fevered Star (a review)

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.

Star Liner

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