I’ve had Black Sun on my TBR since 2021. I picked it up at every bookstore I went into, carried it around, then inevitably put it back without buying it. I finally purchased a copy, and then it sat on my shelf for a few more months before I picked it up to read.
Black Sun is likely one of the best fantasy books I’ve ever read. Not only are the characters phenomenally written, but the world building is some of the best I’ve read in years. Rebecca Roanhorse breaks away from the typical medieval western-European settings used in the fantasy genre, and instead writes a society based on pre-colonization Americas.
One element of Black Sun that especially stood out to me compared to other fantasy novels was Roanhorse’s incorporation of food into the book. She took the time to carefully detail meals throughout the book, whether they were the rations on a ship or ritual feasts.
The lore in Black Sun is so unlike other fantasy novels, which I think has a lot to do with the setting and history of the Americas. Personally, I’d love to sit down with Roanhorse and pick her brain about the research process for this series, and how she came up with many of the different cultural aspects to the different peoples throughout the book.
I’ve already requested Fevered Star from my local library, and am absolutely feral for the third and final book, Mirrored Heavens, to be released in 2024.