A god will return When the earth and sky converge Under the black sun In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Review:
May you drown in shallow water
May your song be never heard
May you fall in love with a man
May your mouth ever fill with salt
--Teek curse
Black Sun follows several characters in several groups that are all on their own missions as they are converging on the city of Tova, which is basically the seat of a spiritual empire that has seen better days. Naranpa is the highest ranking spiritual leader, the sun priest, and she wants to restore the power and protect the people who inhabit Tova. Xiala is a Teek ship captain who is hired to escort the vessel of an avenging god to the city, and she is also kind of a badass mermaid. Okoa is a young clan member of the Carrion Crows, a clan who had entire generations of family members slaughtered, and which leads us to the avenging god, Serapio.
What I like best about this is the WORLD BUILDING. Holy smokes, this is exactly what I needed and didn't know it. The author states at the end of the book that fantasy is often just kind of “England,” and I couldn't agree more. This was the first fantasy set in a Pre-Columbian kind of world that I've stepped into (that I can recall, at any rate) and it was fantastic. The culture, the cities, the drinks and the foods and the magic all create this deliciously intricate and highly realistic world that I adored discovering. The best word that comes to my mind is “luscious” because damn if Roanhorse didn't think of every single aspect from foods to games to gods to myths to ancestry and crime and punishment. It drips with so much detail that I was in this world with these characters.
The next best thing are the characters who are so real and so heartbreaking and frustrating. Serapio is such a tragic character that my heart was bleeding for him from start to finish; Xiala is hilarious and I have such a hard crush on her that it isn't even funny; Naranpa is so naive but well meaning that I can't help but to like her even as she supports an institution that is NOT what she thinks or wants it to be. I think everyone can relate to believing that you're making a difference when in reality, you haven't and I felt her pain so deeply that I kept tearing up for her. I think all of the cast members are so deeply wounded that you can't help but to feel for them even when they are wrong or flawed or like, I don't know, killing everyone in the vicinity with no mercy. (ha, make that make sense. Xiala would understand what I mean.)
The plot is fast paced and it's one you lose track of all sense of time when reading, at least that's how it was for me. I looked up at one point and thought I'd only been at it for thirty minutes when it reality I was engrossed in it for two and half hours without even noticing. That's why this one is getting a five stars review from me. There is no better feeling than becoming so into a story that the world fades out entirely. I cannot wait to continue this series and my only regret is that I didn't know about it sooner.
