Oh man, I’m really 3 for 3 of the last fiction books on my to-read shelf being, well, not for me. I really enjoyed the previous novels from Rebecca Roanhorse but I found Black Sun lacking. I also somewhat resented the structure of the book, but we’ll get into that.

So, the setting is the best part of the book. I found the universe and structure of society interesting enough. In some ways it is also a bit basic. There’s rich people, poor people. They live in different parts of the cities. There’s a hierarchical priest class and a burgeoning ‘darkness’ that is threatening the current hierarchy. But it works, it’s enough different to be interesting, and delightful to discover. There’s nice little surprises or at least surprising things, which was really the only thing keeping me going.

But that’s all I really liked. I found the characters a bit paint-by-numbers who all had maybe one setting, and didn’t really change. When you meet the character the first time, you pretty much know the character for the rest of the book. It’s very boring and I felt very little emotions about the ending (okay, zero emotions other than being happy I finished it and could stop reading).

The only thing compelling is the artificial ratcheting up of tension through the structure of the novel, which then makes me feel like I was just emotionally manipulated. We are battered around several different periods in time, moving inexorably towards the Convergence (a solar eclipse). Each chapter also shoves us around to different character’s perspectives. And it felt that by about 50% through you move from being confused from the constant shift in perspectives and cultures to just mini-cliff hangers every chapter, which is a bit much. And the most annoying part of it all, is the enormous cliff-hanger at the end. There just didn’t feel like a proper ending. The big event happens, but then all the various characters we’ve been following have immensely unsatisfying endpoints. I don’t want to read the next book now, just on that point alone.

I think if you love devouring middle of the road fantasy, this might be a fine, quick read for you. But if you hate multiple perspectives and ratcheting tension for no ultimate pay off, maybe not. Also, maybe I just have to realise that I shouldn’t be sucked back into fantasy, as I end up disliking more than I enjoy.

Anyway, beginning to think that if I assemble a bunch of books and get down to the last 10, I should just really ask myself if I really want to read it, as so far, it hasn’t really been worth it.