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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City of Blinding Lights: A Review of City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Since J.R.R. Tolkien wrote one of the first modern fantasy series with both The Hobbit, or There and Back Again and The Lord of the Rings, much of the fantasy landscape has been dominated by white, Northern European roadmap mythologies and tropes. However, in recent years a slew of authors have been writing fantasy novels from new perspectives and breaking this mould. Tomi Adeyemi, for example, has published two YA fantasy novels based on African mythology. In this novel, Ms. Chakraborty has written an excellent fantasy novel based on Middle Eastern mythology and folklore that further breaks that old mould.

Set around the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, this book follows two main characters: Nahri, a Cairo street thief with an unknown pedigree, and Ali, a sensitive and devout prince of Daevabad, the mythic and titular city of brass in this novel.  When Nahri accidentally frees Dara, an ancient Daeva (or Djinn) warrior, from a magical imprisonment, thus endangering her life, they flee across the Middle East to try to find safety in Daevabad.  But their journey to the City of Brass is only the beginning of their travails as the conquest of the city centuries ago has led to oppression and racial tension within the city that threatens to blow up at any point.  Ali, in his desire to do good, walks a precarious line between the supporting the city’s oppressed subjects and remaining loyal to his family.  But Nahri and Dara’s arrival in Daevabad threatens to break all of these tensions wide open.

One of the key features of any new fantasy series is the world-building.  Without quality world-building, a fantasy series can completely collapse.  Thankfully, Ms. Chakraborty has done an incredible job of building up this fantasy world.  It is populated with numerous races and creatures, each one of them with a unique origin and magical powers.  For those of you looking for a dense new fantasy world to jump into, look no further than this novel.  That said, Ms. Chakraborty’s world-building is both a strength and a weakness.  At times, the amount of background and number of different magical races, each with their own particular origin, powers, and grievances felt a little too overwhelming.  I was especially confused by the conflict between Daevabad’s residents that informs much of the novel’s plot and it wasn’t until I had finished the book that it started to click a little.  Ms. Chakraborty does have a few parts in the first half of the book where the world is explained to Nahri and the reader, so I would suggest that new readers slow down at those parts and maybe even reread them to make sure that they understand everything.

Fantasy novels are also known for having a good amount of action in its narrative and this book is no exception.  From Nahri and Dara’s close calls on the road to Daevabad to the climactic battle at the end of the novel, Ms. Chakraborty knows how to write a pulse-pounding action sequence.  I was totally enthralled by the climax as narrative threads and characters smashed up against each other in a glorious mess that makes me eager to find out what happens next.  There is a good amount of political intrigue here to satiate any Game of Thrones fans.  There is also a bit of a love triangle that happens between the three main characters that, on its surface, may seem a little trope-ish and rushed, especially near the middle of the book, but actually feels right for this story.  That said, there is a lot of time jumping that happens in this story.  For example, in one chapter, Nahri and Dara have just entered the city and in the next chapter two weeks have passed.  To be fair, significant time jumping was probably necessary to keep the narrative without unnecessarily slowing down, but I nevertheless felt a little whiplash reading this book at times.

Overall, this is an excellent start to new type of fantasy novels that continues to break the old mould and reinvigorate the genre.  If you are looking for something new and unique in your fantasy books, I would highly recommend this book to you.

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Love and War From a Different Point of View: A Review of Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Back in 2019, I read Madeline Miller’s amazing book Circe, a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, but from the point of view of the witch Circe, who famously had turned Odysseus’s men into pigs before becoming his lover for a time. It was one of my most memorable reads in recent years as it breathed new life into that classic tale. But this was not Ms. Miller’s first time retelling a classic Greek myth from an interesting point of view. Back in 2012, she debuted with this book, which is a retelling of Homer’s The Iliad, from the perspective of Patroclus, Achilles’s lover. Now that I have finally read this book, I am pleased to say that if you loved Circe, then you are also going to love The Song of Achilles too.

As said above, this book revolves around Patroclus, the companion and lover to the greatest of the Greek warriors during the Trojan War, Achilles, whose tragic death in battle at the hands of the great Trojan warrior Hector spurs Achilles into a vengeful rage on the battlefield until he has killed Hector himself.  Patroclus is not at all like Achilles, who was descended from the king of Phithia and a sea-nymph.  Instead, Patroclus has no godly blood and, though he descends from royalty, he finds himself exiled at a young age to Phithia.  He has no special talents, except perhaps at healing, and he is certainly not a great warrior like Achilles.  Yet Achilles takes a shine to Patroclus soon after his arrival and the two become unlikely friends and then lovers.  But when the Trojan War calls Achilles to the battlefield and his destiny, Patroclus follows him and seals his own tragic fate.

Just like Circe, telling this story from the point of view of a minor character such as Patroclus, Ms. Miller gives a fresh perspective on a familiar story that is thousands of years old.  Though Patroclus is no demigod nor a great warrior like Achilles, it is absolutely surprising how many great figures he stumbles across in his travels.  Odysseus, Agammemnon, and Helen are just some of the famous characters Patroclus interacts with.  Ms. Miller is even able to connect other minor characters in The Iliad to other famous Greek myths.  For example, Ms. Miller points out that Nestor, who is just an old man and an advisor to Agammemnon in The Iliad, was actually one of the Argonauts who travelled alongside such mythological figures as Jason and Herakles (i.e. Hercules).  This not only fleshes out a minor character in The Iliad, but shows just how interconnected Greek mythology was, sort of like how all of the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are connected to each other today.

Another wonderful part about this book is how it relates stories that were not even in The Iliad.  After all, the Trojan War lasted ten years, but The Iliad happens years after the start of the war.  So events such as Helen’s choosing of Menelaus for her husband, the blood oath Helen’s suitors swore to protect her, and Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, which were not included in The Iliad, are all related in this book.  Ms. Miller has synthesized most of these stories into one book, which gives readers a fuller picture of the Trojan War than The Iliad or any of the classical Greek plays do.

The only issue I had with this book was with the ending.  As mentioned above, Patroclus tragically dies in The Iliad at the hands of Hector and that’s what happens here too.  But while that would seem to be a natural ending point for this book, Ms. Miller finds a way extend the tale to keep Patroclus as the main POV character, but relate events that happened well after his death.  I won’t spoil how she does that and it’s not an entirely unwelcome plot device, nor is this book concluded in an unsatisfactory manner because of it.  But by using this plot device, I felt as though Ms. Miller extended the story just a bit too far beyond its natural end point.  That said, this is a very minor gripe that I have with the book that does not diminish my overall enjoyment of it.

In short, The Song of Achilles is a fabulous book that, like Circe after it, retells a familiar Greek myth in a way that breaths new life into it.  If you liked Circe or if you are just a fan of ancient mythologies and retellings, you should pick up and read this book right away.

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Teen Melodrama...Now with Werewolves!: A Review of New Moon

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I continue to find myself reading the Twilight series with my wife for a family book club, one of the tougher challenges has been for me to drop my jaded views of these novels and approach them with a bit more of an open mind. This has not been an easy task for me, but I will say that Ms. Meyer’s plot, world building, and characterizations significantly improved from the first book. That makes this sequel a little more interesting than the first one.

Starting off not long after the events of the first novel, Edward makes a rash decision to leave Bella and cut her off almost completely.  As Bella tries to imagine a world without Edward, her best friend Jacob helps her out and may even start to fill the void in her life.  But he starts undergoing a transformation of his own that will test their friendship as well as the relationship Bella has with Edward and his vampire family.  

Before tackling what is good about this book, let’s talk about what is not.  For starters, the break up between Edward and Bella consumes much of the novel.  Indeed, this is the main driver of the plot of the entire novel, Bella’s failed attempts to try to move on from Edward.  Her dark reflections on the end of the relationship and her new daredevil attitude is very melodramatic.  The fact that it is so consuming for much of the novel, especially the first half, is particularly annoying.  And Edward’s reasoning for the break, which he explains at the end of the novel, is so asinine as to be ridiculous.

Now, what is good about this novel?  For starters, Ms. Meyer’s character building has gotten much better, particularly with Jacob.  Jacob was a relatively small side character in the first novel, but he develops in such ways that he has instantly become the most interesting character in the series so far, and I’m not just talking about his transformation into a werewolf.  The relationship between Bella and Jacob propels the action of much of the novel in the middle act and feels completely justified.  

Ms. Meyer’s narrative plotting has also significantly improved.  In the first novel, the climax came on suddenly and ended just as quickly.  There wasn’t a lot of room in the first novel to develop just how much danger Bella was in.  In this novel, there is a much greater build-up to the climax and it doesn’t come out of the blue either.  There is also this tension throughout the novel with Bella’s spiraling behavior, Jacob’s transformation, and Edward’s near-suicidal decisions in the climax that was lacking in the first novel.  There is a greater sense of the danger Bella, and even Edward, is in in this novel.  The only exception to this is the B-plot with Victoria.  While she is becomes a greater threat in this novel than in the previous one, she never actually makes an appearance and her plot is resolved (though not really) off-screen, just like James was killed off-screen in the previous novel.  It’s a loose end that could’ve been wrapped up in a better way before heading into the third act.

Lastly, the world-building has gotten much better.  Whereas the first novel was spent almost entirely on developing Edward and Bella’s relationship and introducing Edward’s family, Ms. Meyer expands the novel to introduce the Quielet werewolves and the Volturi royal family.  The Volturi’s introduction is particularly chilling and Bella, perhaps for the first time, truly begins to realize just how dangerous vampires can be.

Overall, this sequel is an improvement interims of characterizations, plot, and world-building.  However, the teen melodrama at the beginning ultimately drags down what could have been something much better.  While I wouldn’t say I am a fan, I will say that these books seem to be improving.  Hopefully the third novel will improve things even more.

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"Hello Magic, welcome to the war!" A Review of Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Some authors are able to catch lightening in a bottle with the first novel in a planned series. Tomi Adeyemi did just that with here incredible, fast-paced YA fantasy Children of Blood and Bone. However, it is very difficult to sustain that same momentum into the sequel. So has she done it? I would emphatically say yes! Ms. Adeyemi picks up the baton where she left it off and gives us another incredible and fast-paced YA fantasy adventure that should please those who fell in with the first novel. 

Set just a few weeks after the end of the previous novel, this book follows the same four characters as before: Zelie, the fierce village maji who brought magic back to Orïsha; Tzain, Zelie’s older brother; Amari, the runaway princess looking to take control and rule as a better monarch than her father; and Inan, the prince who ascends to the throne after his father’s death.  Zelie, her brother Tzain, and Amari have successfully brought magic back to the land, but because the ceremony was bungled now both the maji and supporters of the monarchy with magical ancestry have powers too.  This plunges all of Orïsha into a brutal civil war and threatens their morals, friendships, and lives.  The result is absolute dynamite!

Just as before, Ms. Adeyemi writes at an incredibly brisk pace.  Even some of the down moments where little action is happening feel rather fast.  What is different though is that, with magic now flooding Orïsha, Zelie is not the only person with magical powers.  Though there were not enough of these moments, I really enjoyed seeing Zelie and her other maji users test their abilities.  I also enjoyed the absolute raw emotions that all of our main characters are dealing with.  Every single one of them has already lost a low before the events of this book, and how they react to those loses and to each other is great.  This could’ve easily devolved into teen melodrama, but Ms. Adeyemi handles her characters and their motivations very well.

I only have two small gripes about this book.  The first is how quickly characters move from one location to the next.  While I didn’t quite catch how distant some of these locations are from each other, based on the map provided in the front and back of the book, it feels like her characters get teleportated around the map a lot.  It might have added some pages, but a chapter here and there with characters transiting between one location and the next would’ve allowed for some quieter character-building moments and wouldn’t have felt like characters were traversing the land so quickly.  Another small gripe I have is the ending.  Just like in the first book, Ms. Adeyemi ends the book with a heck of a cliffhanger.  Unlike the first book though, this book’s cliffhanger feels like it came straight out left field and, quite honestly, a bit like a deus ex machina to keep a few of the main characters alive.  This is both exciting as I can’t wait to see what happens next, but also a little frustrating as I am once again left scratching my head as to what exactly happened.  That said, these are both very small gripes and they aren’t enough to keep me from giving this book a full five stars.

Pulse pounding action, magic, raw emotions, moral ambiguity.  Ms. Adeyemi imbues this fantasy world with more than magic, but with real stakes for all of the characters involved.  If you loved the first book, you will love the next one too.

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February 2021 24in48 Readathon Live Blog

 

A Photo of Jefferson and my tea taken from my Instagram.

February 6, 2021, 1:08 a.m.

I didn't intend to truly start this readathon until the morning, but because it officially started at 12:01 a.m. EST (9:01 a.m. PST), and because I got to my reading late earlier today, I unintentionally kicked my readathon off at the same time as everyone else.  I started off by reading the first two chapters of Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin out of my Library of America edition of his early novels (see below for some links) and then read 100 pages of Jefferson while enjoying some nice Sleepytime Extra tea.  It took a little longer for me to finish all this reading than I expected, though not as long as I feared.  If I keep this pace up, I do believe I can finish Jefferson, Giovanni's Room, and The Light of the Jedi this weekend.  But will I be able to finish Felix Ever After or Children of Virtue an Vengeance (let alone start it) this weekend?  Doubt is creeping into my head.  Hopefully I can, but I am going to get some rest now and truly dive into this in the morning.

February 5, 2021: The Day Before!

It's been a few months since I have done an honest to goodness readathon and if I am ever hopeful of whittling down my TBR, then readathons are my only hope.  Fortunately, the wonder folks at the 24in48 Readathon have been working hard at organizing a great readathon and I am so happy to be joining them.

What is a readathon you ask?  A readathon is where you try read for as long as you can in a certain time frame without stopping, sort of like running a marathon (read + marathon= readathon).  One online place that is famous for organizing this is Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon.  They famously choose 24 hour period to just read non-stop during that period (their next one is on April 24).  There is also a bunch of social media done on Facebook, Instagram, Twitterm, etc. that folks can participate in as they are reading.  

The 24in48 readathon is similar in that you try to read for 24 hours straight, but they break it up over two days.  That means you can tackle your 24 hours of reading in any combination you like.  Read all day Saturday or all day Sunday?  Go for it!  12 hours on Saturday and 12 hours on Sunday?  Absolutely!  8 on Saturday, 16 on Sunday?  That works too!  Any combination of 24 hours of reading you can think of works for this particular readathon.

One thing they are doing differently this year is that they have chosen two group reads for folks to participate in, one fiction and one non-fiction.  Their non-fiction read is Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender, a YA Romance starring a trans male as the protagonist.  The non-fiction read is White Negroes by Lauren Michele Jackson about cultural appropriation.  I personally plan on reading Felix Ever After myself, but no one is obligated to read these books if they want to read something else.

On top of Felix Ever After, I have a few books I either want to finish or make progress on.  First, I want to finish reading the Library of America collection Thomas Jefferson's writings that I have been working on since January 1.  This has been an interesting read, but at 1600 pages it is huge!  I had planned on finishing by the end of January, but life interceded.  I also plan on making progress on Library of America's collection of James Baldwin's early novels.  I just finished re-reading Go Tell It On the Mountain last night and I hope to have Giovanni's Room finished by the end of this readathon.

Next, I am going to finish reading Star Wars: The High Republic: The Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule.  My reading obsession originated with my love of Star Wars novels (the pre-Disney original Expanded Universe novels that is) back in high school and college, but I haven't really read many Star Wars novels since then.  However, this High Republic series sounds incredibly exciting.  I've been enjoying this book very much and I plan on finishing it this weekend.

Lastly, I plan on at least starting Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi.  This is the second book in her Legacy of Orïsha series, the first one being Children of Blood and Bone.  I read that when it first came out and I loved it!  I'm looking forward to diving back into this amazing YA fantasy world.

Of course, this is just the plan.  I have no idea if I will be able to actually do any of this.  Fortunately, like pervious readathons, I plan on live blogging this one.  Just come back to this page throughout the day tomorrow, February 6, and Sunday, February 7.  I'll be regularly adding updates to this page about my progress.  And while you're at it, be sure to check out any one of these great books or authors I have mentioned.  And if you want to join the 24in48 Readathon, head over to their website and fill out their online form.  Happy reading everyone!