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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