Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse is the second book
in her Between Earth and Sky trilogy. The cultures depicted in the
series are inspired by Pre-Columbian Native American cultures from throughout the
Americas, with perhaps even some Polynesian influences.
(There are spoilers ahead if you haven’t read the first
book)
I confess I had a bit of trouble at first remembering who
was who from the first novel. There are a lot of characters and it is a complex
tapestry. A polyhedron of politics is played out among the various clans. In
the first book there had been a conspiracy to kill the Sun Priest Naranpa. But somehow,
she survived and now must crawl (literally) her way back to some kind of life. The
countries in this world are kept at peace by treaty, but that treaty is
fraying. War seems likely in the future. Magic is supposed to be illegal, but
that doesn’t stop people from trying to figure out how to use it. It is the use
of magic that is one of the main contributors to the disintegrating peace. Perhaps
it was with good reason that they had made magic illegal.
This book got off to a slow start. I didn’t really feel
myself becoming fully invested until about halfway though. But such is often
the case with middle books in a trilogy. Many of the main characters seem to
have lost their way and are unclear how to proceed. That is understandable give the situation, but
it left me somewhat disconnected from them. I found myself most drawn to
Naranpa’s character and the chapters we see from her point of view. Her journey
just seemed the most intriguing to me. As
her path became clearer, the story became more interesting. Naranpa is someone
who had come from humble beginnings, then achieved the highest pinnacle, only
to be brought down to the gutter again. Can she climb back up? We don’t know, but
she is learning. It is easier to root for her than for some of the other
characters.
We do see disparate factions converging to some kind of
resolution, a struggle for power, or love, or justice, but we will have to wait
for the third book to see how it comes out.
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