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. 

Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created an epic adventure exploring the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.

I don’t even know how to start this review, so I’ll just say up front that BLACK SUN is without a doubt one of the best books I’ve read this year. I absolutely ADORED everything about this, and it was the exact right book for me at the exact right time.

Oof. Just…wow.

I’ve been a huge fan of Rebecca Roanhorse’s post-apocalyptic series, THE SIXTH WORLD, and she also wrote one of the coolest Star Wars books in the last few years. It should go without saying that I was extremely excited to hear she was launching BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY, an epic fantasy trilogy that takes inspiration from civilizations of the Pre-Colombian Americas. And yeah, I’m just…trying to pick my jaw up from the floor because this book is just sheer fucking brilliance and I loved every word of it.

One of the things that impressed me so much about BLACK SUN is how utterly epic in scope it is, while coming in at a brisk 450 pages. I think this is such a big deal, I mean…not every epic fantasy novel needs to carry an epic page count as well. There’s more story and character development in this book’s 450 pages than in some 800-page monsters I’ve read, and that speaks to Roanhorse’s concise & gorgeous prose. Nothing is wasted here. The story just moves along, and takes you with it, without any needless detail about the strange/dark magics at play here. Fuck, I loved that about this book!

This is a multi-POV story, with all the storylines weaving and converging on one another. At the heart of the story is Serapio, who was blinded as a small boy, and is cloaked in mystery. He’s being escorted across the sea by Captain Xiala. She’s a Teek, and has the ability to control water. She’s also fucking hilarious & kinda rowdy and just…Xiala is AMAZING and the relationship that develops between her and Serapio is…everything. Oof.

On the other side of things is Naranpa, the Sun Priest in the city of Tova. From the moment we meet her, her life is constantly under threat. She has a number of other Watchers around her, all with different abilities. Most notable among them is the deadly Iktan, whose pronouns are xe/xir, and is a former lover of Naranpa’s.

Look, I feel like nothing I write here is going to adequately convey how much I loved this book. This just felt breathtakingly original & refreshing. This is a story you get completely caught up in…all these different characters have their own destiny, some of which feel a bit more…doomed than others. But all sort’ve crashing into one another and changing everything about the way this world works.

There’s a wonderful balance of lightness and darkness in BLACK SUN, as Roanhorse adds in plenty of humor and romance to offset some of the more grim aspects of the plot. And this book is wonderfully diverse, with multiple nonbinary characters/characters who use neopronouns, a disaster bisexual main character, a blind main character…I really think BLACK SUN is outstanding in terms of its representation, and I hope it finds its way to the readers who will appreciate it most.

BLACK SUN was everything I could have hoped for and then some…just a fucking mind-blowing, beautiful, thrilling fantasy novel, and clearly the start of something incredibly special.

Endless thanks to Saga Press for the copy!