The Shadowed Sun by N. K. Jemisin
504 pages
Published 2012
Read from December 15 to December 24
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
Following on some ten or so years after the events of The Killing Moon, The Shadowed Sun has the advantage of a setting and cosmology already established. Sun is free of Moon's double duties of delineating a complicated cosmology and system of dream-magic, liberating its opening chapters to set up new characters and hook the reader with a sense of momentum lacking in Moon's early passages. That momentum dissipates, however, getting lost like floodwaters across a porous substrate of overly convoluted plot, double dealings, magical threats that get set up early on only to evaporate, replaced by others as if Jemisin got bored halfway through.
The magic and cultures Jemisin depicts are wonderfully inventive and memorable, worthy additions to the atlas of all-time great fantastical lands. For the most part, the characters are interesting enough to follow around, although Jemisin kind of shoehorns a couple of them into an unlikely and unconvincing romance plot. Ultimately, the setting and characters weren't enough to sustain my interest in the meandering storyline -- whether that can be attributed to the book or to my own flagging attention span is for others to judge.
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