★★★★★
Rebecca Roanhorse’s Fevered Star is a complex, layered, hard-hitting follow-up to one of the best fantasy novels of the decade.
Roanhorse set themself up with no easy task in following up Black Sun, with the story’s main characters dead (Naranpa), dying (Serapio), or scattered to the winds (Xiala). This story could’ve easily fallen prey to the middle-book syndrome. Roanhorse is clearly moving (a great) many pieces around the board to set up the final novel in the Between Earth and Sky series. But readers are also treated to an intimate dive into the developing mindsets of these and other fantastic characters.
Fevered Star has all the hallmarks of a great fantasy epic. Roanhorse takes readers on another whirlwind tour of the Meridian, from the back alley brothels of the Maw in Tova to the luscious plains surrounding the city of Hokaia. Political machinations abound in a deftly layered plot filled with heroism, intrigue, and betrayal. The book is very much a sequel, and, like me, readers may want to revisit and read through Black Star again to fully comprehend the plot.
Roanhorse has an easy way of describing gender and sexuality that defies Western colonial archetypes. Power, personal awareness, and sensitivity aren’t dependent on the sex or gender of the character. And the books are peopled in a rich and varied way that the many retreads of the same eurocentric stories and legends can lack. I very much look forward to my next visit to the Meridian.
This book contains mentions of physical, mental, and sexual abuse, loss of family members, and graphic descriptions of war, violence, rape, and death.