I was really impressed by book 1 of this series, The Blighted Stars. This second entry cements the Devoured Worlds as one of my favorite series currently being published.
Review will avoid spoilers for book 1.
Megan O'Keefe really leans into the implications of some of the concepts she started exploring in The Blighted Stars. Book 1 introduced us to a world where humans (at least the wealthy ones) could upload their consciousness upon death and have a new body printed. It’s not without risk - the mind sometimes shatters from violent or stressful deaths - but it’s a generally reliable way for the elite to stay young and fit for a long, long time. The logical thing to do, which is done regularly, is plan your deaths. Have a new body printed ahead of time; get yourself euthanized in a clean, safe, comfortable way; transfer your consciousness into the new body right away. If you have the resources, no reason not to switch to a fresh new body whenever your current one is starting to show a little wear & tear.
Book 2 really goes deeper into this. Former Exemplar bodyguard Naira Sharp (whom I’d consider the primary protagonist over Tarquin Mercator, scion of the powerful family she was responsible for protecting, though you could argue otherwise) does a lot of body hopping in this book. Sometimes she does it because her old one was too banged up or compromised in some way. Sometimes she does it to further a plan where trying to get out alive would be impractical. Sometimes she does it for infiltration purposes: hack the printer bays on a remote starship and have them literally build her a body in the secure facility she’s trying to reach.
But there are other considerations that come into play, and really start to explore the implications of consciousness-uploading. The end of the first book touched on this: what if you print an older version of yourself, essentially erasing a few months or years of life from your memories? What if the uploaded consciousness gets tampered with between prints? Why, exactly, is it so dangerous to have the same consciousness downloaded into two bodies at once? All these things get played with, and it’s a delightful science-fiction mind-fuck.
“But what about the plot?” ask those wise souls who read and loved book 1. I don’t want to say much, because of spoilers, but that was advanced and *also* a healthy degree of science-fiction mind-fuck.
Looking forward to book 3. Megan E. O’Keefe, if you are reading this, please understand that if Naira and Tarquin don’t get a happily ever after I am going to be very upset with you.