Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse

[sophia_sol]

A fantasy novel inspired by pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas. It's one of the Hugo Award finalists for this year, and deservedly so!

When I first picked up this book, I thought it was a futuristic scifi book, based on the reference to ship travel in the blurb -- I misunderstood it as spaceship travel for some reason. I will admit to being a little disappointed I was wrong about this! But on the other hand it's excellent as is, so I can't be too disappointed. (But come on! This exact same book, but IN SPACE. It would be even better!)

The book follows several different characters in the time leading up to the Convergence: a complete solar eclipse taking place on the winter solstice, which has religious significance. The Sun Priest, Naranpa, is dealing with various factions who don't think she should be the Sun Priest. Xiala, a ship's captain, has been hired to get a specific cargo to a specific place before the Convergence, in an unrealistically short time frame. Serapio is a strange young man who was shaped by his mother with the intention of reincarnating the crow god in him.

Each of them has their own priorities and their own sense of what's right and wrong, their own degree of callousness. I was deeply interested in all of them, though not all of them are exactly likeable.

I was deeply interested in the whole book, in fact! The depth of the worldbuilding, the amount of casual queerness of both gender and sexual orientation varieties, the forward momentum, and just the way that the author's style had me hooked from the start. A truly excellent book.

My only complaint is about the ending: it ends with NOTHING WRAPPED UP. It's clearly pointing to a sequel, which is fine and dandy, but you have to conclude your arcs of THIS book before you go on to the next one, especially if the next one isn't even published yet! Argh. Well, yes, you got me, I'm absolutely going to read the sequel as soon as I can after it comes out; but, crucially, I would have done so EVEN IF this book wrapped things up, because when I like a book then I want to read more of it!

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

Sounds like O'Neil's Razoring this book to the back of my TBR was right, then, if nothing is wrapped up, but it only makes me more excited for the series to be finished so I can devour it all at once!

[sophia_sol]

I think that's the right strategy for this one, yes!

[lirazel]

Yeah, I might just wait until the series is complete! But I definitely am interested in it.

[whimsyful]

Oh I've been meaning to read this one for a while! The worldbuilding sounds really interesting, and I really like that the characters are all individuals and not necessarily likeable. Bummer about nothing being wrapped up though --I'll probably wait until the entire series is out before binging (I tend to forget a lot of details while waiting for the next book otherwise).

[sophia_sol]

I think I've managed to convince a lot of people to read this book later, lol. I hope the sequel comes out soon!

[cahn]

Oh cool! This looks like I have a much better chance of liking it than the other Roanhorse I tried to read, Trail of Lightning, which had the problem of having an angsty kick-butt postapocalyptic heroine, and I apparently cannot handle those kinds of books anymore. Looking forward to reading it!

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, I hadn't even bothered trying Trail of Lightning because it really didn't look like my kind of book, so I was really excited to see her doing something so different with this one!