The Stars Have Eyes Review: A Rom-Com With an Eldritch Horror

If you've listened to Everybody Loves Large Chests, it's almost unreal that this comes from the same author. Iliev follows the most extreme series on my shelf with a wholesome rom-com, and the whiplash is the best advertisement for his range I can imagine.

The premise

Joe Mulligan is looking for love. The Cult of the Gazing Star is looking for a gullible sacrifice, and those two searches turn out to be compatible: they summon Mag'rathlak the Observer, an eldritch being of pure logic that exists to watch and understand everything, and instead of a sacrifice it finds Joe, a man so cheerfully illogical that the entity can't stop studying him. It reads his mind for a form that will let it stay close, picks a gorgeous celebrity without understanding any of the context, and the rom-com is off.

Maggie, as she becomes, keeps making herself more human so she can observe the chemical responses she's missing, and somewhere in the process observes herself falling in love. Joe, for his part, isn't stupid; he's a golden retriever of a man, hopeful past all evidence, easy to catch with the same trick twice, and written with an internal logic so consistent that his optimism reads as character rather than contrivance. Iliev proved with Boxxy that he can write a non-human mind; here he does it again with a being of pure logic, and makes her lovable.

Short, complete, and exactly the right size

This is one of the shortest works I've reviewed: fifteen soap-opera-style episodes, each one a scene from the relationship, complete with a happily-ever-after. And the pacing is the quiet miracle. You go from summoning circle to ending feeling like you were present for the entire relationship, then look at the runtime and wonder how he did it. If Iliev had stretched it, it would drag; if he'd cut it, it would jar. It reminded me of The Emperor's Soul in exactly that way: a short work where every page does ten pages of lifting.

The comedy is cute-funny rather than the horror-contrast of ELLC or the tragedy-contrast of Carl: Joe explaining soap operas to a logic entity that nearly aneurysms at content designed to be pointless, human contradictions dissected by an observer who can't fathom why we do what we do. There are no stakes, there is no doomsday, nobody is secretly a chosen one. It's good things happening to good people, and if you can listen to it without smiling at least once, see a doctor.

How to actually buy it

Here's the unusual part: this isn't on Audible or Amazon. It's sold directly through Soundbooth Theater, on their site and app, and Episode 1 is free, which makes trying it the easiest recommendation on this site. Full disclosure: I have no affiliate relationship with Soundbooth; that's just where the book lives. Hays narrates with Annie Ellicott featuring, and the production is the usual Soundbooth standard, which is to say the best in the business.

Verdict

Worth the credit, except it won't cost you one. A-peak. A flawless, complete, feel-good story at exactly the length it should be, held out of S only because nothing here is reaching for genre-defining and I won't inflate a grade for being charmed. When you want a palate cleanser that's crafted like a main course, this is the one. And then go look at what else this author wrote, and marvel that both books came out of the same head.