No Road Among the Stars: An InterStellar Commonwealth Novel

by A. Walker Scott

University student David Asbury trusts no one and wants nothing more than to be left alone to study alien languages. For three years he has managed just that as an undergraduate at Shel Matkei Academy. But his scholarship, which is his only means of support as an orphan, requires him to become a diplomat in the InterStellar Commonwealth.


Now he's on a team of aliens learning how to broker peace treaties and trade deals. Some of them hate him. Some just think he's strange. And one won't let him hide away and waste his life.


Just when David decides there's reason to hope for a better future in this world of codes and customs, everything falls apart.


More alone than ever, David now has to fight his way to justice, with all the odds, and some very powerful aliens, arrayed against him. But even solving the mystery of who is responsible may not be enough to put the pieces of David's life back together.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

Kindle Edition

Published June 15, 2018

Reviews

[Josh Olds · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Star Trek cared as much about linguistics as Tolkien, you’d end with something like No Road Among the Stars. A. Walker Scott’s stunning debut novel is a deeply immersive journey into a vast world of peoples, languages, and cultures, all exquisitely crafted with knowledge and nuance. Scott takes readers into the world of Shel Matkei Academy, a Starfleet of sorts, where the best and brightest of all beings study for their eventual careers. David Asbury is a human (from Texas, because of course) whose ability to learn languages and cultures is unparalleled. When thrown into a pod—a year-long project for diplomacy students that functions as a simulated nation—he must call on all his skills to bring success to his team. But then, things turn deadly. For real.

No Road Among the Stars spends most of its time wending and winding through Scott’s incredibly realized fantasy world. There’s a lot of settling in, as you’re slowly introduced to the various characters, their languages, and their cultures. Each character and each culture are well thought out, nuanced, and believable. The primary problem with most novels of this nature is that the amount of information given is overwhelming. The story becomes too alien, not giving the reader any bit of familiarity. And when a reader cannot engage with the story, or when the barrier for meaningful engagement is too high—well, it makes for a boring book. No Road Among the Stars is not a boring book. Well…not for these reasons. While the pacing lags in the first half of the novel (there’s no real action until about 65% of the way through), Scott manages to make the so-called boring parts not boring at all.

Scott’s constructed languages and cultures work. They’re believable. They’re understandable without being stereotypical. They have depth, but there’s a shallow end and you slowly wade into deeper waters. The languages of No Road Among the Stars fit the beings they’re given and make intuitive sense. They read like real foreign languages, not fantasy gobbledygook. It this detail that makes the slow pace worth it.

The weakness in the book is the pacing. There’s so much world-building that the central narrative isn’t developed until late in the book and it gets wrapped up much too quickly. It’s almost like a bit after halfway through Scott realized there needed to be a story amid all the world-building. My advice would be this: when you write a world this well, the world-building is the story. Life is story, after all. And the friendships, the cultural misunderstandings, the small arguments, the missed social cues—it’s those little stories that we can call identify with.

Not that the action is bad. I won’t spoil it, but Scott weaves a serviceable if perfunctory mystery into the plot, using it to drive the main character forward. It’s an expected storyline, good within the genre. And No Road Among the Stars is about average in the areas it tries to meet expectations. In the areas it tries to be unique? That’s where it shines. No Road Among the Stars is a uniquely satisfying novel and if you’ve a love of languages, then even more so.

[J. S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott's been well-known in the constructed language community for years, but my acquaintance with him is relatively recent and I went into his first novel, _No Road Among the Stars_, largely naive of his conlanging work, which is central to the book. That's just as well, since part of the book's pleasure lies in the slow, immersive way that each bit of the linguistic and cultural background is revealed in the course of the story.

That story centers on David Asbury, a young human linguistics student at the prestigious Shel Matkei Academy of Social Sciences, an interstellar university that's home to a veritable smorgasbord of aliens following such a bewildering array of complicated and mutually contradictory customs that you wonder how anyone could ever navigate such an environment, where just the wrong (or right) word can trigger a lethal duel. But David does navigate it, and well—he's got the craft of formality down pat, knowing exactly what to say and when to say it to get the result he wants; but this outward mastery of custom hides a morbidly introverted young man who's terrified of actually interacting with anyone. So the last thing David wants is the new assignment foisted on him by the Academy's dean, which forces him to do the very thing he hates most: play with others.

David steps into the recently-vacated shoes of linguist for Green Pod, one of many color-coded diplomatic teams in the Academy's version of model government, practiced on a galactic scale. The upheavals and conflicts of a whole virtual universe are played out by teams of students competing for their academic lives; and though in a sense it's all a game, just a simulation, it's also serious business, since success and failure in the simulation has often been mirrored by fortune and doom in the real world. Just _how_ serious it all can be is what David's about to find out.

No sooner has David met his teammates (only one of whom, Tkal, is willing to consider him anything other than a nuisance) than he learns how desperate a situation he's been thrown into: the fortunes of Green Pod have been on a steady downslide, and just now they're on the verge of being absorbed by another pod, which would essentially wipe them from virtual existence. On top of that, they've got a serious stain on their recent past: Sven Torstensson, David's immediate predecessor, was expelled from the Academy under mysterious circumstances right after having apparently broken the reputedly unbreakable diplomatic code of another team; how exactly Sven did this is as deep a mystery as his expulsion, but David _qua_ linguist is expected to duplicate the feat. The future of Green Pod may well depend on his success. Sven's presence lies like a shadow over the whole story, and for much of the book we're never quite sure what to make of him; his past actions and David's present attempts to make sense of them and to break the unassailable code drive what it essentially a mystery story. And like most good mystery stories, there's no small dose of treachery and even murder.

In _Stars_, Scott gives us a surprisingly broad view of his fictional world even though we never physically leave the university setting. It's a bizarre, inviting universe layered with verbal and somatic customs for everything imaginable, and at times this makes the book feel like an SF novel of manners. The cultural and linguistic detail is lavish and lovingly presented, but it never feels heavy or awkward, and it admirably serves to advance the plot. Scott's universe is the kind we're used to seeing from established voices in the genre, one built up with great care over many years: from a known writer it would be impressive; from a newcomer it's amazing.

And for a newcomer, too, Scott's surprisingly deft in the craft of fiction: he knows how to tell a story in scenes, he knows how to slip background naturally into the flow of the narrative (there are no infodumps or author's essays), he can write realistic dialogue that moves the plot and reveals character, and his world is rendered in a clean, cinematic prose that doesn't get in the way of what he's saying. Bottom line: conlanger or not, linguist or not, if you like science fiction check this one out.

[Adam Collings · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly character-driven story of aliens and friendship. This book delves into various alien races, their cultures, and their languages. The author clearly loves the exploration of aliens and their languages, and this comes out in every page. The relationships between the characters grow and develop through the story, and take a front seat, over traditional plot elements that take more of a back seat here.

The one thing I didn't like about this book were the names. I'm not a fan of names that are difficult to pronounce. I understand that they made sense in the context of this story. They lend a degree of believability, and language was an important element in the book, but I struggled with them. I found that I had to invent my own names for the characters to say in my head whenever I came across one that I couldn't pronounce. With sufficient effort, I could have sounded many of them out and learned them, but honestly, I'm too lazy for that. I sometimes found myself wishing the author would "buy a vowel" or two. All this said, it was worth persevering with the names for the sake of the characters and the story.

All in all I enjoyed No Road Among the Stars and would definately welcome more books in this world. Recommended for lovers of science fiction with lots of alien races.

[H Halverstadt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, believable characters, believable world, and drama and laughter in all the right places. Easily the best book I've read in the last two years.

[Lorinda Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about aliens, and about humans, and how they are different and how they are alike, and how they can learn to know each other. It’s about disparate cultures and what can happen when those cultures clash. It’s about the good people who can exist in all cultures, along with the evil ones.
First, to set the scene ... Some hundreds of years into the future, Earth has become part of the Interstellar Commonwealth, an association of planets inhabited by intelligent lifeforms. The ISC has set up a space station/university (the Shel Matkei Academy) where citizens of all worlds can go to study. This book focuses on the areas of language and diplomacy. David Asbury, a mistreated human orphan, is a linguistic genius, and a scholarship to the Shel Matkei Academy is his passport to freedom and the future. He doesn’t want to be a diplomat – he only wants to study languages – but he gets forced into joining one of the “pods” at the Academy, groups of miscellaneous aliens who play a computer game among themselves with the purpose of learning how to deal diplomatically with each others’ species in the real world. Each pod has to have a linguist, and Green Pod is in dire need of a person with David’s skills in order to break the code of Violet Pod and reestablish Green Pod’s power and credibility. Not everybody plays the game honestly, and Violet Pod is headed up by the real villain of the piece. This has the potential to lead to violence.
The plot is a bit episodic, particularly in the early going, but when I came to Chapter 9 (Sing Not Oh Stars), that’s when I knew I had to give the book 5 stars. In this chapter the members of Green Pod read poetry from their own cultures to one another (David reads from Hamlet). We learn so much about these aliens in the ensuing discussion. Of course, A. Walker Scott had to write all this alien poetry, and it’s amazing stuff. There is another chapter where the participants introduce the others to their indigenous music, but for me the poetry chapter is the best.
Some of the aliens are unique in SF, I dare to say. The Tvern An, Dvarin Tkal, who becomes David’s close friend, is vaguely reptilian, having green and yellow stripes and golden eyes, but others are much more bizarre. Dai-Soln, who often plays the voice of reason, is notable for his expressive frondlike eyebrows. Xtp is an insectoid who speaks a vowelless click language. Enemwenu is a three-legged cephalopod, whose people have 5 genders. And it gets even weirder and more fascinating. There is a gentle-souled, three-winged butterfly who hovers about. And then there is Red-Shimmer Gold Streak, an Iridian, who speaks a color language like a cuttlefish but looks like a boulder that tiptoes around on many tiny legs, a bit like the walking box in the Disc World books. She’s one of my favorite characters.
And then there is Gronorgh, who is David’s principal nemesis. He is a huge Gravgurdan who is reminiscent of the Klingons only perhaps more so, and he despises David for being small and weak and supposedly cowardly. I’m going to quote a description: “Gronorgh crossed rippling, corded forearms like gnarled mahogany tree trunks over his massive chest and made that gravelly Gravgurdan laughter sound. ‘Looks like there’s some fire mixed with his water after all. Beware lest you die in your sleep, Tkal.’ Then he laughed like an avalanche of ringing pebbles.”
The relationship of David and Gronorgh leads to one of the strangest events you’ll ever encounter in SF – a duel using a weapon that you would never in your wildest dreams think of. I won’t play spoiler by revealing what it is, but it certainly goes to prove what an original imagination A. Walker Scott possesses.
It should be mentioned that Scott is a terrific and prolific conlanger (creator of constructed languages). He’s worked out most of the languages referred to in the book in greater detail than can possibly be revealed in a novel.
This is character-based science fiction, my favorite kind, and the characters all grow as they learn about and from one another and experience adversity together. They become part of each other – David absorbs a little bit of the Gravgurdan and becomes stronger, and Gronorgh actually begins to understand that the human perspective has merit. It’s a great story, and there will be additional volumes about the Interstellar Commonwealth and its remarkable inhabitants. Can’t wait. Strongly recommended!

[Audrey Driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is science fiction, but only to a point. It's set on a space colony that includes an institution of higher learning. The students come from a variety of worlds and display radically different physical types. They speak widely divergent languages as well as a common one called Standard. Some use special devices to communicate. They have different cultural outlooks and practices and dietary needs. The first few chapters almost overwhelmed this reader with peculiar names and words.
Really, though, this is a coming-of-age story about a Human called David Asbury. As I read, I kept thinking that the story could easily have played out at any elite university with students and faculty from all over the earth. The futuristic elements, I think, were necessary mainly to amp up the extent of the differences among the characters and therefore emphasize David's unique ability to understand and communicate across those differences. Several constructed languages make an appearance in this book, but none is featured to any great extent. I found descriptions of customs and ceremonies to be quite interesting, however.
The plot unfolds mainly in a series of meetings. Meetings between David and a Dean. Meetings of the Green Pod. Meetings of David with one or two other characters. Many of these meetings are tense and confrontational. Starting at the halfway point, a number of momentous things happen, with serious consequences for David and the other members of the Green Pod. Both before and after, though, the main focus is on emotions. What the characters feel, and why, is incredibly important. Much depends on cultural nuances, and misinterpretations have serious consequences. The point of view is primarily David's, but occasionally shifts to another character. The shifts are executed well and add interest.
The ending suggests that there is more to David's story. I would be interested to find out what it is.

[Karl Muller · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the story makes you think this is just going to be "magical orphan who is more-than-he-seems in spaaaaace!", it turns into a great character study of someone who is flawed, who has to outwit his foes, and who things don't always go right for. OK, sure, there are some pretty big deus ex machinas that let it all work out in the end, but by that point, you don't even care - David has earned it.

At the same time, this is also a showcase of creativity for the many alien cultures the author has created. While we barely scratch the surface of most of them, you can tell that a lot of thought has been given to history, language, etc. So while I'm not 100% sure I need another novel about this book's protagonist, there are plenty of other secondary characters that we spend a lot of time with that follow-up books can be written about.

So, no, this isn't the typical "pew pew" space saga. A lot of space (heh) is spent on shared culture exchanges, and learning to live with people who are different than yourself, and experiencing new things... things that maybe can be taken to heart even by those of us not attending a university amongst the stars.

[Wolf Mc · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Road Among The Stars was a really enjoyable read. A space opera of sorts, which focus on alien languges and cultures. There was some really good world building and as a whole it reminded me a lot of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It’s packaged with ideas that provoke wonder, any of the various alien cultures and languages we come across in the University were the story is set are well thought through, and the story also raises a few philosophical and theological issues which makes you think deeply.

Character building and dialogue is excellent, and I loved the 'Cultural Exchange' class where the team (the main characters) selected various poetry and music from their own culture and discussed it.

In doing this the book also continues on The Great Conversation in that it refers to Shakespeares play Hamlet, along with other cultural references including a vague reference to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

An enjoyable well paced story were you fall in love with the characters.

[Aaron DeMott · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, clarification on my rating system, since everyone's is different.

5 stars - This is one of my favorite books of all time
4. stars - I loved this book, and couldn't stop thinking about it after I'd finished it.
3 stars - I like this book, and enjoyed reading it. I'll continue reading the series.
2 stars - I didn't like this book.
1 star - I hated this book, and will never read anything else by this author again.

No Road Among the Stars gets a solid 4 from me. I really liked the story, and the characters. Some great stuff in there about friendship, and celebrating differences.

The plot was a little slow, but it's appropriate for this type of story, and it was a fun story to settle in and enjoy.

If you like stories about aliens, and differences in species, and especially if you like languages, you'll love this book.

[Lelia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had so much fun reading this. There were places I cried, places where I laughed, and in all places I felt the sense of wonder I look for when I read science fiction. The author shows how there can be a lot of excitement and tension without explosions. If all you want is explosions and laser sword battles in your sf, this is not the book for you. If you want aliens (lotsa aliens) and clash of culture (lotsa clash), exotic languages, poetry, and buckets-full of how aliens might think, then this is the book for you. Oh, yeah, and culture exchange night is hilarious. It is going to be hard to wait for the next book.

[Masi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a masterclass in resilience and self-discovery. David Asbury’s struggle to balance his own ambitions with the expectations of others felt incredibly real. As someone who’s had to navigate complicated group dynamics in school and work, I could relate to his feelings of isolation, frustration, and the slow realization that trust and connection can be life-changing. The interstellar setting and alien cultures add a thrilling layer, but at its heart, this story is about human, or in this case, universal, growth and perseverance.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not the right audience for the big I got curious about the genre of christian science fiction and came across this on on christian scifi site. But it was just mentioned as an example.
There are some references to constructive languages which might be of interest of people interested in that.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many exclamation points (along with writing like "Oof!" David hit the floor) and what really feels like author wish fulfilment.

[Ashley Travis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought this book for a local book club, and I will not be finishing it.

First, I have no sense of what year this book is written in, but it's obviously set sometime in the future when alien life is casually living amongst humans on Earth. Also, it's a time when orphans are granted scholarships to attend space college to become interstellar diplomats. Texas, America, China, and New York City all still exist with seemingly little-to-no change in our Earthly languages, customs, or casual genocide practices.

On page 17, the main character mentions in passing the fact that once again, Humans were up to their usual genocidal antics through selective Human breeding for things like hair and eye color, on a new planet that was "colonized". Then mere pages later, the main character trembles at the mention of a practice that Humans "had once practiced" -- killing weak babies. Why is one form of genocide/colonization glamorized in the form of an attractive Human (immediately referred to as She without further analysis of their gender), only for the practice to be demonized, as it absolutely should be, on page 22?

On that note, what is the writer's obsession with gender all about? Every new character is immediately analyzed and commented on for their body type and gender (loosely using linguistics as a cover), but Humans are the only race to also take regional differences into account for cultural nuance. It seems the author is trying to ride a trend by latching onto gender, but is woefully ignorant on the topic as a whole. The first mention of a gender outside of female or male is "sterile" - YIKES! Then later another alien race is introduced with alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc. genders, but each are directly tied to their body shape and size - another missed opportunity to expand on that races' many regions or planets, etc. Nope, muscle = alpha, tall = beta, petite/rotund = epsilon. Gross and unimaginative. All this leads up to a very odd restaurant scene that escalates directly as a result of one characters' single use of a pronoun "you", which all seems like a clear setup for a gross punchline in the next chapter, again for the use of "you":
- David rolled his eyes. "Sorry if my pronouns offend you."
- Tkal sighed.

4 pages later, and the author is again lamenting (this time through the same character who detested Human genocide of babies) the thought of discussing basic rights:
- "If this is going to be another one of your fairness and equality speeches..."

-----

For me, this is where I lost interest in pushing through - mid chapter 7. I'll be locating the nearest little free library and trading this book for free for literally anything else - and include a TW note for others. Honestly, stick with ANY of the classics that already tell the tale of a boring, poor, orphan white boy who is handed a life-changing opportunity.

[Patrice Doten · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know where to begin to rave about this brilliant book. First of all, though I watch a lot of SciFi, I don’t often read it anymore because I usually find it too formulaic or it focuses too much on battles. I also rarely read indie books, because they are far too often published long before they’re ready. Not so this gem, which captivated me from page one.

No Road Among the Stars is a masterfully-crafted tale, with intrigue, mystery, incredibly diverse aliens, and a cast of wonderfully complex characters who develop and change in surprising ways. It’s set in a world/universe so rich I was always fully immersed, and it hits all the right emotional notes - I laughed and cried, and everything in between. Mr. Scott even managed to create one of the best team bromances I’ve read, despite his protagonist’s determination to be a loner. The way he uses language to characterize is original, unique, and fascinating.

Even though there were some typos, occasional repeated words/phrases, etc, they were like far away comets - momentarily visible as they passed, quickly disappearing into a galactic sea of stars.

I don’t give many perfect ratings and I’m not easily impressed, but this story dazzled me. I lack the words to adequately express my admiration, and I eagerly await the sequel. Anyone who likes Star Trek (especially DS9) or Babylon 5 (though Mr. Scott is a FAR better writer than Bab5’s) absolutely must read this book.

[Kerri Beckman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave it 2.5 stars because of the plot line itself and because of my interest in languages.
The beginning was a little hard to get through because the first few chapters were written in a style unlike the rest of the book-- like the author wanted to keep that bit for some reason despite it being the least mature or well written part of the book. It needs a better hook.
The sentences were short and choppy, leaving me irritated with the main character. There is also a lot of characters and cultures within this large world.
That being said, the author handled the large cast and world quite well. I was never confused or irritated (which can happen in lofty scifi books).
The author clearly has an interest in languages and cultures and beautifully translated this into the story. I'm sure though this would be tedious for readers who don't share the same interest as I do, but I loved it!
The plot really takes off in the second half of the book and becomes its best in the final quarter of the book. It's a slow read because of the buildup but does get interesting!
I'd like to read more from this author-- particularly this series-- I am hoping for more plot and less world-building/fleshing out of characters now that the author has settled into this world.

[Geneva Solis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this was a great book, I was always into space theme shows and books when I was younger. I lost touch, but this book got me back into liking space and creatures, and of unknown characters and their languages I never knew that are many languages out there. This book is awesome and it let me experience a whole new world and the adventures I went on. I want to say thank you to the author for writing a great book it took my imagination into another world. I look further to more books.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well done. The languages and cultures are quite interesting. The characters are great, and it's got some of the most _alien_ aliens I've read in a long time.

A word of warning: if you're going to read it out loud (like my wife and I did), practice your consonant clusters.

[Amy Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this could have used a better edit to deal with some style issues, but I thoroughly enjoyed this story.