An Indie Book for Our Time

cw: cannibalism, violence, the real world

A woman, known as the Iconoclast, takes the stage. She is a murderer, a villain, and one who has served the Warlord. She steps forward in front of the press, the Warlord’s manor behind her. In one hand, she holds the dictator’s heart; casually, she leans forward and takes a bite.

Up With the Star by Delta M Eske is an indie book that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about, since November of 2024. It’s the Trans Rights Readathon, so I want to take some time to dive into this truly underrated work.

I’ve been thinking about fascism a lot, recently: how do you know when you’re in a fascist state? When is the proverbial frog boiling, and when is it just in a hot bath? Could we say the United States was free when there were still slaves in chains? When consenting adults could be arrested for making love? Does a fascist state need to be fascist to all members? And if the place you are in is fascist— if you exist in a place that is by all accounts doing evil things— can you fix that? How?

Up With The Star is primarily about the new Warlord, a Nameless woman who is sold into slavery in the Dead Nation, a post-apocalyptic collection of warring states that covers most of the Midwest. She is downtrodden: her people threw her out. Her name is gone. And the right hand of the former dictator offers her his power.

The Nameless Warlord takes the offer.

Would you be able to be a good president? Can there be one? When elections come by, we are asked to choose the lesser of two evils: either way, to exist in the country is to take some of the blame for its policies. Becoming Warlord is a necessary evil: Democracy cannot be rebuilt until the infrastructure of the Nation is rebuilt. Someone has to be in charge.

The Nameless warlord struggles with this: she is a woman whose identity is fluid, shaped by those around her, with a core of self-knowledge. She takes strength from small things: gardening, building things, spending time with her friends and council. When assassinations begin, she responds with violence: but she also responds with doubt.

“We are what came after. The world has changed, and so have we.”

The Nameless Warlord’s greatest strength is her oratory prowess. She is gifted at speech-giving, at getting crowds behind her. In gladiatorial combat, it was helpful to put on a show. Being a Warlord is much of the same thing. Throughout the work, people make comments to the Nameless protagonist, about how she would’ve been a good priest: the tie between history, politics, oration, and religion is made very clear. In 2024 and 2025, words and branding are what can make or break a person: in Up with the Star, the protagonist is a threat because she can make people think of tomorrow.

“Heaven is closed to me. The way back is gone.”

When you choose to exercise power, you cannot choose to undo it. A bomb cannot be undropped: a sentence can be commuted, but time cannot be taken back. Fumbling with power doesn’t remove power, just confuses it. The Nameless Warlord holds power, and she has to exercise it. She measures each decision, but some are made foolishly, emotionally: those look the same to outsiders. To be petty or merciful, her enemies and allies look at those actions in the same way. The point is not to avoid taking action, but to remove the narrative of it.

Up with the Star is a book about rebuilding society, but also deciding if society should be rebuilt: we have to care for each other. Society gives us methods to do that but also gives the state the power to exercise violence. If you want one, must you have the other?

This is a book that I can’t stop thinking about. It is written with empathy and humor and intelligence, from a truly queer perspective. It was the first book I read in 2024, and since then I have not stopped thinking about it.

Up with the Star is available on Kindle, itch, and as an audiobook.

From the author:

After the Iconoclast’s violent assassination of the previous leader of a different political body, she’s nominated to take his place by the Iconoclast, as well as her friends Conway–an ex-POW who now works in commerce–and Marta–a highly-regarded trauma surgeon at the gladiatorial pits, the home of post-dissolution America’s favorite sport, the site of quite a lot of augury and oracular functions, and the main characters “workplace.” She takes the job on the offering of being able to spite the people who made her Nameless. Wouldn’t it nice to be powerful and respected? Wouldn’t it be nice to be in charge, just once?

Great for people who like adult transmasc characters, characters who are struggling with christianity, doctors, scenes about food, estranged families, fictional grandmas, and people motivated by spite, and can tolerate suicidal ideation, blood, violence, christianity, and sex scenes.