The Shadowed Sun

A couple years ago I was having a conversation with my cousin about our favorite TV shows. I can't remember which show in particular we were discussing, but he responded to it with a shrug and said, “I like it, but it doesn't ruin my life.” Meaning to say, it didn't hold a candle to his love for shows like Lost. “Like, I need to know what happens to John Locke,” he said. “It messes up my whole week waiting to find out.”Like TV shows, and probably movies and comic books and every entertainment medium under the sun, there is a wide spectrum of greatness in books. I enjoy reading so much I don't always notice the difference right away. There are books that are passively enjoyable, there are page turners that take you from one adrenaline high to the next. And then there are life ruiners. The first book in the Dreamblood series was excellent. This book, however, is a life ruiner.N.K. Jemisin has an extraordinary gift for making big epic stories feel incredibly intimate. [b:The Killing Moon 11774272 The Killing Moon (Dreamblood, #1) N.K. Jemisin http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1335835254s/11774272.jpg 14757893] was much more insular than The Shadowed Sun, as it revolved almost entirely around Nijiri and Ehiru's relationship, so that most of the political and military schemes going on felt like a distraction. The Shadowed Sun also revolves around the love between two people, but because they come from such different worlds, their relationship is more significant to the overall plot, not to mention a little bit crazy. Ehiru and Nijiri's bond was about finding peace, Hanani and Wana's was kind of about saying to hell with it.The Killing Moon was about a man's quest for immortality, and all the lives he planned on destroying to achieve that. Its resolution was maudlin, for in their efforts to save the city of Gujaareh, Ehiru and Nijiri revealed much of the corruption it was built upon and were forced to invite a foreign nation to occupy its walls. Ten years later, The Shadowed Sun is about how Gujaareh, a once highly spiritual and peaceful city, must embrace war to regain sovereignty. Wanahomen is the displaced Sunset Prince, living among desert barbarians, looking to regain his throne. Hanani is the sole female Sharer-Apprentice, given the daunting task of helping him do it in order to prove herself. Nijiri is still around too, now a practiced Gatherer, and generally a total bad ass, fulfilling the role of creepy mentor. So is Sunandi, who I didn't particularly care for the first time around, though this time she has less page time and a little more significance.At the beginning of the book, I found myself thinking Hanani would not be out of place in a slice-of-life shoujo anime. She is a very typical, sheltered female character, stammering and insecure, and totally bewildered by womanliness (her own, and that of others). Goddamn, does she grow. Jemisin manages to give this girl a level of ferocity and conviction, but still keeps that humility that's a part of who she is. I just read recently about how the common difference between a hero and a heroine is the hero is tested by how much he can win, the heroine by how much she can lose. Hanani loses a lot, to the point where it shakes her down to her core. But she also gains so much, and there's a lesson in there about grief and sadness, and how suffering in that way doesn't necessarily negate that bonds that are created in the process.Humility has nothing to do with who Wanahomen is. In many ways, he is on the opposite trajectory of Hanani, which makes them so well-suited for each other. Wana is proud, arrogant and rather manipulative at the beginning, and there is a point where their relationship seems impossible. He does a bad thing. Real bad. And it leaves Hanani pretty messed up. But, after being magnificently chewed out for his misdeeds, he starts making an effort to actually listen to the many (amazing!) women in his life. He makes himself available, even vulnerable to Hanani and stops trying to pretend he knows what she wants and lets her ask him. And that, as it turns out, is sexy as hell.And as for what she does ask of him.Go on with your bad self, Hanani. That's all I got to say about that.There's a conflict of interest between their relationship and the plot that I've got to admit gave me crazy amounts of anxiety. If Wana achieves his goal of regaining his throne, that puts him in the position of not just taking one wife, but hundreds, the first of which are expected to be nobles. And if Hanani achieves hers, that should put her back in good standing with the Hetawa and her role as Sharer, which also involves a vow of celibacy. You want them both to succeed, but you also want them so badly to be together, especially after how hard they fight for each other. What will happen to them remains a question up until the very end. That's how you create real tension in a romance, not that watered-down Romeo and Juliet shit that I keep seeing over and over. Speaking of the many great female characters in this novel, I've got to talk about Yanassa for just a sec. That woman spoke pure gold.“My role in the Hetawa is a man's role. In Gujaareh, when a man takes a woman's path, or a woman a man's, that person must take on an appearance to suit.”Yanassa rolled her eyes. “Do they plan to give a clay penis too, and big bronze balls? Mind you, Wanahomen will be very cross if yours are bigger. And he will compare, trust me.”I love the fact that Jemisin clearly makes an effort to create different cultures that have their pros and cons, their progressive and conservative sides. Nonetheless, I felt like Yanassa was a bit of a mouthpiece for Jemisin. Hendet, Wanahomen's mother, a little bit too. But I'm not complaining at all.Another point of view we frequently see from is Tiaanet, a beautiful noblewoman whose father has intentions of seeking control of Gujaareh for his own caste. Technically, Tiaanet effects and does very little. Many of the main characters pass her by without really seeing her, only her beauty and her status. Which is entirely the point. Her story is gut wrenching, and it's her pain that feeds a disease that plagues Gujaareh even when it's on the brink of triumph.Sexual violence is an ongoing theme in this novel, which was hard to stomach, especially since it seems like I can't pick up a book anymore the doesn't have a female character being threatened with or having a history of rape. However, this book is about occupation and oppression, when the powerful take advantage of the weak, and how all come to pay for it. That's what Jemisin did well, she wrote a story that expressed how when women are abused, it's not just women who suffer for it. It is a corruption of an entire system, and everyone who is a part of it suffers for it. Of course, this story uses magic to manifest this, but I think that just goes to show what a great tool fantasy is for showing us the brutal realities of our own world.This book rocked my world. Quite literally, I do not know up from down anymore. The couple days it took to finish I existed in a heightened state of constant adrenaline. And you know, I was not planning on doing that for a while. I had consciously decided to read books that were super fast and fun and didn't involve a lot of emotional investment. And I saw this on my to-read list and I thought “Oh well, it's high fantasy, I'll be fiiiiine.” Clearly, I am not. Also, I have a new found respect for the genre, so I might be more open to it in the future. Or I may just snatch up Jemisin's next series and ignore the rest.

NK Jemisin is an epic world-builder. She crafts worlds that make so much internal sense that she can then write an entire book about what it means to live in the margins between the communities or not fit into them, and because we get the world so well it makes sense. As someone who loves interstitial spaces, I loved this book about people who are trying to figure out where they fit into the world when they don't quite fit into the previously made boxes