Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse is the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy. 

In the city of Tova, the winter solstice is going to coincide with a rare solar eclipse. Lots of deadlines are in place for this convergence.  We've got three main characters. Naranpa is the Sun Priest and she gets deposed right before the convergence as her goal of using her position to make the community stronger is in conflict with some other, more powerful leaders who come from a different socioeconomic background than Naranpa herself. We have Serapio who is the vessel for the crow god. He's on a ship piloted by Xiala, a bisexual Teek woman who just so happens to turn into a mermaid. The climax is all these folks in Tova at the time of the convergence.

This book has all the things I should like. Mermaids! Magic! A sea voyage! It is absolutely beloved by gay fantasy reddit. It is an interesting world, inspired by the pre-Columbian Americas, which is quite different from the general medieval European nature of a lot of fantasy.

But.

Hm. 

It sort of left me cold. I'll get the second book in the series from the library, but I'm not sure I'll ever be in the mood to read it. The setting was the only real standout in the book. The characters were all pretty stock. The plot was fairly predictable. The only interesting thing was the giant crow at the end - that did take me by surprise. I think if you want to read this, you should. But I'm not a huge fan.

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

 

"I need not repair anything," Abah protested. "I was not alive back then so have no responsibility for the Night of Knives. I don't know why they hate me." 

"None of us was alive," Naranpa said, "save Haisan, and him likely a child. But alive or not, we bear the burden." And we all reap the benefit, she thought, but thought it best not to utter something so controversial aloud. (page 595)

This is part of my problem with the book. There's no subtext about parallels to our world - it's all just text. 

It is said that crows can remember the faces of men who hurt them and do not forgive. They will carry a grudge against their tormentor until their deaths and pass on their resentment to their children. It is how they survive. (page 963)

Crows are amazing and this is totally a true fact.

They had immediately fallen into the same familiar behaviors of their childhood, her resenting her brother's freedom and he, annoyed by her demands. (location 2287)

Ha ha. I've mentioned before that as soon as I see my sister I revert back to a bratty teenager. It's wild.

There was magic in the world, pure and simple, things she didn't understand. Best get used to it. (location 3438)

Best get used to it is my motto for life.

"...But what is vengeance if not justice?"
"Vengeance can be for spite. It can eat you up inside, take from you everything that makes you happy, makes you human." (page 4034)

Interesting. 

And Grandfather Crow said to First Woman, tell me your stories so that I might know who you are and what you value. If your stories are of the glory of war, I will know you value power. If your stories are of kinship, I know you value relationship. If your stories are of many children, I know you value legacy. But if your stories are of adaptation and survival, of long memory and revenge, then I will know you are a Crow like me. (location 4591)

Things I looked up:

stelae (location 179) - plural of stele, a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected as  a monument in the ancient world; the surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both

By User:Vmenkov - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14535905

huipil (location 220) - a traditional garment worn by indigenous women from central Mexico to Central America

indwelling (location 3460) - be permanently present in (someone's soul or mind); possess spiritually