Black Sun

By: Rebecca Roanhorse

Narrated by: Cara Gee, Nicole Lewis, Kaipo Schwab, Shaun Taylor-Corbett

Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars: Resistance Reborn comes the “engrossing and vibrant” (Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Riot Baby) first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.

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 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.

Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created a “brilliant world that shows the full panoply of human grace and depravity” (Ken Liu, award-winning author of The Grace of Kings). This epic adventure explores 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 this “absolutely tremendous” (S.A. Chakraborty, nationally best-selling author of The City of Brass) and most original series debut of the decade.

©2020 Rebecca Roanhorse. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

A great combo

This title shows the rare combination of being extremely well written, a great world full of mysteries as well as some truly captivating characters. To top it off, the narrators are easy and captivating to listen to.

The only downside for me was that the book ended too soon, because I want more.

I'd recommend this to fans of soft magic systems and people who enjoy a fantasy world that isn't a poor copy of 12th century England.

I didn’t want it to end!

It’s a little slow at first with the build up but when it finally gets going, it’s so good! The way the story unfolds and the narration really makes the listener care for each character and hope everything turns out well for them all (which is unrealistic but also very hard to do as the author so kudos to Roanhorse for that).
Waiting impatiently for the second book next year!

The revenge of the Crow.

A mythic quest that encompasses the struggle between waring religions and social structures. These characters are not cut from cardboard.

Action packed!

This book is phenomenal. It was quite a journey following Serapio from page 1. His opening scene grips you and you feel immediate empathy for him, but you know that he’s going to be such a strong character even amidst his soft spoken nature.

I adored each and every character! And I need the next book like now!

Definitely recommend!

Amazing world building and characters. Meh ending.

This book ends not on a cliffhanger but ends so abruptly without any conclusion to any of the major plot lines.
It was somewhat annoying although I can kinda understand it. The plot was expansive and complicated enough that there would be no reasonable way to wrap it up in a single book unless it's one of those authors that don't mind writing a giant tome. The journey was worth it however so I honestly still really enjoyed my experience with this.

The world building was absolutely fantastic. It uses a fantasy world that strays away from the traditional which I loved. I was afraid at first I was going to have trouble following along with a world this complex. The writing style though made it extremely easy to latch onto the world they were in and was descriptive/detailed enough to really picture everything fully. The world building was focused in on a small specific area, it didn't try and describe the state of the entire world, just a region, which made it easy to focus in on what's going on. I really enjoyed the magic too and the other worldly beings taking the spotlight as the main characters.

It's very clear early on and even announced that this is a book where you follow the origin story and POV of the villain.

The characters were great too and absolutely oozing with identifiable characteristics to them. The antagonists I loved to hate and the protagonists I absolutely fell in love with. You get a good vibe and understanding of the 3 main characters and what makes them who they are. The character building was really well done and you even get to experience their shifting selves throughout the story.

You follow mainly 3 characters. A vessel of a crow God, a human sun priestess and a mermaid who happens to be the captain of a ship. Each character you switch to their point of view through out and get to see how the plot plays out through their eyes. It gives you a interesting point of view and differences in perceptive and feeling to what is going on. I really enjoyed the origin story as well to kinda give you more behind the scenes with how the vessel got to where he was, really got you to be conflicted about his character.

The plot was great, there are essentially 3 plot lines going on, without any spoilers it's one plot thread of the sun goddess trying to keep control of her position, the managing of a crew/ship and then finally the main journey of the vessel to have a meeting with the sun goddess. All were interesting in their own ways, had lots of tension and at times really fun to see the action scenerios that would occur.

Overall I really loved this book and world created. Im definetly jumping straight into the next book in the series and hoping for more conclusions to these open plot threads.

Epic

Well written book that holds its own. I love the use of a new and unique world that pulls from Ancient South American mythology and culture. Great read!

Refreshing

a well done fantasy novel, that definitely keeps the reader listening. great performance by the readers

Fantastic world and lore

I enjoyed the characters and the world with its lore! The story was fast paced but easy to follow.

Character and story development is fantastic!

Engrossing story that pulls you in from page one. I couldn’t stop listening to the audiobook and would look forward to listening to it every time I got in my car.

love love loved it!

So many amazing characters with lush backgrounds and cool magic systems. I'm ready for book 2!!!