10 must-read SFF books to cuddle up with this November
By Lacy Baugher
The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern
The Starless Sea is the highly anticipated new novel from author Erin Morgenstern, best known for penning The Night Circus. She hasn’t written a new work since then, and it’s been nearly a decade. To say that book nerds everywhere are over the moon about this release is putting it extremely mildly.
So, you know, it’s good that it looks positively incredible.
A timeless story of a hidden, magical world, The Starless Sea follows Zachary, an introverted graduate student in Vermont who discovers a familiar family story about himself in a book of tales. His subsequent obsession with this tale leads him on a quest to find a door he didn’t open then, and attain passage into a strange, magical world. That world may or may not involve princesses, pirates, magical nightclubs, Fate herself, and more.
Much like Morgenstern’s earlier novel, it’s kind of hard to explain. Here’s how the synopsis describes the story.
"Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues–a bee, a key, and a sword–that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library, hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians–it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose–in both the mysterious book and in his own life."
The Starless Sea is available November 5.