DNF Review – Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky Book 1) by Rebecca Roanhorse (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 461 pages
Publisher:‎ Gallery / Saga Press
Release Date: October 13, 2020
ASIN: B084G9YRK3
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Between Earth and Sky duology
Source: Borrowed eBook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars

“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 even 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.”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Between Earth and Sky duology. I borrowed this as an ebook from my library.

Thoughts: Previous to reading this series I had read Roanhorse’s “Trail of Lightening” the first book in The Sixth World series. I thought that book was okay but not great. This book had been getting such rave reviews I decided it would be worth giving Roanhorse another try. Well I ended up stopping this about 20% of the way in, I guess she is just not for me as an author.

This book definitely shows a lot more expertise in world-building. This is a complex world with a complex history. However, I struggled with how many characters were introduced and how the books jumped around in time from chapter to chapter. You end up having to not only keep track of where you are in time (2 days before Convergence, 8 years before Convergence, etc) but also of what character’s POV you are reading from. I get it, it’s epic fantasy but still does it have to be so hard to follow?

I will admit two things off the bat; I am not a huge fan of these religious-drive types of fantasies, even if it is Native American based religion…so I wasn’t really enjoying the subject matter and story. I mean we start the first chapter with a kid getting his skin flayed and his eyes sewn shut in the name of him being a demi-god…it was a bit too yucky for me as well.

Second thing, I was in the mood for an engaging and easy to read story. I am studying to take the patent bar law exam right now and did not want to read a book where I need to physically write down a flow chart of dates, times and characters to follow the story; I just wanted something entertaining and interesting and this was not that book.

I didn’t like any of the characters and didn’t even find them interesting. Part of it was because we are introduced to too many people too rapidly. I kept having to jump back to the front of the book on my Kindle to try to make sense of who was who which was frustrating. I also didn’t like where the plot was going; with the kid being named a demi-god and being pitted against a current religion…just not a huge fan of plots like this. It feels like something I have read before.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this book wasn’t for me and I am a bit perplexed by the high reviews. Yes, there is solid (and overly complex) world building here. However, the story is made overly complicated by all the jumping around in both time and POV and is fairly unkind to the reader. I guess if you are looking for an epic fantasy focused around religious wars that is going to make you work to understand the story, then go for it. I might pick this up at a later date when I am in more of a “difficult epic fantasy” sort of mood. For now I am setting this aside and have decided that I just don’t get along with Roanhorse’s writing style.