"The Starfall (Yalandeyan Odyssey #1)"

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Once you arrive on Dirrin, you never leave. Twenty-three standard years after the Great Galactic War swept across the Known Galaxy, devastating countless worlds and species, a long-dormant threat begins to awaken, one capable of endangering the very existence of the galaxy itself. Eliyar is a child of the refugees who fled the atrocities of the war and found themselves stranded on Dirrin, a remote, treacherous world on the Galaxy’s outer edge. He dreams of only one thing: a way out from under the Protectorate that rules it. What neither he nor the Protectorate knows is that Dirrin is keeping a secret the Known Galaxy is too young to remember — one that began far beyond its frontiers. When he unexpectedly makes a discovery that has the potential to change his life, he seizes the opportunity. Unaware of the true significance of what he has found, and of the consequences, Eliyar sets events in motion that will draw him into a conflict far greater than himself. As ancient forces awake and the dominant powers move to tighten their grip over the last free worlds and star systems of the Known Galaxy, Eliyar finds himself at the center of a struggle that reaches beyond the world that trapped him. The Starfall is Part One of Three of Book I of the Yalandeyan Odyssey, an epic space-opera saga, with Book I being the opening act of the Odyssey. The Yalandeyan Odyssey is built on deep, invented history: galactic eras and cultures, dominant and lesser species sharing a galaxy, wars and the conflicts that outlast them, diverse social and economic orders, technology, and older lore surviving only in fragments. Its politics run the whole gulf — from a desert world holding the one ore the galaxy desires above all else, and an occupying power that means to keep it, to the golden-age worlds grown rich on what that desert gave up. What Eliyar has against all that is an old hovercraft built from wrecks, an AI companion with opinions, and a found family worth leaving a planet for. If you liked the sands of Dune and the underdog heart of Skyward, you may like The Starfall. The world of the Yalandeyan Odyssey has its home at yalandeyan-odyssey.com. Join my mailing list for the free illustrated Field Guide to Dirrin, new maps and art, and news of Parts Two and Three: lucasmartindurand.com/mailing-list (or from yalandeyan-odyssey.com), and follow @lucas.martin.durand on Instagram for the latest from the Known Galaxy. Content note: graphic battle violence and injury throughout, occasional strong language, and one brief non-graphic reference to wartime sexual violence occurring off-page. No on-page sexual content.