Book review: Azura Ghost is a magnificent space opera

Essa Hansen’s debut novel Nophek Gloss has become something of a cult hit since it released a couple of years ago. There are many devotees of the multiverse she created in that book, but due to the chaos that was 2020, it flew a little more under the radar than it should have. All that is hopefully about to change with the second volume in The Graven trilogy, Azura Ghost, which hits shelves today.

With Azura Ghost, Hansen returns to the multiverse for a tale that is far grander than anything she attempted in the previous volume. Caiden and his sentient starship the Azura are back, and they’re off on an adventure far more dangerous than their last. (And considering the sheer brutality Caiden endured in Nophek Gloss, that’s saying something.)

We’ll be keeping this review as spoiler-free as possible, but be warned that there will be full spoilers for the first book in the series below. We’d hardly be able to discuss anything otherwise!

Azura Ghost review

Azura Ghost picks up days after the end of Nophek Gloss…kind of. The first book ended with a jaw-dropping twist by leaping forward 10 years for its final chapter to reveal that Caiden’s childhood friend Leta had actually survived their fateful encounter with the nophek (space-lions) at the beginning of that book, and was now seemingly happy under the care of Abriss Cetre. Abriss is one of the last descendants of the Dynast line of Graven, and rules the star system Unity, which is believed to be the original star system from which the multiverse sprouted.

Abriss possesses the signature Graven ability called gravitas, which enables her to exert her will on others. She doesn’t even need to speak — simply being in her presence, or seeing her on a screen, is enough to send most species of the multiverse into a subservient stupor. So while Leta has never felt Abriss was cruel to her, the climactic moments of Nophek Gloss do set up the question of her consent.

That question looms throughout much of Azura Ghost. Unlike the first novel, which is told almost entirely from Caiden’s point-of-view, the second book jumps between him and Leta. Leta has a bunch of characters who fill out her plotline, people she’s come to know and care about over the past decade, and they’re just as intriguing as Caiden’s found family. The addition of a second POV is welcome and helps keep things feeling fresher than in the first book, which had a couple of spots near the beginning where things dragged.

There are basically no places where Azura Ghost drags. While it took me a while to get into Nophek Gloss, Azura Ghost hooked me right from the very first paragraph. Much of the first book was spent dealing with Caiden processing a singularly traumatic event that ended his childhood. Hansen did a really excellent job taking her time with that; she gave those heavy emotions their due and handled everything in a way that felt well-earned and true to the type of subject matter she was dealing with. Azura Ghost still has all that, but the author’s writing has matured so much that this book is immediately more gripping. Of course, part of that is because we’re already familiar with the world and characters and can jump right in, but I can’t understate how much the prose has leveled up. Azura Ghost wastes no time launching readers into the action, and that action is written with razor-sharp precision.

The book begins with Caiden on the run from bounty hunters, who need the Azura in order to release his sometimes-enemy Threi from the prison where Caiden left him in Nophek Gloss. Caiden’s development is much more enjoyable in this book, his struggles more complex and well-realized. Because he spends large stretches of the book alone or actively avoiding his found family in order to keep them out of danger, it elevates things when those characters do appear to pull him out of his shell. Add to that the slow unraveling of the mysteries behind Caiden’s past, and he fully grows from a sometimes-annoying hothead into a much more compelling and sympathetic hero over the course of this novel.

But where The Graven has always shone most is in its incredibly imaginative worldbuilding. There are tons of alien races, pocket universes, vying factions, ancient space beings, crazy technology and weapons, the aforementioned space-lions, and more cool worldbuilding features every couple of pages. Something I loved about Azura Ghost was how Hansen expanded on the multiversal concepts she introduced in her previous novel and made everything much more clear. There were things I didn’t quite understand about the multiverse in Nophek Gloss, and by expanding on them in a story that is far vaster in scope, Hansen made everything seem a part of a much more cohesive whole.

The multiverse that Hansen has built for this series is vastly different from other sci-fi worlds out there. There’s plenty of science in the pages of Azura Ghost, and it plays a crucial role in the story…but it’s science that feels rooted in the imagination. As such, this is one of those rare books that feels like it could appeal to both sci-fi and fantasy readers. If you do like your sci-fi to be firmly rooted in real-world fact, you may find this series to be a bit too out there. But if you’re more concerned with going on a grand adventure in the vein of Star Wars, you’re in good hands.

Like Nophek Gloss, Azura Ghost is a book that doesn’t pull punches. It has quite a bit of violence and brutality, so if that’s a turn off for you as a reader you may not enjoy that aspect. It’s also worth noting that there are many, many long made-up words; it may take a little while to get used to the vocabulary and nuances of Hansen’s multiverse.

All that said, I found many of those elements to be more appealing than distracting. Azura Ghost delivered in ways I didn’t expect, and was a far more ambitious and powerful book than its predecessor.

The verdict

In short, Azura Ghost is a magnificent space opera filled with heartbreak and shifting loyalties, interstellar conflicts and reveals as powerful on a personal level as they are on a grand scale. Hansen has totally outdone her previous work with this book. Any fan of Nophek Gloss will find a lot to love, and fans of series like Star Wars will feel right at home in the wild and weird multiverse that Hansen has created.

Azura Ghost is available now online and in bookstores.

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