Beth's Reviews > Black Sun

There's so much in this book that I typically don't respond well to, that I'm confused that I enjoyed it as much as I did. It was a pleasant surprise, for sure!

One thing I expect from a fantasy trilogy is the exploration of a vividly realized world with a rich sense of place and history. There isn't much of that in Black Sun. Scenes on a small scale were really well done, various scenes in Tova and descriptions of delicious food being standouts, but the world as a whole is underdeveloped.

On top of that, I didn't get a sense of being rooted in a society very different from my own. There's a lot of what feels like 21st-century thinking here. Some of it's to the good, like nobody being misgendered or put into a sexual situation against their consent. Some of it's to the not-so-good, particularly in the use of very contemporary words or ideas like ego, adrenaline, "progressive" vs "conservative," etc.

But despite all this, I was drawn into Black Sun from the beginning and--a miracle of sorts in what's been an incredibly difficult reading year--I never once felt reluctant to pick it back up. There's something about Roanhorse's writing style that drew me in and kept me glued to the pages until the very end. I can't account for this at all, especially since I keep thinking of stuff that didn't quite work, like action scenes being too short and not having much visceral/emotional impact, everybody acting like an adolescent (whether in their intrigues or their romantic interactions), the ending being kind of off-putting by setting up catharsis and then yanking it away. It goes on and on!

Going back to the characters for a bit, though, I think they're part of what made this book so compelling. They aren't given the deeply emotional treatment that I prefer, for sure, but their essential isolation drew out my sympathy despite that. Even when they do things like mass murder (!). Serapio, trained from a very young age as the vessel of a god; Naranpa, the woman who started out as a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and who finds herself in a position of worldly power she is by no means qualified to fill; Xiala, an outcast from her own society, and from the societies that she moves among. They're all victims of circumstance, to some extent, but they all have a fervent desire to live, to find connection in a world that is, to say the least, not inclined to coddle them or ensure they succeed.

Also, anything having to do with the crows was great. Yay, corvids!

I'm really interested in seeing where this series goes next. The blurb for the second book is available now, but I'm sure there are more surprises in store!