Lucky for him, he’ll have another chance.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins finds one such door painted onto a wall outside his childhood home one day, but passes it by. No matter what, to get in, you need a door. While one can simply walk into The Starless Sea, getting access is often more complicated than that, with different factions trying to control who can get in, and when. It’s a space somewhat removed from space, that operates on its own sense of rules and decorum. The Starless Sea (not to be confused with video game “The Sunless Sea,” which is referenced in the book) is a high fantasy novel concerning a sort of endless library, a home for books and stories of every kind (inscribed on teacups and spiderwebs, you get the gist) on said eponymous sea. Unfortunately, Morgenstern’s focus on form over function saps The Starless Sea from ever finding any of the weight behind its words it so desperately craves, leaving little more than a pretty facade. “‘But who decides what the meaning is?’ Zachary wonders aloud.” The reader, one of the students answers. In an attempt to focus the distracted group, Kat poses a question, asking, “What makes a story compelling?” She gets a range of answers.

Our hero, Zachary Ezra Rawlins (the book almost exclusively refers to him by his full name, so shall I) finds himself at a round-table discussion on innovation in storytelling, an event his friend Kat goaded him into guest moderating with her. In Erin Morgenstern’s new novel, The Starless Sea, stories are everything.

The starless sea