literal phenomenon in a fantastical world? And the aspects of colonialism and cultural imperialism that are considered here and turned into something literal? Eminently explorable and apt.

Alas, I never connected to the story emotionally. Not until the utterly bleak ending, that is. There's a lot of world-building done--races and worlds and languages and all manner of things named and listed in such a slim little volume--but this served more to slow the plot than to draw me in. Ro is by no means a bad character. Sometimes he annoys; eventually he sometimes impresses. But my emotional investment was almost entirely lacking. This may well be a me problem.

The ending, though, does make a strong statement. A terribly bleak one! But strong. Perhaps in a different time I could appreciate this story more fully.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We gouged our civilization from the bodies of others while pretending to decency. Yet we gasp in surprise when we receive so flawlessly what we have earned."

This is another book that it's really difficult to talk much about what it did well without major spoilers, but I really liked this. The story only takes place in a handful of locations but the universe feels vast, the linguistics study feels necessary to the plot development, and I found the main character's voice, academic enthusiasm and kind of hapless shenanigans charming.

I really appreciated that the author was willing to tackle thorny issues like the after-effects of slavery and colonialism while acknowledging that there are no easy solutions after the fact, and that well-meaning people can still cause harm. As someone in a semi-related field the ending has given me a lot to think about.

The only negative to me was that while I understand why the choice was made, the constant misgendering of the Star Eaters by the main character (and therefore, the narration) annoyed me.

4.5 stars rounded up

[Alix · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A really imaginative and entertaining read. As an anthropology major, I especially loved the linguistic elements. Language plays a large role once the main character inhabits the mind of a Star Eater. That said, I did get bogged down at times and had to reread certain sections to fully grasp what was going on.

Beyond the language aspect, our main character has essentially become a spy and there’s this constant sense of danger. We don’t want him to get caught, but it gradually becomes clear that things aren’t what they initially seem and that colonization has played a large role in what’s become of the Star Eaters. Overall, despite some minor frustrations with the main character and the occasional wordiness, I enjoyed this strange little tale.