Review of Illumicrate Starbright Subscription

Recently the book subscription services have been booming, and lots of major players like Illumicrate and Fairyloot have been coming out with multiple new boxes. One of these new boxes is Starbright by Illumicrate. Starbright is their new science fiction subscription box that is book only. I recently subscribed, due to my growing interest in Sci-Fi and have just received my first book. This is a quarterly subscription, meaning it ships 4 times per year.

The first book I received was the November book (which arrived on December 3), and is a adult standalone space opera titled Slow Gods by Claire North. The book is a royal hardback featuring an exclusive redesigned cover, full color art on the hardback, digitally printed edges, illustrated end papers, bonus content, bound-in author letter and is hand signed by the author.

The books itself is beautiful. The only special feature it is missing that I usually look for is a reversible dust jacket. Besides that it has all the features, and the fact it is hand signed is a large bonus as Illumicrate is moving away from hand signed and moving towards printed signatures (there is a large discourse on signatures that you can look into.)

The digitally printed edge says “WE ARE THE UNFORGIVABLES” and has a black to red ombré. The end paper art is different on the front and back which is always a plus, and the naked hardcover has a beautiful cosmic design.

Retailing at only 20 GBP (26.69 USD) its a great deal for those in the UK, however shipping to the United States will run you another 18.99 GBP (25.35 USD). That makes the total $52.08 for a single book. That is a pretty steep price. Personally I don’t see myself continuing this for long, especially with competitors like Fairyloot offering full boxes (books plus 3-5 bookish items for $49.62 all in. Fairyloot also offers quarterly subscriptions for high fantasy and cozy fantasy for $41.43 all in.