Dark Messiah: A Review of Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Over the last few years, fantasy has been moving in a very positive direction with more diverse authors writing from diverse perspectives and backgrounds, thus moving the genre away from the medieval European setting it has been stuck in since J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. In the last year, I have read fantasy books from both African and Middle Eastern traditions, but this one is special because Ms. Roanhorse draws on Pre-Colombian Central and South American mythologies (with a bit of Pacific Island folklore thrown in for good measure) to craft a wonderful start to what I believe will be a great fantasy trilogy.

Set in a fantasy world known as the Meridian, which very much echoes the Central American/Caribbean region, this book follows three primary characters.  Xiala is a Teek, a human-mermaid hybrid.  Banished from her homeland for some unknown reason, Xiala takes on a job to take the mysterious blind human named Serapio across the sea to the holy city of Tova.  Meanwhile in Tova, the young religious leader Naranpa sits on a powder keg of a city divided by ancient wounds, discrimination, and political intrigue, which threatens the peace of Tova as well as her own life.  These three characters soon find them on a collision course with destiny and an ancient prophecy.

This is an absolutely wonderful start to what I think will be a great fantasy trilogy.  Each of her characters are unique, damaged, and nuanced in their own way, which makes it easy to invest in their stories.  Though Ms. Roanhorse employs flashbacks throughout the novel to explain some key background, it never feels gimmicky, forced, or disruptive to the overall story.  And the climax is incredible- and incredibly bloody.  The fact that this is set in a fantasy world that is both familiar and different also helps to make this an engaging novel.

This is not a perfect story though.  There are a few things that keep me from giving this a full five stars.  First, there is a slight romance that develops between Xiala and Serapio that feels natural, but it also feels a little sudden at times.  Though Ms. Roanhorse does take time later in the novel to develop their relationship, it does make me wonder how necessary it really was.  Another issue I have is that a fourth POV character, Okoa, is introduced about halfway through the novel.  Though he does play a significant part in events in both the second and third acts, his introduction does feel a little sudden and jammed in.  I wish Ms. Roanhorse had introduced him a little earlier in the novel as his introduction would not have felt so disruptive had she done so.

My biggest gripe though is one that I am noticing in fantasy novels in general, which is that authors seem to be chickening out of killing key characters.  The plot for at least two of the three main characters could have led naturally to their deaths.  And yet both of them end up living by the end, though one is pretty badly injured.  One character’s escape from death felt natural and I am sure will inform some of the plot of the next novel, but the other character’s escape felt a little too convenient.  Perhaps I have been a little too spoiled by George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series and I can understand how authors might want to keep certain characters alive for future use or out of a sense of love, but it always runs the risk of being too convenient or tangling the narrative up in unnecessary explanations.  Though I don’t want to give too much of the narrative away, I believe at least one of our main characters, and the most obvious one at that, should have died at the end of this novel.

That said, this is a truly wonderful start to what I believe will be a great fantasy series.  The world building is great and the characters and plot are highly engaging.  I look forward to reading the next book in this series and I highly recommend this book to fantasy novel fans looking for something new.

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National Shame: A Review of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thomas Jefferson once called the young United States of America an "Empire of liberty," first putting into words the idea that America had a destiny to spread freedom and democracy around the world. While the hypocrisy of that idea when juxtaposed against slavery and racial segregation, what is less known and even less understood is just how fraudulent such a phrase sounds to the Native Americans who inhabited the continent before the United States was even an idea. In this critical counterpoint to the historical narrative that most Americans know from school, Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz argues that the American project was always an imperialist policy of genocide against indigenous people in North America.

Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz starts this book with an introduction that is incredibly jarring as she uses the standard definition for genocide and applies that the colonial experience Native Americans have the U.S.'s expansion westward and beyond. It is an incredibly jarring start, one that, as a proud American, I was very taken aback by. However, with each chapter, Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz tells the history of America from Native Americans' perspective and it is hard to not see where she and others are coming from. By the end of this book, I came to a more full recognition of just how shameful America's past relations with Native Americans was and, in some ways, still is. Native Americans were pushed off their ancestral lands in a number of different ways, most often by squatting settlers, genocidal militias and Army troops. Once the Indians Wars were largely won, Native Americans were forced into boarding schools where their cultural identity was nearly erased (and too many children were sexually assaulted by missionaries and others) and their reservation lands were continually shrunk. Though some recent Supreme Court cases have begun to recognize Native Americans' claims, that has not always been the case and too many tribes are not allowed to return to their sacred lands, such as the Black Hills of the Dakotas. As much as slavery and racial segregation, America's treatment of Native Americans is another original sin of ours that has yet to be fully discussed and reconciled.

This book is not an easy book to get through. Like me, many Americans may find it difficult to square Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz's use of such terms as genocide, squatting, and others with the history of what we were taught in schools about America's unique past and destined place in the world. But, for those with an open mind and heart and a deep love of country and all those who live here, this is an incredibly necessary read. We must reconcile our nations past in order to have a brighter future. I highly recommend this book to all Americans who wish to see America begin that reconciliation process.

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