For what I expected to be a revenge story, The Star King was not nearly as dark or as violent as I thought it would be. The protagonist is motivated by a pragmatic sense of duty more than he is by hatred, and most of the nasty stuff that occurs in the story is either implied or not described in gross detail. The highlight of the book, for me, was definitely its worldbuilding. The characters, though one-dimensional, were also fairly distinct and memorable.